Prompt Housekeeping! And Cosying Up to Fat HAWMC #23

^ Another fun ambiguous title! If you could see the mess that is my house, though, you'd know what a big joke "prompt housekeeping" is around here too!


But on this "anything goes" HAWMC day, I want to share some updates on how the prompts and my responses to them have helped me in my life.


First, though, can I get a "YAY"?! Last night, I sent in my eighth and final "packet" of my first year MFA to my mentor! This was an ambitious packet, including a Sonnet Crown and an intense 24-page personal essay (covering some of the health-related stuff we're talking about this month, amongst other things), and my critical papers each compassed not one but two collections by the authors in question. When I went to bed having sent it all off, my saying "I write with my ears" came back to me, as I lay awake listening to various phrases and stanzas from the essays and poems I'd just sent off playing back in my head. That's one big obligation accomplished--and I'm so looking forward to writing and reading more, addressing those piles of needy poem drafts.


At the beginning of last week, I was a mess. I was afraid to go to my writers groups on Monday and Tuesday--afraid that something ugly would spill out of me. Well, thanks to a couple of the prompts on here, I came home from the Monday night group feeling much better. On the thirty-minute walk to that meeting, I realized I was singing rembetika songs by Vasilis Tzitzannis. I love that music, but it has a strong association with a very dark time in my life. I changed channel--to my theme song! I was sorry not to have made up my own song, but love that I reconnected with this happy Hebrew children's song that could be construed as a metaphor for my own crazy whirlings. So yes, I walked on down to town singing "Uga uga uuga" to myself--lucky it's a small town and no one else was on the street! And I felt lighter-spirited when I arrived at the meeting than if I'd been singing "periplanomenos, distichismenos..." (wandering far from home, out of luck...) all the way there.


I also took my fluffy duster with me to the meeting and clutched it the whole time. That helped, too.

Cosying up to Fat

Although I'm sorry it worried a few people, my "crisis" post was an opportunity to be frank and open about a difficult subject that I've been very tempted to dodge and soft-pedal. It's harder to do that when people you care about are affected by concern--but I still seem capable of dodging! That said, let's be glad for small successes. I haven't doubled my food intake yet, but I am eating significantly more.

I've also chosen to think of this situation as an opportunity to figure out my ideal macronutrient ratios, since I'm working pretty much from the ground up. For whatever it's worth, whenever I do "body-typing" tests, whether they be ayurvedic, adrenal, slow/fast oxidizer, or whatever else, I always test out as someone who would do better with more fat in the diet, protein too. The first time my Naturopath laid eyes on me two years ago (when I'd lost too much weight, but in reference to my bloodwork rather than my appearance), he said "you need to eat more fat--protein too, but fat. Fat." I know from my brutal low-carb stint that this does not mean don't eat carbs at all... On the other hand, what do I always end up eating? CARBS--mostly non-starchy veggies, making up the difference with fruit and starchy veggies; dried fruit for a quick fix. What am I phobic of? FAT! And what do I have trouble digesting, except for spirulina/chlorella? Protein...

So, I've invited myself to cosy up to fat, bearing in mind its greater caloric density. As hard as I'm finding it to increase caloric intake, if I can add in some fat, thereby adding calories with little volume, that might work well. The trouble with this is that the only fats I'm comfortable eating are coconut and flax/chia/hemp. And last time around, when I first started with my Naturopath, I ate a lot of coconut oil, not as much as he wanted me to, but way lots for my body, mostly in recipes like this mint chocolate bark, which also included nuts and seeds. I wasn't eating a lot of calories overall, but eating these kinds of thing every day, I gained much more weight than was comfortable for me, which ultimately led me back to where I am now. Amber was talking about coconut on her blog recently, and I expressed my frustration at having gained so much weight eating it a couple years ago when everyone always says it's impossible to gain weight on. We agreed that it was possibly due to the lack of fiber in the straight oil (plus my serpentine metabolism). So this time around, I'm going for more fibrous versions of coconut!

Yesterday's breakfast was carrot 'slaw with the addition of a couple grams of shredded coconut--chewy, coconutty, add cardamom--yummy!

 Today's breakfast was shredded jicama with a little nut milk (1/4 cup unsweetened almond breeze, which really doesn't have many almonds in it!), with a couple grams shredded coconut, a teaspoon of maca, and a few cacao nibs. Since I think maca and coconut are such a delicious combination, I added a couple drops of medicine flower coconut flavor extract also. Also yummy!

Coconut butter, aka creamed coconut, aka coconut spread, also has all the fiber intact! I mentioned that this is one way you can get it...

You can also simply make it yourself in the food processor or vitamix from shredded coconut, just like making any other nut butter! But yesterday, I opened my jar of Wilderness Family's version, and measured out a careful teaspoonful to add to my spirulina smoothie!

After my train wreck day last week, I also pulled out my algae oil DHA/EPA supplement. I recognize that a good omega-3 profile is positively correlated with good brain function--good mental health and mood balance too, for that matter. I haven't been eating much flax/chia/hemp at all lately, so it seemed a good idea to start on that supplement again. It tastes disgusting, but I think I've been functioning better since then.

Are YOU cosy with fat?

Pictures of Receding Snow, Two Recipe Reviews, Theme Song HAWMC #11

Today's the "Theme Song" day on HAWMC. Poignant and funny for me given that in my last post I mentioned how big a part of my life music was back in the day and how little part it plays anymore. Doubly poignant because it's been a horrendous and stressful couple days. I've had overloaded semesters before, and as the end approaches they get harder, and my coping mechanisms get more skewed. Our Anchorage trip brought some of that home in scary ways, plus the travel itself is long...

But enough of that! I have some gorgeous pictures of our springtime and our drive to Anchorage to share, and a couple recipe reviews, as well as a happy theme song I managed to find.

So much gorgeous snow still on the Kenai mountains...

But the road is completely clear of snow!

...and on the southfacing mountain slopes lower down, the snow is mostly gone! The alder tips are all red, and the birches are getting ready to bud too.

The night before we left for town, we had a big moose visitor again. This one is a cow, and she looks to be in good shape!

While we were on the road, the snow melted steadily back home. Here's the view from our cabin door--that field of snow is almost gone, running down the bluff toward the ocean as fast as it can go.

And look at this grass--it's found a southfacing rock near the edge of the bluff, warmed by the sun, baked by the rock--tall and green and thriving!

OK--what would my theme song be for this blog, for my health issues, for this space?

While I was lying awake last night, I puzzled over that. I'd love to write my own song, but wasn't in a space to do it last night. I don't listen to many songs much and don't have a very up-to-date internal jukebox. I found myself going back to the nursery rhymes, looking for something happy, but that encapsulated the rollercoaster fact of my life, the cycles, the change.
I ended up with a Hebrew nursery rhyme! I wish I could reproduce the melody as well, because it's so happy! It also involves word-play, which is right up my alley. Here it is:

Uga uga uga, ba ma'agal nachuga
nitztovev kol ha'yom
ad asher nimtza makom
la'shevet la'kum, la'shevet la'kum
la'shevet ve la'kum

And it means--well, "uga" means "cake," but it's also related to the words for "circle" and "twirl around," and it's often sung at kids' birthday parties. So it means,
"Cake, cake cake! We'll twirl around in a circle.
We'll dance around all day long
until we find a place
to sit down, to stand up, to sit down, to stand up,
to sit down and to stand up."

And of course you do the movements as you sing the song!

Speaking of cake, I tried out a couple other bloggers' cakey recipes recently. I'm incapable of following a recipe precisely, and actually I love that when I review other people's recipes, because if it doesn't come out well, I can blame myself, but if it comes out wonderfully, I can credit them for the idea!

First up, I tried out Evan's Lemon cupcakes when Terry was here this weekend--I just had a hunch that she'd really appreciate the lemony coconutty action. I billed them as breakfast muffins, and made them without the frosting, and with less sugar and some erythritol, and used four regular eggs and one small rather than two eggwhites and four eggs.

I swore I took a photo, but apparently I didn't! So my major fail is that I didn't take a picture of these, but they were beautiful! I didn't eat any, but Terry loved them--and Phil did too, which was an unexpected bonus! Thanks so much, Evan!

Second--and this time I did manage to take pics--I tried out Chocolate Covered Katie's Deep Dish Cinnamon Roll Pie. I think I've posted some bean-based cake recipes here before, but hadn't made one for ages, and was excited to try the combination with gf oats--love cinnamon too, of course. My tweaks for this one were: I used great northern beans (which are white beans, I guess). I cut the coconut oil down to just 2 tablespoons (just because); I replaced the sugar with a cup of erythritol and half a teaspoon of stevia, which was sweeter than I needed, but I was making it to share. I baked it in a 9x9, which may not be the prettiest presentation, but it was easier for me to cut into equal pieces so that my calorie-counting math would actually mean something!

The top came out a bit dry and flakey--I've had that happen before with bean-based cakes, and I suspect that my reducing the fat encouraged the tendency, as well as our tiny toaster oven. Otherwise, though, moist, delicious, subtle texture, lovely!
I didn't go to the Easter gathering with all our friends because of my 'flu, but one of my favorite people is on a diet right now and often skipping beloved dessert, so among the various goodies I sent to the party with Phil, I made sure to send some of the cinnamon cake with a note about just how diet-friendly it was!

According to Phil, it was very well received. Thank you, Katie!

Whew! That was a long post! What would your theme song be?