That’s totally normal. Very bendy and squishable, some space in the package. No worries. It will be delicious and you will not die. The pouches are so much nicer than draining cans of fish liquid. They can go right into a recipe.

It took me probably a year to fully recover from the two years of veering too far into low-fat vegan. I felt better pretty quickly, but growing new hair and fingernails takes a minute. I can relate to the snack situation. It will be time to eat something with protein, I'm not hungry for it in the moment, but if I skip it, I find myself ravenous and low on energy later. I'm totally used to eating enough food and enough protein now. I look forward to those snacks when it was weird as hell at first. Eating adequately feels different from undereating, for sure, but it absolutely will feel normal and second nature in time. I like tuna and salmon pouches much better than the cans. There is no oil or water to drain. If you want to go in a weird but delicious direction, try tuna, mayo, half a diced apple, and dried fruit (cherries, blueberries, or raisins) stirred together. I put peanut butter on the other half of the apple and eat it on the side. Anyone who has seen me eat the tuna/apple/mayo combo usually looks like they're going to throw up, but it's great! It's like chicken salad. Sliced grapes would be good in it too, maybe walnuts.

I watched a docuseries on Netflix called “Living to 100 - Secrets of the Blue Zones.” I remember reading the book years ago and getting a lot out of it. So, it was nice to watch a documentary and actually see the people and places. I love that so many of them do no formal workouts and don’t diet or take supplements. It’s more like wellness is baked into their environment. They aren’t going to a gym, but the village is steep, or they walk everywhere, or they garden. So much of what these long-lived residents have in common is community, purpose, faith, and joy. They also eat a variety of traditional whole foods. I had several favorites, but I loved the 100-year old Costa Rican cowboy who is still saddling up his horse and working every day. I was also amazed by the Greek man who moved to the US, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at age 66 and given a few months to live. He went home to the Greek islands to die. After like 40 years of laughing, dancing, and drinking wine he was still vibrant and healthy.

I researched so much about plant protein and was so confident that I was getting plenty, that deficiency was unheard of if you eat enough food overall. It just wasn’t true for me though. There has to be something to the absorption issues. Some people, especially younger ones, seem to have bodies that effectively utilize those essential amino acids no matter where they’re coming from. My body was like, nah. Keep moving toward feeling good, whatever that looks like for you.

You describe your previous feelings of being ravenous enough to eat shoes at lunch time and having a lifelong strong desire to keep eating more after dinner. This points to chronic underfeeding as much as or in addition to the issue of protein quality or absorption. So, yeah, normal every day satisfaction feels a whole lot like “meh, I could eat” but not particularly caring one way or the other. In my strong, healthy, well-nourished state, I am basically never stomach-growling hungry, never experiencing cravings or obsessive food thoughts. Part of that newfound satisfaction is meeting protein needs effectively, but an even bigger part of it is eating enough food overall. Being underfed over long periods of time will cause problems regardless. You’re doing great getting more food. You have many options for how to do it. The important thing is that you’re feeling the benefits, and that you like the changes enough for them to be sustainable. I’ve used nuts and nut butter as a protein source, lentils, bean soup, veggie burgers. They are more calorie-dense and often more volume, which can make it challenging to consume enough of these foods to meet your nutrition needs, but you can always combine them with your smaller animal/dairy proteins, like putting a blop of Greek yogurt on lentils as a sour cream alternative. Making Mexican food with beans and rice but including a little beef or fish. I love tuna melts with cheese, or you can roll a veggie dog in a flour tortilla with a little cheese. You can put nuts or seeds in yogurt or cottage cheese. You can hardboil eggs to make portable protein, or make protein bites with nut butter, protein powder, and other ingredients. There are ways to round out your proteins for more satisfaction and still get all the health benefits from plenty of plant proteins. But yeah, liking what you eat and physically feeling good are top priority.

I watched season one of Only Murders in the Building. It had its moments, but I didn’t love it enough to keep going.

The struggle is real! I went through hair hell with similar issues when my ultra lightweight leave-in air dry cream got discontinued. Anything else I was using for moisture made my curls look dirty and weighed down, not shiny and bouncy. I finally found this stuff, which is not even for curly hair, or air drying. A tiny pea sized amount combed through wet hair, then gel, scrunching, air drying and breaking the cast leaves my curls clean and shiny again instead of all bleh. I have no idea if it will work for anyone else. This curly hair stuff is so random.

That could be with the fermentation. You may have some degree of lactose intolerance, which isn’t always permanent. I think there is some kind of digestive enzyme that you can take before eating dairy, or maybe introduce it in very small doses to adjust to eating it again. I stick mostly to cheese and yogurt myself. My digestion of dairy is fine, but drinking milk or eating sour cream tend to wreck my ability to breathe through my nose, whatever that is.

By bloating, do you mean stomach discomfort? Like gas or indigestion? Or just feeling puffy? Or full? I am basically never hungry anymore. No empty hollow feelings, no growling. Sometimes I’m still a little full from the last meal when I’m eating my next snack, but that’s what I need to do to get enough protein, enough food, and to feel healthy and strong. I think there is always an adjustment period when we change the way we eat, especially adding new foods. It can take a little time to develop the right digestive enzymes, and for hunger/fullness hormones to catch on to the new normal. I used whey protein for about the last four months as an experiment. There may be a slight advantage in terms of absorption and muscle recovery, but I like the taste of the plant protein better and it’s cheaper, so I’m using that now. As long as there are plenty of other quality protein sources in my day, I feel great using either kind.

Fascinating. Yep, that all sounds very familiar to me. Your dietitian's advice seems sound. Those two dairy servings per day that she's asking you to eat are only around 100 calories each, same with the one egg plus whites. Because it's so much nutrition in a small portion, it's a more efficient, lower calorie, less bloating way to get protein than, say, adding more beans and lentils. Plus, digesting protein has a greater thermic effect, so even though you're adding some calories, you're also burning more to digest them. I would say nope and nope to the "is it too much?" questions. That's a very small amount of food, but the nutrition in it can be life-altering if you're coming from a place of deficiency. In fact, if you are more consistent with the daily egg and dairy consumption, you might find that adding fish in fish form is unnecessary. Fish in pill form saved my brain from what felt like early-stage dementia. I had been taking algae omegas daily for months, but my body was clearly not converting them into enough EPA/DHA to work right. The symptoms I was having scared me to death, but they all went away within like a week of taking two 1200mg fish oil pills per day. I agree too about things being fine until they aren't. In my 20s, going years without meat or fish was no problem. Low-fat was no problem. Low-calorie, ok, doable. Now, any of those would wreck me. Same with lack of sleep. I can't just push through without consequences the way I used to. I love the way I eat though. I eat far more plants now than when I was a vegetarian, which is funny. I still eat meals that are vegan and have whole days that are vegetarian. Like, I may have cereal with soy milk and berries in the morning, followed by a super food smothie with pea protein powder, flax, chia, walnuts, and hemp seeds. Then, something like an omelet with cheese for lunch with veggies, sweet potato with butter and cinnamon, and fresh fruit. A couple hours after that, a greek yogurt and grapes, or a couple pieces of cheese and some cherries. Then, a little later, bean soup with crackers or whole wheat bread and more fruit and/or dessert. A day of eating like that is pretty normal. On other days, I may have chicken or fish for lunch or dinner. I remember the moral struggle of adding back any kind of meat after years without it. What helped me was lions, any cat actually. They are pure carnivores who don't have the option of living on tofu. Snakes, same deal. Birds of prey need to eat prey. They are all perfectly designed, perfectly in sync with their environment. I don't judge or blame them because they need to eat other creatures in order to live and be healthy. I was able to give myself a little of the same grace. This is a nutty tangent, but I believe that plants are conscious beings. Studies have shown that they communicate, feel pain, fight off attackers, and call out for help. God knows I name them, talk to them, and care for them like old friends. So, when it's time to eat one, I feel tremendous gratitude for the nourishment. I thank them for becoming a part of me. It sounds bonkers, but overall, it's a much healthier vibe than guilt or shame. I applied that same line of thinking to needing fish or chicken in order to avoid malnutrition. I just stay grateful and conscious of my place in the natural world, if any of that helps.

 I just got your email. I'm sorry that's happening. I've tried publishing the site again to see if it clears out any errors on this end. I was able to log in and out on Safari and Chrome without issues just now. I approved your new site member request too. One thing you can try that sometimes fixes login issues is deleting the site cookies and cache for happy eaters in your browser settings, restarting the browser, and then logging in again. I appreciate the screenshot you sent me of the error. I've never seen that one. I'm also curious if anyone else is having issues. Let me know if there's anything else I can do.

I just started watching The Bear on Hulu. Wow! It’s intense and wonderful, like nothing I’ve ever seen. A talented chef moves home to take over the dysfunctional family burger joint. Lots of intense kitchen drama, good food, and crazy employees. I got Hulu just to watch it and I’m not regretting it at all. I can’t wait to watch more.

Uh-oh, I’m not sure if amber is human. LOL

I am not a medical people, so there is my disclaimer. 🤣 But I know what it is to get bloodwork back and then slightly (or completely) freak myself out with it. Your total cholesterol and ratio are both in the normal/ideal ranges. In my own experience, these numbers are quite variable. What we eat in the days or week before the blood draw can shift it quite a bit. The eggs and cheese could move the number, but that's not necessarily bad. Mine went up when I quit being vegan but was still normal/ideal, and I feel SO much better. That's the main thing. How do you feel? I don't know if it is good or bad, but iron and white blood cell count can run low for plant eaters. Do we fall outside the norm because we're healthier than the norm? Or is it malnutrition? I've pondered that extensively, but don't have any real answers other than, I eat to feel my best. When I'm doing that, everything tends to stay in range and my doctor is happy with my bloodwork. Two years of a low-fat vegan diet had her ready to refer me to hematology. If I had felt fantastic, I'd have shrugged that off, but I was feeling pretty bad. Hair falling out, brain fog, fingernails splitting, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, losing muscle mass. I was like, let me eat some salmon, eggs, and greek yogurt for a few weeks and I'll get back to you. That fixed things right up, so I didn't care that it made my total cholesterol "worse." It was still great, just not as freaky low as it had been. I was also curious if you fasted for your test and for how long? One of the weirdest things I had happen was when I did a workplace biometric screening after a 17 hour fast. The test was in the afternoon and I thought it would be better to do it fasted. Ha! No! All my coworkers who ate lunch first (?!) had great numbers. As a fasted health nut, I had triglycerides through the roof, which then pushed my total cholesterol high enough that it got flagged too. I was wigging out about it until I finally got to talk to my doctor. She told me that the long fast meant my body had released stored body fat to use as fuel, which is why the fat in my blood was higher than normal. It was like, oh, duh! I try to keep bloodwork fasts to only 8-12 hours now. Or, I don't worry about fasting at all. That works too. Maybe others will have some input. I mainly just wanted to tell you that I can relate!

Also no spoilers, but I feel like the 4th season of Barry shouldn’t have happened. It’s like they didn’t know when to quit. I loved every second of Ted Lasso and Mrs Maisel. I’m currently enjoying Platonic with Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne on AppleTV+. It’s funny and nutty. It’s about a couple of 40-something former best friends who reunite after he gets a divorce. She’s a married stay-at-home mom and he’s a bar-owner party dude. Chaos ensues. I also watched the first episode of Shrinking on AppleTV+. It was great! I can’t wait to watch more.

I remember reading it years ago. Her nutrition advice has always been slightly whack, but especially back then. She’s since had some kind of nutrition education and understands that it’s not one-size-fits-all. Yet, she was still keto last I checked, and recommending that sweetener that causes heart attacks and strokes, so yeah. I ignore her nutrition advice completely. The workout-earned meals idea is phenomenally stupid too. LOL But I love her workouts, the video ones. I could never get into the ones from the book because they were so boring without her.

I loved Zuzka’s beginner workouts because the slower pace and basic movements allowed me to do them with quite heavy weights. I could also practice more challenging exercise variations on the body weight movements and keep good form. OR, I could keep the suggested movement and the recommended weight and just pick up the pace, doing more reps to get my heart rate up and fatigue my muscles more. There were a lot of ways to make them exactly what I needed.

I've been thinking about this. It has been awhile since I've followed someone else's strength program. The best ones I've done are from book books, not e-books, like The New Rules of Lifting series. ZGYM had progressive workout schedules with follow-along videos. I'm sure others do too. I think @Hayley has bought some programs more recently. Do any of your favorite YouTubers sell workout programs? I'm thinking of people like Natacha Oceane who have app-based programs with progressive routines. A quick googling found this: https://www.garagegymreviews.com/best-online-workout-programs There are also subscription-based workout programs from companies like Fitbit, Apple Fitness, Nike, and Peloton.

I got that notice too. I currently have Discovery+, so I guess it will save me some bucks when they merge. I’m really excited for Barry! And Mrs Maisel, and Somebody Somewhere. My days off are coming. It will be nice to have some quality TV to watch this week.

I loved Top Gun in the 80s. I hadn't watched Top Gun: Maverick yet because I was afraid it would be unbearably corny. I finally watched it tonight. It was so nostalgic, funny, and suspenseful. I really enjoyed it!