The Tulips are Blooming

There are tulips blooming in the Annenburg Plaza and they are lovely.

Once again, I have given up on Low Carb. It was way to easy to justify slipping off for a special occasions, which came more and more often. At least I wasn't gaining, but I wasn't losing either. I heard a blurb for Seattle Sutton on NPR one morning. I liked the idea of complete meals being delivered, that I'd get variety without having to buy a lot of groceries, that it would be controlled portions (and calories), and that it would cost about what I'd already been spending in the employee cafeteria and in restaurants, so I decided to give it a shot.

I'm lucky that there's a local distributor here in Rochester, so the meals aren't being shipped from goodness knows where, and the price here is decent (apparently the different franchisees charge different prices). Out of 10 days of meals so far there was only one "loser" - a baked pasta with turkey and (a teeny bit of) mozzarella - the taste was OK but the pasta was far from al dente, so the texture wasn't great, and yesterday's kiwi was nowhere near ripe. There was a muffin that had a very "packaged" taste, like something you'd get in a convenience store, but other than that, things have been pretty tasty, and very fresh. I'm definitely eating more fruits and veggies than I'm used to, and eating things I usually don't. I'm no fan of Caesar salad, but the dressing wasn't terribly pungent, and so was palatable to me. I actually ate Brussels Sprouts and found them surpisingly unobjectionable, with a taste like slightly bitter spinach.

There was something like swedish meatballs that was delicious, and some pineapple this morning that was luscious. Breakfast has been especially tasty, but if it were up to me I'd skew it towards a bit more protein and fewer carbs to fight off the mid-morning hungrys.

I was very hungry, so I've added 200 calories a day in snacks (for a total of 1400 calories per day), and while I still get hungry between meals and in the late evening, I figure - no pain, no loss, right? I'm liking the enforced discipline of only eating what I'm given, so I can't rationalize my way into overeating.

The weather has been warmer - it's definitely Spring. Trees are starting to bud and the lawns are green. Dumble and I have really been enjoying our walks, going further than before. On Saturday, we walked for over an hour (with a break to sit on a bench and read my book for a bit.) We saw a group of teenaged couple in their Prom finery, accompanied by a scrum of paparazzi parents. They were adorable as they posed by the river in various combinations and permutations. Then Dumble and I saw a pair of bunny rabbits (complete with cotton-tails), who gazed disapprovingly at us as we walked by. Then there was a birthday party with a pinata in the park behind the Civic Center. It was a lovely day to be out. Dumble alternates between trotting along proudly, and stops to sniff along arcane paths before leaving return messages for the various dogs who've left their own.