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Anyone else out there feeling like the weeks are starting to meld together a bit?

Anyone else out there at all??

This week felt like a blur of planning meals, eating meals, and trying to work off the meals. With a lot of work and a little bit of writing smattered in between.

Some highlights:

A friend of mine recently sent me a voucher for three free meals (each serves 2) from a meal prep service called Good Food. My husband and I cashed in the voucher this week, and we received a box on Thursday with the following meals:

• Tandoori chicken burgers with cilantro slaw and spiced roasted potatoes
• Chickpea tomato curry with garlic naan and a side salad
• Cheese tortellini with brown butter hazelnut sauce and a side salad

We made the burgers on Thursday night, curry on Friday night, and the tortellini is on deck for tonight.

Our overall impression so far is that the meals are tasty and it’s nice to have everything provided in a kit. However, there was a LOT of packaging, which we felt icky about even though almost everything can be recycled or composted, and the meals were a bit more indulgent than we would usually have. The burgers used chicken thigh and were literally dripping with fat as we ate them. We don’t feel compelled to get a subscription at this point, but would definitely enjoy these boxes ‘on demand’. I can see them being perfect for busy weeks when we don’t feel like thinking too hard about meal planning or hunting down weird and wonderful ingredients while grocery shopping (but still want to try something new). Next time we might try some of the ‘clean15’ (low carb) meals, to see if those are any healthier.

We continued the food frenzy last night with an Easter dinner, because why not? My husband smoked two beer can chickens, which turned out melt-in-your-mouth tender and were thoroughly enjoyed, even by this meat minimalist. We paired (quadrangled?) the chicken with rosemary roasted potato wedges, roasted broccoli with this fail-safe cheese sauce (super easy, even for someone like me who is usually way too inattentive in the kitchen to whisk up a roux), and these roasted green beans (which were only okay, but that may just be because I’m not overly partial to green beans). We topped it off with these healthy-ish carrot cake cupcakes. They’re perfect if you want to slather them in cream cheese icing and still feel slightly virtuous, but if you’re looking for a sweeter, more cake-y recipe then I recommend these.

Accordingly, a large part of my week was spent in the throes of physical activity. I love my new Peloton bike and plan to post more about it in the coming weeks. I’m still getting used to the virtual instructors — sometimes it feels like I’m watching a bot that’s about to short circuit — but so far I’m really enjoying Matt Wilpers and Hannah Frankson’s classes. I’ve also been keeping up with virtual Zoom classes from my ‘real life’ local gym, which provide a nice dose of familiarity each week.

In other news, I finally finished the fourth (ish) draft of my novel! This round of edits and rewrites has been a slog — something I’ve been working on since January and never seem to be able to prioritize time for (maybe because it hurts my brain so much). I’ll be starting on the fifth draft this morning, and I’m hoping to send out for a manuscript review after that.

I’ll leave you with three things I’m thinking about today:

• Be the opposite. I especially like the part about making a simple, doable checklist.
• Using GPS logic for the curveballs life throws at us…tips for “recalculating” when things go askew
• Focusing and being present while doing ‘mundane’ tasks…easier said than done, of course!

Happy Easter!

This is my thing where I post every Wednesday about something mundane that has delighted me this week.

I’m always so inspired by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s humanity.

I know it’s old news now, but her participation in NZ’s lockdown teddy bear hunt and her mandate that both the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are essential workers warmed the cockles of my heart and made me extremely proud to be part-Kiwi.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

First off, I have an important PSA. If you have an overripe banana, run — don’t walk — to the kitchen to make these cookies (recipe from Gimme Some Oven). After being in the presence of two spotty bananas and suffering from decision fatigue for the past couple of days, I finally made the call: I was going to keep things simple and whip up a basic banana bread. When I informed my husband of this plan, he wondered aloud why I wouldn’t just make ‘some sort of peanut butter banana cookie’ instead.

I immediately rejected his suggestion. Partly because after two weeks of livingincloseproximity, I was feeling even more disagreeable than usual, but also because I’ve attempted to make ‘cookies’ with bananas in the past, and I refuse to be  fooled. Nothing I’ve made which contains even the slightest hint of banana has been a cookie. Banana bread masquerading as a cookie? Muffin in cookie’s clothing? Sure. But not cookies.

Well…let me tell you, my tune has changed. After I got over my initial bout of peevishness (which happened to occur while my husband was industriously installing electrical fixtures in our basement), I decided it wouldn’t hurt to simply google some peanut butter banana cookie recipes and see if any of them looked…reasonable.

Enter this recipe. The pictures looked like cookies, which is always a good sign. And the ingredient list seemed reasonably cookie-ish, with the exception of the added banana. So, I decided to take the plunge.

Full disclosure, I left out the corn starch because we didn’t have any. And I was inspired by a peanut butter and jelly dairy-free ice cream that I recently bought (it’s freaking delicious), so I added thumbprints of mixed berry jam to the tops.

I don’t want to toot my own horn here, but these are Good. Highly recommend! I wouldn’t say that they’re 100% what you’d expect when biting into a peanut butter cookie — they’re a bit lighter and fluffier, but they are NOT bread, and they are NOT muffins, and they will not be mistaken for a breakfast food when you try to serve them for dessert. I mean, I haven’t done that yet…I just baked them this morning, but you can bet they’re going to be paired with the PB & J ice cream for dessert tonight.

Anyway, thanks very much to Gimme Some Oven for gracing the world with this wonderful recipe!

While we’re on the topic of baking, I also trialed these Blueberry Bran Muffins this weekend, and I have a couple of bones to pick. First, they have a distinctly molasses-y flavour (I was hoping they’d be slightly sweeter), and all of the blueberries sank to the bottom, making the muffin structure somewhat unstable. I’m going to try these ones next.

Now, on to cooking, because if COVID-19 isn’t about the food, then what is it about?

(That was a joke!!!)

We had some wraps to use up, so these cheesy cauliflower, black bean enchiladas were selected. As is standard practice when we’re trying to use up a single ingredient, I had to run out and get many other things we’d usually never buy and will probably never use up (this is the song that never ends…). I couldn’t find poblano peppers, so we used a small can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce instead. Also, our mango was all bruised, so I made a yogurt drizzle (pulsed plain greek yogurt, cilantro, avocado, lime, jalapeno and some salt in a food processor until smooth) instead. The enchiladas were amazing…would 110% make them again! I can’t believe I’m this late to the Half Baked Harvest party…every recipe of hers that we’ve tried has been a winner.

So, beyond cooking and eating, what have I been doing this week? Some highlights:

• I had a Zoom ‘meeting’ with my writer’s group on Tuesday night. We mostly just drank wine and didn’t talk all that much about writing, but it was just the kick we all needed to get back into our writing routines (at least as much as we can given the current circumstances), and we’ve all submitted pages to one another for review this week. I’m hoping to make some real progress on my novel in April.
• My husband and I attended a Zoom party on Saturday night. Another chance to have some drinks, see some familiar faces, and hear the guys whine about the lack of sports over the past month.
• I got a Peleton bike! It arrived yesterday, I’ve already done two classes — one through my regular gym and the other through the Peleton app. I love it so far. More to come once I’ve had more time to test it out.

Like many others, I’ve been thinking a lot about connecting with other humans this week. Here are three things on my mind:

• My mom loves to cook and bake (I guess it’s genetic). I’m planning to ask her if she wants to select a recipe each week for both of us to make (provided we can source the ingredients), and then we can share notes over the phone. Maybe we’ll even work our way through Food52’s list of the 10 best chocolate chip cookies.
• I purchased a few books of funny postcards and plan to send them out to some of my friends and family.
• I listened to the first episode of Brené Brown’s new podcast, Unlocking Us. Hearing her talk about handing FFTs made me feel like everything might not be okay, but we’re going to get through it all together.

Have a delightfully mundane week!

This is my thing where I post every Wednesday about something mundane that has delighted me this week.

I love a good bodyweight workout as much as the next girl, and I’ve certainly been increasing my resistance load since the world shut down (if you get my drift)…but after two weeks of home workouts (and multiple pillagings of my Lindt chocolate stores), I’ve been itching to shake things up.

My gym is renting out some of their equipment, and I was able to get my hands on a couple of 10lb dumbbells. I should probably be pushing the weight more than this, but at least it’s something, and I feel a little splash of excitement every time I lift them over my head.

I know exercise equipment has been exceedingly hard to come by during the pandemic — if you’re on the hunt for something, consider calling around to some local gyms and see if they’re renting out any of their stuff.

How are you coping with another week of being housebound?

I’d say that I probably need to work on my coping skills. There have been some extremely high-anxiety moments in our household (I have an unflappable husband and no kids, so I don’t need to tell you who the resident stress case is), but also some silver linings. I’ll focus on the silver linings.

I attended two virtual pilates classes hosted by my wonderful gym this week. It’s been many years since I’ve done pilates, and I been wanting to try it again. Enter pandemic. After attending just the two classes, I feel like I’m actually starting to learn how to breathe properly, and loosening up my L-spine and hips. These are both things I’ve been meaning to work on, so I’m grateful to have this unexpected opportunity.

My husband has started baking! He made bread in our breadmaker a couple of weeks ago, and he has another batch baking tonight. It sounds as if yeast is at a premium in North America at the moment (didn’t see that one coming), so our bread experience may be truncated once we run out of our current supply…but this evening I’m eyeing the breadmaker with delicious anticipation.

While we’re discussing food (let’s be honest, when am I not?), my husband and I have established a new ritual of take-out Saturdays. Historically, we usually eat out or order in on Saturdays, but making it into a ritual turns the whole affair into a pleasure to look forward to. After much dissent/discussion, we settled on donairs (and poutine) from a local restaurant last night and they were spot on. I made a kale salad to have on the side, because, well…donairs and poutine.

I also baked these oatmeal ‘scotchie’ cookies (a big hit) last week, and trialed this cornbread muffin recipe, which we paired with chili — it’s definitely going to be my go-to cornbread recipe from now on. Seriously, I haven’t made a single recipe from Once Upon a Chef that hasn’t turned out delicious.

I’ve been going into my clinic two days a week and also had a plethora of Zoom meetings (like everyone else), but the less frequent need to look fully professional has meant not having to use heat every day to wrangle my fine and naturally wavy/curly hair. I’ve been trying to air dry wherever possible and testing out some products that have been hanging out at the back of my bathroom shelves for the past…while. I’ve been trying to follow the tips for my hair-type outlined in this recent article (thanks, Cup of Jo)! Verdict: I’m still not ready to wear my hair down in all its air-dried glory to places like clinic, but I think I’m making progress with letting it do it’s thing, and working with whatever that thing is.

I had an opportunity last night to catch up on some short-form reading that I’d bookmarked last week. This prose poem is like a big hug and a reminder that you aren’t alone if you’re struggling right now. Also, as I’ve been constantly reminding myself in moments of frustration and crushing anxiety, everyone is facing their own set of challenges right now. I have a tendency to get snippety and snarky when I’m anxious, and my brain likes to tell itself that my problems are the biggest in all the world…but, if there was ever a time to put things in perspective and just be kind, then this would be it.

Instead of three things I’m thinking about this week, I wanted to focus on one big thing that seems to be on most of our minds. For exactly how long is the world going to be practicing COVID-19 mitigation strategies (aka social — or perhaps more aptly ‘physical’ –distancing)?

Reports from China indicate that Wuhan is relaxing its lockdown ever so slightly, and while it’s been a bleak week in North America (New York in particular…I found this Atlantic article very moving), a certain president indicated his desire to have his country “…raring to go, by Easter.” (Cough. Good Friday is April 10. Cough.) — Update at 10:00 MST : it appears that the plan to be raring to go at Easter has fortunately been tabled.

So, how long will we be waiting?

The short answer is that nobody is sure.

England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Jenny Harries, announced today that she anticipated that it might be at least six months before life returns to normal, with a gradual reduction in distancing measures expected over that timeframe.

In their modeling study, published on medRxiv this week, Kissler et al raised the possibility that social/physical distancing may need to be maintained up until 2022, possibly in intermittent ‘pulses’ (i.e. relaxing the distancing for a few weeks/months at a time and then ramping it back up).

The Atlantic also published a detailed article last week, which suggesting four possible timelines, keeping in mind that, in order to stop the SARS-CoV-2 from spreading rapidly from person to person, somewhere between 60-80% of the population need to develop resistance to the virus. There are two ways in which this could happen: development of a vaccine, or spread through that proportion of the population (assuming that we do, in fact, develop immunity after a first infection — it seems likely but not certain that this is the case).

I’ve summarized their timelines very briefly here as follows, but highly recommend reading the article:

1. The 1-2 month scenario (we fail at flattening the curve) – Most experts think this scenario is unlikely, and I hope it doesn’t happen. The most likely way in which early resolution would occur is through too quick of a lapse in social distancing, leading to a big surge in cases (aka steepening the curb), which would completely overwhelm the health care system and likely increase the case-fatality rate significantly.
2. The 3-4 month scenario (we outsmart the virus) – If we find that the majority of people actually have mild disease, which would mean that there are many individuals in the community who flew under the radar with undetected cases due to asymptomatic/mildly symptomatic disease, and if we not only start testing aggressively for cases, but also for immunity (provided that infection results in immunity), we may be able to develop strategies that allow us to relax physical distancing measures sooner, at least for people who are known to be immune and/or are likely to have a minimally symptomatic disease course (like children, for example).
3. The 4-12 month scenario (we get a summer reprieve…or not) – How this scenario would play out depends on whether or not the virus ‘backs off’ in the summer months (akin to other seasonal viruses, like influenza). If this is the case, we’d probably be able to relax mitigation strategies a bit over the summer, but would expect to see another wave of infections (and re-tightening of mitigation strategies). However, if the number of new infections doesn’t start fall by mid-June, this would make it very likely that the virus isn’t seasonal, and mitigation strategies would likely continue throughout the summer. Which brings us to…
4. The >12 month scenario (we wait patiently for a vaccine) – This is what we’re looking at if we don’t have a big, global curve-steepening surge within the next couple of months, if we’re not able to use testing for infection/immunity status to our advantage, and if SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t exhibit seasonality. We’ll be dependent on either developing a vaccine or slowly allowing 60-80% of the population to get infected (ideally at a rate which doesn’t completely overwhelm the health care system). This could require a year or more of relatively aggressive mitigation strategies. To develop a vaccine that is likely to be safe enough to confidently administer to billions of people, we’re looking at spring 2021…at the earliest.

As a side note, earlier this week, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published a discussion with three Canadian infectious disease doctors. They made the following points regarding how to interpret whether mitigation measures (i.e. social/physical distancing) are working:

• It’s important to remember that it takes a minimum of two weeks to see effects of mitigation measures on new cases, because the average incubation period is 5-6 days before symptoms arise (if they arise), and then usually another 6-7 days to develop symptoms severe enough to seek medical attention. This means that a positive test in a symptomatic individual usually reflects a transmission event that occurred almost two weeks ago (MW note: this doesn’t necessarily apply in the setting of aggressive contact tracing and testing of asymptomatic individuals)
• Therefore, an uptick in cases during the first two weeks following the institution of mitigation measures doesn’t necessarily mean the measures are futile – we need to be patient

Please stay home, stay safe, and stay healthy this week!

 

So much can change in a week, and now here we are, all plunging together into another week (month? year? decade?) of uncertainty.

I’m going to try and keep up with my weekly recaps even though I’m well aware of how trivial they are and I know nobody but me reads them. I’ve found them helpful for recalling what I’ve spent my time on and keeping me on track(ish) with my goals.

I ran my endocrinology clinics over the telephone on Monday and Wednesday. This seemed to work well for everyone. This week, I’m going to look into options for delivering more formal telemedicine consults — Alberta has been slow to adopt this concept (currently there isn’t a billing code specifically devoted to telemedicine), but COVID-19 is forcing this forward, and I think it will be a good thing for patient care, if done properly.

I’d like to tell you that I finished writing my novel (ha!) and had lots of time for finally starting a show on Netflix or watching a couple of movies I’ve had my eye on (the Long Shot, Parasite, BookSmart), but I did none of those things. Instead, I went grocery shopping about a billion times (and then felt guilty about it) and spent way too many moments worrying about how I’m going to cope with working on the ‘frontlines’ if/when my time comes (and then felt guilty about that).

This week, I’m going to focus on some simple stuff: keeping up with exercise (even if it’s not my usual routine), being nice to my husband, and making sure my patients are looked after. Beyond that, I’m going to try to be okay with taking breaks for things that aren’t necessarily productive, like TV, to create some mental space. Also, it would be really nice to finish the current round of edits on my novel, but whether that actually happens is dependent on so many variables that I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself to get it done.

Three things I’m thinking about this week:

1. A list of 25 ‘rules’ for writing a novel from author Matt Haig. Number 8: ‘It isn’t the words you choose to use. It’s the words you choose not to use.’
2. The first lines of 10 literary classics, rewritten for the COVID-19 era. The Hobbit: ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. He planned to stay there indefinitely in order not to make the lives of essential healthcare personnel more perilous.” (PS- Please take recommendations for social distancing/shelter in place/self isolation seriously).
3. Mark Bittman’s list of substitutions for cooking, to avoid running out to the grocery store for the eleventy billionth time because you forgot one ingredient.

Wishing everyone a safe and healthy week.

 

This is my thing where I post every Wednesday about something mundane that has delighted me this week.

Well, things certainly have evolved since this time last week when I was happily listening to my ’90s Pop Rock Essentials playlist with far fewer cares than I probably should have had.

My mundane pleasure for this week is just taking a moment to get outside (if/when/while) I can, to breathe in the fresh air and appreciate nature.

Groundbreaking, I know. But so easy to forget to do.

Happy (healthy, safe, mundane) Wednesday.

 

It’s been a strange week as things ramp up in Canada with COVID-19. Some of my clinics for next week have been cancelled to avoid non-urgent healthcare interactions, and physicians in my division will be providing consultations via telephone where safe and feasible.

Personally, I’ve been trying to minimize unnecessary group activities, trying to buy local as much as possible, and trying not to get anxious about the current state of uncertainty.

We went back here for dinner last night, the entire time wondering if we really should be out and about. I’ve still been going to the gym in the mornings, but being very careful about sanitization and keeping my distance from others.

I will likely work from home a couple of days next week, if I can.

A few things I’m thinking about:

• I really liked this article from Aesthetics of Joy about making working from home more joyful. I need to work on getting sunshine (and making time to get outside each day), as well as actually packing up at night rather than just working through until bedtime (so easy to do).
• This twitter thread made me think about the impact that COVID-19 is having on small businesses, and I’ve been trying to buy local over the weekend. One suggestion is to purchase gift cards that can be used later (or gifted for birthdays, Christmas etc) and this is something I plan to do next week.
• If I end up having more time over the next few weeks as the result of social distancing precautions, I’d like to spend some of it getting clear about my work/life priorities (and also cooking more at home).

Wishing everyone the best this week. Look out for the mundane pleasures…they will be there!

Ah, breakfast.

The most important meal of the day?

The most unnecessary meal of the day?

Just another meal?

Two recently published research articles suggest that perhaps breakfast should be (back) in our good books.

In the first one, researchers looked at 16 young (average age 24), normal weight men to determine whether breakfast and dinner had different effects on metabolism. After we eat a meal, our energy expenditure goes up temporarily. Think of it as your body responding to the meal by trying to burn off what you just ate. The researchers wondered whether we might be better at doing this earlier in the day.

So, they invited the 16 guys into a metabolic testing unit — a place where they had complete control over food intake and could also perform outcome measurements — for three days. On the first day, the research participants got to acclimatize to the testing unit. The next day, half of them were given a low calorie breakfast (11% of their estimated daily total energy expenditure, or TEE), an ‘standard’ lunch (20% of their TEE) and a high calorie dinner (69% of their TEE). The other half were given a high calorie breakfast (69% of their TEE), the standard lunch, and a low calorie dinner (11% of their TEE). On the third day, the meals given to each group were flipped (i.e. those who had the high calorie breakfast the first day got the low calorie breakfast the second day). The reason for varying up the calories was to determine whether the effects of time of day on energy expenditure changed in settings of calorie restriction. This is particularly important to know for people who are on a diet that involves eating fewer calories (which pretty much all diets out there do).

So, what did they find? Diet induced thermogenesis, aka the amount of energy burned after the meal, was more than twice as high after breakfast than after dinner, regardless of calorie content.

They also found that hunger and sweets cravings were higher after breakfast than dinner, and particularly high after the low calorie breakfast (no surprises there, really).

Based on these findings, they concluded that bigger breakfasts may be better, not only because we might burn more energy after breakfast than dinner, but also, we might be less likely to engage in compensatory snacking (on sweets in particular) throughout the day. Breakfasts also tended to raise blood glucose to a lower degree than dinners.

Of course, this is a very short study in 16 young healthy men, so it’s impossible to say whether this applies to the population at large, but it certainly fits with the old adage ‘eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper‘.

I’m not sure that I’d be able to adhere to the big breakfast regimen…I so enjoy a big dinner, followed by a healthy serving of dark chocolate. But this study is some interesting food for thought (sorry, that pun is getting old).

The second paper was a review article, in which the authors evaluated several weight loss registries, looking to determine which behaviours were most often reported by people who successfully lost weight and kept it off.  The most frequently reported behaviour strategies were:

• Having healthy foods available at home
• Consuming breakfast regularly
• Higher vegetable consumption
• Lowe intake of sugary and fatty foods

Also, high levels of physical activity were consistently tied with weight loss maintenance. The crucial role of exercise in keeping weight off has been reported in a number of other studies.

Of interest, in studies of time restricted feeding (eating only during a certain window of the day, usually a window that is less than 12 hours in length), the time of the eating window doesn’t seem to matter. Outcomes appear to be similar whether the morning meal is skipped (and meals are consumed later in the day) or whether the evening meal is skipped (and meals are consumed earlier in the day).

My three take-aways:

• Eating breakfast probably isn’t going to make you fat…and if you love a big breakfast, don’t feel bad about it; you may well burn off more of your calories than you would have if you ate the same thing at dinner
• If you routinely skip breakfast, that’s probably okay too
• In short, when it comes to breakfast: you do you!

Wishing you a safe and healthy weekend!

 

This is my thing where I post every Wednesday about something mundane that has delighted me this week.

I came across the ’90s Pop Rock Essentials playlist on Spotify this week, and it has provided me with endless moments of joy and nostalgia.

Highly recommend a listen if you, like me, spent many of your formative years in the 90s.

Some highlights:

• The Freshmen (The Verve Pipe)
• Bittersweet Symphony (The Verve…ha!)
• Shimmer (Fuel)
• Stupid Girl (Garbage)
• Glycerine (Bush)
• Little Black Backpack (Stroke 9)
• Got You Where I Want You (The Flys)
• Teenage Dirtbag (Weezer)
• Inside Out (Eve 6)
• Push (Matchbox 20)

And we can’t forget about that one-hit classic: Sex and Candy (oh Marcy Playground).

Happy mundane (and nostalgic) Wednesday!