Smaller plates, less white foods – a second helping

The following is a second helping of an earlier post, not the food itself. Since we are doing more boredom eating and likely eating more comfort food, here are a couple of tips that help me keep my weight somewhat level. Use smaller plates and eat less white foods.

The latter is not a race connotation. It is a reference to those fattening carbs – potatoes, pasta, rice and breads. And, we sure love those items. So, the key to their intake, short of abstinence from them, is portion control – use a smaller plate and don’t go back for seconds (or limit what seconds look like).

I have been able to slowly take off and keep off the pounds. This has been an extended journey over five years involving light exercises each morning, walking and hiking and shrinking portions. The key to the latter is eat less of the good tasting, bad foods.

So, what has worked for me are some of the following:

– use a smaller plate for meals
– share meals of take out food (order one steak, potato, salad for the two of you)
– eat fewer potatoes, less pasta, rice and only one piece of bread, if you must
– eat bread-less (or maybe one bun) hamburgers, hotdogs, sandwiches
– when snacking, do not take the bag to the couch, put what you want in a small bowl
– when snacking, filling items like dried fruits or mixed nuts will pacify that hunger pang
– eat more green, red, and yellow foods, especially the green ones

If you are pre-diabetic, watch any fruits because of the sugar intake, and definitely cut down on the carbs, because the body will convert them to sugar. Also, unsalted or lightly salted nuts are better than those laden with salt. If you indulge one night, just make-up for it the next few days. I have a target weight. When I pop over it a few pounds, then I will eat more salads for lunch.

But, please do not take my advice by itself and check with you doctor before you do anything drastic. One final note – know your numbers: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose. This will help you devise a long term plan.

Tuesday’s Gone with the Wind – a few breezy topics

Today, a lot of voting will be occurring across the US. In one party, the choice is between a more rational and reasonable female and a profane, inane and illicit acting male who is guilty of fraud and defamation and may be guilty of sedition. The fraudulent acting guy will likely win. But, why split hairs?

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court said the male candidate cannot be removed from ballots. That is not a surprise, but we do need to have these very important trials before the November election. Whether he is removed from ballots or not, we need to know if a judge and jury say Trump is a traitor. Irrespective of those judgements, the insurrection would not have happened and election meddling would not have occurred if the weak-minded former president was not in the White House. As noted in Cassidy Hutchinson’s book “Enough,” Trump is alleged to have instructed to staff “I cannot tell people I lost, go change it.”

On a different subject, three gambling houses are advertising coming to my state of North Carolina. They are using celebrities to sell their gambling facilitation. Sadly, most people will lose money gambling. Some will lose a great deal. Making it easier to lose money is not a thing to advertise. I find it funny that the NFL refused to allow a team in Las Vegas for the longest time due to gambling. That is long gone as gambling, fantasy or real games, are an ingrained part of the league and other sports.

Gambling is an addiction. But, even those who are not addicted, it is a losing battle. Maybe we should think of the former president as an addiction. In my view, he is definitely a losing battle. But, for some he is an all-consuming addiction.

David Feherty, Tom Watson and me (a revisit)

The following is a repeat post from five years ago. Its theme is still applicable for many today. Please share it with those who may need it.

I am an alcoholic, yet I am approaching the twelfth (now seventeenth) anniversary of my last drink. I bring this up today as I learned in an interview yesterday that David Feherty, a retired golfer, golf announcer and truly comical person, is also an alcoholic, along with some other demons he has to manage.

Several things about Feherty’s interview with Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel are worth noting. First, he credits his second wife for her tough love – after a final straw, she said you have 30 days to get clean or I am gone.

He also credits Tom Watson, one of golf’s greatest players, whose own career was almost derailed by alcoholism. As Feherty was interviewing Watson, the latter asked Feherty if he was alright. Feherty said he was not, but asked how could he tell? Watson said “I saw it in your eyes.” He then answered Feherty’s question of what did he see? Watson said bluntly, “I saw myself.”

Watson invited Feherty to his home and helped him through managing his demons. Feherty was sober for ten years, but fell off the wagon when his son took his own life after fighting a losing battle with the same demons his father faced. It should be noted Feherty’s alcoholism masked that he was clinically depressed and bipolar. His son inherited the problems. After renewing the fight, Feherty has returned to being sober.

Alcoholism or any addiction are tough enemies. You never fully defeat them. You put a lid on them, but they still simmer on the back of the stove. Over time, the heat is turned down, but it never is fully extinguished. In my case, I still want to have a drink, but it is a fainter flame today.

The key lesson I learned from a colleague, whose husband fought alcoholism, is to say this mantra – I am not going to drink today. This is a key reason recovering alcoholics know how many days they have been sober. The other piece of advice is to find a substitute for the alcohol. It may be green tea, fruit, fruit juice, near-beer, tonic or soda water or a piece of candy. Now, for me, it is hot tea and all kinds of fruit, dried or fresh. (Update: Heineken now makes a great non-alcoholic beer.)

Life is hard. It is not uncommon for some people to use some form of anesthetic to sand the edges off difficulty. If you think you may have a problem, you do. Be honest with yourself, first, but be honest with your spouse or partner and your doctor. Most addicts lie to all of the above.

People ask me what was my trigger to change? Another colleague’s wife, who was as vivacious and funny as David Feherty, died from complications due to alcoholism. She was only 59, one year less than I am today. I was a train wreck waiting to happen. So, I got off the train. It was and still is hard. But, remember the mantra, I am not going to drink today. Then, don’t and say it again tomorrow.

An addiction not talked about enough

Today is one of the biggest gambling days in America – Super Bowl Sunday. The underlying dilemma in American life is far too many have a gambling problem. And, it has been and still is being fueled by a proliferation of sport gambling sites whose advertising rivals prescription drug marketing in frequency.

I have seen one data point on a John Oliver Last Week Tonight news report that said about 85%-ish of people lose money on these sites, but that may have been on only one site. The larger point is the people cleaning up are a few who use multi-variate statistical regression models to predict outcomes. Although the Oliver show is a comedy show, the underlying news reporting is well vetted and rivals or exceeds the veracity of that of pseudo-news channels.

The gambling site commercials are funny, but disgusting as well. The reason is the target audience as evidenced by the acting is the very people who lose their shirts. One commercial speaks to people betting on an outcome because the player’s mom will be in attendance.  The Oliver piece made fun of folks who celebrated tangible wins failing to remember the far greater number of tangible losses. In the comedic part of the episode, a wife pointed out her husband may have one $100, but was in the hole for $1,000.

Yet, this is just part of our gambling problem. State-wide lotteries take far more money from players than they give out. Winning a big sum gets the press, but that is due to its rarity. A news report saying John or Joanne Smith spend 50% of their paychecks on lottery tickets would not be riveting news, but a more frequent result.

Then there is all of the other betting going on where online and actual casinos are collecting money from people whose actual ability is well beneath their perceived ability. Gambling winners are far fewer in number. People who win a little have short memories.

If you know a person who has this problem, suggest they get help. There are a number of sites that can offer guidance. Yet, let me close with a dramatic story. A CEO in my hometown was fired by his Board of Directors and sent to jail for embezzling $38 million from the company to cover his gambling debts. Smart enough to become CEO, but weak enough to gamble it all way.

Gambling is an addiction, just like alcohol or drugs. It is also not very rewarding except for a small few and the broker of the gambling process. That is why a casino or website are on business – to collect money from your addiction.

We parents have let corporate interests and their puppets harm our children

It happens so insidiously. At the heart of all of this is corporations who are profitable are addicted to being profitable. So, they contribute to politicians to gain influence and a return on their investment. Quite often, our children are the ones harmed in this profit pursuit. This is especially true if the profits are on the pocket book desires of children.

Take the case of the cigarette brand icon Joe Camel. Tobacco companies swear Joe Camel was not designed to market their products to teens and adolescents. That is absolute “camel manure.” Of course, the icon was designed to market cigarettes to under-age users. We should not forget that a panel of tobacco CEOs lied in succession to a Congressional committee saying nicotine was not addictive when they knew that it was for about thirty years. Lying is modus operandi.

The reason for this post today is I read a story about US betting companies lobbying against more rules and regulations governing their marketing to children. Betting companies make money off people who feel they know what they are doing. It is that simple. Take fantasy sports leagues – the significant majority of bettors lose a lot, while a very of small percentage of bettors using multi-variable statistical regression models make money off them. So, more children betting means more money for the company.

Yet, this marketing to children is not new. Retailers make money selling to children. Clothiers make money designing the hot new fashion to kids, often recycled fashion from the past. And, even drug dealers have a profit model of hooking adolescents on their products.

But, it goes beyond direct sales to this audience. Fossil fuel companies represent the most subsidized industry by far. They make so much money they can afford to fund various disinformation campaigns and politicians to parrot what they want them too. There is a great movie called “Merchants of Doubt” which speaks to the ongoing disinformation campaign. Just to make a quick observation of their influence, the industry PR people did not like the term “global warming,” so they made us use the softer “climate change.” The people most impacted by their disinformation are our kids, who will inherit a world of trouble.

Finally, in the US, we have spineless politicians who aren’t courageous enough to deal with our spiraling US debt. This lack of courage is on both sides of the aisle. We must have spending cuts and tax increases both to solve our problem. Our kids will otherwise inherit a national budget where interest cost will exceed all other spending – military and social insurance programs.

If I were a teen, I would be increasingly vocal about the future. We need more outspoken folks like Greta Thunberg is on the global warming front. And, parents need to join in and help make better stewardship decisions to support a better world.

Replacing a bad habit with a good one

I was reading a post by M.L.Davis at the suggestion of our friend Roger regarding good things that happen when you make writing a habit. I have included a link to her blog below. As I mentioned to her, it reminded me of a book my niece suggested for me when I was discussing breaking a bad habit of mine called “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. I wrote a summary about the book in the link below.

Many of my older readers know that I am an alcoholic. But, I have not had a drink in going on sixteen years. A blog I wrote on my sixth anniversary remains by far my most frequented blog (link provided below). I think we all suffer from a bad habit or two that we would love to change. I believe that is the reason for the post’s relative popularity. My reasons for change were the wife of a colleague dying from complications from alcoholism and the recognition I was a train wreck waiting to happen.

The best piece of advice I received came from another colleague as we waited in an airport restaurant/ bar for our planes in Cincinnati. When she noticed me not ordering a drink early on in my sobriety, she said her husband went through this. She then said he used the mantra “I am not going to drink today.” There is a reason alcoholics can count the days of sobriety. It is a daily struggle.

Even today, there is a faint whisper of wanting a drink. It usually occurs during certain trigger moments, which Duhigg references in his book. My greater triggers were getting home from work and grilling out on Sunday. Unwinding from a stressful day sent me down an easy path to drinking. And, watching football or golf, while starting the grill became a cue for Happy Hour.

Recognizing these triggers is a way to change the habit. You have to substitute a good habit for the bad one. My good ones were fruit juices, popsicles, and tonic water. The alcoholic brain craves something sweet, so this allowed me to respond to the craving. Non-alcoholic beer helped some, but those added more calories than I wanted.

Regardless of your bad habit, identify its triggers and what happens next. I recall from the book about a worker who snacked too much at work. His cue was going to the restroom that took him past the breakroom. When he realized this, he changed his route and went for a quick walk.

The book is a good read. The attached post does highlight a few examples and teachings, but falls short of what Duhigg’s writings instruct. And, if you are an alcoholic or know someone, please offer the final link below. I have heard good feedback on it as I share what helped me with my problem.

4 Things That Happen When You Make Writing a Habit

https://musingsofanoldfart.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/the-power-of-habit/

https://musingsofanoldfart.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/six-years-alcohol-free-but-still-want-to-drink/

Now, sixteen years without a drink, but I still have that faint desire

The following is an updated post that was first published on my 6th anniversary of not drinking. The message still holds true, although the urge is still there but fainter.

I am an alcoholic. Yet, today is the sixteenth anniversary of my last drink. I have learned a lot about myself along the journey, but don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, stopping a habit is hard work. The thing I most learned is from an old colleague where we were waiting for our respective flights in an airport restaurant in Cincinnati, shortly after I stopped drinking. She gave me the best piece of advice courtesy of her husband who had stopped earlier that I will share with you now – I am not going to drink today.

You see, while I do not drink anymore, sixteen years later, I still want one. The urge is still there as a faint echo at times and as a stronger urge at other times. Usually, the stronger urges occur when I do something like cook on the grill on Sunday afternoon while watching the golf tournament, football, etc. As an alcoholic, you eventually don’t screw around, so I was drinking scotch on the rocks. Many at a time. Yet, with that said, there are many people with habits off other kinds of drinks. Chris Mullen, the great NBA basketball player spoke of being a beer alcoholic. Tom Watson, the famous golfer, almost derailed his career with wine and scotch.

Two things happened that caused me to do something about my problem while I still could. My doctor told me that taking action before it was too late was a major plus in my favor. Many wait until the train wheels come of the track.The first thing is the wife of a colleague of mine, who I knew and was one of the most vivacious people you would ever meet, died in her late fifties from complications due to alcoholism. To hear the diagnosis after she passed, when no one else knew she had an issue, was staggering. I wanted to see my kids become adults and witness their many life events. I wanted to be there for my wife. I knew I had that problem.

The second thing is what I started noticing at work late in the day. You see, I was what is called a “home drunk.” I would only drink when I got home after work and on weekends. Being a big, tall guy, I could hold my liquor, so I would easily down five or six doubles a night. I mentioned the scotch on the rocks. The scotch and waters drinks diminished the amount of water used over time until the water was no longer necessary. What I noticed late in the day at work is my body would begin craving the alcohol and I would get over-heated and red-faced. I was already on blood pressure medication in a stressful job, so I was a train wreck waiting to happen. It did not help matters that my father was an alcoholic before he quit late in life.

So, I had to stop. I started with a drug called Campril which is designed to wean you of your craving. I did that for a few weeks, but stopped that as well. The key is to substitute a new habit for the old one. If you do not, you will eventually drift back into the old one. I am now a green tea aficionado and drink a lot of fruit juices. At parties, I don’t mind ordering a nonalcoholic beer or tonic water. I don’t mind being around people who drink. Plus, you need to exercise as your sweet tooth can get out of hand due to the craving for sugar. But, the key is the lesson that my friend shared with me in the Cincinnati airport – I am not going to drink today.

It is a daily journey. The craving is still there. You just have to say, I am not going to drink today. People trying to stop drinking know the number of days they have not had a drink. This is the reason. It is a daily struggle. Over time, it becomes weeks, then months and now years of tracking the absence of alcohol use. It is hard, but it can be done. This is one reason people find places like Alcoholic Anonymous. The support group is amazingly helpful. I chose not to go that route, but that was a personal choice. The stressful job did not go away and, most importantly, I wanted to be there for my wife and children, so not going to AA was a time issue for me. If I had not stopped, I would have become a liability. Plus, it has given me a platform to talk openly with my kids about being aware of their medical history in me and my father.

A couple of other benefits of not drinking is your weight (again with the caution about the sweets) is easier to maintain. Alcohol has a lot of calories, so when you don’t drink, you can lose weight. The other is the money. Alcohol is an expensive habit. Take the time to add up what you spend per week on alcohol – the beer, wine and hard liquor. I estimated I was spending over $6,000 per year on alcohol. That can add up. Plus, the other stuff goes away and your health improves

Please feel free to share this with others who may have my problem. They should start with being truthful with themselves, their spouses and their doctors. Doctors have said when a patient tells them how much they drink, the doctor knows when the patient is understating the amount. Tell the doctor the truth. He or she cannot help you if you don’t. Do something while you can. It is hard, but if you do try to stop, remember these words – I am not going to drink today.

Friday follies and foibles Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo. For a no-longer-drinker, have a Corona or margarita for me. Those days are long behind me, thank goodness. Just a few miscellaneous follies and foibles to start the celebration.

I saw where The Donald is considering testifying in his rape trial. The judge has given him until Sunday at 5 pm to decide. Oh, I hope he does. When your history is one of making things up, getting in front of a judge and jury is not the best action Trump could take. An attorney once said he got Trump to change thirty or so statements during one deposition to avoid perjury. One deposition – 30 or so lies.

Speaking of lawsuits, I am delighted to see Disney suing the autocratic governor of Florida for infringing on their business. The governor is picking on the largest tourism destination in a state run by sales tax revenue using them as a scapegoat for wokeness, which many cannot define. The term is used as a weapon like any name calling term, but at its heart it is good to be universally accepting and supportive of all people’s rights. To me, this is just one of the many infringements the governor and his party are imposing on people.

Between, DeSantis and his twin Greg Abbott in Texas, two of the largest states in the US are so poorly governed. Abbott does not get the national press DeSantis gets, but he makes a similar habit of not taking criticism well, saying derogatory things and infringing on the rights of those who do not look like our Europeans immigrants that came here.

There are imperfect people in the Democrat party, but I can argue policy with them or ask why they have not followed through on campaign promises? Trump created a bigger mess at the southern border than existed before he became president, but Joe Biden has not made things better. We need to hold him to what he said he would do, as we are not holding to our ideals as we make it very difficult to come here.

Finally, we need to deal with our debt problem, but not paying our bills is not the solution. It is the result. We need serious fact based discussion on a variety of solutions including raising revenue and cutting expenses. Grandstanding changes as the Republicans in the House have done is not the way to go about this. We should remind Republicans, they are not very good at solving our debt problem especially when in charge. Think George W. Bush cutting taxes to eliminate a surplus budget and Donald Trump cutting taxes to increase the debt by $2 trillion. Anyone can cut taxes, but we have to pay did things and watch spending both.

The Millennium Trilogy movies – Swedish style

My wife and I gave the Swedish version of the movies about Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy* a viewing this past week. We came away extremely impressed and entertained. The movies and books are called:

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,”
“The Girl who played with Fire,” and
“The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest.”

We watched the movies in Swedish with English subtitles. They star Noomi Rapace as the girl with the dragon tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, and Michael Nyqvist as the lead journalist (and publisher) named Mikael Blomkvist for the investigative Millennium news magazine. There are numerous actors that have large screen time based on the movie and plot. Lena Endre plays Erika Berger, the editor of the Millennium and past and sometimes present love interest of Mikael. Mikael’s sister Annika, played by Annika Hallin, is an attorney whose role is more pronounced in the final Hornet’s Nest movie.

There was an English version of the first movie starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara which did well, but I think the movies need to be seen in Swedish as the culture and language lend themselves to the plot. Plus the two leads, Lisbeth and Mikael are so well played by Rapace and Nyqvist. The physicality and stoicism of Rapace brings so much to Lisbeth who has seen (and does see) more trauma than anyone should ever have.

The plots are detailed, but fast moving. The physical action is present, but not like the CGI movies where it is constant. There is lot to unpack through the dialogue, which is good. Subtitles help greatly as you can rewind and read what was said. To me, the Swedish language lends itself to the dialogue as it is not as overdramatized as American English sometimes is in movies. In fact, some of the best scenes are where Lisbeth just stares back at people who are there to use her rather than give them any fuel to add to the fire. And, when she does speak, she disarms people with her intellect and memory.

Each movie is rated highly by Rotten Tomatoes as is the English version. A key reason is each story and screenplay has a captivating plot and intrigue. If you have not seen the movies, give them a look. If you have, let me know what you think? Also, if you read the books, let me know how close the movies follow the books.

*Note: Per Wikipedia,

“Millennium is a series of best-selling and award-winning Swedish crime novels, created by journalist Stieg Larsson. The two primary characters in the saga are Lisbeth Salander, an asocial computer hacker with a photographic memory, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of a magazine called Millennium.

Larsson planned the series as having 10 installments, but completed only three before his sudden death in 2004.^[1][2] All three were published posthumously by Norstedts Förlag: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2005, The Girl Who Played with Fire in 2006, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest in 2007. Larsson’s novels were originally printed in Swedish, with English editions by Quercus in the United Kingdom and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States translated by Steven “Reg Keeland” T. Murray. The books have since been translated by many publishers in over 50 countries. By March 2015, 80 million copies of the first three books had been sold worldwide.”

Sunday morning comin’ down

Good morning one and all. It is a good day for frogs and ducks here. At least the soggy morning is knocking the pollen out of the air. Let me offer a quick advert for the generic versions of the Flonase spray. It works wonders here in our city of trees that send the pollen into the air.

Here a few random thoughts for this soggy Sunday morning.

With kudos to Kris Kristofferson, here is select stanza from one of his best songs “Sunday morning comin’ down:”

“Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day”

Sunday morning comes early after drinking much of the night before. Having been a single man, I can very much relate to the line “And found my cleanest dirty shirt.”

I am glad I don’t have to face those kinds of mornings anymore having quit alcohol going on sixteen years. The worst times, though, were late in the workday, when your body starts to crave the alcohol and your face turns red and you sweat. I do not miss those days, although I should say there remains the faintest of echoes of that craving even after fifteen plus years.

Speaking of drinking, one has to be drunk, stoned or high, to believe some of the BS coming out of certain politicians and opinion show hosts’ mouths. If people are still believing the horse manure that one particular opinion host (who has confessed gaslighting his audience) is spewing they need to either stop (or start) drinking. Sadly, I read some of these gaslit folks are ignoring the gaslighting admissions and believing his whitewashing about the “tourism” that went on January 6, 2021.

I also read the head of House committee to investigate “stuff,” who is known for his bullying and deceitful actions, is floundering. Apparently, the people he is investigating are more prepared than his committee is and are more prone to tell the truth. This committee head was rightfully denied membership on the House Select Committee looking into the January 6 insurrection as he had a conflict of interest with the investigation. Unlike that committee, his committee is throwing stuff against a wall to see what sticks.

Finally, it takes a lot of effort to so quickly fall into a hole and cover yourself with dirt. A newly elected congressman from New York continues to have revealed his past lies, sins, alleged crimes and actual crimes that he failed to be forthcoming about. It won’t take much longer, but his congressional career is close to an end. He should resign before he is recalled by the local Republicans (his own party). Why these stories were not vetted beforehand is beyond me. I am talking about the party he represents vetting him, not the opposition. Not unlike the Catholic Church turning a blind eye to pedophile priests, it damages the whole body when people like this go unchallenged by the leaders.

Again, Democrats are far from perfect, but I can argue policies, problems and solutions with Democrats all day. With Republicans, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at some of the stuff espoused as the truth. We need a viable conservative voice in our country, but until the party fixes itself, this vintage is not it.