My Summer Vacation: I Need More Fat

I had a very unusual craving today; a peanut butter & cream cheese sandwich! I allowed myself to eat it since a quick review of what I have been eating showed I was only getting about 11g of fat each day. About 1/2 to 1/3 of what I need to be healthy; you need fats in your diet even if you are trying to lose weight because they are necessary for your health. For example, the walls of your cells are made of lipids (fats)! And you need fats so you can retain fat-soluble vitamins. So if you don't have enough fat in your diet, your health will suffer. That is why I pay attention to what my body is telling me it needs. For my current weight, I need about 19 to 34g per day which will allow me to lose about 1 lb a week. If I was maintaining my current weight, I would need about 31 to 54g, per day. I could do this by eating 2 tablespoons of peanut butter each day but I have decided instead to use a combination of peanut butter & dark chocolate; my 2 favorite forms of lipids! (That's why I have them add peanut butter & chocolate chips to my Met Rx meal replacement smoothie! Yay! It is now a valid part of my weight loss journey! Same for ice cream on Fridays! Yay!) Obviously I will also add more fish to my diet for the necessary oils that are more readily available in fish.

This morning, I saw Moʻo tossing something around in the leaves under the lychee tree. It was another bird. I think it is a young saffron finch.

I kinda got sucked in to Guardians of the Ancient Oath this afternoon, ended up watching 3 episodes in a row! This show is in the xuanhuan (玄幻）genre, meaning "mysterious fantasy." It blends Chinese folklore, mythology, and supernatural elements with a fictional setting. A number of things started coming together at about Episode 33 making it more interesting than just plain old palace politics; glad I was able to endure the bratty kid sister & get to the better parts of the series. SPOILER ALERT - Each of these characters finds out their real identity, Baili Hongxuan is the Fire deity, Baili Hongshou is the Water deity, An Tingfeng is the Metal deity, & Ming Yefeng is the Wood deity. Still haven't seen the Earth deity but I've got 9 more episodes before the finale. I hope they maintain this level of intrigue, mystery, & action.

L-R: Fire deity Baili Hongxuan, Water deity Baili Hongshuo, & Metal deity An Tingfeng vaporize Ironstone Demon.

I saw Julia at the NKCDP Advisory Group meeting this evening. I met her a couple years ago at the South Kohala CDP Action Committee that she has served on for a number of years. We have stayed in touch; she wanted to know how we ran our advisory group meetings. We are not an official county-sponsored group. North Kohala used to have an official action committee, but dissolved it because nothing was getting accomplished; Julia is feeling the same way about their action committee. We had talked last month, but she wasn't able to attend. This morning she texted me because she could attend; I forwarded the agenda to her. This evening, Moʻo was well-behaved as she usually is but she started out being alert & looking around. She relaxed towards the latter half & went to sleep.

At start of meeting.

About half way through, starting to nod off.

I saw the hen this evening. She now has only 1 chick with her.

I have now advanced to Level 10 in Mandarin! They say I can now introduce myself, but I don't think so. The last few lessons have been about sports & which ones I liked, not, "Hello, my name is ___." It has taken me about 7 weeks to get here. I am about 40% of the way to Level 25 which is where I stopped in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. If I maintain this rate, I will reach Level 25 in around 10 weeks or about mid-September! We shall see.