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Many Refuse Bread & Other Good News

Pre-low-carb, a Sunday afternoon would have found me taking a four-hour nap. Since I no longer need them unless I'm sick, I've been working in the yard today.

A couple of women came by while I was trimming the front yard. The hedge trimmer seemed to frighten them, but they stopped anyway and offered me some bread, which I told them I couldn't eat. One of them said quite a few people had told them that.

The new portion of lawn I planted last year is still going, despite my lack of caring for it after I fractured my right arm in a bike wreck last year. The two roses I planted are sprouting leaves as well--they should look like this in a year or two:

Salet, introduced in France, 1854. Photo from http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/roses/salet.htm


Mortgage Lifter tomatoes (an heirloom variety) are coming up in seed trays in the basement, and there's already volunteer lettuce growing out back, even though it snowed a few days ago.

Yesterday, I bought a manual push mower through an ad on Craigslist--and I've had a ton of fun using it. (That's how I should have spent $50 last year instead of buying a bike.) Shredding grass is fun when you don't have to listen to a roaring lawnmower. I mowed a little bit of the neighbors' yard--the place is owned by two blind women who've let the place go to seed, and since there's no clear marker between our yards, their dump looks like it's part of my place. (They used to mow the weeds themselves--I swear I'm not making this up--and ended up destroying several plants in my yard.) Another neighbor says he saw a real estate agent taking photos of the place. We're both hoping it'll have a new owner soon.

Finally, while cleaning out my garage today, I found a pair of prescription sunglasses I thought I'd lost on the bus two years ago. They're a bit out of style now, but it's nice to have a backup pair.

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Comments

Lowcarb team member said…
Now that's what I call a productive afternoon. Those roses should look great once established. Must admit my Sunday afternoon was spent in the garden but not doing anything just enjoying great family company and a buffet of meats, cheeses, tuna, and plenty of salad. We were blessed with good weather, although some areas in the UK were not so lucky. And you had snow a few days ago!

Take care
All the best Jan
May 05, 2013
horfilmania said…
Isn't it amazing what you'll find when you're not looking for it?
May 05, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Jan--productive, yes, but the buffet sounds like more fun. Right before the snow, it was 80 degrees (~25C). That's springtime along the Front Range.

I was flabbergasted when I saw those sunglasses.
May 05, 2013
Galina L. said…
It looks like Dr.Davis with his "Wheat Belly" managed to make the biggest impact on the bread consumption in the English-speaking countries. He was very harshly criticized for some of his wild claims by several respectable paleo bloggers, but he just brushed it off. It looks like he was mostly concerned about carrying his message through and he knew haw to communicate with patients . In my native Russia most people believe that bread is a holy and sacred food, and I can't imagine it would be easy to convince masses that bread and gruel are not healthy foods. Most old folks there live on a sweet tea, bread, gruel and some soup. However, I managed to convince my mom to ditch bread and to eat eggs instead of oatmeal for her breakfast.
May 06, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Wheat Belly was heavily marketed, and the glossy ads my parents received looked like they were aimed at people who wanted a miracle cure for various ailments. While I agree with much of the book, the trouble with using a pop-medical approach is that people who know better may not buy in, and the work isn't going to age well.

Asia, too, will likely see a lot of resistance to low- or limited-carb diets because of their traditions. (I think of Russia as part of Europe.)

I got my mom to eat LC as well--she still craves cereal, but even two bites of oatmeal send her blood sugar over the moon.
May 06, 2013
Galina L. said…
The blood sugar reading was exactly what convinced my mom that oatmeal was not the healthy breakfast. She misses the rye bread the most, but the normalization of her blood pressure was a strong signal that her body approved the limitation of the diet.
Dr.Davis's claims were too wild for my own standards, there is no chance I will buy his book or borrow it from a library, but I know better already, and it looks like he addressed mostly the medically ignorant population . In the light of it, I am not so sure now that his critics were 100% right, however I understand that such situation may and probably will backfire.
May 06, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Dr. Davis was the first person I found in the LC online world. I suspected that wheat was an appetite stimulant--based on my own experience, I know that part is right. I know it's bad for bloating and acid reflux as well.
May 06, 2013
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