Alexis Is Here!

I picked Alexis up from the airport this afternoon; she's here to manage the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center's Oʻahu Seabird Aid program. She was here last year managing the program, in 2018 Tani was managing the program, and in 2017 Sam started the program. Alexis will be staying at the Makiki bunkhouse operated by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Tomorrow morning I will help Alexis pick up the HWC van from Young Brothers.

The Makiki bunkhouse.

Yesterday I asked Lisa whether there were foods that were more beneficial for breaking my fast in the evening; due to the time difference though, I did not read the response until today. (I should have asked at the very beginning of the program!) Lisa said, "You just want them to be fully balanced ie carbs, protein and fats - carbs are important here so you can add oats to a proothie or have protein oats or just a nice warm bowl of oatmeal with some fruit and ideally more easily digestible like proothies, soups, stews - that are not hard to digest - so avoid heavy meats like beef and no bread. Bananas are also something to avoid that late- choose cherries in a proothie or porridge as they help you to sleep" Guess I should not have had that Japanese-style steak that The Potential Most Favorite Roommate made last night.

After asking Lisa about the amount of protein I should be getting, she said, "A palm of protein if you are using the rule of thumb is 30g. You can use that as a guide for each of your meals. You should be hitting 30g of protein for each meal plus 1 post workout shake to get you over 100g a day. For this programme to make a difference in your shape you are aiming at 0.6g to 1g of protein per lb of body weight. You will learn how this is measured more precisely in Phase 1 of the Wheel of the Year programme." She also said, "And I would suggest at least a scoop to 2 scoops of the protein powder in your green smoothies. I always have at least a scoop and a half."

So I gathered more information about the okara that I have been drying and adding to my proothies. I was unable to find any data for the dried powder but I did find fairly detailed listing for okara processed to remove more liquid making it about 76% moisture (traditionally it is 80-83% moisture). For a 100g wet serving (which equals about a cup by volume) there is about 6g protein. I guessed that would become about 1/4 cup when dried; thus providing about 1.5g protein per tablespoon. The scoop I use is 2 T which means if I add 1 scoop of dried okara to my proothie I am getting about an additional 3g protein. 

The other protein sources I regularly use in my proothie are the protein powder (21g/2scoops) and spirulina (2g/teaspoon); for a total of 29g when I add 2 scoops of dried okara. Which is what I did this morning in my 'uala (sweet potato) greens proothie! The 'uala greens did not add any flavor but the additional okara did; I will need to add more stevia or vanilla or something(!) to tone down the tofu flavor in my proothie.

I used purple Okinawan sweet potato greens.

Today is Week 6 Day 1 of the Unicorn Challenge. There is no exact plan for this week, so I am repeating the last week of 28-day program which was last week. It is a Low Carb, Yoga HIIT day; I have been told near the end of this week I will get a plan for the next 12 weeks of Phase 1 of the Wheel of the Year program. Since I try to schedule my workout just before lunch, I do not do the post workout shake Lisa suggested above.

 

For lunch I had about 30g of the beef & chicken fajita meat along with a salad with bacon bits and vinaigrette beet spirals.

I made another 1/2 gallon of soymilk today at lunch. I ended up having to use the wok to boil the milk in because The Potential Most Favorite Roommate used the large saucepan that I had been using to deep fry the tempura and had not cleaned it up; I did not have time to thoroughly clean it so the soymilk would not taste oily or garlicky. On the one hand the wok worked better because it spread the soymilk out more so it did not boil over but it was rather wide and cumbersome. 

Gravity at work.

I dried the okara produced by this batch of soymilk; I think I will be doing this with all my okara. Most of the time I will be adding it to my morning proothie. But I can also add it to other things I make like chilis or soups to increase the amount of protein. 

According to the Tesla app, it looks like it was fairly sunny before noon but clouded over in the afternoon.

Poppies have become a symbol of the soldiers who fought & died in war, beginning with World War I. So it was a little disturbing when someone started stealing the poppies at a war memorial in Australia. It turned out it was a pigeon stealing the poppies; it was building a nest out of them. I'm glad they didn't knock the nest down & chase the pigeon off. (The ingenious bird used the wire prongs used to keep pigeons from landing on the ledges as the base for its nest.)

I love the color blue; as an artist I am aware of how difficult a pure & permanent blue has historically been for artists to find and use. I found this article to be very interesting. 

Here's Susie's Monday bouquet.

 
This is pretty cool!

I need to find out how to weave coconut fronds to make one of these pots! 

These leaf sheep look pretty cool! I've never seen one. If you try to go and look for them be forewarned, they're only about 1/4" long.

And now for the daily dose of humor to get through the day.

The creator of the meme obviously did not know how to use chopsticks!

Things we can learn from the virus.

There were 64 new COVID-19 cases reported today, bringing our total up to 16,010 known cases. There were no new deaths reported so the death toll remains at 221; there are now 1306 active cases. The 7-day average for Oʻahu is 88 with a 3.2% positivity rate.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Leslie, Bob, Larry, & Maribel!