I’ve been good this week. Very, very good. I have attended all three Pilates sessions. I also played a round of golf on Tuesday. Other than the rather large piece of beef I ate last night, I have been doing pretty well on portion control. I’ve been sticking to low-fat cottage cheese and non-fat yogurt during the day. Had salmon and salad one night. Had halibut and vegetables and salad the next night. Then it was sautéed mixed vegetables with the gorgeous steak last night. Tonight it is lamb chops with a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad. For snack, I take a handful of compliant nuts. Round that out with a glass of bourbon and/or wine, and that is pretty much how I normally eat. It all comes down to portion control, I guess. I ought to think about doing something about that!

Have had a very busy and fun past three days. And along with busy and fun, of course, comes the consumption of avoids. Friday was a game of golf with the girls. My scores are slowly coming down. Hopefully in a month (or less) I’ll be hitting mostly acceptable scores. It was a hot, muggy day, so we cheated and rode carts for the second half of the round. I feel I’m old enough now to actually listen to my body and not argue with it about overdoing things. I drank a beer after the golf. Actually, beer is neutral for me, but I generally try not to drink it because of the calories. I don’t drink “lite” beers. It has to be a meaty micro-brew or nothing at all. Then the family went to dinner at one of the daughter’s favorite restaurants called the Sushi Boat. They make excellent sushi, and I can usually be good about not eating avoids. They served a salad that had sesame oil avoid) in it. Then they served miso soup (avoid). I think I did okay with my sushi order. I did use the soy sauce, though (avoid). After dinner I took daughter to a live improvisation performance from the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway? It was really good. Very funny. Didn’t get home till 11:30pm.

Had to get to bed really quick because I had meet some friends at the park ‘n’ ride early in the morning to go to a barbershop workshop about 40 miles north. But before getting up, I had a really rotten night’s sleep. I’m sure all the avoids kept me awake. I was absolutely starving in the middle of the night. And I never get hungry at night. I’m sure I dozed on and off. But it was a very long night. In the morning my stomach was making such obnoxious noises! I ate a couple ounces of leftover steak to calm it down before I took off for the workshop. I should have taken my own lunch, because they served sandwiches with chips and cookies at the break in the workshop. I ate it all. After the lunch, everybody practically fell asleep during the afternoon’s presentation. I could tell it was the bread that put us all to sleep. Dinner was compliant. Beef and coleslaw.

Today was the second half of the workshop, and I decided to just go ahead and blow the whole weekend. Had another sandwich. Then indulged in some homemade brownies one of the other participants had brought. The workshops were great. Learned a lot of stuff.

So, tomorrow will be penance day. A new week to start it all over again. I don’t see any eating challenges ahead of me for a couple of weeks. I will do my best to get back into control.

The weekend wasn’t quite as compliant as I had envisioned. Hubby decided that Memorial Day was going to be a designated “carb” day for him. So, that meant that we had yummy designer french bread with dinner, which was a pot of my famous chili (all totally compliant). And then I made a strawberry shortcake to die for. Northwest strawberries are ripe two weeks early this year. These strawberries are so sweet you really don’t need to add any sweetener or anything to them. They are perfect all by themselves. But anyway, back to the dessert. It was a recipe hubby found on one of those internet cooking sites. Had lots of heavy cream and some sugar, and of course the dreaded shortcake part. Ah! It was divine. Both of us woke up this morning just starving! And our stomachs were rumbling up a storm. That always happens when we have “carb” days. So, that will do it for him for awhile, and any of my poor food choices will by all my doing. At least I could blame yesterday on him.

On another note, I was musing yesterday about the different food choices between secretors and non-secretors. I spent the first year and a half on the diet as a secretor, because it was before the book Live Right for Your Type was published. I was allowed potatoes, but not tomatoes. Now I can eat tomatoes, but not potatoes. I like it better this way. As a secretor coffee was neutral, now it is an avoid. It is something I haven’t stopped, though. I still have one cup in the morning. I think what I like best about being a non-secretor is that bourbon is neutral. It is avoid for secretors. The hard part about being a non-secretor is that the beneficial food list seems so short. So many of the beneficial foods for secretors, like bananas and common fish varieties are just neutral for non-secretors. A lot of the dairy that we B’s love is beneficial for secretors, but becomes neutral for non-secretors. It’s not very easy to eat mostly beneficials. And of course living with a family that thinks the diet is all bunk, anyway, is pretty hard, too. But I didn’t start this paragraph to get all depressed about what I can’t have. I enjoy the foods that are good for me. And I’m very grateful to be a “B”.

We’re having the coldest, wettest Memorial Day Weekend here in the Northwest that I can remember. It hasn’t made it up to 60 degrees in days. Yesterday hubby and I participated in a Rally for the Cure golf tournament. It was so cold! It rained off and on the whole time, too. Our team didn’t make fools of ourselves, luckily. We didn’t win any prizes, either. Came in at about the middle of the pack. There were moments of great fun, despite the cold and rain.

I must say, that since my naturopath gave me that dose of homeopathic Platina the other day, my head has been amazingly clear. I knew I was a bit fuzzy most of the days, and it would clear up mid-afternoon, but didn’t realize how chronic it was until it was gone. She said to be really careful with it and not take it very often. It’s pretty potent stuff.

Today’s plan is for daughter and me to get the dog groomed. He’s pretty scruffy and stinky. It will be pretty easy to eat compliantly over this holiday weekend. We don’t have any plans to eat out with friends. Should be pretty low-key.

Jim's song lyrics are getting to me, I've gotta do it, too.

Well, I went to the dreaded Dr appointment to get the bad news about my blood tests…NOT!! What a surprise, things have been working! Total cholesterol dropped from 248 to 197. HDL up from 57 to 61, LDL down to 119 from 166. Triglycerides were down to 59 from 125. The whole heart risk ratio went from 4.2 down to 3.1 – which translates into practically no heart risk at all. Glucose dropped from 113 to 96. A1C was pretty steady at 5.6. Anyway, this really has had me pumped all day. So, the plan for the next 3 or 4 months is to stop the Red Rice Yeast to see if the cholesterol goes back up, or if the dietary and stress level changes are effective enough in keeping it down. I’m also cutting the blood pressure remedy in half. Talk about an incentive to keep on going in the right direction. I’m ready to take the straight and narrow path! The Doc also gave me a homeopathic dose of something called Platina. It is supposed to help me with these feelings of apathy and malaise I’ve been experiencing lately.

We bought a new refrigerator, and it was delivered today. Hubby and I decided that if daughter was going to be living in the house for any length of time, then she has to keep her food separate from ours. So, we moved the old fridge into the utility room and she can keep all the junk foods and carbohydrates she wants to in there. Just so they are out of our sight. There’s only so much we can do with will power. And sometimes, late at night, just before bedtime, my guard weakens, and I’ve stuffed something sweet or bready of hers into my mouth. (YUM!)

Okay, then .. upward and onward!