Yesterday i wrote that i have been ping ponging with weight loss..i have been thinking about that. for pretty close to two decades i have been on a diet...basically either starving myself or working out like mad, feeling totally deprived and pretty soon giving up, telling myself, all this isnt working, i just cant do it!!
i am beginning to wonder if i dont know the reason why it is so difficult to lose weight and keep it off. the reason is got to do with my mind. its like, i start on this diet, lose some weight, maybe even a lot of weight, and then end the diet.. meaning go back to original way of life, eat a little more than what i need and work a little less than what i need to.. being busy and all, time flies and before i know it a year has gone by and i look at myself and say, "what happened? i thought i had lost weight".
its like this: as long as dieting is a "course" one is taking, once the course is complete, and one has been graded and one forgets about it, the weight will come back. its not something finite, like a course of antibiotics say- 500 mg twice daily for five days after food!! 5 days up, course complete, the symptoms are gone, the infection is taken care of no further need of antibiotics... its simply not like that.
one puts on weight when one eats more than one spends.. a little at a time, even 100 cals extra a day, and it adds upto 5 whopping kilos a year.. its the difference between being slim and comfortable, between being plump to overweight, and overweight to obese.. ask anybody who is 5 kilos over the desired levels and who is trying to drop those 5 kilos...
i have read that in many many books, magazines, on line anything you can name- and also that diet has to become a way of life..(just dont call it a diet and dont think of you being on a diet!!) the eating and working has to be a habit and has to be followed all the time, the whole life. you slip up sometime, you get right back on. its not like i can say to myself, my body, "look body, i have made the effort and dropped 5 kilos, you are at the desirable weight, now keep it that way". no it doesnt work like that, coz, its the mind that needs to know that in order for the body to stay that way, it has to control itself and the body.. i know all this is coming out all confusing and confused. but what i am trying to say is that, it is so much simpler to just follow a set pattern of eating and working out, just some simple rules that are not some physics formulae (i am a sociology major)which anyone can remember effortlessly... like the NO S diet which i have started recently. i am into the 25th day today, although i have to confess i havent done it strictly, i have been sort of doing only 2/3rds of it, no sweets, no seconds... but even that is helping me a lot. i dont need to remember the calorific content of any particular food...no food is offlimits or forbidden, no worrying about carbs. nothing. no worries. no stress. i just eat a good breakfast, my stomach is full, i have eaten real food and to my heart's (and stomach's!!) content, i am happy, not deprived, not starving... i have a mid morning tea, dont eat the 2 biscuits that go with it, thank you, no eating in between meals coz that is snacking...lunch and a good lunch, colourful, nutritious, filling and a real lunch. same mid evening tea, no snack, and a dinner fit for kings, brush teeth, no eating after dinner. and it is helping; i cant see it. yet . but i can certainly feel it. and after a long long time i am content and not obsessing about food. i am not thinking of the next meal before this is over..i know that in a few hours time i will be eating, and eating well. i know i will be full, satiated and happy. i still log my weight in calorie count, i still maintain a diary both online and manual(being extra careful!!) and do count calories, but i dont need to do it. i know that now. i walk 10000 steps and run 2 miles thrice a week... i know why this is going to help me this time, more than anything else,this time, my diet is not for 4 months only, 6 weeks only or any fixed period like that. it is going be a 21-day, life long cycle. since yesterday, i have stopped the third S also.. the snack.. i hope i can do that too...
lets see how it goes.. i dont mind failing once in a while, if that is the way to success, so be it...
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The NOS Diet
hi!i have been ping-ponging in so far as weight loss is concerned. somewhile ago, maybe a month or so ago, i remembered that i had, a long time ago read about a diet called a NO S diet; since nothing seemed to be working for me, i thought i would read up a bit on this new diet and see if it would help me. i have been at it for the past four weeks, and here are the results.
in terms of weight loss as such, counting in pounds and grams, i may not have done all that great... i didnt weigh in before starting this new diet... but i do know what other benefits i have derived.
mainly, i used to constantly, constantly think of food..i think i was mostly semi starved, and so right after breakfast my dreaming of food would begin, planning the next meal, the next snack and so forth, and worrying i would overshoot my calorie allowance and consume too many fat calories and so forth... but now, once i am done with breakfast, i do not think about food... it is not something i am doing consciously.. you know what i mean? i am not persuading myself not to think about food, its just that i dont need to think about lovely delicious things anymore with guilt and longing!! the no sweets and no seconds on n days has, now officially, become a habit..while i dont miss sweets at all, i of course, do miss chocolates and ice cream, but you know what? a s-day is always only 5 days away at the most...so if my mind wanders to chocolate or icecream, i just tell myself that i would treat myself to it next s day.. and like a child really, i am satisfied. today i have started the third s also.. no snacks. the light bulb moment occured a few minutes ago.. i dont really have to give up on those things either.. i will just add it to my plate either at bf or at dinner.. i know it is going to be dinner...
well, for a few days i guess my dinner plate is going to be ghastly loaded. but never mind, once i reassure myself that even ompodi/mixture/thattai are accessible and are snacks only when eaten in-between meals, i am sure the plate will ligthen.
i am able to eat well and everything in parties.. eating out is no longer cause for heart burn...i do look a glutton when i take a plateful of food, it does look horridly loaded, but i dont go back for a second helping..my colleagues during our official lunches-out have begun to notice that...and also that i do not help myself to any quantity of the sweets or icecream served. since i am not "on diet" as usual, i dont need to give out a lot of explanations nor have my leg pulled for always being on a diet!!
at this point of time, i must be aware of the virtual plate and not allow that to become a habit!!
my obsession to lose weight is gone (i think). certainly, i have begun to believe that if i continue with this, that very thing is going to happen. and wont that make me ecstatic?!!
wish me luck, all!!
in terms of weight loss as such, counting in pounds and grams, i may not have done all that great... i didnt weigh in before starting this new diet... but i do know what other benefits i have derived.
mainly, i used to constantly, constantly think of food..i think i was mostly semi starved, and so right after breakfast my dreaming of food would begin, planning the next meal, the next snack and so forth, and worrying i would overshoot my calorie allowance and consume too many fat calories and so forth... but now, once i am done with breakfast, i do not think about food... it is not something i am doing consciously.. you know what i mean? i am not persuading myself not to think about food, its just that i dont need to think about lovely delicious things anymore with guilt and longing!! the no sweets and no seconds on n days has, now officially, become a habit..while i dont miss sweets at all, i of course, do miss chocolates and ice cream, but you know what? a s-day is always only 5 days away at the most...so if my mind wanders to chocolate or icecream, i just tell myself that i would treat myself to it next s day.. and like a child really, i am satisfied. today i have started the third s also.. no snacks. the light bulb moment occured a few minutes ago.. i dont really have to give up on those things either.. i will just add it to my plate either at bf or at dinner.. i know it is going to be dinner...
well, for a few days i guess my dinner plate is going to be ghastly loaded. but never mind, once i reassure myself that even ompodi/mixture/thattai are accessible and are snacks only when eaten in-between meals, i am sure the plate will ligthen.
i am able to eat well and everything in parties.. eating out is no longer cause for heart burn...i do look a glutton when i take a plateful of food, it does look horridly loaded, but i dont go back for a second helping..my colleagues during our official lunches-out have begun to notice that...and also that i do not help myself to any quantity of the sweets or icecream served. since i am not "on diet" as usual, i dont need to give out a lot of explanations nor have my leg pulled for always being on a diet!!
at this point of time, i must be aware of the virtual plate and not allow that to become a habit!!
my obsession to lose weight is gone (i think). certainly, i have begun to believe that if i continue with this, that very thing is going to happen. and wont that make me ecstatic?!!
wish me luck, all!!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
some decisions
i wondered for a very long time how it was possible to lose several pounds, not just 2-3 but tens of it in one week? without great application of mind i tried out the maths of it all and for the life of me i couldnt see how it was done. and then the light-bulb moment...i thought i would write that down here so some neednt reinvent the wheel so to speak...
see its basically like this: supposing i am very heavy and have been consuming a lot of calories and not really been moving as much as I should have been in order not to put on more weight, then what happens when i decide to go on a diet and start walking for say 30 mts a day?
where i have been consuming 5000 cals, say a day, my intake drops to 1500 since i am on a diet.. the difference of 3500 cals which my body suddenly doesnt get but is used to has to come from somewhere and since i am not supplying that, the body takes it from its reserves.
secondly the 30 minute walk would cost me something like 150 or so cals maybe even more- that too has to come either out of what i am consuming or from the store house that is my body...so we have a daily deficit of about 3650 calories, a clear one pound...think of the water loss and if one also went on an exercise regime....thus it would be possible for me to lose a lot of weight in the early part of my diet programme- so i could see how it is possible to lose a lot of weight if one was seriously overweight. but as i lose weight and get slimmer and there is less body to sustain and the calorie deficit is not as huge, then is when i find i am not losing as rapidly as i used to, and then is when i start hitting plateaus...
and that is exactly what happened too, you know... i was 69.5kgs, and in the first four months i happily lost about 6 of them with seemingly no difficulty.. since then it has been all uphill...
with my current bmr of 1300 cals, and a moderately active life style, if i go overboard even at a single meal, i am set back by a week.. so at this point of time portion control, and physical activity is something i just cannot afford to lose sight of.. of i can forget about losing..
what i have done is this: i have made some decisions such as:
1. not to skip breakfast..but not to gorge, at the same time.
2. a mid morning/mid afternoon snack is a must.
3. no eating heavy dinner.. preferably not after 730 pm anyway.
4. log 10,000 steps, minimum, everyday.. it would be ideal to log 15,000.
5. jog for 20 mts a day.
6. stationery cycling-40 mts a day.
7. calorie-burn on extra exercise should be 600 everyday... they can be through walking, jogging, cycling, anything.. but that 600 must be done.
8. try, try, try, not to eat more than 1600 calories.. that plus an error allowance of 10% would take it to 1800 cals/day almost.
9. no rice after 6 pm.. not even idlis/dosas even though they are "light tiffin items"
i hope all these show results... i have managed to lose 10 kgs and have another 7 to go.. oh but it is so difficult not to eat!! i could walk eternally, but where is the time for an office goer?
still.. it took a long time for the fat to come.. i shouldnt fuss that it is taking a long time to go!!
see its basically like this: supposing i am very heavy and have been consuming a lot of calories and not really been moving as much as I should have been in order not to put on more weight, then what happens when i decide to go on a diet and start walking for say 30 mts a day?
where i have been consuming 5000 cals, say a day, my intake drops to 1500 since i am on a diet.. the difference of 3500 cals which my body suddenly doesnt get but is used to has to come from somewhere and since i am not supplying that, the body takes it from its reserves.
secondly the 30 minute walk would cost me something like 150 or so cals maybe even more- that too has to come either out of what i am consuming or from the store house that is my body...so we have a daily deficit of about 3650 calories, a clear one pound...think of the water loss and if one also went on an exercise regime....thus it would be possible for me to lose a lot of weight in the early part of my diet programme- so i could see how it is possible to lose a lot of weight if one was seriously overweight. but as i lose weight and get slimmer and there is less body to sustain and the calorie deficit is not as huge, then is when i find i am not losing as rapidly as i used to, and then is when i start hitting plateaus...
and that is exactly what happened too, you know... i was 69.5kgs, and in the first four months i happily lost about 6 of them with seemingly no difficulty.. since then it has been all uphill...
with my current bmr of 1300 cals, and a moderately active life style, if i go overboard even at a single meal, i am set back by a week.. so at this point of time portion control, and physical activity is something i just cannot afford to lose sight of.. of i can forget about losing..
what i have done is this: i have made some decisions such as:
1. not to skip breakfast..but not to gorge, at the same time.
2. a mid morning/mid afternoon snack is a must.
3. no eating heavy dinner.. preferably not after 730 pm anyway.
4. log 10,000 steps, minimum, everyday.. it would be ideal to log 15,000.
5. jog for 20 mts a day.
6. stationery cycling-40 mts a day.
7. calorie-burn on extra exercise should be 600 everyday... they can be through walking, jogging, cycling, anything.. but that 600 must be done.
8. try, try, try, not to eat more than 1600 calories.. that plus an error allowance of 10% would take it to 1800 cals/day almost.
9. no rice after 6 pm.. not even idlis/dosas even though they are "light tiffin items"
i hope all these show results... i have managed to lose 10 kgs and have another 7 to go.. oh but it is so difficult not to eat!! i could walk eternally, but where is the time for an office goer?
still.. it took a long time for the fat to come.. i shouldnt fuss that it is taking a long time to go!!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
a simple recipe-poha
here is a simple recipe made of 'poha' (beaten/pounded rice, aval)
for best results, use hand pounded rice. machine pounded is also ok, but you need to be really quick in working with it, coz it can end up very gooey.
ok, here goes.
wash a cup of poha a couple of times till the water runs clear. drain in a collander or in a largishchai ki channi (and if u dont have that either, then just an ordinary chota channi, or just use your fingers as a sieve, for heaven's sake, u need only to drain the water!!).keep aside.
add a quarter tsp of salt and a pinch of turmeric. (there you go again; turmeric powder if you dont have, then what to do? make it optional. its just that the powder gives the poha such a pretty colour!!)
now add a teaspoon of fresh lime juice, and mix well.
voila! ur poha is ready to eat! goes well with dahi u know. if you add the dahi and skip the lime juice and turmeric powder, u can mistake the whole thing for thayir saadam.
making time? 5 minutes, max? i should think so.
ensai, as we say in kollywood!!
for best results, use hand pounded rice. machine pounded is also ok, but you need to be really quick in working with it, coz it can end up very gooey.
ok, here goes.
wash a cup of poha a couple of times till the water runs clear. drain in a collander or in a largishchai ki channi (and if u dont have that either, then just an ordinary chota channi, or just use your fingers as a sieve, for heaven's sake, u need only to drain the water!!).keep aside.
add a quarter tsp of salt and a pinch of turmeric. (there you go again; turmeric powder if you dont have, then what to do? make it optional. its just that the powder gives the poha such a pretty colour!!)
now add a teaspoon of fresh lime juice, and mix well.
voila! ur poha is ready to eat! goes well with dahi u know. if you add the dahi and skip the lime juice and turmeric powder, u can mistake the whole thing for thayir saadam.
making time? 5 minutes, max? i should think so.
ensai, as we say in kollywood!!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Gardening
yesterday was my gardening day. till the day before yesterday, i had no desire whatsoever to venture into the hot sun and pull out weeds or apply compost to the plants... it is too hot and just watering the plants every now and then was enough, i thought. and thats how it is hereabouts. then suddenly, no rhyme or reason, i just decided that i had to buy "yeru" (thats red soil mixed with dried cowdung) to apply to the plants which needed nourishment.. the weather had to me, suddenly become gardenable...know what i mean? one day too hot, the next day, time just right to start gardening!! it is an internal clock, i think, i have no other explanation. so i trotted off to this "nursery" near our house, bought four bags of the "mixture" and four saplings of bouganvilla. dont ask me what colour. i dont know. the lady who sold me the plants was vaguer still about the colours, the saplings themselves obviously bore no flowers. she said they might be pink and orange, but she couldnt be anything more specific than that except, well yes, she did tell me in very clear terms that they were 'not red'. i was prepared to take my chances.. if all of them turn out the same color, so what...i had to have the plants then and there and i wouldnt wait a day longer for them. she did ask me to return in a week's time, when i could find plants with flowers and i could pick the colors i wanted, but i was adamant that i wanted to wait no more.
when i came home, it was nice and cool in the evening, just right for planting my saplings.. after changing into my salwar set, i got down to the digging of pits and planting of the saplings. mission accomplished and plants watered..... this was on saturday. i also spent some time in my roof garden deweeding and applying the compost i had bought that day to some of my plants etc and i had covered half the place, and had left the rest to the next day.
sunday dawned clear and bright, and by 9 am, yeah, i know rather too sunny to spend time in the garden, but i dont let things like that stop me, i was up there on the roof again, attending to the second half. at the end of 10 minutes i found i had two armsful of 'karpooravalli' cuttings ( Plectranthus amboinicus ). now, this karpooravalli plant has thick leaves, is very very aromatic, in fact smells of karpooram (camphor) and is supposed to be medicinal and very good for the throat. in fact, our elders tell us that every time you think your throat is going bad or you have a cough, just chew a couple of leaves of this herb and you will be alright. so here i was holding two armsful of medicine, and what was i going to do with these cuttings? already my garden was overflowing with the plants and i had planted them all around the house. and i just couldnt bring myself to chuck them out into the garbage bins strategically placed on the streets by chennai corporation's garbage collecting contractor. what to do? what to do? then i had this brilliant plan. there is a ganesha temple quite close to my house. i go to this temple every morning. i told myself that if i took these cuttings to the temple, i could offer them to the devotees that came there. no sooner thought than done! calling out to my mil that i was going to the temple, i collected the cuttings and off i went. it was close to 10 am then and the temple closes around 11am. happily, i thought the time was just right!! but to my dismay, i found devotees scarce on the ground!! it was then that i realised that sunday mornings, most people got up late and lazed and it is only in the evenings that religious and social outings take place... what to do? what to do? brilliant idea again..(surfeit of brilliant ideas and plans here, i thought to myself!) if devotees dont come, i go to them. the temple, if you have been to indira nagar(which of course, you may not have) you will know is surrounded on three sides by small independent houses. kind of a crescent with a tangent on top of the crescent which is another road with more houses and flats. between the temple and the almost circle and tangent behind the temple is a playground! so it is like this, temple, road in front of it, play ground behind it, a semi circle, which is more like a horseshoe,with houses on the outer edge, road in front... the top of the horseshoe kind of extends to the right and left for more road and more houses....so no houses adjoining the temple. get the picture? well ok, anyway....
the first house- a college mate used to live there decades ago, i remembered even as i rang the door bell. turns out she still does!! only, she was away from the city for a couple of days, and the doorbell was answered by her husband. i explained that i lived on first avenue, gave my name and told him that i had these karpooravaalli cuttings, and would he like some? u just stick the cutting in the mud, or a pot, water it and it just takes root... he said he would certainly like some and took a bunch of cuttings... next house and an old mami and her mil answered the door, they took more than a bunch.. they assured me that karpooravalli leaves made very nice "thuvayal" and "bajjis"... then the next house and the next house... ten houses later, my bag was empty and the cuttings had all found nice homes to take root and grow in. feeling mighty pleased and self congratulatory, i returned home. (btw, in one of the houses, a guest of the house thought i was a salesperson and tried to shoo me away. i explained i wasnt there to sell anything...then the couple that lived there came out to find out what was going on; they took rather a lot of the karpooravalli and said rather nice things to me...) my mil thought i had taken leave of my senses traipsing from house to house distributing karpooravalli...... come to think of it, this was just a couple of days after world environment day... so...
apron on, i slapped my son's hat on my head and taking up the "mun vetti" and "gadapara", i set out to explore my "compost" pit.. now, i have dug a couple of pits about 2 feet deep, 2 feet wide and 3 feet long, into which we dump our kitchen waste and the leaf fall. i had thought two years ago that i was making huge pits, but i find they are simply inadequate. we generate a humongous quantity of leaves! and of course kitchen waste. my word! how we eat fruits and vegetables!! before long a small mountain of dry leaves vegetable and fruit peels collects in that corner of the house. anyway. i pushed aside one portion of the leaves, and underneath i found a treasure waiting... lovely lovely black compost! to cut a long story short (yeah, yeah, i know it is already a small novel!!) it took me four and half hours to retrieve all the compost, and spread it around the house and apply to all the trees and bushes and plants. how lovely that felt! and my trees and plants must be so thrilled with all that yummy food!! despite my routine walking, step exercising, jogging and suryanamaskaring, i discovered a lot of muscles at the end of the day..but that is another story. what i want to say here about the compost is this: it is amazing, i tell you....leaves dry and full...brown and green....and when piled up and left alone, just disintegrate into almost black powder. and it smells so great! the bottom most lot becomes really really powdery and as you go up the pile the leaves are quite shredded and dark and you can use them as mulch.
from now onwards i am not going to simply collect all the leaves in one place. it doesnt make sense to bring them all to one place. i could and i will push them around all the trees around the house... that way the smaller plants growing under these trees would get nourishment... something like the delayed release medicines that humans take, moisture would be kept for a longer period and i wont have "double work" nor will my "help" have double work.
we have a lot of saplings of different plants, like ashoka, curry leaves, basil and a white flowering plant which is a composite, but i dont know the name now, will have to find out... i am asking myself why i shouldnt 'pot' them and distribute them to people living in flats... and distribute the semi compost too... must think this thing through.....and see if it can work.....
when i came home, it was nice and cool in the evening, just right for planting my saplings.. after changing into my salwar set, i got down to the digging of pits and planting of the saplings. mission accomplished and plants watered..... this was on saturday. i also spent some time in my roof garden deweeding and applying the compost i had bought that day to some of my plants etc and i had covered half the place, and had left the rest to the next day.
sunday dawned clear and bright, and by 9 am, yeah, i know rather too sunny to spend time in the garden, but i dont let things like that stop me, i was up there on the roof again, attending to the second half. at the end of 10 minutes i found i had two armsful of 'karpooravalli' cuttings ( Plectranthus amboinicus ). now, this karpooravalli plant has thick leaves, is very very aromatic, in fact smells of karpooram (camphor) and is supposed to be medicinal and very good for the throat. in fact, our elders tell us that every time you think your throat is going bad or you have a cough, just chew a couple of leaves of this herb and you will be alright. so here i was holding two armsful of medicine, and what was i going to do with these cuttings? already my garden was overflowing with the plants and i had planted them all around the house. and i just couldnt bring myself to chuck them out into the garbage bins strategically placed on the streets by chennai corporation's garbage collecting contractor. what to do? what to do? then i had this brilliant plan. there is a ganesha temple quite close to my house. i go to this temple every morning. i told myself that if i took these cuttings to the temple, i could offer them to the devotees that came there. no sooner thought than done! calling out to my mil that i was going to the temple, i collected the cuttings and off i went. it was close to 10 am then and the temple closes around 11am. happily, i thought the time was just right!! but to my dismay, i found devotees scarce on the ground!! it was then that i realised that sunday mornings, most people got up late and lazed and it is only in the evenings that religious and social outings take place... what to do? what to do? brilliant idea again..(surfeit of brilliant ideas and plans here, i thought to myself!) if devotees dont come, i go to them. the temple, if you have been to indira nagar(which of course, you may not have) you will know is surrounded on three sides by small independent houses. kind of a crescent with a tangent on top of the crescent which is another road with more houses and flats. between the temple and the almost circle and tangent behind the temple is a playground! so it is like this, temple, road in front of it, play ground behind it, a semi circle, which is more like a horseshoe,with houses on the outer edge, road in front... the top of the horseshoe kind of extends to the right and left for more road and more houses....so no houses adjoining the temple. get the picture? well ok, anyway....
the first house- a college mate used to live there decades ago, i remembered even as i rang the door bell. turns out she still does!! only, she was away from the city for a couple of days, and the doorbell was answered by her husband. i explained that i lived on first avenue, gave my name and told him that i had these karpooravaalli cuttings, and would he like some? u just stick the cutting in the mud, or a pot, water it and it just takes root... he said he would certainly like some and took a bunch of cuttings... next house and an old mami and her mil answered the door, they took more than a bunch.. they assured me that karpooravalli leaves made very nice "thuvayal" and "bajjis"... then the next house and the next house... ten houses later, my bag was empty and the cuttings had all found nice homes to take root and grow in. feeling mighty pleased and self congratulatory, i returned home. (btw, in one of the houses, a guest of the house thought i was a salesperson and tried to shoo me away. i explained i wasnt there to sell anything...then the couple that lived there came out to find out what was going on; they took rather a lot of the karpooravalli and said rather nice things to me...) my mil thought i had taken leave of my senses traipsing from house to house distributing karpooravalli...... come to think of it, this was just a couple of days after world environment day... so...
apron on, i slapped my son's hat on my head and taking up the "mun vetti" and "gadapara", i set out to explore my "compost" pit.. now, i have dug a couple of pits about 2 feet deep, 2 feet wide and 3 feet long, into which we dump our kitchen waste and the leaf fall. i had thought two years ago that i was making huge pits, but i find they are simply inadequate. we generate a humongous quantity of leaves! and of course kitchen waste. my word! how we eat fruits and vegetables!! before long a small mountain of dry leaves vegetable and fruit peels collects in that corner of the house. anyway. i pushed aside one portion of the leaves, and underneath i found a treasure waiting... lovely lovely black compost! to cut a long story short (yeah, yeah, i know it is already a small novel!!) it took me four and half hours to retrieve all the compost, and spread it around the house and apply to all the trees and bushes and plants. how lovely that felt! and my trees and plants must be so thrilled with all that yummy food!! despite my routine walking, step exercising, jogging and suryanamaskaring, i discovered a lot of muscles at the end of the day..but that is another story. what i want to say here about the compost is this: it is amazing, i tell you....leaves dry and full...brown and green....and when piled up and left alone, just disintegrate into almost black powder. and it smells so great! the bottom most lot becomes really really powdery and as you go up the pile the leaves are quite shredded and dark and you can use them as mulch.
from now onwards i am not going to simply collect all the leaves in one place. it doesnt make sense to bring them all to one place. i could and i will push them around all the trees around the house... that way the smaller plants growing under these trees would get nourishment... something like the delayed release medicines that humans take, moisture would be kept for a longer period and i wont have "double work" nor will my "help" have double work.
we have a lot of saplings of different plants, like ashoka, curry leaves, basil and a white flowering plant which is a composite, but i dont know the name now, will have to find out... i am asking myself why i shouldnt 'pot' them and distribute them to people living in flats... and distribute the semi compost too... must think this thing through.....and see if it can work.....
Monday, May 25, 2009
Salad-my favourite food
i love salads... fruit, vegetable, fruit and vegetable...easy to make, easier to eat! here is what i have been doing lately...
Fruity-vegetable salad
I have used:
one each of
guava
tomato
tender cucumber
carrot
pear
5 jackfruit pods/bulbs, deseeded
half a cup of dahi (yoghurt) made of double toned milk
a quarter tsp each of ground black pepper, mustard ( you can ground about ten teaspoonfuls and store in a glass jar )and salt for the dressing.
cut all the fruits into small cubes; stir into dahi, pepper, mustard and salt. pour over the fruit-vegetable, mix well, cool for a few minutes and dig in.. it is truly filling, lovely taste and non-fattening!!
you can go with any combo of fruit and vegetables or just a fruit or vegetable really.. i tried with just tomatoes and it was yummy!! i keep changing the fruits... papayas are a great favourite of mine... apples are crunchy and mangoes are ...indescribable! try cabbage, capsicum, green gram sprouts also...
ensai... as they say in our own tamil movies....
Fruity-vegetable salad
I have used:
one each of
guava
tomato
tender cucumber
carrot
pear
5 jackfruit pods/bulbs, deseeded
half a cup of dahi (yoghurt) made of double toned milk
a quarter tsp each of ground black pepper, mustard ( you can ground about ten teaspoonfuls and store in a glass jar )and salt for the dressing.
cut all the fruits into small cubes; stir into dahi, pepper, mustard and salt. pour over the fruit-vegetable, mix well, cool for a few minutes and dig in.. it is truly filling, lovely taste and non-fattening!!
you can go with any combo of fruit and vegetables or just a fruit or vegetable really.. i tried with just tomatoes and it was yummy!! i keep changing the fruits... papayas are a great favourite of mine... apples are crunchy and mangoes are ...indescribable! try cabbage, capsicum, green gram sprouts also...
ensai... as they say in our own tamil movies....
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Chennai Marathon, August 2008
The Chennai Marathon.
I don’t quite know what I imagined it would be like. We, some of the lady officers of the Railways in Chennai, did go for ‘practice runs’ on two Saturdays and completed the Chennai Run- all 7 kms of it, without stopping, although the speed at which we ran wouldn’t have set any records on fire! Quite a few registered for the run, but it was only the four of us (vk madam, hema, rathi and I) who religiously ‘practiced’ as we say in our part of the world and the four of us who completed the run. We congratulated ourselves each time… it’s a piece of cake we told each other, we would breeze through….
The big day arrived..31st August, 2008 it was. Believe it or not, I was like a little kid before Deepavali, I could hardly sleep! I was so excited! Did the others feel the same way? Yes they did, they told me so….as I said, Sunday dawned nice and bright, in my area. At the appointed hour I presented myself, complete in our logo-marked t-shirt, tracks and running shoes at the place where we were all to board a bus which would take us to the starting point of the race. Unfortunately, due to one or two laggards, we got a tad delayed and by the time we arrived at the Island grounds from where the run was to be flagged off, the place was a sea of humanity. People everywhere, in every direction, in colorful t-shirts and tracks. There were thousands of school children, all assembled there by the diktat of higher administration one gathers. Still they were there and that was important. Anxious parents stood alongside- I don’t understand, why when they came along with the kids, they couldn’t just join in the run. I really don’t. Perhaps, they too didn’t quite know what to expect just like me. Or for that matter the organizers themselves!!
In the end, we joined somewhere in the middle with a few thousands ahead of us and what seemed like a few hundred thousands behind us. There were many announcements in Tamil, the local language, much extortion to be safe, and take care of the child next to oneself as one’s own child/brother/sister and so on. Green, blue and white balloons were released and we watched them become tiny white specks high up in the sky. We waited and waited for the chief guest to arrive and eventually he did and somewhere up ahead, the flag was swung and we were off… at least the first few hundreds were off… and we? We started shuffling ahead!! So much for running! We were hard put to stay on our feet, there was a mass pushing from behind. If one was not alert then one would surely fall? And there would be a stampede?! However, we started finding gaps, and three of us started forging ahead and started to slowly jog our way through people of all ages, shapes and size. There were school bands playing well known tunes, there were loud speakers blaring away and all the while we steadily moved forward. There were videographers along the way, capturing the moment for posterity. Before we knew it, we had completed two kilometers and had arrived at Anna Square. As we jogged across the road, we found water sachets being distributed- 830 AM, the sun was already high in the sky and people were sweating buckets and water was very welcome. But we didn’t go to get one, people crowding around people distributing water was very off-putting and we just carried on. Soon we found that running was not the safest thing to do on marina that day! Kids sprayed water over each other and once they finished, the plastic sachets were just chucked on the road. Before long, the whole stretch of road was covered with litter, mainly plastic water sachets. Carefully and steadily we jogged our way to the light house, took a U-turn there and jogged back to Queen Mary’s College, where there was a reception committee of sorts, noting down the chest numbers of the joggers who passed through the human tunnel that had been formed at the ‘finish-line’. Feeling thrilled with ourselves for having completed the run, we got ourselves some bottled water and waited for the others to join us. We found our transport waiting in the appointed place and left feeling very accomplished and good. All of us stopped off at the restaurant in Sterling Club for a well deserved break fast and broke up to go home… I talk about that marathon even today.
P.S. last week I got a certificate from the organizers… for participating and completing the 7-KM Chennai Run!! I couldn’t stop showing it off to all and sundry, I tell you!! And guess what?! It was signed by Ms. Kanimozhi, the charismatic daughter of the present CM of Tamil Nadu.
I don’t quite know what I imagined it would be like. We, some of the lady officers of the Railways in Chennai, did go for ‘practice runs’ on two Saturdays and completed the Chennai Run- all 7 kms of it, without stopping, although the speed at which we ran wouldn’t have set any records on fire! Quite a few registered for the run, but it was only the four of us (vk madam, hema, rathi and I) who religiously ‘practiced’ as we say in our part of the world and the four of us who completed the run. We congratulated ourselves each time… it’s a piece of cake we told each other, we would breeze through….
The big day arrived..31st August, 2008 it was. Believe it or not, I was like a little kid before Deepavali, I could hardly sleep! I was so excited! Did the others feel the same way? Yes they did, they told me so….as I said, Sunday dawned nice and bright, in my area. At the appointed hour I presented myself, complete in our logo-marked t-shirt, tracks and running shoes at the place where we were all to board a bus which would take us to the starting point of the race. Unfortunately, due to one or two laggards, we got a tad delayed and by the time we arrived at the Island grounds from where the run was to be flagged off, the place was a sea of humanity. People everywhere, in every direction, in colorful t-shirts and tracks. There were thousands of school children, all assembled there by the diktat of higher administration one gathers. Still they were there and that was important. Anxious parents stood alongside- I don’t understand, why when they came along with the kids, they couldn’t just join in the run. I really don’t. Perhaps, they too didn’t quite know what to expect just like me. Or for that matter the organizers themselves!!
In the end, we joined somewhere in the middle with a few thousands ahead of us and what seemed like a few hundred thousands behind us. There were many announcements in Tamil, the local language, much extortion to be safe, and take care of the child next to oneself as one’s own child/brother/sister and so on. Green, blue and white balloons were released and we watched them become tiny white specks high up in the sky. We waited and waited for the chief guest to arrive and eventually he did and somewhere up ahead, the flag was swung and we were off… at least the first few hundreds were off… and we? We started shuffling ahead!! So much for running! We were hard put to stay on our feet, there was a mass pushing from behind. If one was not alert then one would surely fall? And there would be a stampede?! However, we started finding gaps, and three of us started forging ahead and started to slowly jog our way through people of all ages, shapes and size. There were school bands playing well known tunes, there were loud speakers blaring away and all the while we steadily moved forward. There were videographers along the way, capturing the moment for posterity. Before we knew it, we had completed two kilometers and had arrived at Anna Square. As we jogged across the road, we found water sachets being distributed- 830 AM, the sun was already high in the sky and people were sweating buckets and water was very welcome. But we didn’t go to get one, people crowding around people distributing water was very off-putting and we just carried on. Soon we found that running was not the safest thing to do on marina that day! Kids sprayed water over each other and once they finished, the plastic sachets were just chucked on the road. Before long, the whole stretch of road was covered with litter, mainly plastic water sachets. Carefully and steadily we jogged our way to the light house, took a U-turn there and jogged back to Queen Mary’s College, where there was a reception committee of sorts, noting down the chest numbers of the joggers who passed through the human tunnel that had been formed at the ‘finish-line’. Feeling thrilled with ourselves for having completed the run, we got ourselves some bottled water and waited for the others to join us. We found our transport waiting in the appointed place and left feeling very accomplished and good. All of us stopped off at the restaurant in Sterling Club for a well deserved break fast and broke up to go home… I talk about that marathon even today.
P.S. last week I got a certificate from the organizers… for participating and completing the 7-KM Chennai Run!! I couldn’t stop showing it off to all and sundry, I tell you!! And guess what?! It was signed by Ms. Kanimozhi, the charismatic daughter of the present CM of Tamil Nadu.
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