mizducky's migrations: a weight management blog with attitude

Weekly weigh-in -- plus: 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet

First, the numbers:

• Today's weight: 289.5 lbs
• Weight lost since last week's weigh-in: 1.0 lbs
• Cumulative weight loss: 44.5 lbs.

Hmmm. Not to slight a one-pound weight loss (repeat the mantra: it's not about the number on the scale), but it does merit a little analysis. Not sure whether this slow-down is due to my being a little "loose" with my food over the Memorial Day weekend, or to more hormonal randomness (I'm also experiencing some water-retention symptoms), or to sun-spots or other phenomena beyond my control. But, assuming it is due to something within my control, I'll just try being a little more "achtung!" about all aspects of my health regimen this week, and see what transpires.

Meanwhile, I happened to be randomly Googling around, and stumbled upon another intriguing website:

Link: 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Official Website for Weight Loss Support - Home.

This looks to be a fairly large and active on-line community for women working on weight loss. They're taking a "broad church" approach, not advocating any one diet, but rather telling everyone to bring it, whatever their current "it" is, and share whatever tips and tricks they've learned with others. Sounds like my kinda place! I totally do not need yet another on-line time sink--I'm too good at generating them all by myself!--but I do think I want to check these folks out some more.

Here's a new concept: the exercise splurge

Over the past several years of grappling with the arthritis, gout, and resulting chronic fatigue, I often discovered myself struggling to maintain a precarious balance between just enough exertion vs. overdoing it.

This is a juggling act all too well known to anybody coping with a chronic but variable health condition. Some days there's just no getting around the fact that you feel like warmed-over crap, and between feeling physically icky and feeling depressed over the ickiness, all you want to do is just crawl back into bed and hope it all goes away. But then come the days when you wake up feeling mysteriously, miraculously good--and you're so overjoyed that you want to rush out and do all the things you used to do and feared you would never be able to do again. To the point that, the day after, you're back in physical agony, and even more depressed than before.

So then you try to rest up and recuperate the best you can, and the next time you have a really good day you cautiously go out and do just one or two things you hadn't been able to do in a long time. And either that's still too much, and you're back in the agony bed again, or it goes okay, so you try a few more things, and then a few more beyond that ... and then you rediscover the agony. Wash rinse repeat, over and over and over and over again.

Well, now I'm finding the cycle a little more complicated, but a whole lot more encouraging. My physical condition is definitely improving as I eat more healthily, remove more weight, and take more pressure off my long-suffering joints. So the temptation is huge to get overly enthused about this real improvement, and totally overshoot into overdoing-it land. And because my condition keeps changing, it's much harder to figure out where that fine line between doing and overdoing has strayed to at any given moment. Mind you, this all falls into the class of Problems You Like To Have -- as in, I much prefer being confused over an ever-improving capacity for exercise, to being confused (and demoralized) over an ever-worsening capacity. But it's still a challenge, and still requires a certain amount of cautious attention.

Well, this past Friday night I decided to throw caution to the wind, and the day after I definitely paid for it. But this time, for a change, I've decided that overdoing was actually a good thing rather than a bad thing. You see, I went to hear a friend's band perform Saturday night, and I actually got up to dance. And not just for one song either, but for a good five or six numbers.

Now this is significant because, for me, dancing to rock music is a whole lot more than just mere exercise, or a mere social activity. I am a member of one of those generations for whom rock music is a deeply meaningful thing, and dancing at rock shows akin to a full-body psycho-spiritual experience. Time was when I could stay on the dance floor seemingly for hours, dancing myself into a trance, to the point of having a something akin to a shamanic experience on the dancefloor. Dancing was also my personal liberation from others' narrowminded opinion of my physical appearance--it taught me to love and respect my body just as it was, at a time when my bod sure wasn't earning me a helluva lotta love or respect from my peers or my family. In other words, to paraphrase Lou Reed, from my teens onward my life was almost literally saved by rock'n'roll.

So when my physical condition first got bad enough that I could no longer dance with such abandon, or even dance at all, it was a real blow to me, a loss I grieved so deeply I was at a loss for how to make peace with it.

But now I feel my ability to dance slowly but surely coming back, and it's filling me with such excitement and hope that sometimes I can barely contain myself. So on Friday night, when my friend's band took the stage and began to rock out, a little voice in my head spoke up and said: "Fuck this caution shit--we gonna shake a little tail feather tonight! Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!"

And the next morning--or rather, the next noontime--I came to and realized that, yep, that twang I felt in my left hip during my last dance of the previous evening had indeed morphed into a major owie. Oh yeah, and I had even succeeded in giving myself a wee bit of a hangover. But you know what? I wasn't depressed over any of this, even though I spent most of that day creeping around the apartment like a little old lady. Because--damn it, I'd had a wonderful time that night, and any discomfort I was feeling the day after was totally worth putting up with for the sake of having such a wonderful time.

Plus, because my general condition has been improving, I was actually 90% recovered after another 24 hours. Pre-health regimen, such overexertion might have put me out of action for the better part of a week.

And thus was born in my mind a new concept to add to my health regimen: that of the Pre-Planned Exercise Splurge. Like the Pre-Planned Dining Splurge, the Exercise Splurge is not to be indulged in too frequently, as the negative consequences will shortly start to outweigh its more positive features. But when judiciously scheduled, and accompanied by adjustments in the regular routine to compensate for their impact, both types of splurges provide a much-needed safety valve. There's only so long, after all, that one can maintain a tightly-controlled regimen before one has to do something with all those urges to be, well, unregimented, and it's much better to channel those urges into a short, well-planned "vacation" than to have them bust out in an unanticipated and potentially hazardous binge.

So--I'm very pleased with my first test-piloting of this new concept, not to mention my short recovery time, and I'm already looking forward to my next opportunity to shake it on the dance floor and commune with the Rock 'n' Roll Gods. This, after all, is part of what I'm really going through all this rigamaroll for--not to be perfect at negotiating the rigamarole, but to reclaim my physical liberation.

On beyond tofu: the wonderful (and stinky!) world of fermented bean curd

One of the many charming stories my mother once told me about my baby days involved a trip to the supermarket. Mom had me in the shopping cart along with a package of those individually-wrapped American cheese "food" slices, and gave me one slice to keep me occupied. And then she got into her shopping, and only when she was done and rolling me and her haul to the cash register did she realize there was now nothing left of that entire package of cheese-food except a mound of plastic wrappers and a very happy baby.

My taste in cheese improved considerably since those early days, but my capacity for inhaling mass quantities of it in no way diminished ... until the start of my health regimen back in January. Then I got serious about lowering both my fat and protein intake, and alas the cheese went on restriction right along with the meat--much smaller quantities, and much lower fat levels in those quantities. But in some ways the cheese restriction has been more trying than that on meat, because while it is possible to find lean cuts of meat that taste good, I have found exceedingly few low-fat cheeses that don't taste like ass (with Laughing Cow Light being one of the very few exceptions).

But that was before I happened on yet another little wonder food from Chinese traditional cookery known variously as fermented bean curd, fermented bean cake, preserved bean curd, wet bean curd, bean cheese, or fu yu. All these names designate the same general product: little cubes of tofu that have been allowed to ferment with various seasonings. The fermenting process transforms the tofu from its original bland sponginess to something much more intense--creamy-textured and mashable like cream cheese, strong-smelling and sharp-tasting like a really heavy-duty bleu cheese. And yet, underneath all that, it's still tofu--significantly lower in calories than dairy cheese, and also lower in fat if you get the variety not packed in oil.

There are several different varieties of fermented bean curd, that you'll usually find all together in little jars in an Asian supermarket. Common varieties include the basic white fermented bean curd with no extra seasonings; the white stuff with a tinge of heat--and orangey color--from chiles; and, not to be confused with the chile-laced stuff, there is also a deep-red fermented bean curd, which gets its color, and a different flavor, from a special fermented red rice. You may also find other variations, depending on the market--I suspect that in earlier times there were probably as many different varieties as there were home cooks making this stuff, each no doubt a family recipe lovingly passed down through the generations.

Traditionally, the Chinese use fermented bean curd--sparingly--as a condiment or ingredient in various rice, vegetable, and meat dishes. It shows up frequently, for instance, as a condiment added to the wonderfully soothing rice porridge known variously as jook or congee (and many alternate transliterations of different Chinese dialects into the English alphabet). When just two or three little cubes of the fermented bean curd are added to such dishes, the pungency of the fermented bean curd mellows out and blends in, leaving behind a subtle boost of savoryness that just perks up the entire dish.

But recently, I've gotten bold and actually used the stuff like cream cheese as a spread--and boy, does it ever wake you up! A little of this stuff does go a long way, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a feature--you only need a little to get a big flavor hit. It really works well for me when spread thinly on a nice dark dense whole-grain bread. I also found that a cube or two, mashed, in a whole-wheat pita, along with a couple leaves of lettuce or other greenery, makes a really nice quick snack. And I'm still experimenting with other uses for this stuff.

Admittedly, the strong taste and smell of fermented bean curd will hardly be everybody's cup of tea, not unlike the strong-flavored dairy cheeses it so resembles. But for those who adore a nice stinky milk-cheese, a nice stinky bean-cheese might be right up your alley.

A very long, and extremely detailed, article on fermented bean curd can be found here.

Weekly weigh-in -- plus: angst in the pants

As they say on that public radio business show "Marketplace" -- first, the numbers:

• Today's weigh-in weight: 290.5 lb
• Weight change since last week: down 2.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 43.5 lb

Now, about that "angst" thing: I am in the midst of one of those weeks in which a whole bunch of emotional crap from the past seems to be raining down on me. The details, while (perhaps way too) important to me, are sorta beside the point in terms of this blog's focus. But suffice it to say, not only did I not throw over my little regimen, but I actually took some solace in it.

I could look at my general progress and feel good about it--"well, at least something in my life is going right!" I could actually find the physical relief in working out my angst on the stationary bicycle. I could enjoy getting myself out of the house and enjoying the fresh air and change of scenery provided by a walk. I could revel in the fresh and lovely tastes of my healthy meals. And I could feel damn glad that I didn't go and pour gasoline on the emotional fire by going out on a binge and then having to deal with those feelings as well.

I'm pretty certain that my reactions to the current crap-storm are a little more pronounced--not to mention more painful--because I'm not currently fogging my brain up with mass quantities of excess food. But the upside of that is, I'm also clear enough to have a better handle on what to do about the current crop of crap, and the energy to go do it. Which I am in the process of doing.

The Parable of the Duck and the Chickens

Link: the free radical report ? Blog Archive ? The Parable of the Duck and the Chickens.

Looks like I found a fellow traveler on the road to debunking the brainwashing of the diet and medical industries. After poking around a little on this blog, and its parent site breadandmoney.com, I'm not certain I agree 100% with all of these folks' nutritional conclusions in terms of whether it will work for me personally. But I do 100% support their concept of questioning the received wisdom from the mainstream dieting pundits; rejecting processed, engineered, and simulated foods, and the medical industry's beat-it-with-a-crowbar approach to treating obesity and related medical ills; and figuring out for themselves what really works for them.

And the parable of the duck and the chickens is a total winner. Right on, dudes!

"Eat More Veggies" recipe: roasted cauliflower

Roasted vegetables, when done right, may well be the salvation of reluctant vegetable eaters seeking to improve their nutrition. Just as with meats, the dry-heat method of roasting causes the target food item to give up some of its moisture content, resulting in a great concentration of flavors. It also browns the food, which not only ups the flavor content some more but also adds a nutty savory richness that is nigh irresistable. Naturally-sweet vegetables such as onions and red peppers become so sweet they're almost like veggie-candy. Sliced winter squashes roasted without any sugar whatsoever are so good, you'll never do that Thanksgiving candied sweet potato with marshmallow thing ever again. And when roasted, garlic becomes the vegetable equivalent of crack, it's so damn addictive.

Note, however, that qualifier I threw in at the very start: "when done right." Yes, it has been my sad fate to have experienced roasted vegetables done wrong, and let me tell you, it is not a pretty scene. The main offenders I have noticed here are 1) incorrect temperature and timing, producing wan, mushy veggies with no golden brown of caramelization; and 2) using way too much oil to lube up the veggies for their sojourn in the oven, resulting in food so slimy-greasy that even in my most fat-drenched eating days I found them irredeemably disgusting.

The first problem is easily solvable by correcting one's roasting technique. Despite those hopeful articles that surface every now and then about how to speed-roast at high temperatures (usually applied to poultry), roasting at its best is not a particularly speedy or high-heat process. Vegetables, thankfully, do roast up faster than meats, but you should still expect your panfuls of veg to spend a minimum of 30 minutes, and more like 45 or even longer, at no higher than 350 degrees F--and that's only after you've chopped them up into chunks to expose more surface area to the oven's heat.

The second problem is admittedly a little trickier. Even before I went on the health regimen, I found it was an extremely fine line between just enough oil and too much. It seemed to work best to toss the veggies in a big bowl with just a little oil plus whatever seasonings were desired, hopefully leaving any excess oil behind in the bowl when I transferred the veg to their roasting utensils. But even then, sometimes they'd still wind up a little oilier than I found palatable.

This is where those damnfool non-stick cooking sprays prove themselves to be more than just a dieter's convenience ingredient, and an actual boon to a cooking process. Because they are light sprays, with soy lecithin diluting the oil content, you can spray away as needed and not worry about overdosing on oil.

Admittedly, I haven't yet found an olive-oil-flavored spray that has good enough flavor to recommend itself, but if you want a good olive oil flavor on your roasted veggies, you can simply drizzle a little extra-virgin oil of one's choice on the veggies after they've finished roasting. You'd probably want to do it this way anyhow, as EVOO's lovely flavors would never survive the long heat of the roasting process.

While onions, bell peppers, garlic, and eggplant seem to be the veggies you most often find roasted on restaurant menus and such, there are many more that also make great roasting fodder. The main requirement seems to be that the vegetable be reasonably chunky, so that it can stand up to roasting without drying up to a cinder. Asparagus is mighty yummy roasted; so are beets. But one of my new faves in the roaster is cauliflower.

Now I adore cauliflower, but it never occurred to me to roast the stuff until I stumbled upon this monumentally long and enthusiastic topic on the subject over on eGullet. With that as inspiration, I began to experiment, and eventually came up with a method that pleased me and conformed to my food regimen. This method is so blissfully simple, I almost feel a bit of a fraud calling it a "recipe." Maybe I should just call it a technique. Whatever. It works, and it's pretty damn yummy. In fact, I've got a bowl of the stuff by my computer right now as I'm typing this, which I'm intermittently munching on as if they were potato chips--only much healthier.

So here's what I do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Take one head of fresh, high-quality cauliflower and break it down into flowerettes, as uniform in size as you can manage. I find chunks somewhere around the size of an apricot, or maybe a hair larger, seem to work really well. Don't throw away the core or stem--trim them up a bit and cut them into chunks, a bit smaller than the flowerettes since the stem/core stuff is a little denser.
3. Take a couple of roasting pans or rimmed cookie sheets, and spray generously with cooking spray. Spread your cauliflower out evenly in the pans in a single layer. Give the vegetables a generous spray, sprinkle with salt and/or other spices as the spirit moves you, and then give the veggies in the pans a good stirring, to more evenly distribute the seasonings and to make sure they're well-coated with the cooking spray.
4. Slide the trays, uncovered, into the oven, and roast away. Once the cauliflower starts picking up a little browning, stir it around a couple of times more to expose unbrowned surfaces to the oven's heat.
5. When the veggies have gotten some nice browning all over, and are tender but still with a little "al dente" crunch to them, remove from the oven, and devour as desired. You'll notice the veggies will have lost a significant amount of volume due to moisture loss--but a whole head of cauliflower still makes a goodly pile of roasted product.

These are great to eat as is. They really are at their absolute best hot from the oven, but they're also quite nice at room temperature. And I haven't yet had opportunity to try this, but I bet roasted cauliflower would make an absolutely killer soup. Hmmmm ... I feel another cooking experiment coming on!

Exercise: these new-fangled bicycle thingies

So I've only been living in this new apartment complex since--what? mid-February? And I had yet to darken the door of the on-site exercise room, even though that was one of the features that made this place so attractive to me. Well, I finally got over whatever it was that was holding me back, and went down there. And I had a pretty decent workout--plus a little entertainment value too.

You see, this nice little room has a small but impressive collection of high-tech computerized exercise equipment, all of which will probably seem like old hat to health club regulars, but since I haven't darkened the door of any of those joints either in a very long time, it's all pretty new to me. There's a treadmill, a Stairmaster, an eliptical trainer, and two fancy-shmancy bicycles. I was glad to see the bikes were more of the recumbent style that I had used in physical therapy last summer. But those bikes in the PT department were simple mechanical models, without the whole dashboard control panel that these high-tech puppies sported.

It took me a good ten to fifteen minutes just to figure out that damn control panel. One could set a variety of resistance programs, supposedly optimized for fat-burning or maximum aerobic effect, and simulating courses of varying degrees of hilly-ness. One can also enter one's age, weight, target heart rate, and any number of other healthful bits of data, which the bike's silicon brain would then use to customize your exercise routine.

One could also get the thing to beep and flash at you like an enraged electric eel, which I managed to make it do several different times. All I could think of was the old "blinkenlights" warning posters that used to turn up in every computer room back in the old days when computers were room-sized collections of boxes covered with the flashy things. Nope, this bicycle definitely did not take kindly to my "gefingerpoken und mittengrabben" ... but then it was also marvelously inscrutable as to how to avoid riling it so.

Finally, however, I succeeded in entering some data that the poor confused thing could fathom, and we were off and pedaling. While one pedals, the control panel nicely displays a bar-chart representation of the course you're following, with the bars indicating relative amount of effort for each segment. This was all very nice, but I think they're missing a step here--if they got that little screen to run Ms. Pacman or something, I bet we'd lick the national lack-of-fitness problem in six months flat.

This exercise room also sports some more old-fashioned equipment: a set of free weights (left lying all over by some previous user) with an inclined bench, plus a variant of the old Universal Gym type pulleys-and-levers gizmo (a little dog-eared from long use). Oh yeah, and there's a pool table, plus a wall-mounted TV for your biking-and-videoing pleasure. And nice big picture windows looking out at the swimming pool (which I do intend to make use of also, once I finish getting over my fear of appearing in public in a bathing suit, however well-camoflaged by teeshirts and etc.)

My actual time spent doing uninterrupted pedaling (as opposed to stopping and starting to re-adjust seat positioning and fight with that damn control panel some more) was maybe only twenty minutes or so. But now that I've (mostly) cracked the code on that control panel, I hope to be making my subsequent rides more frequent--and more rewarding. The important thing was getting in that room in the first place. Knowing myself, now that I've gotten over that hurdle the rest will be a good bit easier.

Weekly weigh-in -- bustin' through the big 4-oh

This week's numbers: 293 pounds even, a 3.5 pound lost since last week's weigh-in, making for a cumulative weight loss of 41 pounds. Very cool.

It definitely looks like I've totally busted that plateau of a few weeks ago. Since then, this is the second week in a row I had a 3.5 pound weight loss. Last time I was losing weight this rapidly, I got a little nervous and deliberately added some food back on to slow myself down ... and I can't help thinking that helped bring on the plateau. So this time, I'm going to leave everything as-is, and just watch carefully in case there are any problems. One can go a little bit overboard with the micromanaging thing.

Meanwhile, I feel good, I'm looking well, I'm very slowly building my exercise stamina, and what food cravings I have had, seem to be mainly hormonal and have not been too much for me to fight off. The only decrease I can really see in the mirror is a little bit around my face, but I can feel that my clothes are definitely hanging differently on me--there are a couple of pairs of pants that were always a bit roomy on me, but are now officially Too Big. And all of that feels really good.

Onward and outward ...

Healthy dining: vegetarian restaurants

Vegetarian restaurants, and vegetarian cookery in general, seem to have gotten a bad reputation among certain of the foodies I hang out with on-line. Some of this bad rap seems to be just the latest version of popular stereotypes about vegetarianism. You know the stereotypes I mean: meals of bean sprouts and lawn clippings either poorly cooked or raw, with haphazard seasonings except for large dollops of moralizing from humorless animal rights activists. And to be perfectly frank, I have seen, and eaten at, a few restaurants that do embody those cliches.

On the other hand, I can't help thinking that at least some of the (over)-harping on these negative stereotypes by certain scoffers is more about their unconscious reaction to having to actually consider changing their behavior, in the face of some serious ethical and health questions about their daily food practices. Besides, there are lousy restaurants (and bad attitudes, for that matter) in every category and style of cuisine--to judge an entire cuisine solely on the basis of its sub-par exemplars is like dismissing the entire American culinary scene solely on the basis of Denny's and McDonald's.

Especially since I have also dined at many excellent vegetarian restaurants. So they really are out there, folks! And they're worth looking for, because they have a definite advantage for the diner seeking to put together a healthy weight-conscious meal out. Namely--no meat, and therefore much less opportunity for the cholesterol, saturated fat, and high-calorie issues of more omnivorous restaurants.

Mind you, it's still very do-able to put together an unhealthy meal at a vegetarian restaurant--just order all the dishes that are really high in fat and calories. A killer breakfast of wholegrain waffles drenched in maple syrup and vegan margarine-spread is still a killer breakfast, regardless of the "healthiness" of the ingredients. The point is that you don't have to pick that meal. You have healthy options on the menu that just don't exist on many conventional restaurant menus--especially if you're willing to be a little adventurous.

I especially like to frequent restaurants that specialize in one of the many Asian cuisines with centuries-long traditions of vegetarianism. Cooks in these traditions have inherited time-tested methods for producing tasty meals without depending on meat products for flavor, with really wonderful results. Plus the Asian cuisines in general, in my opinion, have such superior approaches to vegetable cookery that their vegetarian traditions have an advantage right from the git-go.

For example, there are whole traditions of Buddhist-influenced vegetarian cookery in China and neighboring countries, in which wheat gluten and soy products are coaxed into surprisingly convincing, and very yummy, approximations of classic meat dishes. I have been served vegetarian "chicken" dishes in which the texture and mouthfeel of the chunks of chicken have been so convincing that I was double-checking the menu to make sure this was a totally vegetarian restaurant and they couldn't have served me a real chicken dish by mistake. Some of that artful gluten meat in a stirfry makes a delicious meal that fits right into my food regimen.

And then there is the subcontinent of India, with its many rich and varied cuisines, including its own approaches to lactovegetarian cookery. For example, I had a wonderful meal over the weekend at a restaurant here in San Diego that serves South Indian vegetarian food. I feasted on several different vegetable dishes, fragrant spiced rice, stewed chickpeas, beautiful and fascinating unleavened breads such as naan and idlis, and a refreshing yogurt drink known as lassi (this one spiked with lots of sweet/tangy mango). One of the most satisfying meals I'd had in a good long while--and again, fitting surprisingly well into my food plan.

It is true that, in my heart of hearts--or rather, in that ol' debbil Food Jones that haunts my heart--I will always have a soft spot for a big-ass slab of prime rib. But that way of eating, except for extremely-low-frequency special occasions, is Over as far as I'm concerned. And let's face it, a petite eight-ounce serving of prime rib carefully trimmed of all fat, with a typical lackluster steakhouse salad and football-sized baked potato rendered boring without its usual saturation of sour cream and butter, is more like a sop to food nostalgia than an actually satisfying meal. So why would I want to dine that way, when instead I can feast much more happily--not to mention more frequently--on excellent curries and stirfries that happen to be meat-free? I dunno, except that my dining pattern seems to be voting for those curries and stirfries and such almost every time these days.

Sneaking up on exercise: the farmer's market gambit

As frequent readers of this blog may recall, I have been working through numerous issues regarding exercise, such as chronic pain, past negative experiences, and more. But at this point one of my biggest blockers is just plain ol' motivation.

Especially on days when I wake up and find my body having one of its cranky days, when everything just feels all stiff and achey for no good reason except perhaps the weather or the phase of the moon or some other damn thing, the last thing I want to be doing is exercising. In fact, when such days come on strong it's hard to feel enthusiastic about any activity except turning over and going back to sleep--or at most creeping to the bath for a long, hopefully restorative soak.

I have come to accept--at least on an intellectual level--that exercising through such morning stiffness really does help. But tell that to my bod, my achey breaky bod (okay, you can all stop groaning now, you knew I was going to do that sooner or later). And the Marine bootcamp method of just dragging my own ass along kicking and screaming into exercising only does nasty things to my attitude. So, strong believer in positive reinforcement that I am, I have set my mind to thinking of some creative workarounds.

I arose yesterday to find my bod in an especially cranky state, and spent half the day just sitting with that, thinking "y'know, this really would feel better if I got up and moved about," but not finding the motivation to pull the trigger. And then it hit me: it was Wednesday afternoon, and one of the more entertaining farmer's markets in town happens on Wednesday afternoons--how about taking a walk over there? And suddenly, even though my body was no less cranky, I felt an energy and eagerness to get out and move which trumped all the crankiness. See? You really do catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

So I climbed in the car and drove out to the Ocean Beach Farmer's Market. OB, San Diego's hippie/beach-bum neighborhood, has long been one of my favorite places to hang out, and its main retail/hangout district along Newport Ave is made for walking, just four blocks long and crammed with fascinating shops selling everything from antiques to 1960s-style headshop fare. And on Wednesdays one central block, plus adjacent parking lots, is lined with booths selling produce, handicrafts, and other assorted stuff. Thanks to my handy-dandy disabled placard and early arrival I was able to snag a parking spot just half a block from the market site. I donned my trusty sunhat and shades, got on my feet, and set out.

Now I totally adore open-air markets--flea markets, farmer's markets, antique and art fairs, you name it. I don't even necessarily buy much of anything--I just like to poke about, and browse, and enjoy all the sights and sounds and characters. Sometimes I even get ideas for handicrafts and cooking projects of my own from checking out the vendors' wares. But especially now that I'm on this health regimen, farmers markets with their lovely locally-grown produce have a whole new appeal for me. Yesterday the produce vendors were especially rich in big beautiful strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados. There was one vendor who also had a tempting array of squash blossoms and baby squashes. I was loathe to weigh myself down with lots of purchases, both for my body's sake and that of my recently-filled fridge. But I did make an exception for some tiny but juicy blood oranges at a terrific price.

Mind you, I was not charging around the market at aerobic-level speeds. But I was slowly but surely getting around, which was a definite improvement upon sitting on my ass like I had been doing that morning. By the time my joints let me know it really was time to quit, I had made the equivalent of two complete circuits around the market; my little cheapo pedometer said I had covered just a hair under half a mile. Half a mile is pretty damn major in my exercise book at this point.

Now obviously, excursions like this are a whole lot easier to work into one's life when, like me, one is a telecommuting freelancer who has the flexibility to rearrange one's work hours as one sees fit. And not everybody has a handy farmer's market to slink off to. But I still think my general strategy of reframing of exercise into an attractive outing instead of an uninspiring chore has a lot to recommend it, for anyone else whose first reaction to the urge to exercise is to lay down and wait until the urge passes.