back at the ol' homestead
My friends are back from Kauai (at least, I assume they are) so I spent last night at my own home, with my own furry friends. I'm not sure they even knew I was gone, just that their food bowl was empty. Everything quickly settled back to normal: Toby took a long nap in the laundry basket, the baby curled up with me on the couch and watched Law & Order, and Max hung out on the top of the couch-back cushions. Whoop de do, what a terribly exciting life we lead.
Today I went to the gym for the first time in awhile, not because I was housesitting but because I was working so much lately that following my early-morning gym routine wasn't possible. It's unfortunate, because I could feel myself just getting fatter and fatter. I had actually signed up to do a year-long diet study at Stanford, in which I would be randomized to one of four popular diets (Atkins, traditional, Ornish, Zone), receive 8 weeks of classes on how to do the diet properly, then would "do my best" to stay with the diet for a year, with various measurement checkpoints along the way. Stanford is doing
this study "to scientifically test the health claims being made by their proponents. Findings will fill important gaps in our knowledge, and have an impact on both consumer and health professionals who remain confused about the benefits and risks of these diets." It's actually a really cool thing, but I had to take my name off the list because of conflicts between the meeting times in the fall, and classes.
But, today I started the Zone diet, on my own. Atkins doesn't work for me -- I actually gained a lot of weight during the induction phase, and I just can't survive without some sort of carbs. I walked around for a few weeks like a drooling zombie, without any carbs. It was pretty pathetic, and not conducive to work. I am eating my Zone breakfast right now, which is two pieces of rye bread, topped with swiss cheese and wheat germ, broiled in the toaster oven. It's really good, actually. I pick my meals through
eDiets, and since I'm lazy, I tend to eat the same breakfast, lunch and snacks for a whole week. It makes grocery shopping much easier.
