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