This post is the thirty-third in a series and the twelfth to chronicle diets. This is the final post.
9 September
On this day I grocery-shopped either side of a psychiatrist’s appointment. With the car on the way out I parked at Broadway Shopping Centre and picked up mail at my PO box then went to Coles where I bought things that wouldn’t spoil waiting for refrigeration: fruit and veges as well as low-carb bread and low-carb snacks. I also got a jar of the wonderful English mayonnaise they sell in one aisle. After I’d seen the doctor and gone to the pharmacy to buy medication I popped into Coles in Pyrmont and bought perishable items: fish and chicken wings as well as a block of Bega Tasty cheese.
I think it was at this time that I rearranged kitchen cupboards, placing tea and coffee things all on shelves in a different cupboard near to where the coffee machine sits next to the air shaft. I also putting snacks and nuts on other shelves, next to them. The decision to make this reorganisation was sparked by the fact that the cupboard next to the stove had become a mite crowded. I’d earlier taken the step of moving spices and sauces out of it and placing them in two units directly above the cooktop. These small acts of house maintenance freed up an area that I was now able to use to store more dishes, some of which had been unreachable, by placing them much closer to where they’re needed. It also allowed me to rationalise room occupied by foodstuffs I keep in reserve such as rice and jars of unopened sauerkraut, raw sugar and tins of diced tomatoes.
11 September
Here’s my weight loss chart for the beginning of the month. Can you see the sudden rise two days beforehand? That was me eating some extra tidbits the night prior when two friends stayed over at my place. It was honey chicken and some eggplant with a delicious sauce that I sampled from the plastic containers one of them’d brought out of a Chinese takeaway. I’d driven them up to Mascot in the car so they could buy their dinner. I told Omer about my plan the next morning, when he was eating breakfast: how I’d deliberately made the decision to consume a bit more than usual as I had reached a level below where I wanted to stay fixed.
My mind and memory were competent and were solidly in control of my ageing body. This morning I was again a little under my target range so had a shred of latitude with which to have one small meal extra or to eat a larger portion at my main lunchtime meal. I’d put out a piece of smoked cod to defrost the day before and planned to eat it with pumpkin and Brussels sprouts. I also cooked some parsnip to round off the meal.
18 September
My weight loss chart on this day looked like this:
The number told me to eat more. I’d put out some thin-sliced steak the day before to defrost in the fridge, and had gotten Omer, a friend, to buy cabbage when he was down at the Botany shops picking up take-away for Ming. My daily routine was again changing by this time, with me using cups of tea – either genmaicha (a Japanese mixture of grain and leaves) or black tea with milk – to assuage hunger pangs so that I’d eat my main meal at about 11am, then have nuts at about 2pm and a further light meal at about 5pm. I’d stopped going to bed at 6pm and would stay up watching reruns until 8.30pm, then retire as usual, this new regime meaning I was now waking up at about 5am instead of two hours earlier. I’d found it antisocial to get ready for bed too early since it took me away from the lifestyles of people around me and made it difficult to socialise.
19 September
When I went shopping on this day I bought items that could be eaten for a light meal in the evening. Because of some constipation I’d decided to reduce the number of times I ate cheese, so on this trip to the IGA I bought pickled onions, jalapenos, cooked asparagus, and black olives. Over the following week I’d eat such foods with the contents of cans of tuna that had been in my cupboard – for how long is anyone’s guess, but I didn’t want to waste them – and other savoury items that could be consumed without cooking.
29 September
On this day and the next I was a bit higher than previously, with 79.9kg being the lowest mark hit around this time – or ever, for that matter – when I decided for good to quit this journal. I’d summoned the last traces of goodwill necessary to open the MS-Word file and make an entry, I’d begun to resent the effort required to capture a JPG and save it to my hard disc, I’d reached the terminus of patience and had put a foot into a future where this record would no longer exist except as a memory. Perhaps more than one person would share it, in which case I’d done my job.
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