Author: Wattle

Each year as Apply approaches I think, “I must try and cook my own pie.” Each year I never do. Will this Apply be any different? It seems unlikely.

I don’t mind trying out a baking recipe sometimes. I am happy to say that mostly it all goes smoothly but honestly, we have eaten our fair share of flat cakes or dry cakes or even flat, dry cakes and some of the biscuits did taste of sodium bicarbonate, it has to be owned up to. So, it seems to me that baking pastry would be a difficult skill to master, and I don’t want to waste my precious allocation of deliciousness this month on epic cooking failures.

Tempting although the packaging makes them look, I try to avoid the mass produced things which purport to be pies from the freezer compartment at the supermarket. Perhaps you know the ones I mean? They have some slushy type of filling and a thick casing of pastry-like substance. They have an ingredient list as long as my arm, when all I really want to read is butter and flour, with a bit of salt and a bit of sugar plus the filling type.

The small bakery where the food is baked on the premises seems to be a better alternative. I can be reasonably sure that real pastry will encase real filling and certainly the allocation of deliciousness will be well spent. Even so, I proceed with caution. Simply stated, the amount of filling does not include enough protein for an evening meal, or enough fruit for an evening desert. Yes there will be some beef mince, or some egg and bacon, or some chicken, or some apple, just not the amount that I am used to having. I need to supplement it.

How will I supplement it? Wisely with some more lean protein? Or unwisely with extra oven potato fries? Extra desert? Some Chocolate ripes? Today I am choosing wisely. Sadly that is not always the case.

It is no wonder that as each Apply dwindles to its conclusion I think, “Next Apply I will try to cook my own pie.” One year I might.

There is no shortage of literature about how healthy we are going to be after giving up cigarettes. We will be able to run up mountains using our incredibly improved lung capacity, we will be able to taste food so much better, and on and on it goes, the benefits are many, and wondrous.

What is rarely, if ever mentioned is how irritable we are going to be. If my brain is screaming at me to give the tiny cells the balance they want and crave for and I refuse to give it to them, the result isn’t going to be a secret and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Irritable hardly even describes it. Perhaps it will be worse still if the person is giving up cigarettes because they feel they are being forced to do so. They are giving in to pressures from family members, and to the less than subtle pressures from governments, who have now forced the price of one packet of twenty cigarettes to cost more than a weeks worth of vegetables.

The smallest annoying things grow into impossible demands that only a saint could achieve, certainly not our mere mortal family members down here on earth trying to be supportive, trying to live with us. Eating up as much sugar as the body will accept as a substitute seems to be a very good idea, if only for the sake of our families. Worry about controlling the inevitable weight gain later, much later.

Then, at some much later stage, well after the initial withdrawal has taken place it might be possible to at least try to lose some of the weight gained. Exactly what you would predict to happen does happen. Added to the residual irritability of giving up cigarettes is the non-trivial irritability of not giving the body quite enough of what it also wants, a satisfactory amount of sugars and fats.

One tiny helper to absorb some of the irritability, as well as some weight, is to walk. Try walking with a bit more pace sometimes to help manage some irritability if it is detectable. Walking a self-defined amount of distance most days, even a slow ambling stroll will help to cope with periods of blatantly obvious, or even cleverly masked irritation which can go on for years. Many years, even decades.

Sometimes later on after my walk when I see the photographs I have taken displayed on the computer screen, I notice that they are blurred. Of course I would rather show a perfect photo, or at least a beautiful or interesting photo each day but if I waited that long, regrettably there would not be many additions to the web site.

The point is to utilise this modern technology to document my weight loss journey and share how I have done it. I like to show you what I saw on my walk. Unpolished photos are quite alright to do that. I have also found out that I enjoy writing blogs and I hope you enjoy reading them too.

Another very good aspect of having a pie for breakfast is that if it is bought from the bakery, as well as acting as a hand warmer on the way home, it gives a different way to practice waiting to eat. A small, manageable wait. After all, the worst case is that the pie could be eaten on the walk. Mostly I am so busy peering into gardens that my mind is side tracked admiring all the flowers. I am not thinking about being quite hungry. I do manage to get it home, re-heat it a bit and serve it on a plate with a serviette to eat at a table.

Allowing hunger to develop is a physical state that I would not seek out very often. The Apply breakfast gives me a safe, brief experience of it.