Saturday, September 20, 2008

back from my trip

I got back from Germany yesterday and I'm very jetlagged.   As part of my usual splurge when a trip is over with, I ordered a medium decaff soy mocha yesterday.  Well, it wasn't decaff!   I was nervous all day and couldn't sleep at night despite my lack of sleep from the night before.  it was awful.  my left eyelid was twitching.  That was two shots of espresso.  It's mostly worn off now and I'm tired and just have to get through the day.  I had a great yoga class today.  I always have a great yoga class when I'm jetlagged, I don't know why.  Anyway, this blog isn't supposed to be about jetlag.  So I was not super healthy on the trip.  I drank about one 16 oz beer a day, and German beer is pretty strong.  I drank about 1 small decaff soy latte per day.  At first I ate too much because going out for lunch and dinner is just too much.  Then I got into a groove where I had museli and fruit for breakfast at the hotel, fruit from a fruit stand for lunch, and then dinner from a restaurant.  That worked out well.  At least I didn't eat too much until the evening . We rotated between Italian and Thai food mostly.  I had one meal at a German restaurant, and even though I got all vegan food, it was still rich and gave me a stomach ache.  The Italian and Thai places were pretty good.  I ate a lot of bread at the Italian place.  I hope it didn't have milk in it.  I ate curries at the Thai place.   Everything tasted very salty since I'm not used to it, especially the bread.   I had a great time socially and professionally.  It was a great trip.  I am weird though the way I succumb to peer pressure with the alcohol.  I don't even really like drinking any more and yet I drank.  Another weird psychological thing is my desire to splurge when I get home.  So I had a Nothing Muffin and two (vegan) cookies at the Co-op when I got home.  The muffin was good.  The cookies taste like flour and salt.  They either aren't good bakers or I'm not a big fan of cookies anymore.   But it's weird how I want to splurge on this stuff even when it doesn't even taste that good.  For comparison I made a "shake" with frozen banana, carob powder and dates, and it tasted better than the unhealthy stuff I splurged on.  but I still wanted to splurge.  Maybe it's just a habit that will die away over time as I realize I don't want it that much.  It takes me a long time to break habits though I eventually succeeded with the caffeine and alcohol (almost, except when traveling!).  oh, a funny thing about the caffeine.  it makes my forehead crinkle.  I used to have a crinkly forehead all the time and I noticed over the last year that I don't have it anymore.  Then yesterday I saw that I had it again.  it's the caffeine!  it makes my eyes pop open and my forehead crinkle.  I notice my friend Mike's forehead does the same and he drinks a lot of coffee.  I'm going to start looking more at people's foreheads and see if it's common.  My forehead definitely looks better without caffeine.  

I went grocery shopping and got all kinds of wonderful food.  There's so much local harvest now.  And I decided I don't want to be raw, at least not 100%.  For one thing, I haven't seen any science that shows it's better.  Plus, winter is approaching and to eat raw in Wisconsin, I'd have to get all my food from the tropics.  That's not eco-friendly.  Plus I am getting in the mood for fall foods like potatoes and squash.   I'm even thinking of eating beans again.  One thing I recall is that beans didn't used to bother me so much and maybe it's because I used to eat more grains.  So I think I'll try eating beans with grains when I eat them.  So I'll probably go back to more of the Fuhrman and McDougall eating plans now.   That means eating lots of leafy green vegetables and other vegetables, fruit, some grains and beans, and a few nuts and seeds.   The thing you should not eat are oils and salt.  And I think I might try to avoid wheat since that is not as healthy as other grains.    so that should be easy enough.  Today I enjoyed my healthy food more than anything I ate in Germany I think.  I'll post that next.

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