Suh-weet!

After a long day of driving, driving, driving to Charleston, WV, and back yesterday (the older I get the less I care to drive, but the older my husband gets the less I want him to drive! So there you go, I'm the chauffeur), we settled down to watch Brian Williams, who relayed this little tidbit about sugar.

Which basically says there are some scientists and policymakers who think sugar consumption should be regulated. Like alcohol! And tobacco! Imagine that.

©Debora McNeer

Toward the end of the segment, Dr. Nancy Snyderman mentions that artificial sweeteners, which taste sweeter than refined sugar, actually trick our brains into wanting more, more, more. The last couple of days I've indulged in sugar-free soda and sugar-free pudding (both are permitted on the South Beach plan) and bingo! The sugar blues have been hitting me hard.

A more in-depth look at the issue of regulating sugar can be found in yesterday's L.A. Times. And here's a .pdf file of the journal article.

The article points out that the four criteria for justifying government regulation apply to sugar as much as they do alcohol:

• It's unavoidable in society
• It's toxic
• It can be abused
• It's bad for society

My current diet is sugar-free, to the best of my ability, and has been for nearly three weeks. I don't see this changing for quite some time. Nor do I see public pressure rising to force the FDA to begin regulating sugar consumption in the United States. (Can you imagine the outcry from the current Republican-controlled Congress? Nanny state! Personal responsibility! Let them eat cake!)

I'm not even sure I agree that sugar meets the four criteria. Yes, it's unavoidable and I'd have to agree that it can be abused. But is it bad for society? Or toxic?

Advocates for sugar regulation claim it is. And so did William Dufty in his book Sugar Blues. He relates an experiment during World War II in which two groups of dogs were given only plain water or sugar water for a period of time. The sugar-water group became sick and/or died before the control group did. (Can you imagine what PETA would do if this happened today?)

I've been an advocate for single-payer health insurance for many years. One of the main arguments against it is this: What would happen to all those people who work for health insurance companies? You know, the ones who fight with your doctor's office staff about whether you should take Drug A or Drug B, or receive Test Y or X-ray Z.

Should sugar come under federal regulation, what would happen to all the cake pop shops?

Just as I'm better off a nicer person sane when I don't drink alcohol, I believe, for me, that the quality of my life – and my husband's! – goes up when my consumption of sugar goes down. But I haven't purged the pantry of the baking chocolate, homemade marmalade (SOB!) or 10-pound bag of Domino's. Yet.

Maybe if I wait long enough, the DEA will raid my kitchen and I won't have to. I wonder if they serve marmalade in prison …

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Speaking of relatives: I love talking about and remembering my dad who, in later life, declared Groundhog's Day to be his favorite holiday.

This was not always the case. I don't remember any great celebrations in early February during my childhood. But as he (and I!) got older he became less and less serious about day-to-day stuff and more and more lighthearted about, um, everything.

What a good example he was.

Early one February 2, several years ago, the phone rang. Dad was calling from Florida to wish me a Happy Groundhog's Day, something he'd never done before.

Me: I'm sorry, what did you say?
He: Happy Groundhog's Day! Did the groundhog see his shadow in West Virginia?Me: Um, I'm not sure. Why are you suddenly all excited about Groundhog's Day, anyway?
He: It's my new favorite holiday.Me: And why is that?
He: No cards, no presents, no big meals that take all day to fix. Winter's on the way out and spring is right around the corner.Me: Well, there's still a lot of winter left in the next six weeks.
He: Maybe in West Virginia, but it's in the 70s down here! When are you coming to visit?

After that inaugural conversation, I sent homemade cards with groundhogs on them every year.

Daddy died in September of 2010. We've already been through the first year of celebrations without him. Each one gets easier. Even on Groundhog's Day.

You might be a 60-year-old gym rat if …

• Two Aleve with your morning coffee act as preventive medicine before you leave for the gym.
• You wear baggy shirts and yoga pants, instead of tight-fitting tanks and bike shorts.
• Older patrons ask you how things work, instead of bothering that young whippersnapper at the front desk.
• The music blasting out over the loudspeakers is vaguely familiar, but you couldn't sing along to it.
• You're not in a hurry to get there, and you're not in a hurry to leave.

Pin It

It's a good day to be a gym rat here in the Middle of Nowhere. It's started raining, and it looks like the morning off-and-on showers might turn into a soaker by noon.

Since we haven't had any snow to speak of this winter, the rain is a Good Thing. Gardens need moisture year-'round, and not many gardeners are willing to drag their hoses out of storage during a mid-winter dry spell.

I walked yesterday morning, in brilliant sunshine without a jacket. I pushed myself to do 3.5 miles in an hour. It's so much easier to do 3.5 mph on the treadmill than outdoors on hills, but I did it. Felt very strong when I got home. And very sweaty. Heh.

February's NaBloPoMo theme is "relative." So far I haven't run with the themes, because I've always thought this blog had a theme of its own and I try to stay within the knit-run-reap-eat parameters. Also, the reason this blog exists (instead of my original one, the Shrinking Knitter), is because of some issues with some relatives. (Have any of you started a new blog to hide from someone who found your old one?) So writing about "relatives" is not going to happen.

But the word relative is adjective as well as a noun.

relative |ˈrelətiv|
adjective
1: considered in relation or in proportion to something else

In my case, the relative effectiveness of going to the gym versus walking outdoors can be measured by the soreness in my muscles. My back, shoulders and arms feel fine after a walk outside. After a trip around the Nautilus/Cybex machines? Not so much.

But it's, ahem, relatively easier this week than last, and I feel relatively stronger today than I did a week ago. And with the January weight loss, I feel positively fantastic about the decision to pony up for a six-month membership.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to remind me to come back and read this post when I slide into complacency, busy-ness, fatigue or just plain old I-don't-want-to. Thank you in advance.

How's that workin' for ya?

Pin It

Between January 1 and January 12 I lost two pounds, counting calories but not limiting any foods or food groups.

From January 12 to today, I've lost seven pounds, following the South Beach plan.

You do the math.

I've been going to the gym for a week now. Last week I was doing 2 sets of 10 reps at a reasonably difficult weight level on both upper- and lower-body Nautilus and Cybex machines. Yesterday I bumped it up to 12 reps, and I'm making sure the weight is heavy enough to be challenging. I probably should write down what I'm doing so I can see some progress, but that would mean carrying around a clipboard. Cumbersome!

And I'd probably look really serious about it, too. Heh.

In addition to circuit training, I'm treadmilling at an average speed of 3.5 mph, and a slight incline (3 or 4), for 42 minutes – precisely the amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Glee on the Nook. There are so many TV series available on Netflix that I've never seen, because my husband commandeers the remote every. damned. night. My treadmill time will be entertaining for many months to come.

My right hip joint has been painful for several weeks, but since I've been going to the gym it's only a minor twinge every now and then. I hardly ever notice it. I believe it's because I'm using the machines for hip adductor and abductor, which I always thought toned your inner and outer thighs. Who knew they were useful for muscle and joint pain?

Busy day today. I'm working with a client this afternoon, but before I do that I need to throw together a couple meat loaves and put a roast in the oven. I'm really motivated to continue with South Beach after the progress I've made. I've been buying sliced deli roast beef, but I have a freezer full of grass-fed beef I should probably be using. One of the meat loaves is going to my dog-sitter. I usually make him something sweet; he's going to really be surprised to receive an entrée instead of dessert!

January is done, done, done … your turn to share your progress with your first-of-the-year goals. That's what the comments are for, after all. Sharing. Or leave a link to your blog in the comments, so we can be nosy and read more, more, more.

Go Places Surely

I know I'm not the last person on the planet to have a global positioning system in my car. While they've certainly come down in price in the last couple years, they're still a splurge (in my frugal opinion), and they're still not standard equipment on most new cars. (Interestingly, dropping a couple Franklins for a Garmin I can wear on my wrist seemed like a necessity back in my running days.) The airplane I used to fly was equipped with one, but it used latitude-longitude coordinates instead of ZIP codes and house numbers.

Anyway, the combination of Google Maps, Poynt, Mapquest and BlackBerry Maps has allowed me to get from Point A to Point B for several years now without getting too lost. Smartphones are, indeed, smart, and while the printed Mapquest directions are sometimes a little obtuse, they've done the job just fine, thankyouverymuch.

We recently inherited a GPS unit for the car. I installed plugged it into the cigarette lighter and tested it on a local drive last week, and put it into practice on our trip to Asheville. This ancient Magellan (three years old) worked perfectly, precisely leading us as if on a rope to the parking lot of every target.

One look at this line and my hungry, hungry husband's face 

fell. Hard. But this was just the line to get to the counter 

where you placed your order, and it moved swiftly.

As we approached 12 Bones on Friday, the restaurant was hidden around a corner by some buildings. We were in a part of Asheville that some might call "sketchy." (Well, it's called the River Arts District, so that fits, right?) Definitely not well-populated or teeming with tourists, like the downtown area usually is.

I just had to trust that the little screen was on the right path. And sho' nuff, it was. We turned that corner, found a parking place and joined the line of people waiting to chow down on some damned good 'que.

Every place we went was someplace I hadn't been before, and we arrived at every destination with no problem whatsoever. On a couple of occasions, the route FROM the spot was completely different from the route TO it, which was disconcerting (and took us through more sketchy neighborhoods), but we always made it there and back again.

Obviously, or I wouldn't be here, right? Heh.

I am, therefore, declaring GPS systems for cars the greatest invention since the wheel.

We've gone to unfamiliar towns and to unfamiliar parts of familiar towns plenty of times, but always with more than a bit of trepidation on my part. I remember the last time we left Washington, DC, how thrilled I was when, with little trouble, actually, I made it to the highway leading home. DC is the scariest place I've ever driven. Even scarier than Massachusetts, which has a rep for scary driving.

My husband has supreme confidence in both my driving and my navigating skills. Finally, thanks to this new little gadget, so do I. My car (a Ford Escape) came equipped with two cigarette lighters. I think they knew who was going to be driving it. I just ordered a unit that turns a cigarette lighter into two USB ports. With three connections, I can have the iPod, the Magellan and the BlackBerry all plugged in and charged up at the same time.

I love me some gadgets.

One thing that struck me about being GPS-equipped is that you really can be on your own. No need to stop for directions. We found Mela using walking directions provided by the BlackBerry instead of asking one of the many passersby. Those of us who are plugged in are little islands of information, happy to help, and happy not to need help. I wonder how this will affect our culture 20 years from now? By then we'll probably all be plugged in, or chip-equipped, and we won't need each other at all.

In the meantime, I wonder why I waited so long to get a GPS system for the car.

Oh. Right. There's that frugal thing.

So the question du jour is: Do you have a GPS in your car? Do you use the voice prompts (that annoyed me and I muted it right off the bat)? Do you want one or are you happy with Mapquest or Poynt? Or a road atlas? Do tell!

Too much fun, too little time

Well, we're home again, home again, already, and it's back to whatever passes for normal life around here. Emptying the dishwasher. Making coffee. Letting the dog out. And in. And out. And in.

This is one of the very few times I haven't been all that excited to get home, despite what I said yesterday about appreciating it after you've been away. A trip to Asheville (or its Mini-Me, Carrboro, NC) is either too little or too much. This one was too little, I could have spent another day or two easily.

So what does a "too-much" trip look like? I wouldn't know personally, but I imagine it would be one in which you were willing to just walk away from whatever home was and start over in this new place that you've fallen in love with.

I spent a good part of the drive home comparing Asheville to Carrboro, imagining myself living in each of them. Asheville is hillier, bigger, there's more traffic. Carrboro is much more walkable/bikable and has a small-town ambience that's very comfortable for me.

It's all a fantasy, though. The house and property in southern West Virginia that I call home is bought and paid for, and would probably be difficult to sell. Besides, where I live doesn't really matter, I'm going to be dragging my ass along with me wherever I go. Heh. Wherever you go, there you are.

You can look, but you'd better not touch

The cake pop shop wasn't yet open when we wandered by this morning. Their hours were noon to 7 – Ashevillians apparently start their days a little later than I do. Heh. At any rate, the caramel-covered cake pops (and marshmallows and pecans and other confections of unknown origin) made for pretty good eye candy, and not a speck of sugar was consumed in the process. (I don't remember the name of the store or I'd try to find a link. Perhaps I was drooling too much to pay attention to their signage.) ETA: Found the name in another photo! It's Kilwin's.

On our tour of the downtown area, we also went into a chocolate shop. There was a tiny table and two chairs in the corner of the store, and I went straight to the chair, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I was invited to see what a five-pound heart-shaped box of chocolates looked like (it was under glass, and thus safe), so I ventured into the center of the room but I dared not go up to the counter. It smelled heavenly, and if you can handle sugar and chocolate, I think The Chocolate Fetish would be a great place to spend some money and time.

I, fortunately, left spending none of the former and only a couple minutes of the latter.

Yesterday, after lunch at 12 Bones and before we met up with our friends, my husband and I went to a place called the Screen Door, which is part flea market, part architectural salvage, part gift shop, part home decorating – kind of a you-name-it interior and exterior art and design conglomeration. Lots of inspiration there, including a tree-shaped sculpture made of progressively smaller pieces of driftwood. Since our home is near three different rivers, I'm thinking this might be a free project for us, and would be a nice addition to our new front-yard landscaping project.

After lunch, we spent quite a bit of time in an old bookstore (there are many of them downtown, Malaprops is probably the best-known but we'd been there previously and really, these other places need to upgrade their branding. Or I need to upgrade my memory.), followed by a tour of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial.

Wolfe, best known for his novels Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again, was raised in Asheville, in a boardinghouse owned by his mother. His father and six siblings lived two blocks away, and everyone came and went at will. It sounds chaotic, and from what the tour guide said, it sounds like Mama Wolfe could have been one of those eccentric types. Papa Wolfe certainly was.

The tour was interesting and the house is amazing – 29 rooms, including the private family rooms as well as dining areas, sleeping porches and more bedrooms than we could count. Oh, and one bathroom. Rather amazing what people would accept for accommodations back in the day. It's furnished in period pieces, all of which have Do Not Touch signs on them and most of which were original to the boardinghouse or owned by members of the Wolfe family.

Makes me want to read Thomas Wolfe again.

Now we're back at the hotel, resting before we all decide what we want to do for dinner. This is not the height of tourist season in Asheville, NC, so there's not much available in the way of Events To Go To this weekend. And none of us are the young, bar-hopping type (snort!). If we were, there would be lots of hopping opportunities.

We've certainly enjoyed spending time with our friends and getting away from home for a short time. Makes you realize that you can go home again. And you tend to appreciate it even more, after a shot of city life.