The original recipe is above, but I did do some of my own things along the way to make it my(our) own.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
The Homemade Tofurkey 2010!!! with pics
http://chefinyou.com/2009/11/tofu-turkey-recipe/
The original recipe is above, but I did do some of my own things along the way to make it my(our) own.
The raw toasted GF bread with the pan of onion, celery, seasonings, etc.
apple, almond, goldenberries, veggie broth, and seasonings measured out.
The seasoned tofu after draining with the middle scooped out, ready for the stuffing to fill it.
Stuffing filled flipped tofu mound on the baking pan.
Lightly basted tofu breast :-) ready for the oven.
The mostly cooked tofurkey with stuffing surrounding the mound in the oven. It started to smoosh and I added the stuffing to help maintain the integrity of the shape. We're calling the 'cracks' in the form 'stretch marks' ;-)
The original recipe is above, but I did do some of my own things along the way to make it my(our) own.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Fascinating....
CFS & Fibromyalgia Rating Scale
| CFS & Fibromyalgia Rating Scale | ||
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Fully recovered. Normal activity level with no symptoms. | |
| 90 | Normal activity level with mild symptoms at times. | |
| 80 | Near normal activity level with some symptoms. | |
| 70 | Able to work full time but with difficulty. Mostly mild symptoms. | |
| 60 | Able to do about 6-7 hours of work a day. Mostly mild to moderate symptoms. | |
| 50 | Able to do about 4-5 hours a day of work or similar activity at home. Daily rests required. Symptoms mostly moderate. | |
| 40 | Able to leave house every day. Moderate symptoms on average. Able to do about 3-4 hours a day of work or activity like housework, shopping, using computer. | |
| 30 | Able to leave house several times a week. Moderate to severe symptoms much of the time. Able to do about 2 hours a day of work at home or activity like housework, shopping, using computer. | |
| 20 | Able to leave house once or twice a week. Moderate to severe symptoms. Able to concentrate for 1 hour or less per day. | |
| 10 | Mostly bedridden. Severe symptoms. | |
| 0 | Bedridden constantly. Unable to care for self. |
Heart Rate Monitoring
As I often do when I'm so frickin busy that I don't seem to find the time to write my own blog entry, here's a relevant article. I've been monitoring my heart rate during regular activities, and this practice has helped me to manage activities. By simply PAYING ATTENTION I can do so much to help myself. With my new med, the LDN, my limits are still changing for the better. I seem to do alright with ADLs, but give me a flight of stairs and I have issues.
http://www.cfidsselfhelp.org/library/pacing-numbers-using-your-heart-rate-to-stay-inside-energy-envelope
http://www.cfidsselfhelp.org/library/pacing-numbers-using-your-heart-rate-to-stay-inside-energy-envelope
Pacing by Numbers: Using Your Heart Rate To Stay Inside the Energy Envelope
If you have CFS, you are probably familiar with post-exertional malaise, the severe fatigue that results from doing too much. You can avoid or at least reduce malaise by staying within your limits or energy envelope. This article describes a strategy for staying within one part of the envelope: the anaerobic threshold.
The Anaerobic Threshold (AT)
The anaerobic threshold (AT) is the heart rate beyond which we draw on energy reserves we don't have and activity creates post-exertional malaise. The threshold is often around about 60% of a person's maximum heart rate, though each person is different and an individual's threshold may vary from day to day or within a day.
(Note: Maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. For a person who is 50 years old, 60% of maximum heart rate is (220 - 50) x .6 = 102 beats per minute.)
There are at least three ways to calculate the anaerobic threshold. I found mine by observing my pulse in my wrist and noting what levels triggered fatigue. People in our program have used two other methods. Some have been given a stress test on a treadmill. These tests are offered in some doctors' offices and in many hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
Other people have used telephone consultations with the exercise physiologists at Workwell Foundation in California. In these cases, the consultant estimates the threshold using a log kept by a patient of their baseline heart rate and heart rate when active.
Benefits of Monitoring Heart Rate
Once you know your threshold, you can monitor yourself to discover when you are beyond your AT. One way to track your heart rate is to count the beats, as I did, but other people use a heart rate monitor, an inexpensive machine available for $30 and up.
Monitoring heart rate has at least five benefits.
First, it offers control. In the words of one person bedbound with CFS, "I craved a boundary, something I could see or touch that would tell me what was too much. My heart rate monitor is drawing my boundaries for me. When I can manage to get up and move around, but keep my heart rate below 105 beats per minute [her AT], then I know I am safe to continue to do so."
Second, wearing a monitor often leads to recognition of previously unknown limits. In the words of one person, "Just getting the heart rate monitor was a huge eye opener for me...Everything put me over the threshold" Another said, "It was quite shocking to find that I operated routinely above my AT."
Third, the alarm feature of a heart rate monitor tells you when you're about to go outside your limits and alerts you to the need to take a break. As one person says, "We set my monitor to alarm when I reached a bit below my anaerobic threshold. That audible heart rate alarm was the best training tool I could have had."
Fourth, awareness of limits can suggest how to change. One person found that just going up a flight of stairs pushed her heart rate beyond her threshold. Her solution was to stop halfway and rest. Another person says that lifting her daughter used to push her over the edge. Her solution was to sit down and have the child climb into her lap. A third person found that many activities put her over her limit. She has found ways to be active with less exertion. For example, she now uses a rolling chair in the kitchen, empties the dishwasher in stages, and uses a grabber to pick up things without having to bend over.
Fifth, the monitor helps educate others about limits and to elicit their help. As one person said, "Using the monitor helped my family to understand and they helped me to stop when it went off."
Should You Monitor Your Heart Rate?
The people in our program who have benefited the most from monitoring their heart rate tend to be those below 30 on our Rating Scale. They often exceed their threshold doing everyday activities such as those described above. But other people with CFS may benefit as well. For example, finding my anaerobic threshold enabled me determine the level of exercise that I could tolerate without triggering malaise.
If you want to monitor your heart rate, we recommend you discuss the topic with your doctor. As preparation, you can do some informal data gathering. You can make note of your heart rate while resting and also check to see whether your heart rate increases dramatically when you do activities such as standing up, climbing stairs or just being active for a few minutes. If your heart rate when you are active is near or above 60% of your maximum heart rate, you may benefit from monitoring your heart rate and learning to keep it below your anaerobic threshold.
In summary of the benefits of awareness of heart rate, here are the thoughts of one person who has used a heart rate monitor.
"I've made a lot of progress in the past year, mostly thanks to heart rate monitoring, which trained me to reduce my activity to a level my body can handle. By forcing myself to stay within my limits, I have slowly achieved an increase in what I am able to do without going anaerobic."
"I can walk up a full flight of stairs AND walk down the hall AND brush my hair before I need to sit down for a bit. I've learned to be grateful for these small things. They add up to bigger things. I feel well most of the time now and although I can do very little, it's more than I could do six months ago."
Related Articles
Finding Your Energy Envelope
A two-part article describing how to define your limits in detail and ways to expand them.
A two-part article describing how to define your limits in detail and ways to expand them.
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Monday, November 8, 2010
Lucy, she's hooome!
"If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand." -an old Grateful Dead bumper sticker
The weather is perfect and I'm taking advantage of it. I'd like to get some practice on hills, stopping and starting, etc. in anticipation of my move to SF...cause I'm gonna need to be good at driving and maneuvering on hills. I'm anticipating much riding once I'm in the City because parking will be so much easier. I'll keep the car, somehow, since I'll need it for clinicals, travel, and for general use, but I think it will be two wheels most days. I am so not upset about this. :D
Limited Balance
Today I feel like a sick person. bleh. I've been reminded that I still need to take special care of myself, that I still need naps, and that I can't push myself all day everyday. I need to remember this.
One of the most successful "treatments" for ME/CFS, if you can really call it a treatment, is a concept called "pacing." Essentially it means, pace yourself, plan ahead for activities, known when you need to slow down, etc. Carefully managing activity levels really helps.
I think that last thing I posted was about increasing the dosage of the LDN to 3mg, up from 1.5, and it's been a really really awesome thing. I felt like a not sick person, sortof. I haven't had perceptible spleen swelling or pain in weeks, and I can get through most days without a nap, although I'm not much good after about 6pm. If I nap around 2 or 3, I can be good til about 10ish. I was so completely thrilled to be able to plan a day away from my bed in the afternoon that I did exactly that, everyday. I needed to test my new limits, see how far I could go, what my body could handle.
It looks like I can go about 3-4 days without a nap before it starts to catch up with me, and if I pay attention one day in bed, or 2-3 with greatly reduced activities and increased rest will catch me up. I came down with fluey symptoms, headache, swollen head feeling, mild sore throat, soreness, and, well my anterior cervical chain, parotid, jugulodigastric, sublingual glands are usually swollen on a daily basis and they got worse. Still no spleen issues, and my head is more clear then it used to be when I felt crappy. OI symptoms are increased, and I noticed (not for the first time) a disturbing arrhythmia last night. I've often had weird tachycardia, and an occasional arrhythmia...but last night it felt like my heart was flopping around in my chest It was curious and unsettling. I immediately began to measure my heart rate on my carotid like I usually would so I felt the disrhythmia in my hands, and for a brief moment I actually felt the artery 'bottom out' It flattened because there was no pressure behind it for a moment.
Scary.
Really makes me wish I had some health insurance, you know? A Holter monitor maybe? yeah.
All my symptoms are greatly reduced when I take better care of myself. And luckily the LDN has helped me to feel much better, go a little bit longer with fewer symptoms. But the last few days have really helped me to see that I'm still a sick person.
grumble, grumble. I don't like being a sick person.
but at least if I slow down and give myself the rest I need, I don't have to *feel* like a sick person. The key will be allowing a positive self-care part of me to remember that I *am* still a sick person and I need to take good care of me. And then the rest of me can rejoice in not feeling sick all the time. Cause that's super cool. :) I had to learn new limits as I got sicker and sicker over the past year, and now that I'm seeing improvement, limits are changing again. At least the change is allowing me more activity and a happier existence. One Day at a Time.
Ok, back to resting for me.
Cheers.
One of the most successful "treatments" for ME/CFS, if you can really call it a treatment, is a concept called "pacing." Essentially it means, pace yourself, plan ahead for activities, known when you need to slow down, etc. Carefully managing activity levels really helps.
I think that last thing I posted was about increasing the dosage of the LDN to 3mg, up from 1.5, and it's been a really really awesome thing. I felt like a not sick person, sortof. I haven't had perceptible spleen swelling or pain in weeks, and I can get through most days without a nap, although I'm not much good after about 6pm. If I nap around 2 or 3, I can be good til about 10ish. I was so completely thrilled to be able to plan a day away from my bed in the afternoon that I did exactly that, everyday. I needed to test my new limits, see how far I could go, what my body could handle.
It looks like I can go about 3-4 days without a nap before it starts to catch up with me, and if I pay attention one day in bed, or 2-3 with greatly reduced activities and increased rest will catch me up. I came down with fluey symptoms, headache, swollen head feeling, mild sore throat, soreness, and, well my anterior cervical chain, parotid, jugulodigastric, sublingual glands are usually swollen on a daily basis and they got worse. Still no spleen issues, and my head is more clear then it used to be when I felt crappy. OI symptoms are increased, and I noticed (not for the first time) a disturbing arrhythmia last night. I've often had weird tachycardia, and an occasional arrhythmia...but last night it felt like my heart was flopping around in my chest It was curious and unsettling. I immediately began to measure my heart rate on my carotid like I usually would so I felt the disrhythmia in my hands, and for a brief moment I actually felt the artery 'bottom out' It flattened because there was no pressure behind it for a moment.
Scary.
Really makes me wish I had some health insurance, you know? A Holter monitor maybe? yeah.
All my symptoms are greatly reduced when I take better care of myself. And luckily the LDN has helped me to feel much better, go a little bit longer with fewer symptoms. But the last few days have really helped me to see that I'm still a sick person.
grumble, grumble. I don't like being a sick person.
but at least if I slow down and give myself the rest I need, I don't have to *feel* like a sick person. The key will be allowing a positive self-care part of me to remember that I *am* still a sick person and I need to take good care of me. And then the rest of me can rejoice in not feeling sick all the time. Cause that's super cool. :) I had to learn new limits as I got sicker and sicker over the past year, and now that I'm seeing improvement, limits are changing again. At least the change is allowing me more activity and a happier existence. One Day at a Time.
Ok, back to resting for me.
Cheers.
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