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Eight hundred and seventy-five calories.

Per day.

This seems almost surreal, or impossible, but -- I have to learn how to eat eight hundred seventy-five more calories a day.

As a first, linear, "engineering" approximation, that is.

Bear with me.  The approximation goes like this:   One must run a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories to lose one pound of human fat, more or less.  This is a convenient number, because it is divisible by seven; it means that, in order to lose one pound per week, each day one must eat 500 fewer calories than one burns.

I have been losing one and three-quarters pounds per week.  Pretty steadily. (My expected standard deviation once I get to maintenance is approximately 1.1 pounds, according to Mark's OpenOffice spreadsheet.)

I'm almost at goal (108 pounds) and when that happens I will be trying to lose zero pounds per week.  So will be trying to run a calorie deficit of, um, zero.  Since all signs point to a current daily calorie deficit of 875 calories, the first-order approximation is to eat 875 calories more per day than I'm eating now.

Enter the two giant, dressing-soaked, Parmesan-and-crouton-laden Caesar salads.

 

Of course, I am a highly nonlinear system, and it could well be that the first-order approximation is off by a few hundred calories.  Maybe I need to add only 650 calories.  Maybe I need to add 1,000.  We will find out as I continue to graph my weight loss. 

 (You may recall that my husband is a process engineer.  He is not only making spreadsheets to figure out nerdy little things like the variance and standard deviation of my weight.  He is planning a full-fledged statistical process control scheme.  Believe me, you will hear more of this later, cross-posted to the Homemaking for Engineers category.  And if you wonder why I put up with this, you must have forgotten what I spent twelve years of my life studying.)

But the bigger question facing me now is:  OMG HOW AM I GOING TO EAT THAT MUCH FOOD?

Cathie and Amy F and CJ all guessed, one way or another, that 875 calories is the difference between what I eat now and what I ate before.  Since the slope of the weight-time graph is pretty constant, we can indeed infer that, too, as a first approximation.  I wasn't measuring before, so I can't say for sure.  

This is nearly (not quite, but nearly) two meals' worth of calories (meal size being what it is for me now).

I don't think it would be easy to do it again.  My hunger signals have adjusted.  At the end of my dinners -- just one eight-and-a-half-inch plateful -- I am stuffed.  I no longer get hungry for snacks except right before bed, and then only if I've just come back from a swim workout.  

And I'm a little bit afraid to try.  I'm afraid to stuff extra calories in.  I'm afraid to re-start the habit of snacking when I'm not hungry.  I still fight the mental urge to wander into the kitchen to pop something into my mouth when I'm bored.  I feel like I have a long way to go to cure the psychological habit of eating when I'm not hungry.  I finally understand how it can be that some women say they have trouble eating all the food they're supposed to when they're pregnant.   

I think I understand anorexia a little bit more than I did before.  It's not the fear that this one apple, this one slice of bread, will make you fat.  It's the fear that giving in to the one apple, the one slice of bread, will open the floodgates.  If I can eat one saltine cracker today when I'm not hungry, tomorrow I might allow myself two, and then before you know it it's a whole sleeve.  

Or 1.8 sleeves.

 (yes, that's how many saltines equals 875 calories)

I apologize to anyone who finds it hard to, er, feel sympathy for me being in this situation.  I am sure I would have thought so before I lost 40 pounds.  As it is, I find it more than a little surreal.  I really am not sure how I'm going to do it.

A lovely, wistful, brief meditation...

...on sending kids off to school.  And into life, in general, in case the homeschoolers reading this don't think it applies to us.

To be heartbroken is to be separated from the scene of your happiness. Happiness is a situation, not a condition. The situation must be assembled from the tatty bits of this world over and over. It is the cook, not the philosopher, that we must look to. One must not starve to death waiting for the food.

...I was happy, of course, the whole time my heart was breaking.

Mm.

The puzzle, a hint.

Yesterday morning I posted a puzzle .  I put up pictures of food -- such as a dozen eggs, a pair of buttered baked potatoes, a giant bowl of guacamole, 48 oz of whole milk -- and asked "Why am I interested in these things?"

After  doing some homework, commenter Amy F of Against The Grain was getting pretty warm -- she figured out that all these items have about the same number of calories. 

Eight hundred seventy-five calories, thereabouts.  (Plus or minus a few.)

Which still leaves open the question... Why am I interested in eight hundred seventy-five calories?

UPDATE:  CJ of Light and Momentary, in the comments, is the closest.  But I didn't get that number in the same way she suggests.

UPDATE AGAIN:  Actually, CJ, I was thinking of just plying you with the six-pack.  That last you for a couple of hours?

UPDATE AGAIN AGAIN:  Just in case this isn't perfectly clear:  I am not pregnant.

Some of the most thoughtful and interesting comments about Sarah Palin, and about the reaction to her...

...are at TalkLeft, a liberal blog I like to read from time to time.  Seriously.  This thread is worth a read.

One commenter says:

Is this really what the Lefty Blogosphere is all about.  We are actually calling women "C*nts" now?  This is why we supported the ERA?  This is the best we can come up with, that McCain is old and deformed and his running mate is a "C*nt"?  This is the brilliant battle plan?  Hell, Kos should just put a picture of Palin's newest kid on a package of "Downy" and pick on him for a while.  Let's just all turn into Michelle Malkin and reach for the Lowest Common Denominator, maybe Palin, the "C*nt" that she is, has some granite counter tops or some other scandalous thing.  This is not my progressive movement anymore, and as far as I'm concerned anyone who suborns that kind of nonsense, like Kos, is no better than Michelle Malkin.  Obama or any of his acolytes could shut this garbage down in a day if they so desired, but I guess they don't.  Pretty.  Fracking.  Stoooooopid.

  I expected to see some misogyny, but I didn't think the "C word" would be deployed quite as freely as it has been, quite so quickly. (A little Googling is instructive) I ought to know better than to look at online comments at newspaper sites, but the one in my own home town... It only took a few comments before the word "whore" appeared, and only a few more comments passed before the first suggestion that Gov. Palin had no business running for office when she should stay home and take care of her children.

Wow.

A CLARIFICATION:  TalkLeft is not the blog that's originating these misogynistic comments.  Most of the commenters in the thread I linked are, rightly, dismayed to see their fellow "progressives" (mostly on other liberal blogs) using such awful terms to describe a high-achieving woman. 

Yes:  I am interested in what reasonable people on both sides of the political spectrum think about all the candidates.  And it appears that reasonable people on the left are horrified at the ad hominem (feminam?) attacks on Governor Palin.

UPDATE: (And on her daughter.)

UPDATE:  Here's another good, interesting, thoughtful, NOT insulting thread about Gov. Palin on a liberal blog.  Just to show you that such things can and do exist.

What, only one guess?

On my puzzle? Come on, folks.

Easing into the water.

Back when I struggled with finding the time to exercise, I would never have thought that someday I'd be swimming laps twice a week.

Point one:  I wasn't a very good swimmer.  (Lessons took care of that problem.)

The bigger point, the one I thought was a major obstacle:  Swimming isn't exactly a simple operation.  You can't just put on your shoes and run out the door or hop on a bike, and be done with your workout when you get back.  You can't improvise equipment from household materials like you can with weight training (unless you have a lap pool in your back yard).  You can't put The Machine in your rec room in front of the TV and slip in a three-miler while your kids nap.  

Instead, you've got to get yourself to the pool and change before you can even get started.  And when you're done, the shower and change isn't optional.  And you've got to get back.

CJ at Light and Momentary (writing about exercise during pregnancy, specifically with a heart arrhythmia) summed The Problem With Swimming quite well:

If I can run without harming the baby, that's my first choice. Life is really busy, and running allows me to get 30 minutes of exercise in 30 minutes. Swimming is nice and will be my next choice if I decide to go unmedicated, but I have to drive to the pool, get changed, swim, get changed, drive home. Getting 30 minutes of exercise takes more like 60 minutes if I'm swimming.

She's right about the time, of course.   It's the same for me.  40 minutes of swimming = 65 or 70 minutes total.  And it's been more lately; our local Y has been closed for remodeling, so I'm driving 15 minutes extra each way to get to a different one.  This week they'll both be closed, and I'll be driving 30 minutes extra once.  

Which is why I've been surprised to discover that I enjoy the extra time that the swimming workout takes.  

Granted, I have cheerful, enthusiastic support from Mark, who sometimes has to watch the kids when MJ is refusing to stay in the child care facility at the Y.  That helps.  I wouldn't enjoy the extra time if I thought it was taking away from my family.  

But given that, I do enjoy it.  Even the extra commute I've had for the last few weeks.  

The time of leaving the house, of driving, of driving home brackets the workout.  I have that time to get into the workout frame of mind.  Sometimes I trudge out to my van thinking Urgh, I just don't feel like I'm going to enjoy it today.  I hit the garage door opener, turn the key, put on some music.  A few minutes pass; I start to be aware of my own self, my intent.  No one is  yelling MOM, none of the reminders of  Things I Have To Do are there.  It takes a few minutes of aloneness to remind me that the time I spend swimming -- and the time I spend getting to the pool and getting ready to swim -- is time that is a marvelous gift.  From me to myself and especially from my husband to me (since he's home with the kids).  

Getting to the locker room, disrobing, putting on the suit (and don't I look better in the suit these days? I get to say to myself) -- all those steps make up a transition, a ritual, a marker.  Leaving the rest of my life for a moment, getting into the water.  I've learned not to stand in the cold water shivering and getting up the nerve.  I've learned to jump right in and start swimming.

When I'm done, there's the showering and getting dressed, returning to real life; another soft transition.   When I walk across the dark yard towards the lit windows, and I can see my children lined up at the kitchen counter eating their bedtime snack while my husband unloads the dishwasher, I'm glad to be home and so thankful for everything.  It's a little retreat and a happy return.

Morning puzzle. (updated to add more clues)

Why am I interested in these things?  (updated to add even more)

One dozen eggs.

 Three slices of deluxe pizza from a national chain.

Two full cans of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti and meatballs.  

A bowl of guacamole made from three avocadoes, the juice from a lime, a shake of Tabasco, and salt. 

Two big Caesar salads, complete with croutons, parmesan cheese, and dressing.

 

Six glasses of whole milk.

  

Two large, generously buttered and salted, baked potatoes.

A heaping cup of trail mix with chocolate chips in it.  So, like, five of those little cups...

 

Two extra-gooey peanut butter and honey sandwiches on whole wheat bread.

A six-pack of beer.

A rare homemade tea snack.

Today I was reading George Washington's Mother, by Jean Fritz, to Milo.  I got to the part that explained how Mary Ball Washington was famous for her delicious gingerbread.  

Milo asked, "Can we make gingerbread?"

I thought about it for a minute and then remembered that Christy had just posted her great-aunt's recipe.  "Sure," I said.  "We can make gingerbread.  I'll make some for tea."  I was pretty sure there'd be enough time, and it turned out I was right.

So Milo and I made gingerbread while MJ napped and Oscar did schoolwork.  And I can report it was very yummy and rich, and I totally agree with what Christy said about it tasting "antique."  (Minor changes:  I used blackstrap molasses, whole wheat flour, and coconut oil.)

Feeling safe vs. being safe.

Megan McArdle points to an interesting article about a Dutch traffic engineer, famous for removing traffic signs and thereby increasing safety.  Both Megan's post and the article are very much worth reading.  (Bonus new material provided by me:  Here's the Google satellite view of the intersection described in detail in the article.)

View Larger Map

I had never thought of it before, but the original article points out, and Megan highlights, a key piece of information:   In some cases, making people feel less safe will make them safer in reality.  Traffic engineering, apparently, is one of these cases.  Encouraging people to be alert and attentive encourages safe driving.  And apparently, we make people feel less safe -- and encourage them to pay attention -- not when we plaster warnings, signs, and markings everywhere, but rather when we take them away.   (There's an argument, of course, that this effect lasts only as long as it takes for people to get comfortable in the new environment.  Not sure about the data for that one.)

Other times, to feel safer is to be safer -- that is, feelings of safety can contribute to actual safety.  One can imagine many situations in which calmness -- a product of feeling safe -- helps you avoid mistakes.  Another situation that comes to mind is childbirth; being relaxed and in a place where one feels secure helps the flow of hormones that loosen and open up the body.

The main lesson to take away?  Feeling safe and being safe are separate issues -- not necessarily correlated or anti-correlated (is that a word?  Oh well, you know what I meant.)  And if a population is going to make rational decisions about safety regulations, it has to be able to step outside itself a bit, look at how it "feels" about regulations objectively, and consider what reality is created by those perceptions.

Naughty humor...

...of the kind that I like best.