Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Finally, after several attempts, I'm back on track with low-carb, real food. I don't know what made the difference, but I'm eating high-fat, low-carb food without (many) palpitations, stomach upset, weird cravings or aversions to foods like oily fish. My diet hasn't been awful for the past three years(!), certainly better than the standard American diet, but I had problems with lower back pain, lack of energy, acne, bloating, and some dental problems. Whatever it was that affected me around the time I moved in 2015 seems to have resolved itself. Maybe it was a combination of stress and the lack of "guts" (think antibiotics due to root canal, due to my bike wreck ) to deal with it. In the course of four years, my father died, I was accused of crimes I didn't commit, had to give up dancing because it hurt my knee, I moved across the country, worked at five different places, my dog Molly died, and my mother died. I should have sought help for my digestiv

If you tried and failed to comment, please try again. I changed the settings so it should work now. https://getitintogear.blogspot.com

Check out my new blog, Get Your Act Together . The latest post is on how to get a fast cooker for under $30 .  No joke!

A photo I took in 2013 was posted by Tom Naughton on Twitter, and some people are wondering if it's a fake. Nope. It's a real hospital menu from Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colorado. I didn't mention their name before because I have no axe to grind with them and hospitals are all about alike. In fact, I went to their ER in 2015 when I stepped on a nail. I got x-rayed, got the nail yanked out-- but I didn't eat their food. Basically, I stay away from doctors unless there's something wrong with me that doctors are good at fixing--like a nail sticking out of my foot. Besides, why would I take an hour or so to make up a phony hospital menu? In 2013, I had a full-time job (two people replaced me when I left), a long commute, two aging parents who needed my help, and a hundred-year-old house to take care of. My idea of relaxation was playing video games, watching Netflix or taking a nap. And if I were to phony up a menu, I'd at least spell the w

Email from Walgreens:

Here's an easy recipe for summertime--no cooking, and you can make several servings at once. This is based on a recipe in Freakin' Fabulous by Clinton Kelly. 1 can salmon 1 envelope unflavored gelatin 2 T cold water 1/2 cup boiling water 1/2 cup mayonnaise 1 T lemon juice 1 T finely grated onion 2 dashes hot sauce 1 t salt 2 T finely chopped dill 1 cucumber, sliced In a large mixing bowl, add the gelatin and the cold water. Stir to combine. Add the boiling water and stir until the gelatin dissolves. Let cool. Add the salmon, mayonnaise, lemon juice, onion, salt, dill and hot sauce. Stir well. Spoon into a decorative mold and chill for four hours. When ready to serve, immerse the mold in hot water (without letting water into the mold) for 10 seconds. Put a plate upside-down on top of the mold and flip them over in one quick motion. The salmon mousse should come out of the mold; repeat immersion if needed. Serve on cucumber slices.

My year-and-a-half-long love affair with take-out is over. It started when I was selling my house in Colorado: take-out kept the kitchen clean. After I got to Indiana, I started out working part-time and didn't have much human contact at work. Getting take-out brought me some human contact. I was tired of cooking, too. My weight crept up to the point on the scale where I don't let it go any higher. Even though I ordered food that sounded low-carb, the restaurant information showed 20, 30, or 40 grams of carbohydrate per dish. One Sunday night recently, I made too much chef's salad and took the rest to work the next day. I kept going--I brought my lunch to work every day for a week. Five pounds fell off. Packing my lunch hasn't been that hard--I was just tired of doing it and then fell into another habit. Now, I usually make a big dinner and take the leftovers to work, along with a low-carb dessert. What if I don't feel like packing a lunch (or making dinner)?