Low Volume, Issue 1: the same person in a smaller chair

Dear You,

This is the first one. I promised low volume, so here is how this works: one email, most weeks, written by me at the kitchen table, usually on a Tuesday night after the soup is on. No daily drip. No “quick question” subject lines. If a week has nothing worth saying, you get nothing, and that is the feature.

Each issue has the same four parts. The quiet part, which is one thing I noticed this week. Something to cook. Something to read. And one small thing to try before the next issue lands. That’s the whole format. You can read it in the time it takes the kettle to boil.

The quiet part

Two years into maintenance, the thing I still get asked most is some version of “so are you done?” People mean it kindly. They mean, did it work, can you stop thinking about it now, is there a finish line and have you crossed it.

I’ve tried a lot of answers. The honest one is that I’m the same person in a smaller chair, and the chair isn’t the interesting part. The interesting part is everything the appetite used to drown out: who I eat with, what I do with an evening, how I talk to my care team now that the appointments are boring. The appetite got quiet. Life got loud. This newsletter is about the loud part.

Something to cook

Small-pot soup. Two-quart pot, protein browned first, less broth than feels right, lid cracked, twenty minutes. It’s the recipe I make most Sundays, and it’s the one I keep pointing people to because a small bowl of soup looks like dinner in a way three bites of chicken on a plate never will. The method, in full, is on the site under The tiny-appetite kitchen.

Something to read

If you’re new here, start with Week six is where people quietly quit. It’s the post I wish someone had handed me at week five, and it’s the most honest thing on the site about the stretch where the novelty wears off and the side effects haven’t yet. If you’re long past week six, read Nobody claps for maintenance. It’s shorter, and it’s for you.

Something to try

This week, put one small bowl on the counter where you’d normally keep the fruit. Not a plate. A bowl, the kind you’d serve ice cream in. Use it for whatever you eat first each day. It won’t change your appetite. It changes what a full portion looks like to your eyes, which turns out to matter more than I expected.

One more thing

The cookbook lands Friday. Fifty small-portion, high-protein recipes, a photo with every one, no targets anywhere in it. I’ll send one short note when it’s live and then I will not mention it again for a while, because that’s the deal. Low volume.

Some days you’ll finish the bowl. Some days three bites is dinner. Both count.

 

Want to tell me something? Reply to any Low Volume email, or write to me here. I read everything.

Getting Quiet shares lived experience, general education, and practical tools. For medical decisions and individual treatment questions, talk with your qualified care team.