Alligatorob's Diary

alligatorob said:
wouldn't want to face Beelzebub without a good supply of heat resistant ice cream.
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:smilielol5:
The extra 86 pounds would be more like a lead suit than a sack of potatoes, I guess - I'm a bit the same, in that I used to carry around an enormous amount of extra weight. Part of the reason I find bodies amazing is that most of the time they will hang on for as long as they can, and keep working pretty well, even with so much extra load.
That's pretty fascinating about Bjarmaland - thanks!
 
It was a good day, I ate well and feel good.

Liza, LaMa, Petal, Emily and Amy, sounds like the verdict on freeze dried ice cream is unanimous, something better done without. I should not denigrate the Mormons for the food supply thing, it would not take an impossible catastrophe to do serious damage to our food supply chain. Local supplies, grocery stores etc would run out in a few days. Something like a major volcanic eruption, plague, or wide spread weather event, even a sudden rise in sea level. These are all things that have happened in the past, and will no doubt happen again, hopefully not till I am long gone.

Friday

breakfast
yogurt 80
cereal - grapenuts 110

snack
orange 64

lunch sardines 220

dinner
salmon 140
peas 70
wild rice 83
25 frozen cherries 108

snack
orange 64
apple 94

total calories 1,033

I am running out of ideas for the 11th century, I know I have done this one before, but 1033 was a year of wide spread panic in Europe, people fearing the 1,000th anniversary of the crucifixion.
 
alligatorob said:
it would not take an impossible catastrophe to do serious damage to our food supply chain. Local supplies, grocery stores etc would run out in a few days. Something like a major volcanic eruption, plague, or wide spread weather event, even a sudden rise in sea level. These are all things that have happened in the past, and will no doubt happen again
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such a cheery thought Rob! Haha.

I often think about climate change etc etc. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other about climate change in that we know the earth has gone through waves of hot and cold many times over billions of years and I don’t think we have enough evidence to suggest we’re not just seeing one of these peaks again (although I wholly support lessening our impact; just because we can’t say we are definitely killing the earth is no reason to continue trashing it.

HOWEVER my point is that I wonder if we’re actually making the problem worse by trying to make it better; take bushfires for example; they’re getting more and more extreme. Admittedly there are more and more people to be in the path and more and more media coverage but in centuries past there were fires that we “allowed” to burn out rather than putting them out artificially. I can’t help but imagine that this would clear a lot of dead undergrowth so the next season would have less to burn. Every time we intervene and stop a fire do we just postpone it?

I know we do back burning etc etc but nowhere near to the extent that a wild fire would.

allowing a fire to burn would of course have huge morale implications; human and animal lives would be lost in the millions and without alternative natural habitats (due to human invasions) many animal species would quickly find themselves endangered or extinct.

the morale of my rambling ... I have nothing of any real significance to add.
 
alligatorob said:
it would not take an impossible catastrophe to do serious damage to our food supply chain. Local supplies, grocery stores etc would run out in a few days.
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True. But anything that would take TWO YEARS of supplies to survive would be so horrendous I´d probably rather not survive in the first place.
 
I had a dream about being in an apocalypse-type situation last night, the fire situation in Australia has really got to me. Also the latest Iran thing is not good.
 
LaMaria said:
anything that would take TWO YEARS of supplies to survive would be so horrendous I´d probably rather not survive in the first place
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Good point, and if food runs out that probably means no power, no gas, no fuel, no medicine, no running water or working sewage and civil chaos. You would need more than food to survive. Like I said lets hope we never see it, that's my current plan.
 
I´d understand having food and water for a couple of weeks (of a kind you´ll actually use up once they get close to expiring and need to be replaced), a way to keep warm (and cook if your supplies require heating), a water treatment system, maybe some decent water repellent material that´ll get you out of the rain, hunting supplies, and a genuinely good medical kit with the needed training. Anything beyond that is pretending to be tougher than you are.
 
During our last huge snow which only happens one in about every 30 years the shops took weeks to return to normal . I noticed it mostly with milk and yoghurts . Took so long for the shelves to be replenished. Of course the dairies could not access the farms for milk collection. Something we never have to think about . I could probably eke our food supplies here out for about 3 weeks woth rice and pasta maybe . Few bits in the freezer maybe . I don’t think we would starve .

there is a programme I believe going to be shown here on sky tv where scientists prove that the earth is cooler now than years ago by 2 degrees . I am sorry I cannot remember how many years ago ! I will find out . My husband reckons that planet earth will survive but mankind is what is in danger .
Who knows . Rob we have monopolised your page . I’m too tired to do all the diaries tonight so catch up with all tomorrow.
 
Cate said:
Maybe go up a bit so you can share some 12th & maybe 13th-century stories
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That sounds like a great basis for a diet!!

Petal001 said:
there is a programme I believe going to be shown here on sky tv where scientists prove that the earth is cooler now than years ago by 2 degrees . I am sorry I cannot remember how many years ago ! I will find out
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There was a time in the 70s when many scientists did believe the earth was cooling, there were worries that another ice age was coming. I was in grad school then at LSU and helped my adviser put a paper together on the impacts of a falling sea level on Louisiana's coast. Now we know that was wrong, but it does point out the difficulty in really understanding climate change. I was a cooling believer then, and my skepticism from having been wrong once made me slow to come around. But I do now believe the earth is warm, and that man-made carbon dioxide emissions have at least contributed. Your husband is right of course, the plant has seen much worse than our current warming, the question is will we or our descendants survive. I would be interested in the TV program, if you find it.
 
alligatorob said:
I am running out of ideas for the 11th century...
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I've looked very hard to try to add something useful here, Rob! I thought of switching calendars - there's at least a dozen different year-datings happening - like the Buddhist year (this year is 2561, I think), or the Islamic year (this year is 1441) - and then trying to see what happened in those years, in countries using those calendars, but that didn't take me far - e.g. looking for what was happening in Egypt in 1622 Gregorian calendar=1033 Islamic calednar. Our internet bank of knowledge is so very western-tilted. :(
The best I can find is that 1033 was the date the Concubine of Normandie was born - and that's not very pleasant, to think that a woman strong enough to be remembered (she was the very close friend of the Duke of Normandie, and great-great auntie of William the Conqueror) didn't even get her name recorded. :(
So all up, yes, I'm with @Cate - yay for moving on to the twelfth century! :D
 
It was a good day, I ate well and feel good.

Friday
breakfast
yogurt 80
cereal - grapenuts 110

snack
orange 64

lunch
sardines 220

snack
seaweed 25

dinner - eggplant thing
cheese 114
eggplant 60
tomato sauce 35

snack
pretzels 95
apple 94

homemade peach wine 120

total calories 1,017

I'll give Amy's approach a try, 1,017 in the Islamic calendar is about 1608 on the Gregorian calendar. And in that year Chief Powhatan (aka Wahunsenacawh) released Captain John Smith, according to Smith with the help of chief's daughter Pocahontas. Smith claimed she threw herself across his body saying: "at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown". Its not at all clear how true this was, many historians are skeptical. The Disney film probably has little to do with reality. At the time of the incident the real Pocahontas would have been about 10 or 11 years old. The real Pocahontas was captured and probably forced to marry an Englishman, John Rolfe, who took her to England to show off his trophy wife. She died there at the age of 21.
 
Rob I have a feeling you are not going to indulge us on the extra century lol.
I like the eggplant thing . I'm pleased you are eating 5 pieces of fruit or veg a day.
 
It was a good day, ate well and I feel good.

Petal and LaMa, thanks for your comments. The eggplant was frozen from our garden, makes it taste better. I thought we had eaten the last of it, but there seems to be a little more.

Saturday

breakfast
yogurt 80
cereal - grapenuts 110

snack
orange 64

lunch
last of the left over bbq 100
steamed broccoli 45

dinner
half of a big cheese enchilada 300
apple 94
orange 64

snack
chips, supposedly health ones 128
apple 94

total calories 1,079

It was in 1079 (or so) that Omar Khayyam calculated a calendar of 25 365 day years and 8 366 day leap years. The basis for the Persian calendar, the Jalali calendar. The Jalali calendar is still in use in parts of Iran and Afghanistan, and is actually more accurate than our Gregorian calendar. Omar also made many significant advances in algebra, but is probably best known for poetry, the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is supposed to be a translation of some of his writings, but its not clear Omar actually wrote any of all of it. Given the history of the Persian civilization I find our current problems with Iran particularly had to understand. They were great intellectuals, scientists and philosophers long before we were. By "we" I am broadly referring to Western civilization, which I think probably includes many of the people reading this, but not necessarily everyone.
 
Hey - I've just found this reply of mine sitting still in draft, unposted!
The eggplant thing sounds great - something along the moussaka line?
And I've just spent a fascinating fifteen minutes or so, reading about Pocohontas, and the Anglo-Powhatan War, so cheers for 1017!

Don't know why it didn't post - I guess I got distracted halfway through. Ah well... on to today's post:
Thanks for the info about Omar Khayyám - I had only thought of him as the writer of the Rubáiyát, and didn't know he was a mathematician and a calendar-deviser. Yes, indeed about the centuries of cultural, intellectual and philosophical achievement through Persian civilisation - I wish this was more widely known and appreciated through Western civilisation - so thanks for enlightening me with this snippet, today! :)
 
Rob your meals sound great . I couldn't help thinking I might have wanted the full cheese enchiladas and still be low on calories . I love them .

Regarding chips supposedly healthy ones , I assume healthier than full fat ones . It's good for you to enjoy a few bits every now and again . Keep it up .
 
It was a good day, I ate well and feel good. Grandkids were over and we had pizza, I managed to avoid having even a single bite, I had my turducken and broccoli instead and felt all the better for it.

I have been thinking about my longer term plans, no decisions just thoughts. I do better day by day than with long term planning. I started this diet in May with what I was calling a 3 week kick-start of about 1,200 calories a day. It went pretty well, though at times I felt like I was going through rich food withdrawal, I guess I was. Then I tried upping the calories into the 1,500 or a little higher range but realized I was feeling just as good at the lower calorie level, so I went back down. I also got a lot of good advice from y'all on what a better balanced diet looks like, so I increased my fruit and veggies a lot. To shorten my already too long story I am now at about month 8 of the kick-start and am pretty happy with the results. I think maybe I will stick with this for a while longer, perhaps until my 1 year mark in May, and then try to figure out how to coast into maintenance. There I've done it, talked about a goal beyond today's. We'll see if that ends up being bad luck, hope not.

aiminglow said:
The eggplant thing sounds great - something along the moussaka line?
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No simpler, I just took sliced eggplant put a little of our homemade tomato sauce on it and sprinkled cheese on top and microwaved for a few minutes. It was pretty good.

Amy I agree with you on our general lack of understanding of the importance the Persian civilization has had on our own. Probably as great or greater than the Greeks or Romans, but they don't get much recognition. We should be close friends and allies, I am confused that we are not. The result of more recent and unfortunate history I suppose.

Petal001 said:
Regarding chips supposedly healthy ones , I assume healthier than full fat ones
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Maybe I will have to look at the label, they are not lower calorie that I know. They advertise being vegetable based chips, but then potato and corn chips are plant based also. When I get off the kick-start and onto the coast to maintenance I will probably eat the whole enchilada, I agree enchiladas are great.

Sunday

breakfast
yogurt 80
cereal - grapenuts 110

snack
orange 64

lunch
orange 64
apple 94

dinner
turducken 300
steamed broccoli 50
apple 94
pizza 0

snack
yogurt 80
apple 94

total calories 1,030

1030 on the Islamic calendar is approximately 1620 on our Gregorian calendar. It was in 1620 that the Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel first demonstrated his navigable undersea boat in the Thames in England. Possibly the world's first submarine. In time he made several versions of it, but was before his time, and could not get much interest in the idea.
 
Rob, I honestly don't think you will have much trouble with maintenance. It will be a trial & error thing & is never a straight line (unlike your weight-loss) but you will be able to do it. I'm confident.
 
A 17th century submarine sounds terrifying beyond belief :eek:
Looking forward to seeing what strategies you find once you start eating a little more "normal" again.
 
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