|
| the whole blog is moving to a blogger version. i'm in the process of transfering the archieves. here's the new address: http://navigium.blogspot.com/ click it. | | |
| Carbohydrate counting can be rough. It is probably the most important aspect of controlling both types of diabetes and it can really be a sneaky game. Hidden carb-rich sauces, portion sizes, glycemic index, fiber content, eating out… diabetes is a fierce opponent with an impressive arsenal. Citing this as a big challenge for me, my friendly diabetes educator suggested a book. I picked it up: The Ultimate Carbohydrate Counter. Immediately I was dismayed. It wasn’t the daunting task of meticulously calculating nutritional value that troubled me, but rather the improper use of the word ultimate…  When I think ultimate, I think exciting. Ultimate is jumping out of an airplane. Ultimate is swimming the English channel. Ultimate is not measured in grams of insoluble fiber. Needless to say, I brought the book home and vowed to make the best of it. Actually, after getting over the title, the book was great. It was perfect for semi-obscure foods that didn’t come with a great food label. Pleased with my glucose levels when carefully counting, I found myself flipping through the pages and marking specific items. It was while looking up kidney beans that the book’s title and I were able to reconcile. In the index part of the top of the page I saw the entry: bear. My vegetarian eyes skipped down over baked beans and three bean salad to the word. bear: simmered. The item beneath it? Beaver. Both roasted and simmered. I was stunned.  Of course, because both bear and beaver are meats, there wasn’t a gram of carbohydrate anyhow. I retracted my former comments about the lameness of the book’s title. Comprehensive and Ultimate indeed.. I also decided to forego the bear if you're trying to watch your figure. After all, three ounces of beaver has a measly 141 calories compared to the hearty 220 for three ounces of simmered bear. Just a suggestion. | | |
| Last Sunday, I decided to ride my bike a few miles up to campus to meet my trusty friend Jill Rosno for a run. I have a habit of wearing my retainer when I work out (also when I sleep, study, surf the internet, watch television, drive…) and I’ll admit that I’m a little particular about my teeth. Accordingly, I slipped in the retainer and headed toward campus. I took a different route than usual to the bike trail because I had crashed trying to avoid a speed bump earlier that week and my bike was scuffed up from the incident. The ride was lovely (aside from the brisk north wind) and as I neared campus, I thought it would be appropriate to lose the middle school retainer look and transform myself into a college student. While trying to put my retainer into my backpack, I was forced to use my front break to stop for a car. This maneuver propelled me over the handlebars where I landed hard on my right wrist, sustained a number of scrapes and bruises, and also bent my retainer... Luckily, I was only blocks from the Chi Omega house, so Rosno let me in to recompose and assess the damage. We decided that the wrist looked a little off and perhaps an xray was in order. During the drive home, I made poor Omaid come out of a birthday celebration to console me. (He’s so wonderful at being reassuring.) Dad took me to the ER (where I have worked for a couple of years) to get it x-rayed. How embarrassing and bizarre to be a patient at your place of employment.. Anyway, it turns out that I did a little damage to the wrist and I ended up with a “leprechaun” green cast, a bottle of Lortab, and bizarre story for my orthodontist (who was relieved that I didn’t bend my retainer that badly while it was still in my mouth). My retainer was remolded to my teeth, and it’s getting its friendly “snap” back. I suppose the moral of the story would be to avoid wearing my retainer while exercising and take things easy for a while .. but I’m stubborn and a sucker for a nice fall day, so I broke down and went rollerblading on Saturday. Green cast, retainer and all… | | |
| I like to think that I possess a fair amount of ingenuity and innovation when it comes to making food for myself. For instance, I have recently discovered that I absolutely love cinnamon in both dessert and savory dishes (think of the Seinfeld cinnamon babka episode). Last week, I made myself a french toast lunch and paired it with a cream cheese, brown sugar, cinnamon syrup- substitute that was absolutely divine. Thus, feeling quite proficient as an amateur chef, I decided to make a popcorn drizzle yesterday. I tend to buy the "natural" (read: flavorless) popcorn and then melt butter or margarine over the top of it to put the unhealthiness back into it. We only had unsalted butter, so I decided to add a bit of salt to the mix. This salt addition got me to thinking about why I really like the butter addition ... I decided that it wasn’t the butter as much as the wetness on the popcorn that I enjoyed.. Knowing fully that non-polar butter molecules and polar water molecules don’t mix (hey I was a science major :)) I decided to whisk vigorously before applying to the popped corn. Before pouring on the mixture, I also decided to experiment by adding a capful of "artificial butter flavor" to the drizzle. The snack turned out wonderfully! A spot-on 30 grams of carbohydrate .. I resolved to make it again. Unfortunately, the damage of this dish hit me about 24 hours later. Artificial butter flavor is certainly not butter and I woke up curiously smelling of the snack I had enjoyed the day before. Sneaking through my pores was the scent of a musty movie theater. While I like the popcorn scent, I'm not sure if I enjoy it in the morning or when I'm not sitting down to watch Wedding Crashers or an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I examined the bottle and decided that the "diacetyl and other diketones" might be the culprit. Needless to say, I'll be veering away from the artificial flavor in favor of my comfortable, classic butter-tainted health food from now on. | | |
| A few weeks ago, I woke up to the familiar humming of my cell phone alarm at 4:25 a.m. Ouch. I heaved my luggage onto the "L" train at 5:30 a.m. and slept through the purple line, the red line, the orange line, and some lovely views of the Chicago skyline before exiting the train to catch a flight home from Midway. I boarded a plane bound for Omaha, read for the entire flight, and stepped back into good old Nebraska 46 minutes later. The mindlessness of that journey is precisely the reason why I love public transport. With minimal conscious effort, I was able to move myself through the Chicago metro and over the Great Plains while catching up on some reading and thinking. Some of my earliest memories involve public transportation. I can visualize my very first flight to Orlando. I felt so important at the airport with my own backpack carry-on and I can almost taste the York peppermint patty that I tried for the first time on the flight. I remember flying alone for the first time to visit my relatives in Minneapolis, taking the subway in Boston, and navigating the Startran system in college. I’ve found that the journey is always truly part of the adventure. Along the way, I’ve noticed that several rider stereotypes exist. There is always "the regular" – the person who rides the same route on the train or bus five days a week. Absolutely nothing can faze this person. They’ve seen it all and this part of their day appears to be very redundant. There’s the disheveled person in business clothes, the greasy, washed up hippie, the mom with too many kids, the classy retiree, the foreigner chatting in a soothing dialect, the teen thumbing text messages, the tourist with awkward, bulky luggage…. I love it. I love people watching. I love glancing up from whatever I’m doing to make a mental note of my geographic or social surroundings – allowing silent observations about my travel companions to dart through my mind. Because of this love, I choose to forgo the use of my vehicle from time to time purely for the enjoyment of the ride (although the environmental necessity is also compelling) Sitting among other passengers, I wonder how they choose to stereotype me .. the bookish college student, the young adult heading into the city for a few drinks, the twenty-something from the suburbs …. I suppose I’ll never know. | | |
|
