h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What's the Hay diet?

I have piles of books and paperwork everywhere, but I have to have a clean kitchen and bathroom. Don't care if the living room is dusty and hasn't been hoovered in ages (like mine is now) but I simply cannot stand grimy counters and scungy tubs. I guess it has something to do with the ease of it. If you dirty the sink, wipe it out with a towel. If you get dishes dirty, put them in the sink to soak.

Now actually going through the paperwork or keeping the books in order? Not a chance.

The Hay diet is a food combining system in which you don't eat protein and starches at the same time.

http://www.synergy-health.co.uk/articles/haydiet.html


Paperwork gets the better of me too. I try to get it all sorted on January 1 each year and then it's all downhill from there for the rest of the year.

B likes tidy, and I like clean. So I'm in charge of the bathroom and the kitchen and the dusting, and he does the picking up and nags me about my paperwork mountains. We then fight about who cleans the toilet.

Having said that, I'm also a blizter rather than a little but oftener, so I wouldn't say our flat is a model of cleanliness or tidiness. The kitchen gets done everyday, the bathrom once a week, and I positively lok forward to a Thorough Spring Clean once a year. But I did find myself doing something I despise and showing someone around yesterday (we are renting out our flat to me work) and saying "Sorry about the mess" When really it wasn't messy (though I did notice it could do with a dust).

But... My flat! My flat! I'm mourning my flat at the moment. Sure as hell not gonna find anything like that in London, or ever unless I change career. My flat! My flat!

This is my last day at work. So what am I doing? Messing about here. I plan to go and drink a toast to Red Square tonite after lessons (only two minutes away) and feel deliciously mournful about leaving Moscow too.

Then I shall get back to worrying that I'm not worrying enough.

What are your plans when you get back to the UK, Sol? Last time we spoke you were considering post-grad teaching courses.

Nothing wrong with the Hay diet, Amy. It is based on sound research, and it works remarkably well. It isn't a weight-loss diet, but a healthy-eating diet. I completely agree that there is a lot wrong with anally rententive food faddists, particularly ones who make their food-issues your problem, but they can attach themselves to a whole range of different fads, not just the Hay.

Having a genuine sensitivity to wheat and dairy, but one which is not health-thretening in the short term, (no anaphactic shock, for example), it is always difficult to know to what extent one can impose one's dietary requirements onto other people. It feels so rude to give a list of things I don't eat to someone who is being kind enough to cook for me.

It has been over a year since I was strict about the no wheat / no dairy, and I am fat, spotty, depressed and have low energy levels, I am susceptible to coughs and colds and vulnerable to headaches. It does make a noticable difference to how well or not well I feel.

Ben
*possibly a tad over-sensitive to comments about the Hay Diet*

I think I managed about three quaters of the backlog before I collapsed in a heap at the latest postings!
Can't add much but we had a good if hectic christmas, MC's family, my sister then my parents & other sisters (and family) then a day of doing nothing.
I do hope the isn't a few hundred more posts when I come to try and read this again.

Both H and I considered the Hay diet after his parents tried it. But for a veggie to forego cheese on his pizza and pasta was above and beyond the call the of duty.

Thought I would get ahead and nip to Sainsbury's, with another day's holiday looming. It was great fun! Their software crashed, they had to close the store and the queues at the checkouts where huge! Using facetrack (self scanning) meant that at least I already had a total for my shopping, but as the Radio Times was a 'problem item' I got it for free. Outside they were desperately trying to fend off shoppers trying to get into the store, as far back as two roundabouts away.

My new PC case has come, along with the OS: XP. Yes I know, Linux is more reliable and free, but as No2 son is going to start down the route of M$ helpdesk we might as well have the free support and the rest of the LAN is XP, apart from NT............and Linux.

Sainsburys! That *does* sound fun!

B

Ben, the garden centre trip will have to be after significant Monday (the day my student loan arrives!) becuase until then I am skint! Well I'm not skint by my defination - I have a good 700 pounds of overdraft left, but I'd rather not spend money until I get my student loan to be honest.

I'm currently having a good long think about my tendancy to acculmulate clutter. When I graduate, (Hell freezes over, the canals run red with blood,etc.) I am entitiled to hospital accomodation, free or very cheap halls of residence. But it would mean moving every six months, as junior dr's jobs are on a six month rotation within the health authourity. At the moment I just can't fit all my things, (3 cases of books, 5 pot plants, and a fish tank) into a hall of residence room. At least not if I want to live there as well. I suppose I could take htem back to my parents, but that would be admitting defeat, I'm very pround of the fact that I've never asked for any practical help from them since I left home two weeks after I turned 18. Asking them to take some of my things back would be admitting defeat. BUt it would make it a lot easier to save up for a deposit for a place of my own, with the way house prices are rising I need to do that ASAP. And there's the fact that I don't really like the idea of living at work, sharing a flat with people I work with. I've never met anyone I couldn't work with, but A is the only person I've lived with, parents included, who has been able to stand me.

Now what should I do today, A has this afternoon off and needs to work on his disseration, I need to study as well, but we tend to distract each other. I may well pop into the university's 24 hour computer cluster to do the studying. I may go shopping, which I really don't want to do, but the zip broke on my one remaining pair of trousers this morning, so I really need to buy some new ones. (I detest shopping so much I tend to have one univeristy pair of trousers, a pair of jeans, and a pair of shoes at any one time - shirts and jumpers last longer so I have more of them).

Right we have a plan.

*makes and gets on with it.

(At the moment I just can't fit all my things, (3 cases of books, 5 pot plants, and a fish tank) into a hall of residence room)
O.K a bit of lateral thinking on my part .
your problem,summerized above.Why not buy 7.5 tonne van/caravan to accomodate the above,park out side these( I am entitiled to hospital accomodation, free or very cheap halls of residence)
would also be usefull office
on computer mean able to keep in touch cheaply

My brother and I sound like Sol and B - he tidies, I clean. But we have nothing even remotely like a schedule, so it just happens when it seems like the house needs it.

In a terribly gruesome but related local news item, the body of a woman who had been missing for 9 months was found in her own basement this week. Apparently the house was normally so filthy that no one noticed.

<-- cuddles up to Marv

coely, i read your posts -- please don't lurk completely.

a disadvantage of this separate posting screen is that you can't go back and review the thread while you're composing the post. I've often wished that this posting screen could be converted to a window like the who's online thingy.

*waves to Hati*

Anyone here heard of Paul Ekman, the facial expression specialist?

I right click and open the reply page in a new window when I want to refer back to the thread I am replying to.

Should I know who it is? Is he Swedish, considering the name? *googles* No, he seems to be American, if this is the guy:
http://www.paulekman.com/

IT can if you open two browsers,or linux.or even Tweak code if online via different server.

Looks like my luck has run out. I seem to have finally come down with a cold. At least it is only a cold tho.

Coely, I like reading your posts, they're always interesting, and it's a pleasure to have you here. It's something difficult to reply to everyone's isn't it? i do it by using a note pad file, and reading the back log and replying to things as they come up.

LTP. I don't think I'd be allowed to do that, it's a nice idea, but hospitals are very short on parking as it is, so aren't going to welcome someone living in their car park!

Candi, I've been having awful headaches for nearly 2 weeks. I found out yesterday that my blood pressure is too high, so have been given three months to make some life style changes and see if it comes back down on it's own. If not, I'll have to start medication. I'm going to try to be very Zen.

I ordered a devise called Resperate for F that he won't use. It's a sort of biofeedback thing that is supposed to help lower blood pressure. I may as well try it myself. And a lot of the stress with my job should ease up soon. Until it's time to start moving back into the library. But that will be at least a year. And I'm determined to take off a few pounds. That should help.

d'E, so far I have received 23 seed catalogs. This number is down considerable from last year, but it's still early and some others may come in. I never order out of most of them, so I'm probably being taken off of the mailing lists.

As far as cleaning goes - my mom is a nasty nice housekeeper and thinks that I'm beyond the pale. But other than a perpetually dirty kitchen floor - and that's F's fault for tracking dirt and mud in constantly and spilling things on the spots without mud - it's mostly clutter rather than dirt. Life is too short to obsess about cleaning. Just mho.

Zeppo is an exception. Some dogs I tolerate, others I actually like. I am just not a dog person, and would rather have a nice warm cat curled up on my lap or cuddled up in my bed.

Hypatia,

(This isn't medical advice at all... cos I can't give that out online, just information..)

Have you just had one blood pressure reading? because it is affected by short term stress as well as long term stress. For instance if you were nervous about seeing the doctor, or if being their brought back memories about F then that might have caused your blood pressure to go up whilst you were seeing him. It's called White coat hypertension, this if people only get stressed becuase their doctor is taking their blood pressure.

I had one consultant who would never believe blood pressure readings that he took in out patients because most of the time the patients were very nervous about being in hospital. He advised them to go to their GPs and have it taken in a more relaxed setting, then if it was up there as well, then they should think about reducing it.

I'm sure your doctor will have checked it all out. Evidence wise being less stressed helps but so does losing weight, doing more excercise, not smoking.

Z, it's lower at home when I take it with F's machine. But the lower number is always in the 90's. So an ordinary reading at home is something like 124/94. Then yesterday at the doctor's it was 178/98. But I was upset when I got there over something with my mom and told him that I thought the reading was worthless. Which made him get all huffy. But he's retiring in 6 weeks, so I don't give a rip if he's upset with me or not. But I need to get the lower number into the 80's. Up until a couple of years ago my normal BP was always on the low side (90/65), so this is quite a switch for me.