May 2001 JOURNAL

**MY** CURRENT NUTRITIONAL GOALS:

FAT GOAL: = At least 65% of total calories, but more works better - for me! Due to rising LDL cholesterol, I strive to keep my saturated fat consumption down.

CARB GOAL: NET = < 30gm but I don't worry if I go up to 40 net occasionally.

PROTEIN GOAL: 120 gm minimum (based on my Lean Body Mass, LBM, of 142 lbs, as well as my activity level. This information was derived from the easy to use charts and formulas in Protein Power)

CALORIES: I keep track but I do not actively restrict them.

** Your goals may need to be different - but these are mine. ATM (at the moment) **

DAILY SUPPLEMENTS: that I take and consider essential, and which I highly recommend for any LCer - (You can buy these supps other places, of course, and I actually buy most of mine from netrition, these are just product links that were easy for me to create, that take you to good descriptions of the products I recommend.)

*1 Twin Lab Dual Tab (Sustained Bi-Release Multi, as recommended by the authors of Protein Power)

*2 99mg Potassium/Magnesium

*2 EAS Structured EFA (Essential Fatty Acids)

*1 Microhydrin (A revolutionary antioxidant, only available from the manufacturer
*1 750 mg Calcium Pyruvate - trying this stuff out again, since I have a lot of it and just discontinued the extra C and lysine I take in the winter

WATER: I average 3 liters (ice cold). Cold water is purported to raise metabolism, and I much prefer it.

May 4, 2001

It snowed 6 inches here yesterday and almost wiped out our lilacs, they were lying on the ground, flattened by 3 pm. We shook them off (brrrrr) and today things are back to normal, thank Goodness, and hopefully the buds will still open! The trees were just barely leafed out, no buds yet, so we should still get fruit... life in Colorado, never boring.

I worked out so hard on Monday that I couldn't work out again until TODAY. I hurt my quads doing too many squats. I didn't do that many, either, so I will have to make them a permanent part of my workout. I also used Dynabands on Monday, those long elastic bands that you can use in place of weights. They will pack much better when trying to travel and they are fairly inexpensive, so... Today I really worked hard on my tris and pecs, and I am up to 35 minutes on the treadmill at a 6% incline, 3.5 MPH. 250 crunches using the Ab-Ex machine... pretty good workout if I do say so myself :) I still haven't lost any new weight, and I am still weighing myself too often, but since I am not counting all the carbs and stuff religiously anymore, I want to keep an eye on things and make sure I don't gain weight back...

I spend so much time on Message Board lately that I have to say, if you have enjoyed my journals to date, go to the message board instead, because that's where most of my daily writings and energies are ending up. I have been spreading myself thin for a long time and now that I am actually working on Volume II again, I just can't seem to do everything... and the journal has suffered. But then, it has served its purpose, for now. When/if I decide to track things again, I will return to regular entries but from here on out entries may be fairly sporadic. When I write something really good on the message board, I'll try to paste it in here, too, but the regular entries are over for a while.... I think... I have been known to change my mind suddenly before *wink*

May 8, 2001

And here I go, changing my mind again - ALREADY!! But I am finally seeing some success again and it occurred to me that it would be no big deal to record my foods, etc., and just skip the Lifeform analysis for a while. I may not do it religiously like I used to, but I'll give it a whirl. This is yesterday:

BR: 2 TLC muffins for breakfast (new recipe)
L: When I got home from shopping at 230 I was ravenous and I ate one mini whole wheat pita stuffed with turkey, jalapeno mustard, and 1 slice of Am. cheese. the pita had 12 net carbs and I ate the whole thing, experimenting, since I have read that whole wheat pitas are very low on the glycemic index in comparison to other bread products.
SN: less than one ounce of Maui onion macs, would have eaten more but that's how many was left in the can and I managed to stop eating when they were gone, yay for me.
D: Tunalicious casserole made with cauliflower and broccoli, mixed, and salmon instead of tuna. Wanted something sweet SO BAD when we got home from the little league game, but I resisted, because otherwise how would I know what the pita had done to me?

This morning I was down half a pound, so I think the pita went over just fine!

No workout yesterday, I was too busy to fit it in, but I will make up for that today.

Will finish recording today later on, but here it is so far:

B: 2 fried eggs, 6 slices (1 oz) pre-cooked Hormel bacon, 1 slice toasted Oroweat 9 grain bread w/ butter
L: Salad: chicken, cheddar, iceberg, leaf, TLC ranch
SN: Instant OIAB
D: New York strip steak, stuffed chayote squash rellanos, much later a Carbolite crispy bar :( Lost that sweet tooth fight and was up half pound the next AM

Workout: kicked ASS! Did 400 ab crunches, free weights, squats, and then treadmill at 6% incline and 3.5 mph for 31 minutes non-stop, and even revved it up to 6 mph for about 2 minutes (actual jogging - by ME? What the %$& is going on? LOL)

May 16, 2001

What an interesting past few days! I can only call it interesting because I am over the black depression part of it..... I had a whole bunch of things go terribly wrong, all at once, and though I've been able to muster the gumption to laugh at Murphy's worst before, this time I sank into a funk, to say the least. I was just thinking about it, and I would be willing to bet that if I tested my hormones during one of those black times, something would be way out of kilter. I am usually optimistic, I work HARD at being optimistic, but there are those rare occasions when I feel completely unable to control my emotions, and I get depressed for several days at a stretch. This latest episode ended today, and while it is true that one of the stressful situations is now fixed, most of them haven't changed at all and some have actually gotten worse. And it is utterly depressing outside the window, too, gray, overcast, cold.... yet I find myself back to seeing half full cup again. Why today? Something in me has changed, and once again I realize, no, I BELIEVE, again, that life is 10% what you get, and 90% what you make of it... This has got to be physical thing. I think I should start using Lifeform again just to try to track any dietary influences on this mood. The only thing I can imagine that I have done differently just lately is to add a few more carbs, not enough to gain any weight, though, and I have probably been eating less fat, just because the added carbs have consisted of more grains, and they really fill me up now. One slice of my toasted bread with peanut butter on it and I am stuffed till 2PM! The first time I got a really good tasting low carb yeast bread out of the oven, I ate like FOUR 6.5 carb slices - and actually lost a half pound that day! That was encouraging. I may have to try a few days of quite a lot higher carbs and see what happens. I don't mind the thought of upping them if I am upping them with my homemade, stone ground, flax seed and other goodie-enriched bread with no trans fats in it. And maybe more fruit. Hmmmmm. Think I will try it next week. In 16 months, I have yet to try the shake-up thing. I am no longer chicken to do it. I licked the scoop the other night when serving my kids ice cream and it didn't freak me out when I realized what I'd done, LOL! I even had one real taste after that, just to realize that it was really no big deal. I didn't want to eat more, not because it didn't taste good, (because it did, it tasted just fine), but because I knew I'd be better off with some instant OIAB and I am totally IN CONTROL. I have no desire for real sugar, and that is my real enemy, along with trans fats and refined flour, I am convinced of that. And judging by my past reaction with low carb fruit, I will be staying away from the high carb high glycemic veggies and fruits for good. Never to eat corn on the cob again? Maybe so! I've husked it and cooked it for the kids enough times to do it without a twitch. After 16 months, I have forgotten what it tastes like and the girl who ONLY ate corn and broccoli as a very picky child has now learned to like spinach and cabbage and all manner of other new things. One day I will have to test my tolerance for things like peas, potatoes, and corn, but for now I think I will try the grains. I still haven't read GO-Diet, darn it, but from what I have heard, that is where they differ, they encourage more grain consumption, as a means of fighting cholesterol. I need to go write my review of Life Without Bread for the newsletter so I can start on GO-Diet! So here I go to do just that!

May 29, 2001

Well, my latest TOM gain has not gone away as usual, so I am now up a full five pounds since my last entry, and 8 pounds up over my all-time low (the low was following an illness, so it hardly counts). I am finally ready to get serious about losing again! I just squirted all the whipped cream out of my W.C. machine and washed it down the sink! I haven't been exercising for almost 2 weeks since one of the things that was depressing me in my last entry was a sprained ankle, but it has improved enough so that I was able to do a full twenty minutes on the treadmill wihtout pain. And that certified trainer that condensendingly informed me last fall that if I could do 500 crunches on the machine that "it OBVIOUSLY wasn't working because properly exercised abs should fatigue out after 25 reps" can now formally kiss my rosy red ASS!!! I could NEVER EVER have done 20 military-style full sit-ups a year ago! And if 500 crunches on the Ab-Ex *is* only equal to 20 normal ones - SO WHAT! At least using the framework is not overly intimidating to a very obese person, like I was when I started working out last spring! If you are reading this and not doing any ab work, GO TO THE SPORTING GOODS STORE and buy one of these frames TODAY. For less than $40, it will be the best money you've spent in a long time! I swear.

So, as of today: I am foregoing most dairy products and artificial sweeteners. I will use cream in my coffee, and ranch dressing on my salads, but no more whip cream, cream cheese, hard cheese, sour cream, etc. I will eat homemade bread and tortillas and crackers but no homemade goodies that contain sweetener, and no bars or chocolate bars or other store-bought LC goodies either. I am going to allow myself snowcones made with Davinci syrup when I feel like I "need" something sweet, but that's about it.... I will be tracking in Lifeform, but I may not repost here daily since there is no fast way to paste those entries from there to here and I do not wish to burn out on this whole journal thing (again.) I will try to write in here more often, in the future. Wish me luck!!! :)

Well, I had coffee with cream first thing, then waited to eat anything till an hour after my workout, then had yogurt with Nutlette cereal and blueberry Davinci syrup. Also ate one Trim Advantage bar for 2 net carbs, then a couple hours later I ate a leftover cheeseburger with TLC catsup and jalapeno mustard. Snack was 6 hazelnuts - yup, I stopped at 6! For dinner, braised pork and spaghetti squash with butter. 1661 calories, 102g fat (50 sat) 39 carbs (13 fiber) 124g protein. That's using the revised 4 carbs per cup number for the plain yogurt, BTW.

May 30, 2001

I am back down 2 pounds this morning. I persevered over my sweet tooth last night after dinner in spite of the fact that ALL THREE of my orders for goodies arrived yesterday. I have had the new Keto bar flavors on backorder, along with a bunch of Ross chocolate bars, for over two weeks. I had also ordered some of the killer new bars I am now selling, and they ALL THREE arrived yesterday, the very day I swore off of them! Sheesh! I did eat one of the new bars I am going to be selling in the one flavor that I had not yet tried, but I left the chocolate alone, except for unwrapping it and smelling it all over, LOL! I wanted to eat it BAD. But...nothing tastes as good as thin feels, and my size 14 Rockies jeans felt too tight to wear yesterday. I can't believe a five pound gain is enough to change my size! When I was a size 24 I could vary by 20 pounds and wear the same jeans, now a measly 5 pounds puts me in a bigger size! Talk about motivation.....

BR: Custard Florentine topped with 2 fried eggs, coffee w/ cream
L: latortilla with 5 slices pan-fried deli roast beef and jalapeno mustard
SN: 1.5 cups popcorn, 1 oz. hazelnuts, Davinci orange snowcone
d: latortilla with sliced leftover ribeye steak, later 1 oz hazelnuts, should have made a salad with dinner but at least there was spinach and picante sauce in my breakfast.

cal 1496
fat 97g 61% (24g saturated)
carb 58g 9%
fiber 25g - yay for me!! I made it.
protein 109g 30%

4 liters water!! and 30 minutes on the treadmill - No yoga, which I hoped to start today, but I will definitely do the yoga tomorrow though, I've been studying the book I bought and I am really pumped for it.

May 31, 2001

All that being good, and absolutely NO CHANGE from yesterday. Whaaaaa! But typical. Progress is not always immediately apparent... will work out again today and start the yoga stretches. My leg muscles are a bit sore, maybe they are holding onto water, hence the no loss. I expected to dump some, just because "gain-back pounds" have always left again fairly easily (in comparison to "new-loss pounds").
My appetite seems less already, so I am going to go make a smoothie for breakfast with brewer's yeast, lecithin, yogurt, dried egg whites, flaxseeds, Davinci syrup, and frozen strawberries. Need to get some bee pollen, too, I have decided not to make shakes with the premixes, they just have way too many unidentified chemicals in them. I like this idea better - just hope I can stomach the final product!

B: OMG, that shake was AWFUL. Must be the Brewer's yeast, Dana Carpender owes me $9 as far as I am concerned, how anyone could stomach that stuff in a drink is beyond me! I actually started gagging and that's when I dumped it down the sink... Eeeeeeeeewwwwww! So then I had the same breakfast as yesterday, instead: Custard Florentine topped with 2 fried eggs, coffee w/ cream
L: Large Romaine salad with 3 oz. sliced leftover pork, grape tomatoes, garlic chives, and TLC jalapeno mustard vinaigrette
SN: 2 slices TLC Machine yeast Bread #7, with butter
D: 1 cheeseburger - I forgot to tell Mitch to omit the chz from mine (oh well) also 1 hot dog, with TLC catsup, a few creamed cucumbers (no cream in the recipe!) and 233 cups fresh spinach sauteed in butter and walnut oil, with garlic and fresh basil and marjoram - YUM. (This cooked down to about 1 cup) I can't believe I am eating cooked spinach, esp. by choice, but this did not resemble the pale slimy boiled stuff my Mom used to serve AT ALL. If you try this, just cook it over high heat for about 1 minute, two max, just till it wilts good. After dinner I had 1 cup (about 6-7 medium sized) strawberries and 1/4 of a peach!

cal 2249
fat 164 69% (55g saturated)
carb 78 10% (25 g fiber - made it again!, that makes it 53 net)
protein 111g 21%

4 liters water again. Did no real exercise - although I intended to, time (and my buried desk and filthy house) just got away from me... No change whatsoever on the scale again. I guess that beats a gain, but that's the best thing I can say about it. I will continue on with my same game plan of more carbs, more grains and fruit, and a lot less dairy and almost no AS for the full week, before I change anything else, though.