Quarks

Sunday:

I need to share something I just read in New Scientist magazine because it blew my mind (and it's kind of a tiny bit weight related, sort of). Firstly, remember back to high school chemistry, everything in the world including us is made out of atoms which are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. More recently they have discovered that these are in turn made up of even smaller particles called quarks. So:

"although you are made of molecules that are made of protons and neutrons, those protons and neutrons are made of quarks. Quarks, as it happens, are so light that they make up only about 1 to 2 per cent of your body mass. The rest comes from the incredible energies with which these quarks interact." ( New Scientist 25 April 2015, No. 3018, p35)

To translate, only 1 or 2% of what your scale says is actual weight, the solid bits of you. The rest is energy! Isn't that amazing! So I really only weigh about 1 kg, the rest of me is all the energy from quarks buzzing around. Not sure how that works, the article got a bit technical.

Of course weight is a measurement of your mass affected by gravity, so on the moon I would only weigh 13 kg, whereas on Jupiter I would weigh 194 kg! And on the sun 2220 kg!! Just shows how little the scale really means.

Another thing I read was about a 19,000 year old body recently examined by archeologists, whose teeth show a lot about the real paleo diet. Apparently about 80% meat from hoofed animals like bison, most of the rest was fish. A small amount of seeds and other fruit and vegetables. But the woman died at 35 so they make no claims about the health benefits of the diet.

Yesterday was a rest day and a feast day. I do feel kind of refreshed by it, but I had too much. I'm still wavering about whether to just restrict that one day a week to one meal plus one snack instead of all day, or to split it so I can have something in the middle of the week and something on the weekend. Either way, I want to concentrate more on my favourite foods. Sure I like dessert, especially the first couple of bites, but what I LOVE is salty crunchy chips. They are my trigger food that I can't keep in the house so I'll have to go out of the house to get my treat. Why am I wasting calories on something that is merely quite nice? Just because I am not allowed to have it the rest of the week?! So aside from maybe some dark chocolate, I'll mostly spend my treat calories on savouries. Chips! Cheese and crackers! Cheezles! Maybe pasta or pizza.

I'm also eating more fruit, having it at breakfast as my carb instead of toast, instead of only having fruit on high carb days. I'm enjoying my oranges and pears.

I did an hour of Just Dance this morning (modifying movements for the left shoulder). I'm sure I have more energy today after extra calories yesterday, I think the low carb days are slowing me down. I'm considering changing from Turbo Cycle (two low days for every high day) to Classic Cycle (alternating low and high), I think it would help my energy levels for exercise and stop the carb cravings I have on the second day of low.

We are having all our carpets cleaned tomorrow so this afternoon we did a lot of tidying up to get stuff off the floor. The place looks better without Lego and textas all over the floor. Tim and the kids also went out to shop for Mothers' Day next week. We are going out to a live show that day (kids too), it was my birthday present to Tim but it falls on Mothers' Day so we'll go out to lunch and make a day of it.

Report card:
Diet: Good. I didn't have any leftover cheesecake (everyone else did).
Exercise: Good. A sweaty hour of dance.
Water: Good.
Sleep: Good.
Mental health: Good.