Breakfast

poached eggs, bacon, alfalfa sprouts, ranch dressing

If this picture illustrates anything, it’s my love affair with lazy keto.

The longer I live the more I realize the fat profile for this type is omega 6 including cured meats (bacon) and use of vegetable oils (ranch dressing), whose sole or majority reliance on are not as healthy as other fat alternatives like avocado and fish, so I will be changing up my morning regimen to include fish, which match an omega 3 fat profile.

A useful article that helped me understand the differences and examples of each:

• Omega-3 fatty acids are associated with decreased inflammation. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in many foods, including salmon, eggs, walnuts, and flaxseed, as well as leafy green vegetables, such as spinach. Perhaps not surprisingly, these foods are commonly recommended as part of an anti-inflammatory diet.
• Omega-6 fatty acids are associated with increased inflammation. Omega-6 fatty acids are found in most vegetable oils, including sunflower, corn, and canola oils, as well as meats, such as chicken, pork, and beef (—though grass-fed beef can be a source of omega-3’s.

Source: https://www.arthritis-health.com/blog/difference-between-omega-3-and-omega-6-and-knee-arthritis-pain

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4 29 2021

peanut butter cookies

I tend to eat when I’m hungry or nervous. Lately, I’ve been working on changing jobs. I accepted an offer the other day and had not been able to sleep well the night before due to nerves on how I’d tell my boss I was leaving. I love my company and team, and it’s hard to say goodbye to something good. The new job will pay more and is a change in industry, a change I honestly never thought would come.

If not eating the past few days is an indication that something is wrong, I think cookies is a good sign. I made these today. The recipe uses chunky peanut butter instead of smooth and I think I like the texture better:

1 cup chunky peanut butter, 1/2 cup swerve (1/2 white granular, 1/2 brown), 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 Tbsp keto flour, 1 egg, chopped 72% dark chocolate, small handful dark sugar free chocolate chips

Mix up in a large bowl, form into balls, and set in a cookie pan.

Cook 375 degrees Fahrenheit 12 minutes.

4 24 2021

Things I have eaten the past few days:

10:00am

Taco Bell Quesarito

3:00pm

three scrambled eggs w cheese, 2 keto peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, 2 Tbsp sugar free chocolate pudding, whipped cream

9:30am

omelette w cheddar, sausage, and avocado, peanut butter power smoothie, non-keto, made w sugar

1:00pm

burger w 2 patties, cheese, bacon, onion, on romaine lettuce bun, salad and dill ranch dressing

6:30pm

2 string cheese, 2 keto peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

4 19 2021

I’ve been thinking lately about songs that I haven’t listened to in a while. Sometimes it’s better to think about them than actually hear them. The alternative is the amount of certain albums I keep listening to vs. the ones that have fallen away entirely, like Figure 8 vs. the Magnolia soundtrack. Luckily, some of these songs are normative; when young and depressed, you used to listen to Elliott Smith. You have outgrown this sad, devolving pastime. The Magnolia soundtrack, on the other hand, still stands up through time. See also: “Wise Up” used in an episode of Community. Some other bad habits that just became too much was my entire experience with Spotify. The ads got to be so bad that I deleted the app from all my devices. At one point, if you skipped past the commercials, all music would stop. You’d have to log off, and log back on, and then hear an ad about how life with a paid subscription would be so much better than it is now. So sad that I have to think about buying things. I just want to listen to music, straight through to the end.

There is a thing that I like to do with the way I hear songs. Sometimes, I’ll hear the song and interpret differently than the actual lyrics. See also: “More Human Than Human” by White Zombie. Won’t you be as fast as you can, was like an anthem for me. It was a kind of musical reject line, to see something in only the way you can – which is incorrectly – and just let it lift you up.

The other thing I love when people do is share their interpretations of songs. Like tonight I uncovered this site, TMBW.net: they might be wiki, for They Might Be Giants fans. There’s this song “She’s an Angel”, and an entire page devoted to interpretations, some of them informed by film and religion, and others a critique of that flawed, literal, or magical thinking that for me just almost makes the entire discussion part of the folklore and mystery around that song.

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You’d have to be an idiot to think that this song has ANYTHING to do with the movie “City of Angels.” Linnell wrote this in the mid-80s, and “City of Angels” came out in 1998. Nice try, but as usual, people have stretched these “interpretations” beyond acceptable limits. -The Cymbalist (TMBW.net)

In one of my favorite commentaries, Chuck Klostermann draws a song-by-song analogy between Kid A by Radiohead and the events of 911. Even though the album came out a year before this day happened, he talks about the how the mood of each song, the vibes, the crescendoing ascent to chaos and plunder, mirrors the day. This is how I like to interpret music, as a sort of art, as a sort of broken philosophy or failed logical design, like how we used to believe in the study of the size and topography of a person’s head, that you believe you can either save others with or simply admire it for our own flawed understanding.

4 18 2021

Today I watched the movie Sound of Metal. There is a line in that movie, without revealing too much, which says,

that place, those moments of stillness, is the kingdom of God.

(Sound of Metal, 2020)

I have been thinking about this thought in reference to the simple opportunity for joy. Life and what we consider life to be over the past year has been within our adjustment of ourselves, away from sickness and closer to living enjoyably within our own bubble.

I’m watching this movie right now called Dragonslayer, which stars a very young Peter MacNichol, whom I love. There is a line in the film where a man says, to paraphrase:

what good is magic, what important things has it accomplished, anyway?

(Dragonslayer, 1981)

I feel this way in respect to all the old things I have that either no longer define me as a person or serve me well: bad habits, journals, my ever-expanding collection of clothes. These things hold space for something I’m not sure I even want. In this case, magic might be the absence of clutter or the hope for something new, like a clean apartment. I’m making sense of what’s in front of me until its held up to the light and I can make out a different pattern.

What the pandemic has me feeling lately is that we cannot get back to what was, in that nothing from the past actually exists, except for what is in our minds. The one thing we can control is our minds, and our perceptions of things is the one thing we can re-examine, again and again like flipping a stone over and over in the palm, and although I’m not really happy with the things I feel like I’ve lost, like ever being able to watch live music again while standing in a closely packed, sweaty room of fans, I am looking forward to time passing, hugging a good friend I haven’t seen in a while and walking through a busy crowd of people without wincing, without wearing a mask. To that life, I send it off, away from me. I have hope we can fashion a world where these things are again possible.

Last night, I watched the Celtics vs. Golden State Warriors play on TV. You could buy tickets to that game that night, ranging from $85-$1500. There is no piped in audience anymore, which was always so phony. The recordings only ever cheered. Now you can hear actual people cheer and boo. During yesterday’s Red Sox game, I noticed that the players who made it to the next base do the American Sign Language gesture for clapping. They wave their hands at people with no sound. The new tradition of authenticity is expression with different senses and present voices, and in this way I want to be part of the new trend.

4 18 2021

I’ve been having dessert that’s so good I’d probably have it with every meal in a parallel universe.

sugar free chocolate pudding, instant from a box, just mix in 3 cups heavy cream and it sets in 5 minutes

whipped cream

keto peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

mix 3/4 peanut butter, 1/4 Swerve (I do 50/50 brown/white blend), 1 egg, 2 Tbsp keto flour, 1 tsp vanilla, sugar free dark chocolate cut into chunks

bake 350 degrees F 12 minutes, let cool 10 minutes

The pudding’s pretty filling, I take two Tbsp and add it to a bowl w the whipped cream and a cookie or two, sometimes pair it with a glass of unsweetened almond milk.

4 13 2021

10:00am

2 poached eggs, salad, ranch dressing, slice rye toast w 2 pats butter

1:30pm

2 chicken tenders, rotel dip, salad, ranch dressing

8:00pm

salad, ranch dressing, egg salad, alfalfa sprouts

8:00am

2 poached eggs, chopped basil, ranch dressing, 1 slice pumpernickel toast w 2 pats butter, 1 mug coffee w heavy cream and vanilla coconut MCT oil powder

2:00pm

egg salad, alfalfa sprouts, 1 string cheese w pepperoni

4:30pm

2 string cheese, peanut butter w sugar free dark chocolate

4 12 2021

What I ate today

10:30am

2 poached eggs, 1 slice toast w 2 pats butter, 1 slice bacon, 1 cup coffee w cream

2:00pm

garden salad w ranch dressing, chicken tenders w rotel dip (Velveeta cheese w diced tomatoes, onions, peppers, mildly spicy)

keto grocery list

green onions, block cheese, velveeta, sour cream, can diced tomatoes, onion, peppers, mild flavor, pork rinds, eggs, unsweetened almond milk, heavy cream, whipped cream, asparagus, cilantro, avocado, mushrooms, romaine lettuce, green pepper, broccoli, basil, 85% lean hamburger patties, avocado mayonnaise

4 11 2021

9:30am

2 poached eggs, green onion, sour cream, salsa, 1 slice rye toast, 2 pats butter, 1 cup coffee w coconut vanilla MCT oil powder, and heavy cream

1:00pm

salad w ranch dressing, velveeta rotel dip w pork rinds

3:30pm

keto hot chocolate w whipped cream, egg salad, alfalfa sprouts on 1 slice rye bread