Life!!

The past week has been rather chaotic. We got back from Florida, and I slept pretty much all of the following day. Then we had some family drama for the rest of the week. But I was good all week. The only thing I did wrong was skip a couple of meals because I woke up too late or fell asleep.

Then we had a Super Bowl party on Sunday, and I not only did I have some carby stuff (cookies, a piece of granola bar, and some tortilla chips), but I also overate. If not for that, I'd probably be down a few pounds today! But instead I was back up (a little bit) to 182.6. That's still not bad, and it's about 9 pounds less than I was when I started about a month ago.

Saturday evening Wayne and I cooked up a whole bunch of low-carb yummies and stuck them in the freezer. So we have food for lunches and dinners, and we just have to stick them in the microwave when it's time to eat. I have mainly been eating fried eggs for breakfast because I love them so much, but I think tomorrow I'll nuke up some of the breakfast casserole I made (and divided up to put in the freezer).

And so now I'm back on track! I had eggs, cooked in butter, for breakfast, some version 2 pizza skillet for lunch, and Buffalo wings (home made, got myself a deep fryer!!) for dinner. I had a little bit of cheese for a snack, and really I wasn't hungry all day. But now I'm craving something sweet, so I think I'm going to go to bed early.

Heading Home!!

I'm going to stop using days as the title of these posts. Somewhere along the way I must have skipped a day or two, because it's now the 26th, and I've been doing this since the 1st, and somehow my post yesterday was for day 24? Maybe I'm just that bad at math!

Anyhow, we left Orlando at about 3:30, so we're hoping to get home around 5am, unless we decide to stop for a few hours to sleep. Claire slept for about an hour shortly after we left, and woke up SUPER cranky. We stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel, and almost had to leave because she kept screaming. I can't stand it when she does that. It makes me feel bad for her, and embarrassed at the same time. *sigh*

Dinner at Cracker Barrel was the smothered chicken. I had about two bites of the green beans tat came with it, and gave the rest of my sides (corn and applesauce) to Claire. Breakfast was 3 eggs and lunch was a pizza skillet left over from Sunday (it was frozen). I had a piece of cheese in there somewhere :-) I probably didn't get enough calories or fat today, but I'll make up for it tomorrow.

I'm getting/will be getting considerably more caffeine than usual again today because I'm driving second shift. Once we get past Lake Marion in South Carolina I'm going to take over for as long as possible. I have recently acquired a nasty phobia for driving over certain bridges. I took over driving when we got into Georgia, forgetting that there are a LOT of bridges in that area, many of which are the kind I am afraid to drive over. I almost blacked out driving over one bridge, so as soon as we got over it I took the next exit and turned over the wheel to my mother. I told her I could drive when we got into SC, but would have to get her to drive over Lake Marion (according to the map, it's a looooong bridge!!). Fun stuff!!

Days 23 & 24

OWWIE my head hurts!! I was a dummy yesterday. For some reason, I thought it would be OK to have some pizza, fries, and carrot cake for lunch. I really don't know what I was thinking, except for maybe I had been at Sea World and Disney World every day of the week. Anyhow about 2 hours after eating the junk, I started feeling lethargic. Then this morning I felt like crap and had trouble waking up. All day I've felt gross! I went back to eating well today: bacon for breakfast, bacon cheeseburger for an early lunch, another bacon cheeseburger for a late-afternoon snack, and chicken and steak from Pollo Tropical for dinner. I suspect the headache is from my body going through carb withdrawal again, which is good, but darn it hurts! I hope it's gone tomorrow because we have to drive home to Maryland.

I didn't do FitDay today or yesterday, and now I'm just too pooped to even bother. I'll get back to it tomorrow. We're not going to Sea World again, except for maybe a short trip so I can ride the roller coaster (kinda hard to do when it's just me and Claire, and she's WAY too short!!).

Day 22

I'm not bothering with FitDay today. Just too pooped from yet another day at Sea World. I wasn't too bad today; had a good breakfast of three eggs and some bacon, lunch was beef brisket, and dinner was a sirloin steak with some cheese, black olives, hardboiled egg, and bleu cheese dressing. I also had a few bites of Claire's cheese for a snack (probably about an ounce, she had like 3 pieces!). We stopped at the Hospitality Center at Sea World and I got my two free beer samples (muhahah!) of Michelob Light and Michelob Ultra. And because I've been dying for some ice cream, probably from seeing so much at all the theme parks, I got some CarbSmart ice cream bars when we stopped at the grocery store. I only had one, and it did the trick :-)

That's it for today. I did a lot of walking, again, and Claire is sleeping in the bedroom so I can't do my T-Tapp, again!!

Day 21

Today is three weeks! And I have no scale to see how well I'm doing...

Today was difficult. Had a late breakfast of three fried eggs with butter. I don't think it was enough because I was famished about 2 hours later. We were at Disney World by then, so we stopped and I got a tasty foot-long hot dog with about 1/2 cup of sauerkraut and some mustard. That also wasn't really enough, and I was starving about 3 hours after that! So we went ahead and had an early dinner. I got a double bacon cheeseburger from yet another Disney place. When I took the bun off, the cheese went with it, so I added some cheese sauce from the fixings bar in the restaurant, along with some mayo, pickles, and a slice of tomato. Yummy, and this time I stayed full!

I think my problem today was not enough fat or protein for breakfast and lunch!! Tomorrow morning I will have some bacon with my eggs, and I think I'll take some hardboiled eggs with me when we go back to Sea World. Oh, and maybe some cheese!! I remembered to pack snacks for Claire today, but I didn't do it for myself.

Time for bed. It's going to be another busy day tomorrow!! We're going to feed the dolphins at Sea World!

Day 20

Today we went to Sea World, and I had a beer *burp* :-) I ate very well the rest of the day: steak and eggs for breakfast, smoked beef brisket for lunch, and pizza skillet for dinner. I wasn't hungry for snacks all day, and we did a ton of walking. Well, I did anyway, Claire did a lot of riding in her stroller. I was completely stressed out from having four generations of women in my family in one room at the same time, so I had a Michelob Ultra Amber with the beef brisket. I also had a Diet Coke, 3 Diet Rites (cans), and a Diet Pepsi over the course of the day. I will cut out on the soda when I get back from my trip. Even if it stalls me, I think I need it this week. I may need another beer before the week is over ;-)

One other thing I meant to write about sooner, and keep forgetting to do, is my lack of scale. I weighed myself on Friday morning before I left, and I won't be weighing myself again until the morning after we return. So that will be more than a week without a scale! EEK! I'm a little nervous about getting on it when I return home; I'm hoping that the somewhat lax eating over the past few days hasn't reversed my progress. I don't think it has, but who knows. Actually, the room I'm in for the week has mirrors all along one wall, and I noticed that I'm starting to get some definition in my waist area, and my legs look a little bit leaner.

That also reminds me, I need to get back to my T-Tapp! I wanted to do it when I got to Orlando, but the living room doesn't have any space for it. So I need to hook up my DVD player in the bedroom and do it! I'd do it before bed, but I'd probably be all worked up and not be able to sleep (and with a trip to Disney World tomorrow, I need sleep!!), and anyway Claire is asleep in the room. Waking her up would be a very, very bad idea. She was up for a few hours in the middle of last night, which meant I was up with her.

Vacations are so much fun! :-p

Days 18 & 19

I think today is day 19 :-)

We're back on the road today after two nights in Middleburg, FL at my aunt's house. It was a nice visit, and I managed to stay on-plan for the most part.

I've had a lot more caffeine than I was planning to this weekend. Right now I'm drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper. When we get to Orlando we'll go to the grocery store and I'll get some Diet Rite, which doesn't usually cause any stalling for me, and doesn't have any of that nasty caffeine in it.

Yesterday I had some eggs and cheese for breakfast, another Baconator for lunch, and steak and cheese for dinner. It's funny because I had the same amount of steak as everyone else, but they also had salad, bread, and potatoes with theirs. I just had cheese with mine, and I was totally full! I had some more of the sugar-free Reese's candies, and I don't think I'll make that mistake again for a while. I was tootin' for hours after I had them, and my tummy still hurts a bit now! NO MORE SUGAR-FREE REESE'S FOR ME!!! (this is to remind me! hehe)

So far today I've had some eggs and bacon. We had breakfast a bit late, so we'll probably stop for lunch when we're a little closer to Orlando. Maybe we'll go to Wendy's or Hardee's; they've been good choices for doing low-carb so far.

And no, I'm not driving and writing at the same time ;-)

Day 17 Part 2

I had a Baconator for dinner last night. It was yummy! I had way too much diet soda yesterday. I also had a nasty craving for chocolate, so rather than go crazy I went ahead and bought some sugar-free Reese's peanut butter cups. They were good, and they tamed the craving, but I think the sugar alcohol might have done something because I'm feeling bloated and gassy today. YUCK!

Caffeine

On Monday I cut out caffeine. And today I went right back to it. Waking up before sunrise is just wrong!! And to compensate for my body's rebellion, wanting to snooze, and then snooze some more, I have been sucking down caffeine. So far I've had 2 fast food diet Cokes and a bottle of the new chocolate cherry Dr. Pepper (wasn't too impressed with it). I'm fully caffeinated right now :-D I'll cut it back out for the rest of the week, after this insanely long drive. The funny thing is that I'm not even the one driving right now, my mother is, so I really don't need the caffeine. In fact, she's been driving the whole time, and if she wants to drive all the way to Jacksonville, that's alright by me!

Days 16 & 17

I'm writing this while my mother is driving us down I-95 in North Carolina. I think we're almost in South Carolina now :-) I love wireless!!

I didn't get a chance to write more than my microwave pizza skillet recipe yesterday between work, packing, and dealing with a cranky kiddo. So I'm going to catch up on yesterday, and start on today. Who knows if we'll have any Internet when we get to where we're going.

So yesterday I ate pretty well. You can see my FitDay if you're curious. I had breakfast casserole (version 2), pizza skillet (microwaved), and went to Outback Steak House for dinner. Had a 7 ounce filet mignon there and about 1/4 cup of broccoli. Oh, and I ate one grilled shrimp. My husband ate a 9oz filt, plus all of his veggies and broccoli, and the rest of the shrimp, and he was still hungry. Want to guess what else he ate for the day? NOTHING! Hmm... gee, I wonder WHY he was so stinkin' hungry at dinner. Geez!

Today I had to wake up at 4am to get ready to leave for my trip. We were on the road at about 5am. I had a sausage patty from McDonald's and a couple of hard boiled eggs I packed. For a snack I had some pepperoni and cheese. We're getting ready to stop for gas and lunch at Hardee's! I'll try to write more later :-)

Recipe: Microwave Pizza "Skillet"

This is a variation on my other pizza skillet recipe. I cooked up about 6 pounds of ground beef on Sunday, adding only salt and pepper. I figured I could use it in other stuff later in the week. So after running out of the pizza skillet I made (also on Sunday) I decided to see how it would taste if I just microwaved all of the parts in a single serving. Not bad, and it's a lot faster to make!

• 1 cup cooked ground beef
• Pepperoni or other low-carb pizza toppings (optional)
  
• 2 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
• Italian seasoning
• Salt and pepper to taste

Here's how it works:

1. Put the ground beef in a microwave-safe bowl. Add some of the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.
   
2. Cover with the optional pizza toppings. It's important to add these before the cheese because otherwise they might get dried out in the microwave.
3. Spread the cheese evenly over everything. Add some more of the Italian seasoning.
4. Cook in the microwave for about 2 minutes, until the cheese melts and everything else is warmed up.

Enjoy! I committed the diced tomatoes from the original in this recipe, but you can add it to yours :-)

Day 15

This has to be quick, because I need to get to bed ASAP!!!

I did T-Tapp last night, and... WOW!! It was a great workout. I bought the DVD from the instructor and did the basic workout again at home today, and tried doing the next level a bit. I took my measurements last night before my class, and today after doing the workout I was down an inch each on my waist, abdomen, and hips. I likey :-)

Today I was pretty good. Had breakfast casserole, pizza skillet, and a steak. I also had a piece of bacon for a snack. The only "bad" things I had were a piece of sugarless gum and a couple of Diet Rite's. They're low-carb, but they aren't natural. I'm working on it :-)

My new "rule" is to get to bed by 10:30PM on weeknights. It's 10:05 right now, so I better sign off and get ready!

Day 14 (Morning)

It's been two weeks since I started low-carb again, and I'm down 7.2 pounds. Only 54 to go :-)

Today I'm still feeling a bit bloated. My fingers feel swollen. I think it's water-retention because my time of month is coming up. The Smooth Move tea worked, but it took an awfully long time! I had the tea at about 9pm and I didn't get the urge to go until almost 11am, after I had eaten breakfast. I think next time I'll try drinking the tea a bit earlier.

So for today I've had 3 eggs cooked in butter and a strip of bacon. I'm about to warm up some pizza skillet for a late lunch (got up late).

Tonight I'm going to my first T-Tapp class. I'm really looking forward to it, but I have to do my measurements before I go. Not looking forward to that so much. I really should have done that before I started with the new way of eating so I could track my progress. I know a lot of folks who do low-carb have noticed that sometimes when they hit plateaus in weight loss, they continue to lose inches.

Day 13

I'm totally wiped out today, and now I have a headache. I don't know if it's from the way I'm eating, or because I'm starting to come down with something. I also feel like I may be retaining a bit of water, so I'm a little worried about my weigh-in tomorrow. I usually retain some water a week or so before my time of month, so if my weight hasn't gone down much (or at all) tomorrow, I know it will go down soon.

I used some ketostix to check my ketosis today, and each time I was in the moderate to large range. When I was doing just Protein Power, I was only ever in the moderate range. So maybe my new "rules" are doing something :-)

Today I had some breakfast casserole, pizza skillet, and a ribeye steak. I ate a piece of cheese and some bacon for snacks. I haven't really felt hungry all day. In fact, I couldn't eat much more than half of my breakfast casserole this morning because it was so filling!

One other thing... I haven't, ahem, pooped in a few days. I think I'm going to drink some "Smooth Move" tea to help things along. I've done it before without any ill effects (the cramping and such that some people get) and tomorrow morning I don't have to go anywhere, so it'll be as good a time as any to do it tonight before bed.

Day 12

Today I started my new "plan." I did pretty well, eating mostly meat with some cheese, butter, and a little bit of tomato. I had eggs cooked in butter with bacon for breakfast, pizza skillet for lunch, and another pizza skillet for dinner. The lunch one was leftovers from last week, and the dinner one was a fresh batch I made for this week. I'm planning to have the other three servings of it for lunches or dinners this week.

We went to Costco this afternoon and I bought some ribeye steaks, 6 pounds of ground beef (some of which ended up in my pizza skillet!), a 2-pound thing of very thick uncured bacon, 2 dozen organic eggs, and a bunch of bottled water. I think I'm pretty much set for the week.

Tonight I made the breakfast casserole posted earlier today, and I'm going to have that for breakfast tomorrow. It smelled yummy, and even Claire (who's picky and doesn't like much meat) said, "ooooh mommy, smells gooooood!" She's such a cutie :-)

Wayne is still pretty much off low-carb, and he's super cranky now. I guess it's the nasty carbs getting back into his system. He did well for breakfast, and I offered to pack him lunch for the party we went to, but he refused. Then at the party he had pizza and cake, plus the rest of my pizza skillet because I was stuffed. He didn't eat anything for dinner, and he thinks not eating is how he's going to lose weight. I guess he'll have to learn the hard way. It really sucks because he wants to lose a lot of weight before the end of the month, and he's not going to this way. Oh well, it's his body.

This Tuesday my friend and I are going to start T-Tapp classes. I'll post more info about this tomorrow because right now I'm pooped. I am hosting a playgroup at my house in the morning, so I have to get some sleep to help wrangle toddlers.

Breakfast Casserole, Version 2

I decided to experiment with the breakfast casserole I made a couple of weeks ago. It turned out pretty good.

• 1.25 lbs ground pork
• 0.25 lbs ground beef
• 6 pieces thick bacon, cooked (I used uncured bacon from Costco)
  
• 4 oz cream cheese, cut into small pieces (about 20)
  
• 4 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
  
• 12 hard boiled eggs, sliced or chopped
  
• spices to taste (I used Pampered Chef Rosemary and Italian mixes, some thyme, and oregano)
• salt and pepper to taste
  

1. Brown the ground pork and beef. Add the spices, salt, and pepper to taste
2. Put the cooked ground meat mixture into a 9x12 pan.
3. Dot the meat with the cream cheese pieces.
4. Layer the eggs, bacon, and cheddar cheese (in that order) in the pan.
5. Cook, covered with aluminum foil, at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove the cover and cook an additional 10 minutes.

Enjoy! I don't have the nutritional stats yet, but it should be close to the original, probably lower-carb since I used less dairy this time. The nutritional info will vary based on the bacon used, as well as the spices.

UPDATE: Here's the nutrition info, based on the above recipe making 8 servings:

• 539 calories
• 42 g fat
• 2g carbs (trace fiber)
• 35g protein
  

Skillet Pizza

I made this for dinner tonight. So yummy!

• 4 cups cooked ground beef (about 2 pounds raw)
  
• 1 cup canned diced tomatoes in sauce (I used Hunt's brand)
• Italian seasoning, to taste
  
• 8 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 16 slices pepperoni

Mix the ground beef, tomatoes, and Italian seasoning in a skillet. Cover with cheese and pepperoni and cook over low heat until the cheese is melted and the pepperoni is cooked. Enjoy!

This makes 4 generous servings. According to FitDay, each serving has:

570 calories
39g fat
3.75g carbs (0.5g fiber)
47.75g protein

Day 11 (Part 2)

I had a filet mignon with a salad and some broccoli tonight for dinner. It was good, but honestly I probably would have been fine just eating the filet. I was too full from the veggies to eat the whole thing!

Wayne is totally off the low-carb way of eating today. He had bread and honey French dressing at dinner. He gets pissy when I tell him what is allowed and not allowed on a low-carb diet, since he can't bother to actually read the books and such himself. And God forbid I ask him to measure the amount of each thing he's putting into a dish so I can calculate the carb amounts for my portion of it. I can't control what he eats. I told him tonight he can eat whatever he wants. And really, he can. I'll keep cooking low-carb, but I'm not going to bother helping him do it anymore until he asks me and promises to just eat what I tell him to eat without all of the bitching. He has to want it, and it seems that right now he doesn't. Ugh, men!

Day 11

Chipotle gave me heartburn last night, again!! I guess I better not go back there again for a while :-/

I was reviewing my FitDay stats for the past 10 days, and I noticed that some days I have been under 10 carbs. And you know, on those days I felt full pretty much all day. I also felt better, in general. So I think I'm going to start doing very-low-carb for a while. I doubt that Wayne will do it, but we'll see. If I lose a zillion pounds, he might try it ;-)

So here are my revised "rules":

• No limit on carbs, but aim for 10g/day max.
  
• Eat at least my minimum protein (34g/meal)
• Limit non-animal-based carbs; try not to get no more than 2-4 carbs worth of these in a single meal, and don't eat any of these if I don't need to (usually just the meat is more than enough!).
  
• Eat enough fat to make me feel full (good fats only, no trans junk!)
• Heavy cream, butter, and cheese only for dairy... might cut these if they seem to stall me
  
• Drink water when I'm thirsty
  
• Limit artificial sweeteners and caffeine... might also have to cut these out
  
• No more than 2 diet sodas each day... if I cut the stuff above out, these will go!
• Use organic, natural food as much as possible; try to get grass-fed, free-range meat
  

I'll track my progress in this very blog.

As for today, we went to a birthday party, and Wayne didn't eat any breakfast or lunch. So he had CAKE!!!! :-o I managed to feed Claire ice cream and not pass out from the temptation.

I had a couple of eggs and some bacon for breakfast, and then had the toppings of the pizza from the party (the sauce probably had more carbs than I should have eaten, because I'm feeling sleepy!!). Dinner tonight is going to be steak, steak, and more steak. We're going out to dinner with some friends to Longhorn. I'll probably have a filet mignon, or something just as tasty.

My very-low-carb experiment will start tomorrow, even though we have another birthday party to go to!

Day 10

Yeah, I sneaked another peek at the scale this morning, and my weight is down a bit more (ticker's not updated, going to wait until Tuesday!). Wayne's went up a little bit, not sure why, except maybe he's still eating way too fast and not feeling it when he gets full. I wonder if it might also be that the mechanism that tells him he's full is out of whack.

I've eaten OK today, but didn't get as much protein as I should have. Had a 3-egg omelet with tomatoes for breakfast, pastrami and cheese for lunch (in the movie theater, shhhhh!) and for dinner I'm going to Chipotle. I'm going to get a Burrito Bol with carnitas, green salsa, cheese, guacamole, and lettuce. I found this neat calculator to tell me the nutritional info.

Day 9

I know, I know, I'm not supposed to weigh myself except on Tuesdays, but I had to take a peek. I'm down to 185.6! Wayne didn't weigh himself this morning before he left for work, but I think he will when he gets home.

Let me review my "rules" to see if I followed them all:

• Eat at least my minimum protein (34g/meal): ALMOST got this... missed it by a few grams for breakfast.
  
• Limit my carbs to less than 20g ECC: Today was 11g
  
• Cut out the fruit and grains for the time being: Done
  
• Only eat veggies that are on the Atkins-approved list: Just had lettuce and tomato
  
• Keep carbs to no more than 10g (ECC or Net) per meal: Yep!
  
• Eat enough fat to make me feel full: Definitely did this! I had lunch at about noon and wasn't hungry for a long time
  
• Heavy cream and cheese only for dairy: All I had was cheese
  
• Drink 8+ glasses of water: Got it!

Today I went back to the gym. Did 10 minutes on the bike and about 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer. Not as much as I should have, but I was up too late last night so I was a bit pooped. It didn't help that Claire woke me up at 5:50am looking for Wayne! I took a 90 minute nap when I got home from the gym, and felt a lot better.

Tomorrow I'm going walking with my moms group at the mall, and then going to the movies. I'm going to have to pack some lunch because the movie starts right around lunch time and won't be over until almost 1pm. They don't have a whole lot that I can eat at the movie theater, and I doubt Claire will last long enough without some food! There are still some hardboiled eggs in the fridge, so I'll probably take those and some cheese, and maybe some lunch meat.

Day 8 (Morning)

So I've been thinking... Even though I love all of the science behind Protein Power, and I'm losing weight doing it, I've decided that I'm going to start doing things a little bit differently to see if it works. I'm basically going to try to combine the principles of Atkins with Protein Power. So here's what I'm going to try to do for the rest of the week (starting tomorrow, I already have stuff cooked that won't fit below):

• Eat at least my minimum protein (34g/meal)
• Limit my carbs to less than 20g
• Cut out the fruit and grains for the time being (no more strawberries or low-carb wraps/bread... waaah!)
• Only eat veggies that are on the Atkins-approved list, keeping carbs to no more than 10g (ECC or Net) per meal... I'd like to average 4-8 for each meal
• Eat enough fat to make me feel full (good fats only, no trans junk!)
• Heavy cream and cheese only for dairy (no more whole milk for now)
  
• Drink 8+ glasses of water
• No pre-packaged stuff
  

As usual I'll keep all of my food listed in my FitDay account, so we'll see how this goes. Wayne will probably keep doing what he's been doing because it works for him, and he loves getting his berries (which we have to keep in the house for Claire anyway). But I may talk with him about adjusting his diet to what I'm doing because he's been complaining incessantly about being hungry. So if I tell him he can eat as much meat as he wants until he's full, he'll be happier :-)

Day 7 (Evening)

Wayne and I went to a basketball game tonight (GO TERPS!!!). I scored awesome seats in the alumni suite. They provided us with munchies and drinks, but unfortunately, we couldn't even look at the food! It was stuff like M & M's, pretzels, and chips. So during half-time I ran out to one of the concession stands and got some peanuts. Not the best choice, but after hearing Wayne complain about how huuuuuungry he was for the first half, it was better than nothing.

We had more of the breakfast casserole this morning. It'll be all gone tomorrow, and then I'm going to make a different version of it tomorrow afternoon. For lunch I had a GIANT beef frank with some sauerkraut and some protein pudding. Dinner was delicious: my version of Alice Springs Chicken (NO mushrooms, yuck, ick, ewwie, blech!!) and a salad.

I ordered groceries online for the first time in many years. This time around we used Safeway, and for the most part we were pleased. Some of the produce is a little past its prime, and they were out of a few things we ordered. The delivery was on time, which was nice. I ordered online because the grocery store has been ridiculously crowded the past few times we've been, and I didn't feel like standing in line for 30 minutes yet again. I'd rather just spend 30 minutes adding all of the stuff to my online shopping cart and have it delivered. We're probably going to try Peapod next time.

Day 7 (Morning)

My weight went back down a bit this morning, so my total weight loss for the first week is (drum roll, please!) 3.8 pounds. Not bad, I think :-) Wayne's weight loss for the first week was 6.6 pounds, which is also not bad.

This morning after dropping Claire off, Wayne and I went to the gym to use our free 8-week memberships at Bally's Total Fitness. We signed up for the Discovery Health National Body Challenge to get it. While at the gym I did a 20 minutes on a bike and 15 minutes on an elliptical trainer. I managed to work up a nice sweat!

I had a Bally's membership for a while, and rarely used it, so I am loathe to actually pay for one. If I actually go more than once a week for the next 8 weeks, I might be willing to splurge. Then again, a membership at the local community center is much less expensive (about $95/year). They have a lot of the same equipment, just in smaller numbers. They also don't get quite as crowded as the local Bally's, which was packed even at 9am today. Don't these people have jobs? Yeah, I'm one to talk! The other thing that's nice about Bally's is they have a pool, hot tub, sauna, and group exercise classes. I can get the group exercises classes at the community center (by paying extra for each class), but they are included in the price at Bally's.

Something to ponder, huh?

I'm going to go take a nap! I was up late working and then reading (almost done with The Amber Spyglass). I have a lot of work to do, but I won't be much use if my brain is all foggy from lack of sleep.

Day 6 (Evening)

Today was a little crazy. My daughter's friend usually comes over on Mondays so her mom can have a break (the friend, not my daughter's mom, which would be me!!). So I had a 2-year old and an almost 2-year old wreaking havoc on the house all day. It was fun :-)

For lunch I had some more chili and some of the cucumber salad we made the other night. Wayne cooked up some steaks for dinner, and they were delicious. I had some veggies with cream cheese on the side for that meal. After ice skating lessons (for the girls) we had some strawberries with whipped cream.

Tomorrow will be one week on low-carb! I think I am only going to report my weight on my weekly anniversary so I don't stress about any daily fluctuations.

I found a great web site today: Linda's Low-Carb Menus & Recipes. I'm going to have to try some of the recipes! Wayne and I are going to a basketball game on campus tomorrow night, and we're going to have some Alice Springs Chicken before we go so we're not temped at the game. We're sitting in a suite, so I'm sure there will be plenty of temptation to be found ;-)

Day 6 (Morning)

Hmph, I am up a bit more!! I feel bloated, and I think I'm retaining water for some reason. I'm going to review what I've eaten the past few days to see if maybe I'm getting too much salt. I know I'm in ketosis because I've been using some ketosticks, and they are in the purple (which means I have a "large" amount of ketons in my urine). That means I *should* be losing. Maybe my body is saying, "WHOA!! Hold on to this stuff, she's trying to get rid of it!!!" and I'll have a big "whoosh" in the next day or so.

I had some more breakfast casserole this morning. Still yummy :-)

Day 6

So.... no more wine for now! Wayne and I both went up a bit. I think it was either the wine or there was some sugar in something we ate last night. Neither of us went back up to our starting weights or anything, so nothing too big to worry about. I'm not going to update our tickers or charts until tomorrow ;-)

Today I had to clean up the house for my book club meeting and I didn't get around to eating anything for breakfast. For lunch I had some of the breakfast casserole I made last night. Boy was it good, and very filling. Maybe next time I'll add some crumbled bacon. I also had some veggie cream cheese with some veggies, 4 small pieces of cheese, and 4 small pieces of chorizo. Dinner was some chili and a cucumber salad that Wayne made last night (I'll post the recipe). Claire and I shared an almond butter and strawberries sandwich for a snack.

I may sign up for a belly dance class that starts tomorrow night... we'll have to see how the day goes. Mondays are usually a little chaotic, especially when it's the day after Wayne works!

Recipe: Breakfast Casserole

This is based on a very yummy higher-carb (and slightly more time-consuming) recipe that my mother makes whenever we have a brunch. I love this stuff!!

Note: This is basically a double batch. If you want to make just one casserole, cut the ingredients in about half.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs ground pork
• 0.5 lbs ground beef
• 12 eggs
• 0.5 cup whole milk (or use heavy cream with some water to cut the carbs more)
  
• 16 oz sour cream
• 16 oz cheddar cheese (shredded)
• 3 tbsp Italian seasoning (or other seasoning, whatever you like!)
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
  

Directions

1. Brown the pork and beef together. Drain, add the Italian seasoning, and mix well.
2. Divide the meat mixture into 2 casserole dishes.
3. Mix the eggs and milk together and scramble.
4. Divide the cooked scrambled eggs between the two casserole dishes.
5. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the eggs.
6. Divide the sour cream between the two casserole dishes. Spread evenly over the eggs.
7. Divide the cheese between the two casserole dishes, sprinkling evenly over the sour cream.
8. Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese melts.
   

I figured about 12 servings for this, maybe less if you're having it with other stuff. Each serving has:

• 493 calories
• 39g fat
• 30g protein
• 4g carbs
  

Day 5

I'm down a bit more again today (0.4 lbs) and Wayne lost a bit as well. I put cool little charts at the bottom of the page to show our daily progress, or at least the days we will weigh ourselves!

Today I stayed within my carb limits, but I think I may have overdone it a bit on the protein. I had a LOT of it, starting with another protein shake. I had chicken for lunch (with tomatoes, mozzarella and gorgonzola... yum!!!). Dinner was at an office party, and the food was all Israeli (the director of the department is from there). Wayne and I had chicken and beef shwarma (sp?) and a tasty salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and onions. I'm going to have to find a recipe for the shwarma because it was delicious! The salad was also good, and we made something similar when we got home.

Tomorrow I have a book club meeting at my house, and I'm making a nice low-carb spread for everyone to nosh on while we chat. I think this is going to be the menu:

• Breakfast casserole (I'll post the recipe)
• Cheese cubes
• Sausage bits (Salvadoran chorizo, cooked and cut up)
• Veggie platter (green pepper, cucumber, grape tomatoes, broccoli)
• Veggie cream cheese spread (it's the pre-made whipped cream cheese with veggies in it)
• Strawberries
• Blackberries

One of my friends offered to bring something, but last time she brought the most delicious (devious!) homemade brownies I've ever tasted. I don't think I'm at the point where I can resist that sort of temptation, yet!!

Day 4

We're both still losing! I'm down almost 4 lbs now, and Wayne is down just over 6 lbs. We both had a smaller loss today, probably because of eating way too much for dinner last night.

Today I wasn't hungry most of the time. I had another shake for breakfast (used 1/4 cup whole milk and some flaxseed oil this time) and leftover turkey and mayo on a low-carb tortilla for lunch. We went to Chevy's for dinner, and I had steak and carnitas fajitas (only ate about 2/3 of the meat and all of the guacamole) with a side salad (used some salsa for dressing). It was nummy! When we returned home, Wayne whipped up a batch of cream with splenda and we had it on strawberries and blackberries.

Tomorrow we're going to my mother's for brunch, and I already requested a lower-carb version of a very yummy brunch casserole she makes. It has sausage, hardboiled eggs, sour cream, cheese, and breadcrumbs. I asked her to cut the breadcrumbs for the one she's making :-D

Wayne's starting to get pissy about eating on plan. He skipped lunch today, and then didn't eat anything at Chevy's. I asked him if he was feeling full after he eats, and he said he wasn't. After a bit more prodding I discovered that the only meal he's felt full after was the hefty omelet I made him the day we started. So I'm going to try making that for him again. Just have to get some more eggs since between the two of us (mostly him!) we've eating almost 3 dozen eggs in 4 days!!!

I'm not going to post my stats for today, since they're in my handy-dandy FitDay journal, and I'm tired!!

Day 3

Wayne and I both lost some more weight :-) He's now down 5.9 lbs and I'm down 3 lbs. Here are the numbers for what I ate today (see my FitDay journal for more info):

• 39 carbs - 16 fiber = 23 ECC
• 156 protein
• 120 fat
• 1842 calories
• 35% protein, 60% fat, 5% carbs

We went out to dinner tonight, so some of the numbers might be a bit off. We ate at a local Mongolian grill and I had some salad with cheddar, bacon bits, and bleu cheese dressing. I made two trips to the grill and had mostly meat. The first trip was about a cup of ribeye steak (chopped), a few strips of peppers, a few pieces of broccoli, and a little bit of soy sauce (1 tbsp), peanut sauce (about 1 tsp), and garlic. The second trip I had about 1/2 cup of chicken (I think it was breast and thigh mixed), rosemary, garlic, "mixed herbs," and a tiny bit of lemon pepper. I ate too much, but funny enough it wasn't as much as I used to eat at this place!

Review: Syntrax Nectar, Fuzzy Navel

I tried the Syntrax Nectar, 2.11 Lbs., Fuzzy Navel I ordered from Bodybuilding.com for breakfast this morning. I used two scoops of powder, mixed with 16 oz of water and 2 tbsp of heavy cream for a very tasty breakfast shake that had:

• 283 calories
• 1 carb (no fiber)
  
• 47 protein
• 11 fat

I mixed just the water and powder together in a shaker first, and it had a bit of an off smell, but I couldn't detect any strange taste. I then added the heavy cream and shook it all up again, and then poured it over ice into a large cup. Not bad!

I think next time I'll add a little bit of Flax Seed Oil and cut the heavy cream to 1 tbsp. I may also try adding some strawberries and then running everything through the blender with some ice to see how it turns out. Wayne might even like this :-)

So far, so good :-)

I lost a pound on my first day! WOO!! I'm now down to 190.2 lbs (still 5'2" hehe)

Today was pretty good. I had a protein shake for breakfast (I'll review that in a bit). I used to be fine with having just that, but I felt a little nauseous about 2 hours after I had it. I don't know if it was lack of carbs or what, but I ate my lunch (ham & cheese wrap w/ mayo, 1/2 cup strawberries) and I immediately felt better. I managed to get through Whole Foods (the grocery store) without going crazy, and had a hard boiled egg afterwards while my daughter ate her yummy-looking cranberry orange muffin. My mother came over for dinner and we had the rest of the chili that Wayne and I made last night, along with a salad. After working late, I had a craving for something sweet (as usual) and ate a slice of flax bread (5 ECC) with 1 tbsp of almond butter and about 1/4 cup of strawberries. It totally hit the spot, and didn't knock me over the edge with my carbs. Yippee!

Here are the numbers for what I ate today (see my FitDay journal for more info):

• 45 carbs - 21 fiber = 24 ECC
• 131 protein
• 88 fat
• 1441 calories
• 37% protein, 56% fat, 7% carbs

Wayne had to work today, so we packed up breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for him to take to the office. When I spoke with him this afternoon, he said he was having some cravings, but nothing too terrible. He had eaten what we packed, so we'll see how he does when he weighs himself tomorrow morning when he gets home. He lost over 2 lbs on the first day, so I think he may be coming around on this way of eating.

So far, so good!! :-)

Review: Pure Liquid Sweetness

I'm not even going to post the link to the web site for this stuff because, well, they suck :-P

I placed an order for Pure Liquid Sweetness on 11/27/2007 after reading rave reviews of the product on several forums. I wanted to find a no-carb way to get Sucralose, since the packets do have some filler in them which provide some carbs. (or so I've always heard)

As of right now (1/1/2008) I haven't received my Pure Liquid Sweetness. I e-mailed the company several times after waiting 3 weeks for my order (or even an e-mail confirming it had been sent), and finally filed a dispute on PayPal. Still no response. So on 12/25 I escalated the dispute to a claim (Merry Christmas!!). Guess what? That's right, still no response! The seller has until 1/4/2008 to respond to PayPal or the claim will be decided in my favor. Which probably won't mean a whole lot if they don't have any money in their PayPal account.

So, big thumbs down for Pure Liquid Sweetness!! Try Anabolic Innovations Liquid Sucralose instead :-)

First Day!

So today the whole family started Protein Power. Here are our current stats (except for Claire, we're not going to track her):

• Wayne
• Current Weight: 257 lbs (BMI=34.9)
  
• Goal Weight: ??? It should be about 180, but he just says "38-inch waist!
  
• Height: 6' <-- I don't expect that to change, but just to see it vs. the weight!
• Current minimum protein requirement: 46
  
• Chrissy
• Current Weight: 191.2 lbs (BMI=35)
  
• Goal Weight: 130 lbs (BMI=23.8)
  
• Height: 5'2"
• Current minimum protein requirement: 40
  

I'll do measurements for waist, hips, etc... tomorrow (for me). Wayne doesn't want to do those, but I'll try to convince him to do it on Thursday.

We are shooting for 7-10 ECC for each meal and snack, which should give us 30-40 ECC per day. Today I had:

• 33 carbs - 12 fiber = 21 ECC
• 110 protein
• 106 fat
• 1509 calories
• 30% protein, 64% fat, 6% carbs
  

I was going to put everything we ate in here, but it will probably become way too much of a pain :-) So I'm going to try to keep track of my menu in my FitDay account. Wayne eats about the same thing, but somewhat larger portions (his protein requirement is higher) and he may eat more snacks. I'm hoping he'll eat just what we pack for him for work tomorrow, but considering his line of work that may not happen.