Sunday April 1

Monday April 2

BR: Coffee with cream - yes, that's it. nothing else

LUNCH: One hour after finishing my workout - 3/4 srv. Mex. lasagna (the rest of it) with 2 tb. sour cream

SN: 1 oz maui onion macs and a spoonful of Peter Pan SF pnut butter right out of the jar (thanks Sylvia!)

DINNER: 2 ground chicken patties with am. cheese, salad with onion, pepper, tomato and ranch. then after dinner the chocolate monster came into the bedroom where I was busy folding clothes, held me down and force-fed me a Carbolite dark chocolate bar. Really. You're not buying it? How about the-robber-came-in-the-window-story? No?

EXERCISE: 250 crunches - 50 regular, 50 on each side (obliques), then 100 in advanced fetal position. OW. Sure do lose progress fast! then I did 30 minutes on the treadmill at 3 mpg and 5% incline. No wrist weights, my elbow is still not up to that yet.

CALORIES: 2183

FATS: 161 g, 72% (Saturated = 71g, 31%)

CARBS: 43g - 5% (18 g fiber and 11g sugar total) =25 net

PROTEIN: 118g, 23%

NOTES: OKAY, TOM is gone and I am down 1.5 pounds of the gain, even with the infamous Carbolite incident.

Tuesday April 3

BR: Coffee with cream, 1 Atkins bar

LUNCH: 1 latortilla wrapped around 1.65 leftover ground chicken patties and 1 slice am. cheese

DINNER: Fajita salad

SN: 1:00AM - 1/2 oz macs and a big squirt of whip cream, this had to be a knee-jerk reaction to reading the very restrictive low carb Thin for Life diet where he disallows macs entirely and limits cream to 2 Tb per day - that's not even enough for my coffee in the AM!! I'll be writing up a review on this plan and later and posting it on my message board if you're interested...

 

EXERCISE: off day

CALORIES: 1529

FATS: 103 g, 63% (Saturated = 55 g, 34%)

CARBS: 42g - 7% (15 g fiber and 8 g sugar total) =27 net

PROTEIN: 109 g, 30%

NOTES: down another 1.5 pounds of the gain-back, only 1.5 over my all-time low now  :)

Wednesday April 4

BR: Coffee with cream, 2 branacrisps piled with egg salad made with 2 HB eggs + 1 Tb mayo

LUNCH: 3/4 cup plain yogurt (I adjusted the carb count in Lifeform from 17 to 9, in line with the prevailing carb-count-is-inaccurate theory) with 2 sliced strawberries, 1/4 cup nutlette cereal, and davinci strawberry syrup

SNACK: 1 atkins bar

DINNER: Italian meatball Surprise - started with a variation on the spinach ricotta dumplings and went from there. Surprisingly good, even the kids ate them -I told them they were celery dumplings, I know what the word spinach does ;P - anyway, I browned them really well after boiling them, in a mixture of italian sausage and onions, then covered that with parmesan and mozzarella  to hide the dirty green-brown color of the dumpling-meatballs and then threw it all under the broiler. Then I invented some almond brownies that I covered with chocolate whip - put 1 pint of whip cream in the isi along with 2 Tb of cocoa powder and 6 Tb of granular Splenda, Mmmmmmmm, instant mousse.

 

EXERCISE: ended up being an off day, wasn't supposed to be though

CALORIES: 2137

FATS: 154 g, 68% (Saturated = 63 g, 27%)

CARBS: 67 g - 9% (20 g fiber and 17 g sugar total) =47 net

PROTEIN: 118 g, 23%

NOTES: up one pound - temporarily!! This was one of those days when it didn't seem like I was overdoing it, then I added everything up and practically croaked, lol. Only drank about 2 liters of water all day, too.. extra bad girl!. Will have to work out harder today.  I do have 2 recipes completed for Vol. 2 out of it, at least!

THURSDAY APRIL 5

BR: Coffee with cream, and one Atkins banana colada bar that I bought at the grocery store while waiting to get in and see the doctor with Matt for his lovely new case of ringworm he picked up wrestling - eeeeewwwww! Took till noon to get him seen, treated, and taken to school, what a pain... Anyway, the banana colada was much better than I expected.

LUNCH: 1 almond brownie with a squirt of whipped cream, 1 oz. hazelnuts, and a vanilla protein shake

DINNER: 8 oz fresh rockfish with 1 tsp lemon juice, and 1.5 cups rainbow salad, YUM. Been way too long since I made that stuff. After dinner I celebrated my cholesterol results with several servings of instant OIAB.

EXERCISE: 300 crunches: 2 sets of 50 obliques on each side, then 2 sets of 50 fetal position frontals. OW. I don't know how you gym rats do things like this at the gym, I only get through the last 15 of each 2nd set with a lot of Tim Taylor noises, read that LOUD grunting! It would be too embarrassing to do in public!! Then I got on the treadmill and did 35 minutes at 5% incline: 12 min @ 3.5mph then 2 min jogging @ 5 mph, 2 min cool down @ 3mph, remainder of the time back up to 3.5mph.

CALORIES: 3651

FATS: 330 g, 82% (Saturated = 113 g, 28%)

CARBS: 51 g - 4% (14 g fiber and 22 g sugar total) =37 net

PROTEIN: 122 g, 14%

NOTES: down a half pound - it may be just because of the really high fat, this looks like an up-the-fat test day from a year ago! Whatever the reason, I'll take it! :) and just get back to "normal eating" today...

Here is my cholesterol summary:

DATE----------TOTAL---------TRI'S---------HDL-----------LDL---------ttl%hdl--------ldl%hdl----------tris%hdl
Norms for women should be less than the following numbers (except hdl, that's the desired MINIMUM of that)
---------------200------------200----------35+ ------------130-----------4-----------3.22---------------2

B4--------- can't measure---------440-----------12------------200+ ---------don't have copies of exact numbers

B4 + on meds---------------------890?----------12------------200+ ---------don't have copies of exact numbers

3/00-------------197--------------116-----------42-------------132-----------4.69------------3.14------------2.76

6/00-------------212--------------90------------41--------------146----------5.17------------3.56------------2.19

9/00-------------268-------------108-----------45--------------186----------5.95------------4.13-------------2.4

4/01---------231------------92---------50----------152-------4.62----------3.04-------1.84

I am definitely on the track back towards normal, and some of my ratios are WAY better now than they were when I was actually at "normal" in March of 2000!!! Whooo Hooooo. THIS IS REALLY GREAT NEWS - especially since lots of doctors think the last ratio is the most important of all, and it is GREAT now.

FRIDAY APRIL 6

BR: Coffee with cream, 3 scrambled eggs with 2 oz. deluxe am. singles and 1 oz precooked hormel bacon (6 slices)

LUNCH: 5 slices deli roast beef flash fried with 1.5 oz swiss cheese melted over top

SNACK: Waaaaaay too many pecans from the nut factory, they are SO GOOD compared to other "regular" nuts!! Probably 2.5 ounces before dinner, once we opened them we couldn't stop and the whole family was threatening to hide them from everyone else!

DINNER: New York strip steak with 3 tb rainbow salad, later 1 cup of coco whipped cream AND a carbolite crispy bar. I probably would have been better off drinking the margarita I was fighting off the cravings for!!

EXERCISE: off day

CALORIES: 2925

FATS: 227 g, 74% (Saturated = 95 g, 31%)

CARBS: 33 g - 4% (9 g fiber and 11 g sugar total) =24 net

PROTEIN: 159 g, 23%

NOTES: back up the half pound to my average weight for the last three months! :( Oh well, it's not like I don't know WHY... gotta STOP eating after dinner and stop eating dinner after 6 pm. Sounds easy, doesn't it?

Saturday April 7   Today marks a departure for me. I have decided to change the way I am journaling. There are a whole year's worth of my menus on here, now, and I am just plain SICK of measuring/weighing every morsel I eat and drink. I am tried of weighing myself every single day, too. It is going to be hard, but I am going to try to start weighing just once a week. I am going to stop inputting all my menus into Lifeform. I will still keep this journal, but the tone will change a lot. Now it will be more of a true journal and it will contain more of my thoughts and feelings and much less about food. I will write about the new dishes I create, and new products I try, stuff like that. But no daily "reports" on whether I've been 'good' or 'bad', whether I exercised, exactly what I did or didn't do....... I'm sick of doing it. The reporting, I mean. I have no intention of changing much so far as eating and exercising, but I have a feeling that for a while it may be helpful to try to just listen to my body and eat when I want, what I want.... all low carb, of course, as I will never eat any other way again as long as I live... I have decided to relax my  'I must lose the rest of the weight immediately' attitude, as well. This weight will come off in its own time, not mine. Meanwhile, my cholesterol is under control again, and I look pretty darn good, I decided. So I could lose 20 pounds. Maybe even 30 pounds. So what. So could a lot of people. It is not going to change the quality of my life whether I lose those remaining pounds in a month-  or over the next 2 years.... And I have a feeling that obsessing over it is making me crazy and that is making me eat sometimes when I don't even care to. Lots of this weight loss thing is emotional, and I think the feeling that I am obligated to "report" to this journal and to you, the nameless faceless people read this page regularly, is making me resentful. I know myself, and when I resent doing something, I stop doing it well. I can't take that chance with my WOE... so the change starts, right now! Yesterday I ate a lot of pecans, again, dang! they are sooo good. Ate grilled chicken with shrimp scampi and a nice salad for dinner. More pecans and a Carbolite bar for dessert. Had one light cocktail. This morning I am down half a pound. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Just call me Tigger.   :)

Tomorrow I am leaving for Denver to see Elton John and Billy Joel together in concert! My girlfriend and I are getting a hotel room for after the show, too. I will take some nuts and cheese and low carb snacks, and some pre-made LC cocktails to drink. I will probably go up a few pounds of water weight, but I am going to try to not weigh myself again till this Friday!! Fridays should be a "good" day to weigh, if I have to pick one, since if I do drink alcohol or have any other small indulgences, they usually occur on the weekend. This trip will be a real test of this new resolve and a good time to start .... wish me luck!

Tuesday, April 10

The show was FABULOUS, they sounded wonderful, not like some shows where the band sounds like imposters of themselves, they really rocked together, and Billy Joel is so SEXY and man oh man does he have talented fingers, what a piano player!
Had a run-in with a girl who seemed to think I should sit down in my seat the whole time, she didn't appreciate my "blocking her view of the stage". All I could do was look at her and say, hey, I paid just as much for my 2 square feet as you did, and there's no law that says I can't stand if I want, so go back and sit down if that's what you're into, but if you were REALLY into this show, you'd be standing for this song too! Like me and them and them and them and.... And then a couple minutes later they played I'M STILL STANDING and it was sooooo funny. This girl looked like she was born with a silver spoon shoved up her butt and I'm not sure she'd ever been told no before, you should have seen her face!
They played for 3-1/2 hours straight, and they talked to the crowd, thanked us for paying too much money for our seats and saluted all the people who were in the "nosebleed" seats and in the ones that were behind the stage, but as Billy pointed out, that was the best view of his @ss ....
All in all, it was worth EVERY PENNY. We splurged on a cab, boy, that was nice to not have to deal with parking and traffic jams and all that for once... I bought some popcorn inside and only ate 2 cups, not even a cheat since it was my dinner and under the 10-carbs-per-meal limit...
Usually at shows I feel OLD - this time, I was among the YOUNGEST people there... instead of nose rings and tattoos, there were lots of SUITS AND TIES in evidence... what a change! And they treat the old fogies right, they were selling every mixed drink in the world inside, had full bars set up at every beer trolley, I NEVER saw that at a concert before! (No offense to old fogies, I hope).
I scored a bunch of new size 14s at the thrift stores, Levis, Eddy Bauers, some nice shirts, etc. and I spent waaay too much money at Sam's, I am not gonna be able to afford to leave the house for a month!!

The drive home was TREACHEROUS, a major spring blizzard accompanied by fog - talk about a white-out, this was a white-out in TWO ways, and I was really happy to have arrived home alive!

Haven't weighed again, it is really strange, but sort of nice, to just practice living my "thin life", for a change. What a relief to stop having to remember every single thing and try to get it all in the computer upon my return... I am going to try to forget about that scale most of the time from now on. My original goal was a size 14 and I hit that already, so anything else is gravy.... I know what to eat and how much, now I will just do it.

I found some delicious bread at Sam's Club! Whole wheat and sunflower bread by Bavarian Bakery. 8.5 carbs and 1 gram fiber each, for 7.5 net carbs per slice, pretty good! No trans fats either, no added sugar: Organic wheat flour, purified water, organic stone ground whole wheat flour, organic starter, sunflower seeds, malt, malted barley, yeast, corn oil. That's it. Big substantial slices that you could slice in half again to make into 2 slices for a sandwich, which I may try for lunch! It is a 3 pound loaf and cost $3. Highly recommended!! It is a local product made in Longmont Colorado, their contact number is you want to try to find a distributor in your area  is 303-678-1014.

Thursday April 12

Sneaked onto the scale this morning. I am right in the middle of the five pound range I have bouncing around for the last three months. It appears my new method is working just as well as the meticulous record-everything-and-skip-all-the-good-stuff-method was working. And I must say that the new sense of freedom I have is great. I am sure I am not eating many more carbs, but I am having a drink when I want one, and a dessert in the evenings, without as much stress, and that makes the whole plan more livable. All I really want is for all the 14s I bought at the thrift stores to fit a little better. Sizes are so funny, though. I bought a pair of Chics in size 16 because they looked plenty small, and I can't even get them up over my THIGHS, which makes me wonder if they are "old 16s" read that "before they upped all the sizes".... the sliver tag size 14 Levis I bought don't fit, either, which didn't surprise me any since they tend to run small and I already knew that. the Rocky Mtn Clothing Factory and the Eddy Bauer 14s I just picked up for $3 each fit like a glove - and it is very motivating to wear clothes that tight, in place of baggy ones! Worked out hard enough yesterday to really hurt, today. I bought heavier hand weights while in Denver, and it's just amazing what one extra pound does to you over the course of a thirty minute workout! My ab workouts seem much harder lately, I guess not doing them daily makes a real difference so I am going to try to do those every day again, since they don't really cause me to sweat and it's easy to take find ten minutes for them in comparison to fining an hour for a full workout, which must be followed by a shower... I tried the Ross Chocolates yesterday and I am IN HEAVEN, they are really really good.  Available at LowCarbChocolates.com, you must try the dark and coconut (the only flavors I have yet tried out of the variety pack, both are AWESOME, I am sure the rest are as well.) I got NO AFTERTASTE from these bars and very little stomach upset, especially considering that I ate 2 whole bars yesterday.

Monday April 16

Stayed off the scale THIS morning, for sure. Had a great weekend, and I know that on Friday I was still in my 5 pound range...but I know I am up today... On Friday I made this incredible cake. I am glad that it had only 48 carbs in the whole 13x9 inch pan because we ate the WHOLE THING by last night. The kids did have a couple pieces, too, but STILL. LOL We couldn't stay out of it! I can't wait to try a couple variations next.

I drank perfect margaritas yesterday for Easter, made with Grand Marnier and real lime juice. They pack a pretty good wallop of carbs and I drank them from 1 in the afternoon on... Roasted a whole pork loin for Easter dinner, and ate that with green beans... yum. I ate a bunch of raw veggies in tlc ranch (I made a party tray with broccoli, red pepper, celery, pepperoni, cukes, carrots and pepper jack cheese) and I ate one baby carrot by accident while grazing on the other stuff :) Made mashed potatoes and homemade bread (in the new bread machine so really no big deal and not even tempting) for the kids and guests and then after dinner I made homemade frozen strawberry yogurt for everyone. YUMMMMMM. Smelling all the sugar stuff that everyone else except my husband was eating actually turned my stomach. what a concept!

I have come up with a few different recipes for Volume II in the last few days. I hadn't really cooked in a while, and it feels really good to do so again. Though I will be serving leftover pork for the next couple days at least...

I haven't done very well with daily abs, but that's okay, as long as I keep working out regularly, and I do. At least three times per week works for me. Now that the weather is nicer I will start walking up the killer hill from hell again soon, and leave the treadmill alone except when the weather is ick. I have tulips blooming in the front yard, and am very ready for spring. So I'm glad it finally sprung around here!

Friday April 20

It has been an eventful week around here. I weighed today and I am still in my "five pound range" so I am very glad that I have stopped all the weighing and measuring and worrying. I have had a couple beers this week, a couple cocktails over the weekend, dessert a couple evenings... none of which has affected my weight, so I think that I am definitely in a stall, or on a plateau, or whatever you want to call it. And I really don't mind. I do not want to stop at this weight for good, but I don't mind pausing here for a while I get used to the idea of "not being fat"... I caught a glimpse of myself in a full length mirror the other day and almost flipped - I truly didn't recognize myself at first. I need to spend some time getting used to the reflection in the mirror so that I can stop picturing the "old me"... and seeing the new me for what I really am.. I am the same person, there is just a lot less of me. And it is easy to forget that in the "mind's eye". So maybe this :pause: was meant to be, or for the best, or whatever.

I got an interesting email yesterday. I published the Tunalicious Casserole and the Mock-a-roni and Cheese recipes in my newspaper column this week and called them "Meals In Minutes". I made a point of saying in the intro that people may substitute reduced fat versions of the dairy products if they wished but "as a rabid low carb eater, I can enjoy the full fat versions". This was my little low carb insertion for the week, I try to put in little things that may catch people's attention and cause them to check out the website and so,  maybe show them a new way, a better way, of eating! As WE all know already... :) So, this is the email I got: 

Greetings. I saw your receipe in the paper.
In my observation you have enough cheese and heavy cream in there to choke a horse....We are all a bunch of tubes that need constant cleaning and good foods from mother natures table.Did you know tofu or cashews
(a healthy fat) can be substituted for cheese in receipes? People can not keep weight off if they consume this much fat in your
rceipes. It is certainly not healthy cooking. Are you aware.. Cancer is on the rise with eating and drinking milk products??
Where have you done your research in nutrition? 
We have a health dinner once a month in Breckenridge Co.-you are invited-for May 3rd-At Breckenidge Recreation Center-6pm
Please ck out www.notmilk.com
Have a wonderful day!
Connie
www.thebraingarden.com

My response:
Thanks for writing.
Because you did not address this to the email address given in the newspaper, but instead to an address that you could only have gotten from my low carb website, you are obviously already aware that I have lost almost 70 pounds eating this way, as well as improved all the indicators of my health that modern medicine can test.
I would venture to guess that you are in extreme denial over that fact.
I clearly stated in the column that people could substitute lower fat versions of the products if they felt the need... but that I had formulated them for myself, and as a rabid low carb eater, I can therefore enjoy the full fat versions. Obviously this drew your attention and you went to my site. YAY. I hope lots of people did, and I hope that some of them went with an OPEN mind.
I respectfully suggest that you read some or all of the following:
Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution, Protein Power, Life Without Bread: How a Low Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life, Neanderthin, The Schwarzbein Principle, and How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds.
Sheesh! We are a bunch of tubes? Hahahahahhahaaaa. What a joke. Wonder how the newspaper will react? Do I care? NO!

Now I have to talk about what has been going on around here this week, for personal reasons. One day my grandkids may read this journal and be interested in the personal things... Wednesday afternoon the police arrested the little bastard that has been threatening all the students at the high school for weeks now with a repeat of Columbine tomorrow, the second anniversary of that tragedy. He particularly dislikes Roxanne and she has been telling me for two weeks that she will NOT go to school that day, no matter what I say... Tuesday he asked her "Are you coming to school Friday?" and she said he was smiling really weird when he did it... his little brother shut down the middle school a couple times recently making bomb threats, according to Roxanne, "so the whole family is pretty f***ed up" (her words and I was so shocked about the conversation we were having that I forgot to even reprimand her for the profanity, can you believe that!) I called the school to tell them Roxanne would not be attending today. They have expelled the little skinhead for one week, and will ask the School Board for one year, but they can't do that w/out bd approval... I am keeping BOTH my kids home today and we are going to have a rainy-day rent-movies-and-eat-popcorn bash. The elementary school is adjacent to the high school, they let the disturbed skinhead out of detention (can't really call it jail) last night, and since the high school is going to almost empty (they excused anyone who didn't feel safe coming), I worry about the elementary school next door, now... better safe than sorry, right? We will have a lovely Mom and Kids day together....it will not be any less tense around here for a long long time as we wait and fear the worst... what a lovely time we live in, huh? NOT!

 Sunday April 29

Well, I do not recommend what I had for dinner last night.... 5 perfect margaritas and a whole bag of pork rinds :P                         But I felt like kicking up my heels, so I did.... This morning I have an awfully stiff neck, must have passed out on it wrong, but I have to say, when the mixer is sugar free, the hangover is mild - in comparison.

I made three experimental loaves of bread machine bread this week, so that recipe is coming along. I also took my rings to the jeweler to be resized - no more wearing my wedding set on the bird finger! They'll be done next Friday, I can hardly wait. I took them to a size that was a little tight, so hopefully they will stay the right size... even WHEN I reach goal weight. Someday. I am still in the middle of my 5 pound range that I have been bouncing between all this year... so relaxing on the counting and so on is working out just as well as obsessing over everything was.

I have increased the length and intensity of my workouts recently, I really want to work on toning, the pockets of fat that are left are soooo smooshey and squishy and flabby and FUGLY. I just bought some of those resistance bands and I will start with those tomorrow.

I have been thinking a lot lately and I realized that I have had some defining moments since I went low carb. The first was the moment when my "best friend" uttered the words "I don't care WHAT your lab tests say, eating that way CAN'T be healthy for you". That moment was defining for me because I realized that anyone who could say that to me was NOT really my friend and that **** I **** didn't CARE what she or anyone else thought, I was going to be low carb forever and anyone who doesn't like it could just get the hell out of my life. (P.S. The friend is now considering going low carb, a year later! Our relationship is not and never will be the same, though.) The second defining moment came when my daughter entered the living room and threw a load of my laundry on the couch and several pairs of my underwear tumbled off the pile and splayed out over the floor... right in front of my husband and several of his work buddies. I momentarily froze, and thought I would just die, and then I suddenly realized that they were only size 7s, and they actually looked sort of sexy, and I, wonder of wonders,  WASN'T EMBARRASSED to have others see my underwear. That  was a truly defining moment....... How would I have felt had that happened a year earlier-- well, I shudder just thinking about it! And then one day this month, I was in an empty condo doing an inspection and I caught a glimpse of myself from a distance, in a full length mirror, and I truly did not recognize myself.  When I did, I was shocked to the core to realize that the "lady in the mirror" was ME. You see, I hadn't applied the word or thought 'fat' to that lady in the mirror because I didn't recognize myself... this meant that I really am no longer fat at a glance, and to others who meet me now, I am probably not considered fat t all. I only see myself that way still because of the head games I still play with myself. I wouldn't consider someone ELSE this shape to be fat - but I still consider MYSELF to be fat. Why is that? I am not sure, but recognizing the problem has helped me to deal with it. That was the day I decided to lighten up and stop weighing myself every day, and stop weighing my food and obsessing over it...