Archive | 11:34 pm

A culinary success

17 Apr

For dinner today, I had a smoothie which I might actually want to make again after I’m able to open my mouth again. Then it won’t be a meal, of course, but it was really quite good. I didn’t write down exact amounts of ingredients, but I’ll call it a Peanut Butter Apple Cinnamon Smoothie. I made it by blending a So Delicious Cinnamon Bun soy yogurt with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and maybe 1/3 cup of applesauce, a little bit of soymilk, and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. After that was all blended, I added more soymilk until the volume was about three cups, and blended some more.

The smoothie felt as though it was just thin enough that it could pass through the straw, and the flavor was really very good. Something about the flavored soy yogurt made it particularly so.  The peanut butter has plenty of fat and protein, so it was nice and filling, too.

A challenge

17 Apr

I’ve found my oral surgeon’s assurance, “You’re going to lose some weight” replaying over and over in my head over the last couple of days. I’m not exactly sure why. I wasn’t particularly disturbed by the idea of losing a few pounds. It may well have just been his level of confidence in his prediction that made it stuck with me like this. It also reminds of the nurse last week saying that I’m “already such a little guy” (which did bother me). By now I’ve come to see these remarks as the basis for a challenge to avoid losing weight while I’m wired. I haven’t weighed myself since two weeks before the accident, but I’ll aim for the most recent measurement I have: 155 pounds. As a rule, I’ll try to refrain from doing anything particularly stupid, like consuming to the point of feeling sick or drinking vegetable oil from a cup.

The wired diet, with Vega

17 Apr

It’s been a couple of days since my supply of Vega arrived, but it’s already changed my life for the better. I already mentioned that it allowed me to go a few hours without eating while I taught back-to-back sections yesterday. A Vega meal replaces at least a couple of smoothies, and it offers more nutritional balance. It’s also a major convenience in the mornings because it’s one meal for the day that I don’t need to prepare before leaving for the office. The taste isn’t great, but it’s at least tolerable. My container of soy protein powder has gone back into the cabinet, so I don’t feel like I’m living off of a monoculture anymore. When I was deciding whether to try this stuff, I had a little bit of trouble coming to terms with the price tag, but so far, it’s definitely worth it.

A curious reflex

17 Apr

A little bit earlier, I stumbled while walking up some stairs on one of the footpaths in my neighborhood. I was surprised to feel my mouth reflexively try to open. Of course, the wire kept my mouth from actually opening, but it was enough to make me shudder at what might have happened if I had actually fallen.

I do wonder what good this reflex does. From an evolutionary point of view, it’s hard for me to imagine how it might have come about.

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