I’m not on a diet, I have a diet.

There are restrictions I must make: I am gluten-free due to gluten sensitivity, and must eat a high protein diet due to damaged digestive tract from years of undiagnosed gluten problems.  There are also restrictions I choose to make: primarily I closely manage my intake of simple carbohydrates because I tend towards insulin resistance, and simple carbs give me a huge blood sugar spike and crash.  I feel better if I eat more complex carbs, which means less grain and sugar.

My diet is based on the goal of being healthy, and is expressly without a goal of weight loss.  I must say I welcome the downs and rue the ups, and happily over the past 7 years since I stopped being *on* a diet and started *having* a diet, the trend has been every so slowly downwards.  I think I was suffering from so much pressure, applied internally and externally, my eating became much more fraught.  I thought in terms of earning food, or deserving food.

Now my success or failure to meet my diet is a moment to moment thing.  Each food choice happens independently, and isn’t weighted with feelings of success or failure at some lifelong goal.  I’m just eating.  If I want a cookie or a piece of cake I think about how I will feel an hour after I eat it, not what it would mean for my waistband in a month if I eat a cookie every day.  If I decide I want the cookie, I can think about how to eat it in a way that will mitigate feeling bad later.  Honestly I’m much more likely to grab a carrot instead of a cookie now because the thought of the headache and exhaustion I’ll feel in an hour is much more motivating than the old thought of some future thinner me.

I’m working to be mindful of what I eat, both in terms of the impact my consumption has on the planet and the impact my consumption has on my health.  I know food is nutrition first, a pleasure second, and a reward never.  I know this, but it’s difficult to be mindful about it all the time. I want to enjoy my food.  I find the better the food I consume is the better it tastes, but there are times, particularly when I’m outside my usual routines, in which what I need is a specific distribution of calories and macronutrients.  I have to fill those needs in weird and sometimes downright unappetizing food combinations, particularly because of the restrictions I must keep, or feel bad later.  I am experiencing the freedom to make food choices with the primary consequence being how I will feel physically instead of how I will feel emotionally.

When I was on diets food was never a pleasure.  I was either eating what I was supposed to eat, which was unsatisfying because it was what I had to eat not what I wanted to eat, or I was splurging, causing the guilt and self criticism to overshadow whatever pleasure I might have had in the food.  I never felt healthy.  Food never made me happy, instead I made myself miserable with food.  Nothing could satisfy.

Now I am much more Zen about starting my day with what I would have seen as a boring bowl of oatmeal and some turkey bacon, because I know they will get me off to a good start on the morning.  I may add some nuts, but I feel no need to count or weigh them.  I may add some brown sugar or syrup, but if I do it’s not because the oats justify the sugar so I “allow” myself, it’s because I want a taste of something sweet.  I’m just as likely to chop some dates or add some seasonal fruit.  Instead of focusing only on the sweetness or fat-  the calories in the bowl and what that represents in terms of a weight loss goal, I think about how much better I will feel through the day because of what I’m choosing.  I notice the flavor and texture; the gritty graininess of the oats, the aroma of whatever spices I added, the sweetness of fruit or sugar, the crunch of nuts or granola.  The values of the various components in my bowl are assigned not based on what I feel about myself eating them, but about how they will make me feel.  Much more honest.  It’s now so much easier to appreciate each food for its own merits without weighing it on the diet scale of value.

My weight moves around.  I was recently vitamin D deficient for months, which left me exhausted and constantly hungry, so I’m up a pants size or two from a year ago.  I wrote about how that felt from the middle of the exhaustion, before the diagnosis.  Now that I’m supplementing appropriately my waistbands are getting more comfortable.  I expect picking up belly dance will also send me digging in the smaller end of the pants drawer.  The smaller pants aren’t a badge of honor, though, and I have 4 sizes in my drawer because I shift around.  I am working with not assigning value to bending over comfortably in a smaller size, but rather placing value on wearing comfortable clothes.  It’s a hard change for me to make, but it’s a good goal.

I have begun to add two things to my routine:

1) Belly dance.  Because I need to remember to take joy from movement. 

I expect I will reap benefits in health and self concept, but the impetus is joy.  I want to move, I want to dance, and I have always absorbed the message from my parents and others that I’m too fat to dance without looking ridiculous.  Fuck’em all. 

2) I will do one thing I have been procrastinating each morning before noon.

Taking something off the “later” pile and doing it NOW is so good for me.  Not only do I accomplish the thing itself, I reduce the emotional pressure of all the things I feel I ought to do but haven’t, and I increase my confidence in my ability to do all the things, or at least more of the things. 

This past Saturday I organized my sewing station, which has never been properly set up since I moved in here but rather piled in a disorganized heap.  As part of cleaning up and organizing I decided to complete a bathrobe for D which was meant to be a present last winter- he’s scarcely been out of it while in the house since. The impetus of the clean-up effort got me to complete it rather than put it away unfinished. Riding the momentum of success, Sunday I picked up a quilting project that had been in my pile of unfinished things for a decade, sewed up all the pieces I had cut, and here is the outcome:

And this is the schematic for what it will become:

The colors aren’t reproducing very well on my screen at least- each block has a saturated and a pastel half, as well as a cool and a warm half, with all 4 variants- cool/pastel, cool/saturated, warm/pastel, warm/saturated. This is a variant on a Log Cabin Barn Raising pattern, arranged to also evoke something like an oriental carpet.  It will be a bedspread.  The blue areas will be solid panels quilted color-on-color, so they will be about texture, not color. It’s going to be awesome, both in terms of the amount of work required and the eventual FO.

Monday I tackled some healthcare nonsense from the very large stack of procrastination represented by the pile on my desk, and then dug out another half completed sewing project long overdue to a good friend, which will be mailed out today.  I think they’ll be happy with the outcome.  :-)

Tuesday was more healthcare stuff, and I started working through another thing off the paperwork stack.  I also started investigating belly dance.  I found both local classes and online video classes.  This series is awesome, for anyone else interested in joining in on belly dance exploration with me.

Wednesday was, alas, more of the healthcare crap.  Good gracious I loathe the pharma-health-insurance conglomerate.  It is just WRONG that I’m one of the fortunate few with “good” health insurance, and yet I can’t get some of my doctor’s prescriptions covered.  The tests he required to determine what was wrong with me last month are also being contested as “not medically necessary.”  Afterwards I tried the belly dance videos for the first time, and more work on the quilt.

Thursday I completed some minutia at work I’ve been procrastinating for months, then practiced dance for an hour, followed by picking up the Blue Mud project again and knitting a couple inches on the sweater body.

This morning I gave the kitchen a deep down scrubbing, removing everything from the surfaces and cleaning, wiping cabinet faces, scouring the sink.  I am determined we will get back in the habit of cooking more meals than we eat out.  I was dancing around the kitchen while I cleaned, practicing the exercises I’ve been learning and shaking out the inevitable stiffness that comes along with a new routine.

I feel good.  I feel VERY good.  I have awakened from the vitamin D deficiency fog, and I’m in the process of clearing the backlog of cruft that’s accumulated while I was effectively absent.  I’m moving again, I’m creating again.  I am moving into the new year in a new frame of mind, both back to myself and more myself, or perhaps more aware of what it means to be myself than I have been in ages.  If ever.  It’s a beautiful place to be; life seems full of good possibility. I am looking forward, and moving forward, with confidence and joy.

The front is good.  The front I like.  The short rows in the shoulder are helping fit my actual shape.  I’m in love with the detail of the broken rib in the raglan increases, and I expect to really, really like the hourglass shaping as it develops.  Very va-va-voom, which is what I was going for.

The back though?

Perhaps this doesn’t look awful (other than being a blurry iPhone snap) but it’s never going to be great.  I meant to put more of the back stitches into the sleeve and fewer into the back itself.  I wasn’t paying enough attention when I divided things up (I blame Doctor Who) and tried to convince myself it would be ok.  It’s not.  The back has a poof and the sleeve is pulling too tightly.

Here’s an annotated pic:

bleargh.

So, I’m taking a little break, knitting a few other things, and I’ll get back to the sweater Real Soon Now.  It’s sitting here in my desk WIP basket staring at me.

I went with Terry on Saturday to Wet Thistle Farm to pick out fleeces.  Usually this farm’s fleeces aren’t available to the public- a yarn company snaps up their whole clip.  This year, however, there were some available, and as Terry promised it was oh so very worth the trip!  I ended up splitting three colored fleeces with Terry and getting one white lamb fleece as well.

This is a lamb fleece that progresses from a red brown to a creamy white down the length of the staple.

I washed it and experimented with using the spin cycle on my front loader between passes- I won’t do that again.  The butt ends felted slightly.  It won’t be hard to process, but it fell apart deliciously before the wash, and past fleeces with that character have maintained it after washing.

It has a 5″ staple:

here’s a second lock:

Don’t you just want to bury your face in this?

It smells vaguely of lavender and sheep after washing, just so you know.  I can’t wait to start working with this! It’s deliciously soft too; much finer than the rest of my Romney.  Oh- and strong.  no sign of crackle when I “ping” a lock.  This is as close to perfect as fleece gets, and it’s even in “my” color!  It will match my hair!

I’ll get pictures up of the other three fleeces as they are washed.

Thanks so much to Marie for letting us visit her farm, and giving us the opportunity to collect these gorgeous fleeces.  I’m hoping to return for the annual clip, which will be happening next month.  Maybe I can talk her out of another fleece then!

The biggest issue was a procedure problem with the starter recipe, which had us use a food processor instead of a stand mixer for the final mixing.  This inevitably ended with batter going into the center hole of the food processor and making an icky mess that was devilish to clean up.  In frustration we tried working the whole thing in the stand mixer, and it worked fine!  One less appliance to clean, and an icky mess averted.

The base recipe here is for something called a choux pastry.  It’s one of the oldest recipes for a pastry dough, dating back to 1840.  This pastry is the basis for many sweet pastries, including cream puffs, profiteroles, beignets, crueller style doughnuts, eclairs, and churros.

The dough itself isn’t sweet however, and can be used for many applications.  It can be wrapped around cheese to melt in the baking, used as buns for sandwiches of various sorts, and David has all sorts of ideas for savory applications.

Today I’m publishing the cream puff shells.  I’ll add the doughnuts in a day or so.

Recipe for Choux Pastry, baked into shells

Equipment:

• Large baking sheet
• Slipat mat or parchment paper
• Stand mixer

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon sorghum flour
• 2 tablespoons tapioca flour
• 5 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Egg Mixture:

• 2 large eggs + 1 egg white (or more, for 3/4 c.)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Heated Wet Ingredients:

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons half n’ half

Prep:

• Preheat oven to 425ºF, and line a cookie sheet with a silpat or parchment paper and set aside.
• Set up Stand Mixer with paddle or dough hook.  Leave standing ready with lid removed in a place convenient to the stove.

Directions:

In a small bowl combine the dry ingredients and mix well.

Break eggs into a measuring cup, adding whites until 3/4C egg, then whisk them.  Add baking powder, and whisk some more.  The egg will develop weird lumps; it’s supposed to do that.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter, water, half n’ half, sugar and salt over a medium-low flame until the butter has melted completely and the mixture has just come to a gentle boil.

Add the dry ingredients and stir, scraping bottom and sides, until the dough has collected into a single lump.

Immediately transfer dough to the stand mixer, and pulse for at least 20 seconds to cool.

Pour egg mixture slowly into the stand mixer while it’s running.  Continue blending until you have a thick, smooth sticky paste: a minute or so.

Drop spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet; the recipe should make about 12.  Flatten and smooth the puffs into the shape you want.  Long and skinny for éclairs, or round for puffs.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425ºF, then lower oven temperature to 375ºF and bake for 10 minutes more.  NOTE: opening the door to the oven will cause the puffs to collapse.  Resist the temptation.

Makes 12 large cream puffs.

When I started creating my own knitting shapes I started with toys and sweaters, but found when I wanted to write the designs I didn’t have the skills to do so. My interest in design and my interest in socks hit at about the same time, so it’s not surprising they became intertwined.  The majority of my published patterns are socks.  I’ve made conventional designs, slightly quirky designs, and zomg off into the hinterlands odd designs.  Socks have enough geometry to be intriguing, but not so much as to be intimidating.  I have developed the chops to be able to write a sock pattern before I pick up my needles and be fairly confident of having a comfortable, wearable, attractive FO at the end of the process. To be sure I’m not done learning about writing designs so other folks can follow them, but I’m developing my confidence.

Now, though, I am ready to up the ante, expand my horizons, do something new and dangerous. A week or so before Rhinebeck I picked up some powder blue Rowan Kid Classic yarn, and knit a little sweater shaped swatch.

My idea, roughly, is to replicate my favorite yellow Ingenue sweater in shape, but do something entirely my own in design.

At first I was taking detailed notes, but I rapidly let that go.  There was a lot of ripping.  A LOT of ripping.  I wanted to work this as a circular yoke, with a snowflake shaped lace motif to hide the increases, but couldn’t get the motif to work.  I gave up, and went back to a raglan design, with a little two stitch twist along the raglan line.  The collar is worked with short rows to be asymmetric, and off center.

I’ve added short rows to the sleeve caps and full bust.  The raglan lines divide the stitches into 4 equal sections, and about half way down the twist diverges from the raglan line.

I don’t know yet if this will work the way I want it to.  My idea is for the broken rib pattern to form an hourglass shape, with a plain stockinette panel in the front decreasing to the waist and then increasing, and the broken rib pattern increasing and then decreasing, amplifying the wearer’s natural contours.

It may work.

There may be more ripping.

I’m concerned at the moment there may be too many sts across the back.  Perhaps I should have stopped the raglan increases there when I started the diverging line in the front.  We’ll see as I get further.

I have given myself permission to make mud.  Meaning, I can mess up as much as I need to.  This doesn’t have to come out right.  I think I will have a nice sweater at the end of the exercise, but I may yet end up with a misshapen lumpy thing and a learning experience.  I don’t have to get anywhere.  I don’t need to keep careful notes so I can grade this later into a publishable pattern.  This sweater will be a one of a kind learning experience.  I’m learning to make a sweater.

I will rip and re-knit, ponder, then rip some more.  Tweak and explore and consider ways to make this sweater skim nicely without having too much bulk where I want less or being too tight where I want to keep a little mystery about the underlying contours.  Perhaps in the end get frustrated and just finish the damned thing with some flaws, or perhaps drop it in a UFO basket to be ignored for years.  Even so, it will have served its purpose.

I need to learn how to create a sweater, so mud I shall make.  Creative, fuzzy, fluffy blue mud.

The only thing I ever modify is to split the butter into half butter and half shortening for a flakier crust, since oils with different melting temps help make crust layers.  I’m sharing it the way I found it, though, with attribution.  I believe the original web site is long since defunct, but this recipe was a source of hope for me in a dark time.  I’m forever grateful.

This picture here is that recipe, with a butterscotch crumb apple pie in it, but it works for any sort of pie you like.  I’ve used it pre-baked and unbaked, for sweet and savory pies, and it’s never disappointed.  I have pre-made and frozen the dough, packed it in a suitcase, and rolled it out at my destination.

Pie Crust

• 1/3 cup brown or white rice flour
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/3 cup tapioca flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/3 cup potato starch
• 1/3 cup (5 Tablespoon) butter
• 1-½ Tablespoon corn starch
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• ½ to 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Have eggs and butter cold for best results. Combine flours, starches, salt, xanthan gum, and sugar into a mixing bowl. Cut cold butter into slices and then work it into the flour mixture with hands or a pastry cutter until the dough feels slightly moist and begins to hold together.

Add the beaten egg and vinegar to the flour mixture and stir with a spoon or fork until it begins to stiffen. The dough will be quite soft at first but will firm up. As it firms up, form it into a ball and work it a little with your hands. Use a little tapioca flour if necessary to keep your hands from getting sticky.

Roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper, turning and peeling off paper as necessary to smooth out wrinkles. Leave the paper on the pie dough to turn it. When it is ready for a pie pan, peel the top layer of paper off, hold the lightly greased pan over the dough, and slip your other hand under the bottom paper and dough. Lift it into the pan as you flip it all over.

Smooth the dough into the pan before removing the wax paper. Again peel it off; dont lift it off. Crimp edges as desired. Prick with a fork if a baked pie shell is desired and bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes.

Double the ingredients for a two-crust pie. Dont attempt to fold the top pie crust. A two-crust pie will bake one hour or a bit longer.

This recipe comes from Lifeline, Summer 1996, pg. 5. It is Lily Mae Pattens recipe.

The apple sauce is long since consumed, and the plums are being saved for trifles in mid-winter when we need a taste of summer so badly.  I’ve been saving the blackberries as well, but today it was cold.  Cold cold cold.  And I wanted to taste summer, in a warm coffee cake.  I took a blueberry coffeecake recipe I’ve used in the past, subbed in blackberries, and this is what I got:

Let’s look at that a bit more closely, shall we?

When I cut into it, the berries oozed out and the crumb was perfect.  It was every bit as delicious as I imagined.

Look at the crumb and the berries:

Nom.

Ingredients:

dry:

• 1/2 C sorghum flour
• 1/2 C oat flour
• 1/2 C arrowroot flour
• 1/2 C corn flour
• 1t xanthan gum
• 2T buttermilk powder (optional)
• 1/2 t salt

wet:

• 2/3 C sucanat
• 1/2 stick of softened butter
• 1 egg
• 2 t vanilla
• 1 C milk
• 1 1/2 C berries

crumb topping:

• 5 T cold butter, sliced
• 1/2 C rice flour
• 2/3 C brown sugar
• 2 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t salt

optional: powdered sugar for dusting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease an 8×8 square pan or bundt pan with non-stick spray.

In a medium bowl combine dry ingredients.  Whisk together so they are well blended.

In a medium mixing bowl or stand mixer cream sucanat and butter for 3 – 4 minutes until light colored and fluffy.

Add egg and vanilla, and cream for 2 more minutes.

Add dry ingredients and mi on low to just combine.

Add half the milk in a steady stream, and mix on low to combine.  Continue adding small amounts and mixing until a thick batter is formed.  Turn up mixer speed and beat until fluffy.

Switch to the paddle attachment or use a large spoon to fold in the blackberries until they are well distributed.  Transfer batter to the prepared pan.

In a food processor or by hand mix the crumb topping ingredients.  This will be a lumpy mix; combine until the butter is well distributed in the dry ingredients.

If using a bundt pan, depress a trench in the middle of the dough and spoon the crumb topping into it.  It’s easier to remove the coffee cake if the crumb topping doesn’t contact the edges of the pan.  If using a square pan distribute the crumb evenly over the surface.

Bake for approximately 60 minutes, checking at 45 minutes and every 5 – 10 minutes after.  It can be hard to determine doneness because the berries will coat a knife.  If the center appears solid when the pan is shaken the cake is done.  If you are concerned, insert a knife in the center and gently pull back to look at the texture of the cake; you should see cake crumb and not batter.

Remove from the oven and allow it to rest for 5 minutes, then turn the bundt pan out on a plate, or serve the square pan out in cubes.  Garnish with sifted powdered sugar, and enjoy!

Don’t you just want to snorgle that?  I did.  I bought a pound of it.

So I only just now got around to starting to spin it.  My goal is to make a low twist soft worsted single, something like Malabrigo Worsted or Manos.  I want to make another sweater along the lines of my Ingenue, except from wool I spin myself.  This sweater is by far my favorite sweater; I have to talk myself out of simply wearing it all winter long.  A second similar sweater in rotation would be a good thing!

I think I got it in one:

I”m very happy with how the yarn and the swatch has come out.  I spun it up on my Moswolt M2, which I’m less happy with.  I have decided I don’t need to make friends with Irish tension.  It pulls too hard for me.  I am going to make certain I can reproduce the yarn with scotch tension on the Kromski, and if I can the Moswolt is going to be listed for sale.

This weekend I’m spending a small amount of time spinning as a break from pattern editing.  I have something getting published Real Soon Now I’m excited about.  But work!!  So much work!!  I’m learning how much work goes into developing patterns.  This time last year I had no idea.  I thank all of the folks who are supporting me in this endeavor- I couldn’t do it without you.

First, hat tip to Ragen at “Dances with Fat” for reminding me to separate shame and judgement from my body’s current shape and size. She advocates the Health at Every Size philosophy.  I tripped over her blog a couple months ago, and have been reading and enjoying it since.  Something I read this morning in my pre-caffeinated state started me cogitating on not being at my desired level of fitness at the moment.

I don’t know if it’s weight that does me in specifically, although that can’t help. Particularly given the arthritic spinal injuries I have to manage, losing weight would empirically reduce the force gravity can apply to my damaged joints, and I expect that would help.

However, I KNOW exercising is critically important to feeling well, at least inside this skin I’m inhabiting. I’ve felt awful at my thinnest adult weight and fantastic while carrying around more than I have going on right now. Fitness level seems to be a better predictor of wellness for me than weight, and every time I’ve had a substantial weight loss it’s been preceded by an increase in my fitness level.

Dieting, if I’m not already aerobically fit, is a recipe for feeling awful.  When I’m in good enough shape that I can tackle a 5-10 mile hike over moderate terrain and expect to feel energized at the end rather than terrible, it only takes a little nudge to my diet to get me losing weight.

I know I need to exercise.  I’m not getting the exercise I need.  I’ve lost the fitness level I had built up when I moved here from Philly.  I don’t like huffing when I have to carry a 20 lb bag up a hill.  I don’t like the aches in my feet and legs that I know will go away if I use them more regularly.  I’ve been feeling bad about my inability to exercise, and getting angry at myself, but it hasn’t been helping.  I’ve just gotten into a downward shame spiral with no bottom.

So, thanks to Ragen, I was doing some soul searching this morning.  Somehow I let go of the usual “I’m not exercising because I’m a lazy lard bucket and I need to fix that NAO” language, and took a moment to think about why I haven’t been exercising.  I realized the issue is competing priorities, and the priorities exercise is competing with are legitimate. They include keeping my job and sleeping.

The times of day I do best exercising, historically speaking, are times when I need to be at work. I’ve always been a morning person and exercise has best fit in my schedule first thing after getting up. The other time that works well is lunch time. Neither of those are viable since I work east coast hours from the west coast.  Exercising before work would mean getting up and going by 4:30 am, and that’s never going to happen.  Exercising at lunch time would mean missing the 3-4pm hour out east, which is the cherry meeting time.  That schedule block has been filled on my calendar every day for 7 years.  I need my job.  Generally, I like my job.  Having this job means I have to find a different time to exercise than I’ve ever been successful with in the past.

The time I’ve been trying to make work is after work, in the early afternoon. This has always been an energy low point in my day, and since I started working early mornings I’ve taken to frequently napping in that time slot. In the long run exercising instead will increase my energy level, but on any given day I may be experiencing a legitimate sleep deprivation, and I will always be feeling tired.  Particularly if there’s something I would like to do in the evening I may have a legitimate need to nap, since I don’t want to konk out on friends at 8pm just when we’re meeting up to do something after dinner.

I have more understanding of my difficulties exercising after looking at my decision making process objectively. I need exercise, but I need sleep and a job too. Making priority calls between them is tough. It’s not surprising I’m having a hard time getting regular exercise to happen, given this priority conflict.

So I don’t know how to solve it. But at least now I have more insight into the problem I’m trying to solve, which helps tremendously.  Somehow approaching myself gently with understanding feels so novel.

Today I was in no mood to hop on the treadmill after work.  But I did feel like garden puttering, so that’s what I did.  Instead of getting frustrated with myself for not wanting to get on the treadmill, I went out and watered and weeded.  Light aerobic work, but more than I would have gotten had I napped.  After the gardening I felt like continuing to move, so did some yoga and pilates.  Nothing rigorous enough to break a heavy sweat, but enough to get my heart rate and respiration up.

It’s a step.  I am content with that.  Tomorrow I’ll take another one.