Well, no sooner we stop our Thanksgiving remembrances, then it’s Holiday party time! It seems like it’s one right after another coming up. Sunday I went out with the girls to see a local musical comedy revue. It was pretty good. A light story built around lots of singing and dancing. We had lunch beforehand, and I was compliant with sliced Thai beef with lettuce, tomatoes, pineapple and cucumber. At the theater while I popped into the ladies room before the performance, my ‘friends’ bought me a glass of champagne. I couldn’t refuse, but I really don’t like alcohol that early in the day.

Last night was another girls party at a friend’s house. It was one of those gift exchange parties where you get to steal gifts away if you like something that someone else has opened and it is your turn. It was potluck, of course. I brought a compliant tray of sushi. (No, I didn’t make it, just ordered it from the sushi place). There were a couple chicken dishes that were no problem to pass up. I think what did me in was the desserts. Someone made a dyno-mite fruitcake with apricots and pecans. I also had to sample some cookies, too. Couldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings, ya know. I think that if I had stuck to portion control, I would have found that I did pretty well at avoiding avoids. It was the portion control thing.

The secret is portion control. I have the secret!

Well, it was a different sort of Thanksgiving Day for the three of us. We decided to have the holiday meal at a restaurant. Hubby just didn't want leftovers in the house to tempt him.

We made reservations at a Seattle restaurant, which was the first mistake. A closer one would have been a better choice. We spent twice as long on the freeway as normal, due to extremely heavy traffic. Everyone was on the road traveling to their own harvest feast. Plus there was a big traffic accident to wade our way through. We were an hour late for our reservation, but they were still able to seat us fairly quickly.

The meal started with a very promising pumpkin soup. The bibb lettuce, cranberry, blue cheese and raspberry vinaigrette salad that followed was very nice. The rolls in the breadbasket were cold and chewy, so I didn’t have any trouble skipping that. Alas, the turkey was very dry. The vegetables were cold, and overcooked. The gravy was too spicy. The mashed potatoes were grainy. The stuffing had promise, but had been sitting around a bit too long. The bottle of Riesling helped a lot.

The desserts were wonderful. The three of us nibbled on a key lime mousse and a dense chocolate cake. I was careful just to take tiny tastes.

I wasn’t disappointed in the day. It was fun to be with my family and have a new adventure. I looked around the restaurant while we were eating and marveled at all the different families enjoying each other. There were smiles on all faces as they engaged in jokes and conversations. There were lots and lots of smiles. It was marvelous. That was food for my soul this Thanksgiving Day.

Oh, you gotta know it’s the holiday season. There are eating orgies everywhere. Let me tell you about this weekend!

Saturday was my birthday, so hubby took me to Seattle for a night on the town. We went to Jazz Alley to see Taj Mahal. He was as good as ever. In fact, I think he has matured into a great entertainer, as long with his good music. All I had there was a vodka martini, with olives. After the show we went to the Dahlia Lounge for dinner. Tom Douglas is a pretty well known chef who owns four restaurants in Seattle. He puts food together in ingenious ways, and it always tastes good. Usually I can find a compliant dinner on the menu, but this time there was always one big avoid stuck in the middle. And these are the kind of meals that you don’t dare ask for a substitution, or it ruins the art of the presentation. The lamb dish had lentils in it. The salmon dish had polenta with it. The halibut had potatoes. So, I ended up ordering a five spice duck with rice and vegetable complement. They bake their own bread on premises, so that could not be avoided. I was too stuffed for dessert, but hubby ordered their signature doughnut holes with marscipone and raspberry preserves. I finally forced one down, but I was too full to really enjoy it. I have to add that one manhattan and a bottle of red wine (shared) accompanied the dinner. We spent the night in a nearby hotel to avoid driving home with that amount of alcohol in ‘his’ system.

On Sunday, we invited two couples over for dinner. Hubby decided he wanted to do an Italian dinner, so I was conscripted to make my famous spaghetti sauce. There are no avoids in my sauce. It is a recipe my mother always used, and it still stands up to the test of time. Appetizers were assorted olives, some mixed nuts, and a brie with water crackers. The salad course was tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. The spaghetti sauce was served over some really good penne (wheat, of course) accompanied by toasted crostini with anchovy paste. This was served with a couple good bottles of Chianti. We sort of cheated on dessert by buying individual pumpkin tarts. But, after a heavy meal like that, not too many of us were even interested in the tarts.

I had pasta eyes this morning. Lots of edema around the face. My nose was totally stuffed up, too. I hope this isn’t going to be the norm for the next six weeks. I’m going to have to take it day by day and eat mostly beneficials between these holiday happenings. Wish me luck!

One of our local mainstream grocery stores has built a huge ‘health food’ section. I was enjoying perusal of the shelves. I succumbed to an impulse to by a bag of spelt pretzels. I haven’t had spelt pretzels for a very long time. When I ate like a secretor, I would buy them by the case from Vitaspelt. But I stopped doing that when I decided to treat all grains as avoids. I overindulged and ate two servings worth Tuesday night after chorus rehearsal. I was up a pound the next morning. You know something? Those pretzels don’t taste as good as they used to. I think I’ll just toss the rest of the bag.

Ack! It’s a gray, foggy day. I think the sky was the brightest about 8:00am today. Pretty gloomy. So far today, I had my naughty cup of coffee. Then I drank my membrane fluidizer cocktail. Did some walking on the treadmill. The S-I belt is helping quite a bit to keep the pain down. Ate a couple of eggs for lunch. Don’t know what hubby is planning for dinner. Too early to tell.

***

Took daughter out shopping this afternoon. Only spent thirty dollars on her. I got off pretty easy this time. She wanted Waikiki Meatballs for dinner, so we went ahead and bought the ingredients while we were out. Ground beef, green pepper, cracker crumbs (avoid), onions, canned pineapple chunks, vinegar and brown sugar (another avoid). Put this over rice, and it is a very filling meal.

Found some spelt pretzels at the grocery store, and bought them on impulse. I’m supposed to be staying away from grains. I should be able to make them last quite awhile. The bag said one serving is 20 pretzels. I don’t think I had nearly that many today.

I’m not doing very well at eating my large meal early. I think it’s going to be day by day. If I can get a couple days of early meals in a week to start, it will be okay.

So goes another Sunday ramble.

Honestly, I did not intend for a whole week to go by without blogging. But, here it is Thursday again. I’d best get to it.

Last Friday I had my first appointment with a Nutritional Therapist. She is actually my Pilates instructor who recently got certified in nutritional therapy; so I’m letting her get some experience on me. Even though I follow the BTD pretty religiously, I sure have some bad habits that glared out from the results of her initial interview and examination.

First of all, is the timing of my meals. I tend to eat the bulk of my food toward the end of the day. In fact, most of the time it is after noon before I get to my first meal. Then, because of our stores not even closing till 7:00 PM, it is usually 8:30 before we get our large meal of the day. Now, if it were completely up to me, I’d find a way to reverse this. I could arrange to eat a larger meal at noon, and then taper down from there. But I can’t get my family to change for me. They are used to it this way. Hubby is the cook. So, anyway, I have changed it so that I do get some nourishment by mid-morning. I have begun taking the Membrane Fluidizer Cocktail again. I decided on this, because I am low on EFA's. I shake it up when I wake up, and by the time I’m ready to leave the house, it is all smoothed out and drinkable. Now, I need to cut down on the portions at the evening meal. That is my next task to work on.

She also found my adrenals to be quite overworked. She prescribed a glandular supplement to help support those. Of course, deep down in my heart of hearts, I know that if I stopped drinking my 1 cup of coffee in the morning and changed it green tea, it would help the adrenals immensely. Somehow, I can’t seem to make myself take that leap. The coffee is there, it’s ready, and I like it.

I go again next week so she can poke and prod around a little more and see if the glandular supplement is doing its job.

I’ve been visiting the e-diets website this week. It is a really nice and informative place to go. I think those that like to have their menus planned for them and their shopping lists ready to go will really benefit from the site. I have noticed a few small errors in the food lists but nothing glaring.

I especially like the journal concept. I say concept, because it is cumbersome to use. I was advised to call technical support to see if there is an easier way to get the journal to work. I just haven’t had a chance to call yet. E-diets will even spell out your exercise program for you day by day. You plug in what equipment you have, such as theraband, exercise ball, weights, etc and then out spits the weeks exercises for you.

I will continue to snoop around the E-diets to keep encouraging everyone. Unfortunately the diet is set up for secretors. There are one or two grain servings each day. Way too many for this little old nonsecretor. Plus, since I’m not the meal planner in my family, it is too difficult to do it just for one. And, I gotta face it.....I'm too lazy to do it.

Besides, I like tomatoes!