Foods and Moods (and Expensive Supplements)

Happy New Year, everyone!

It is, you would think, one of those things spouted by diet doctors that what you eat really does impact your day. One of those things that everyone says 'mmm' to but nobody really believes.

Sadly, it has come to my attention that if I feel tired or sick, asking 'when did I last eat?' will probably reveal why. Every case of CFS is different, but apparently mine is very responsive to healthy eating. You'd think I'd be happy about this. I mean, figure out what works (fish, vegetables, oats, wholewheat pasta and potatoes) and what doesn't (chocolate, sweets, white flour - which is a bummer because it seems to be in everything) and adjust accordingly.

But dang it, I don't want to give up chocolate forever!

I don't have to...exactly. However, a single week at home eating Terry's Chocolate Oranges has left me tired, ill and uneven of complexion. My face hurts, seriously, and the cold weather is not helping. I sound like Cassandra ("Moisturise me! Moisturise me!") It's not even as if I wasn't eating healthy food as well, just not as often as usual. Still, I'm recovering.

So, it seems, more than a single piece of chocolate a day causes me to crash like Bradford and Bingley.

I like my chocolate. And my sweets. However, I like feeling like a healthy, whole human being more. Usually. So it's goodbye chocolate orange, hello chocolate porridge (being porridge with cocoa powder in it). I'll probably live longer.

And also eat more, because I'm up to four meals a day. Mmm. Food. This, I suspect, has something to do with exercise and a distinct lack of sugary food. (When you start missing your nasty-tasting flax oil you know you've really signed up to the healthy eating bandwagon.)

Alas, poor Terry! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite generosity, of most excellent chocolate.

[/using Shakespeare for evil]

There are a bunch of books about how fatigue sufferers should not eat bread, vinegar, yeast, yoghurt, mushrooms(?), cheese, dried fruit (no great loss there) and the like. Something to do with sugar and yeast imbalances in the body. The ME society says this is hokum, and that a healthy diet low in refined carbohydrates (ahem, sugar and white flour and white rice, I sense a pattern here) and high in...wait for it...vegetables and fish and lean meat and what-have-you does the same job more simply. And probably without the expensive supplements.

Expensive supplements are everywhere. Seriously. You can't go anywhere that talks about healthy eating without them at least recommending a multivitamin (preferably theirs). I have no problem with multivitamins, though I don't take them every day. Given the falling levels of vitamins present in foods (this includes fruit and vegetables, and I'm not quite at the organic budget level yet) it makes sense. But all of the other stuff seems a bit like overkill (and I bet somebody, somewhere, is making a killing selling them).

So, it's going to be boring food choices for me from now on. I don't mind...too much. I like salmon and broccoli and pasta and stuff. But if I'm turning down your chocolate pudding, be nice: it's not a personal insult. In fact, it's a compliment: I want to stay awake and enjoy your company rather than eat your pudding!

Wish me luck.

Beyonce and the Folk Song Army

My last entry of 2008, and it's going to be my normal random offering of subjects only loosely connected. Here goes...

Normally, the offerings in my Hotmail startup page are a bit rubbish really. Stuff like "What's Cheryl doing now?" or "Our favourite X Factor moments!" However, I take it all back with the article entitled Worst Songs of 2008. Because it's snarky and acerbic enough to make me laugh and be glad I know so little about popular music. What? I have no TV, and I listen to Radio 4 (if I can get it) or Classic FM, or that one that plays songs from the 70s. Anyway:

"It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the tune of Beyonce's If I Were A Boy. The tune was nice. Very nice. Well done that woman who wrote it who wasn't Beyonce.

But the words made us want to buy a bra, wear it until it became fashionable for men to wear bras and then burn that bra in protest and disgust at the ludicrously clichéd portrayal of men within its fake-empowerment verses."

You have no idea how many times I've heard half of this song in the gym, and wondered who on earth was singing. Now I know. Oh, Beyonce. You really are the undisputed queen of 'songs which are meant to sound empowering/emotional/whatever, but just miss the mark.' See, for example, Irreplaceable, (Some Bloke cheats on her, she throws him out of the house, contains the lines 'I could have another you in a minute/Matter of fact, he'll be here in a minute'. Sure, supposed to sound empowering and yadda yadda, but sounds more like, 'Hey, I found some other cheating two-faced jerk to take your place! Yay me! *giggle*')

"Apparently, if Ms Knowles had danglier genitals, she would: "Roll out of bed in the morning / And throw on what I wanted / And go drink beer with the guys." That's not a boy, that's an unemployed alcoholic!"

That line made me snigger quite uncontrollably.

"She also imagines: "I would turn off my phone / Tell everyone its broken / So they think that I was sleeping alone."Again, this isn't the natural behaviour of the Y chromosome. It's the behaviour of a dishonest, unfaithful git which, last time we checked, wasn't exclusive to either gender. What's so awful about If I Were A Boy is that no such man exists and no such relationship exists, except perhaps in beer commercials. The entire song is a lie and an insult to all complex, individual and free-thinking human beings."

Quite. And I would totally buy the song below, even though it reminds me of Tom Lehrer and the Folk Song Army: "It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English...and it don'tevenmatterifyoucramafewextrasyllables into a line". Though not necessarily in that order.

"Of course, the real lyrics should go something along the lines of: "If I were a boy / I'd pee standing up / Then I'd take my car to the garage / And be amazed that they didn't patronise me about the trouble I've been having with the clutch.""

Happy New Year, everyone!

Oh noes!

Noooooo! He DIED!

Ok, so this wasn't exactly a shock or anything, but it was sad. And yet still funny, even when it's tragic. Poor Qui-Gon. Still, he'll be back. Maybe as Padme? Snigger.

Ohmygoshthough, wasn't Doctor Who fabulous? Maybe I'm just chronically deprived, but I liked it. I really liked Evil!Woman's red dress. Excessively cool. And the Doctor, who wasn't the Doctor, and Rosita (a bit of a shrieker, too shrill for me but whatever, she's sort of an amalgam of companions) and the Cybermen. The neat little reminder references and the sweet 'thank you' at the end. Awww.

And Wallace and Gromit, though I haven't seen it really, I was in the car.

I hope you all had a marvellous Christmas, with peace on earth, goodwill to men, and good news of great joy for all the people.

Assemblies and all that

Notes to self:

1. Do not forget gloves when going to the gym. I do that once and suddenly my hands are as bad as ever. Tch!

2. Advent calendars rule.

3. Take vitamins to attempt to stave off cold.

4. Your job rocks. Remember this fact.

I am taking an assembly tomorrow, about Christmas and hope. S did today's assembly, but I can't just give the same talk verbatim (he made it up on the spot; I can neither remember all of it nor wing it). So I have a plan and an outline and some desperate praying to do. Smile! Jesus loves you!

But you know, I'm brave. Occasionally.

My mentor told me yesterday that in the Western world Christians tend to pray for protection, whereas in the rest of the world, Christians pray for courage.

So...I pray for courage and for protection too. But mostly for courage, because He never promised there wouldn't be hard times, but He did promise He'd be with us in them.

Just as well, really.