Back in the Low-Carb Saddle for 2011

Golly, I’ve been away from the ol’ blog for quite a while now.  And in that time, my food-journey has been colorful.  Let me recap:

• Post-Paleo (ended October 31, 2010) – once this ended, I attempted to stay low-carb but went off the rails more than once (per day!)


• Thanksgiving 2010 – took a day for all things I love:  Mashed potato, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, etc.  Once the pie was gone (and it went down the hatch!), I was pretty back on track.


• December 4, 2010 – Joined our Weight Watchers at work group.  WHAT?  I know!  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I’d heard about WW changing their plan and thought I could do it.  I was encouraged by my therapist to take a more “balanced” approach, since I have a tendency to obsess over the low-carb ideals…


• December 18, 2010 – lost 2.2 pounds on WW, and then went COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS which lasted until last night.  I baked, I ate, I baked some more, I had pasta, potatoes, chocolate, white chocolate, peppermint bark, popcorn…did I mention what a good baker I am?  I’m exquisite!  But might I mention that, to me, sugar is a drug.  The more I have, the more I want, the less real food I care about eating.

So that’s my story in a nutshell.  It’s the story of my life, really, condensed into a 6 week snapshot.  While I appreciate my therapist’s view that I am a bit OCD in the diet realm, the fact of the matter is, for me, that I cannot eat a little bit of carbs!  At least not the grain variety.  Once I get on bread and baked goods (sugary or not), it’s all over.  Today I feel bloated, my tummy is round and hard, my jeans are tight.  I will have to get on the scale tomorrow and whether it is up or the same, the fact remains that I must be low-carb.

Of course, I’ve paid my “dues” to WW and will continue to join with my co-workers each Tuesday night for the next 10 weeks.  I will not be counting my Points Plus, however, I will be counting carbs.  I want to support my co-workers and cheer them on, even though I know that they are on a failing path (not my opinion, this is scientifically proven fact).

I have been on vacation this week, and have spent some of my time catching up on some reading and watching that I’ve fallen behind on, like I have been watching my YouTube friends, I have watched Tom Naughton’s Fat Head movie (thankfully, it is now on Hulu.com), I encourage you to watch it!  I was gifted a BEAUTIFUL Nook Color by my loving husband this Christmas and the first book I purchased with it is Why We Get Fat, and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes.  I am really enjoying that book.  I keep trying to picture my arteries becoming inflamed when I ingest carbs….trying to remember what I believe to be true.  It’s not easy with that sugar calling me from the kitchen!

I know I complain about this journey more than I should.  I want to take a reflective moment and pat myself on the back for the 20 pounds lost in 2010.  I was reading Gary Taubes last night when I got into bed and before turning out the light, I went to the kitchen and tossed a pound of truffles, a half pound of white chocolate Bliss candies, and some M&M’s.  Time to make 2011 the last year that I resolve to lose weight!  My pre-resolution for 2012 is to keep off all of the weight that I will lose this year! 

Won’t you join with me?

Happy New Year all!

Back with Final Thoughts from the 30 Day Paleo Plan with Amy

Well Amy, it’s been fun! Thanks for being a sport and taking this ride with me! And congrats on your 2 pounds! Here are my final thoughts (for now). I also lost 2 pounds but then gained back a half leaving me with a net loss of 1.5 pounds for the month. That was discouraging. But that was also with little exercise other than dog walking and less than optimal health for the month and mega (job) stress. I’ll take the loss…I just hoped for more.

I spent a lot of time in my head on Saturday wondering about good food and bad food and the realities of continuing long term with so few carbs. It’s hard for me to demonize fruits and veggies and potatoes. Oh, I love potatoes.

I came away from that talk with myself with an appreciation for what I have learned in the past 7 or 8 months of blog/book-reading & podcast listening. I no longer look at soy as a health food. I know why Crisco is bad for you and butter is good. I know that food closer to how God made it is best for us, and that processed foods should not be our norm.

I’d like to continue to lose weight in November, though I know it will be a small and slow loss, as per my usual. I’d like to maintain my loss in December so that I don’t end up losing ground before resolution-making time. I’d like to eat real food keeping an eye on the carbohydrate intake, but not being dogmatic about it. If I eat something sweet and delicious, I would like it to be something that my great-grandmother would have baked in her kitchen, or picked from her orchard (if she had an orchard!). I would like to continue to spend the extra money to ensure that my meat & poultry are grass-fed/free range or at least hormone and antibiotic free. I’m going to try to eat 3 meals per day and cut back on the snacks, and really, really work on my sleep.

Thanks again to all of our readers (do we have readers??) for following along and as a final thought, I’d like to encourage others to try this – you never know what you might learn about yourself along the way!

On the Move

I’m knee deep in Robb Wolf’s book, The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat and I wanted to try Paleo to see if it made a difference from the standard “low-carb” that I’ve been doing so I dropped a line to my friend, Amy who jumped on board with me!  We started a new blog to share our experience with it and for the time being, I’ll be blogging over there at 30 Day Paleo Plan.

Thanks for stopping by….if it’s October, please visit the other blog for updates!

The Blondie

I have a huge Achilles heel.  You’re shocked, I know. Where I work we have a caterer who supplies our lunches and breakfasts when we have meetings and workshops.  It’s good…they make a couple of good meals, wraps, etc.  This caterer makes Blondies that I can’t resist!  I mean, I CAN’T!  Today I was involved in a meeting and lunch was brought in.  I was prepared.  I tore apart a wrap and had some turkey, lettuce and a bit of mayo, washed down with a Vanilla Coke Zero.  And then washed all that down with a BLONDIE!  I never thought about dessert – I didn’t know the Blondies were coming.  It caught me off guard.

A Blondie, for the less-informed, is basically a chocolate chip cookie bar.  Looks brownie-like but it is light brown and has chocolate chips and this caterer adds walnuts.  They are fabulous. F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S.

And I had one.  I raised my insulin by doing so and probably didn’t lose any weight today.  And so what?  I haven’t had one since maybe June and I won’t have another opportunity for a while, and that’s life.  As I’ve learned from the many pod-casts that I listen to, you can’t cheat on a lifestyle.  If 80/20 is the goal, then I am achieving it.  And maybe it will take me an extra week or two to get to my goal weight, but I will get there and enjoy the occasional Blondie along the way.

Ups & Downs

After Amy smacked me around and I got through the “1st week of school”, I found a bit of sanity again.  Actually, when I got on the scale on Saturday I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’d lost weight.  HOW that happened during amidst the stress is beyond me.  But I’ll take it.

Question is, how to decrease the stress moving forward?  Some serious stuff happened at work which I will blog about later, as I do have a colleague or two that check out the o'l’ blog and the serious stuff hasn’t been announced yet.  There's a good component and a bad component, and both are BIG stressors.   I think the fact that I lost weight last week was a fluke and I know, without question, that I NEED to find away to calm the waters as I move through these changes.  Believing as I do, that hormones rule in the weight loss world, I do not want to taunt Cortisol.  She won’t let me keep losing if I give her control.

After this week, I found myself battling depression this weekend.  At least, I think that’s what it was.  On Friday night, I sat comatose on the couch, falling asleep around 7:30 and not wanting to move, eat, or think.  I thought I wanted some low-carb ice cream but couldn’t bring myself to scoop it, and couldn't even imagine lifting the spoon and putting it in my mouth if I had.  I thought, as I sat there, that this must be what it feels like to die.  I’m not ready to go yet, and I’m not suicidal by any stretch of the imagination, but I felt….nothing.  Of course I was tired.  But this feeling was more than tired.  It was – numb.  I wasn’t sad, I didn’t cry, but I also didn’t necessarily want to feel any different.  That’s the best I can do in describing it.  The last time I felt that way was when I had post-partum depression after the birth of my 2nd daughter.  It was horrible.  At least this time it came and went within a couple days.

Saturday is always my hunting and gathering day.  I go to the farmer’s market for grass fed beef & free range chicken and this week also got some free range eggs and raspberries.  Then I headed to Wal-Mart for the staples.  I brought it all home and my dear husband moved my zero-gravity chair out into the sun,  where I listened to some podcasts and slept another 2 hours.

Jeff and I went to a local establishment, a new one for us, and we had a very nice meal.  It was probably the best I had felt all day.  Today was our weekly breakfast out and we went to Lakeside Farms – they cook up a great low-carb breakfast but the obstacles are the mammoth apple fritters!  I seriously need to avert my eyes!  As it happened, there was a craft fair today and I found a lovely pair of earrings and a bracelet that Jeff has promised to get me for Christmas.

I spent the afternoon half-heartedly watching a movie and taking a nap.  I also had to get ready for the week.  I’m trying to make an effort to bring “real food” to work and avoid the processed bars.  This takes planning, as you all know.

As I begin another week, I’m hoping that I get a call from the endocrinologist that my doc referred me to, as I know my thyroid plays a role in all this – low-grade depression is one of many symptoms of hypo-thyroid.  Though I take medication, it doesn’t mitigate any of the symptoms.  And this is acceptable?  Not to me.

So that’s my story today.  Here’s hoping for time to prep food, lower stress, some long walks, and a call from the doc this week.  All of those things would be great!  Here’s wishing for you, whatever you need this week to make it a good one!  Thanks for reading.

What Is WRONG With Me??

I have been enjoying the low-carb, weight-losing life for a couple of months now.  No dramatic weight loss for me, but slow and steady, and the overall feeling of good health and slow shrinkage has been driving me forward.  Really, once you get past the initial CRAP feeling, it is quite nice.  And once you figure out how to substitute some low-carb dessert options, it’s very manageable.

So WHAT happened to me today?  Today was the first day of “school.”  I no longer work in a school with students, but rather I work in the administrative offices of a Board of Cooperative Educational Services.  I supervise teachers and run some other educational programs.  Today my teachers came back and it was all good.  They are delightful to work with (usually) and today was not a big deal.  Yet, today I have eaten about 1900 calories. NINETEEN HUNDRED CALORIES!  I would like to blame stress, but I'm not sure it fits this time.

I know that as a low-carb Atkinsite, I should not be counting calories but carbs.  However, I’m a counter.  I’ve admitted that before on this blog.  So I count calories, carbs, glasses of water…. I can’t help it!  So, in case you were wondering, today I’ve had 52 carbs.

I do not believe in a “calories in/calories out” weight loss platform.  I do believe that carbs count and the hormonal impact of WHAT you eat is more important than how much.  BUT, that said, the how much can’t be too much!  At some point on the continuum of calories vs. quality, the calories matter. I was not overly hungry when I came home.  I had even stopped for a diet Coke on the way home (it was very hot here today) and grabbed a pack of mixed nuts to make sure that I did not enter the kitchen starving.  That tip was reinforced today on Jimmy’s podcast today with Nell Stephenson that I listened to this morning on my way to work.

But then I proceeded to eat 2 range free eggs cooked in coconut oil with a little Swiss cheese, 4 (yes 4!) sausage links, a half piece of Mastroianni whole grain bread with grass-fed butter AND a few fried red potato pieces.  I’m sick just thinking about it.

I cannot dwell here.  That’s why I’m blogging tonight.  I need to leave this at the alter of my readers in true-confession style and make tomorrow another day with better (and fewer!) choices.  Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!

Stay tuned.  I need to turn this ship around, folks, and I will need support.  Please cheer me on!!

Are All Food Tracking Websites Equal?

I ate something yesterday and went to My Fitness Pal to enter it and was frustrated that I could not find an exact match.  I came to MFP after a short stint with my Lose It app on my iPhone, and before that I was logging over at the Daily Plate at Livestrong.com.  There was another one in the mix, too, but the name escapes me.

I have found myself on occasion floating over to Livestrong because their food database is unmatched.  They just have everything!  But back when I was with them, their interface was a bit clumsy and I had the Blackberry app and could never get that to work.  So, fickle as I was, I left.

Yesterday following my moment of MFP frustration, I looked and read about Livestrong’s new iPhone app (new to me, anyway).  I forked over the $2.99  for the app, and re-logged on to Livestrong. If you know me, you know that I’m a bit OCD when it comes to logging or tracking food.  I don’t know why this is – especially since I’m now following a low-carb lifestyle and should throw tracking by the wayside.  But that’s just not me.  I want data, spreadsheets, and information.  I want to have something to shove in your face when I am stuck on a plateau to say, “HA!  See?  I SHOULD be losing weight!”

So I’m going to log in both places for a while to determine if there’s a big discrepancy between the two, which I don’t expect.  More importantly, to discover which one I like better.  So stay tuned.

Meanwhile, you might notice my new addition on the right  - my weight log.  Whew – I was not sure if or when I’d be ready to post this, but there it is.  I remember vividly confessing to my co-workers David & Shelley, back in April or so that I weighed 191 pounds.  They politely scoffed and said there was NO WAY I weighed that much!  Love them (liars!) but indeed I was and I thought that now that I was a good 10 pounds lower than that, it was time to be transparent.  So there it is.  I’m itching to show a 170-something over there!

Long-time-no-post

Yes, thanks for asking, I’m still here!  It’s not that I haven’t thought about posting, it’s just that my summer totally got away from me and I never really felt like I had any earth-shattering info to pass along.  Sorry, not much of an excuse!

So, I’ve meandered through my summer doing some low-carb living.  I haven’t made a lot of progress.  I see that on August 6th I was 183.6 and today I am 182.2.  That’s rather depressing to me.  Yes, it’s going in the right direction but why so slow?  I am still netting about 35-45 carbs per day, and my calorie intake is anywhere from 1350 to 1650 per day, depending on what’s going on (and what I eat!!)  I’m wondering if I eat too often, or eat too much, or eat too many carbs.  (You can click on My Fitness Pal link to the right to see what’s going down the hatch).

I have said “no” to a lot of foods I would have liked to have this summer.  Ice cream in particular, though I have started eating Breyer’s Carb Smart ice cream and it’s pretty good.  It’s really good with a couple of teaspoons of natural peanut butter and a Tbls of Chocoperfection chips melted and poured over top!  On my birthday, three weeks ago, I skipped dinner and went to Cold Stone Creamery and had the most flippin’ wonderful bowl of the Real Thing!  It was fabulous and worth it.  I only have a birthday every other year, after all!

Last week we went to the fair.  “The Fair” is the Washington County Fair in Easton, NY for us.  I spent my childhood at that fair and even took my goats and rabbits there when I was 12 with 4-H.  Lots of memories in that place and 98% of them are of food.  I kept it light all day and splurged on French fries, soft ice cream and sugar fritters.  None of it was worth it except the sugar fritter!  The sugar fritter shack has been there since before my time and is run by the fine ladies of the Greenwich United Methodist Church and they fry hunks of bread dough and roll them in sugar and charge all of a dollar for them.  Seriously, I wish now that I’d ditched the fries and ice cream and just eaten 3 or 4 more fritters!  They were THAT good!

After I ingested all of those carbs, not only did I not feel so good, but my legs felt like lead!  I warned my husband that he might have to carry me back to the Jeep, which was parked in the furthest spot from the gate!  I definitely had a carb-hangover, which was a great reminder of why I’m trying to live this low-carb life!

So other than those two, albeit significant, carb blow-outs, I’ve been tried and true.  Perhaps this slow weight loss is to teach me patience and perseverance!  If so, I’d better learn them quick because I’m becoming a bit frustrated.  More as it comes to me….thanks for stopping by.

OutRAGEous!

I’m a big podcast listener.  Even before podcasts I was more apt to listen to talk radio than music on my daily commute.  Now with the advent of podcasting, I’m hooked on listening to people talk, experts and non-experts alike.  I think everyone has something important to say.

Everyone except the two guys I listened to today, I should say.  I will not name the podcast – I don’t want to get sued and maybe these guys just have more to learn.  I searched for more podcasts on low-carb living and found Podcast X.

I should point out that the title of Podcast X was very indicative of low-carb.  Like “We Love Meat and Fat” or “Hamburg R Us.”  This was not a case of mistaken identity on my part where I thought it would be about low-carb and it was really something else.  Nope, it was definitely supposed to be a low-carb podcast.

As I listened, the hosts were talking about their return from a recent vacation and how they’d both fallen off the “wagon” and had spent a week or two eating all sorts of horrific things.  OK. I can understand that, in the spirit of true confession and all (which reminds me, I haven’t blogged about my birthday “dinner”).  So one of the hosts was saying how he had ice cream every night, hot dogs, and steak!

Steak?  The other host chimed in about how he had been eating too much “flesh” and how he was thinking how he really needed to get away from that.  The next few minutes were spent talking about how not-so-bad the couple of trips to a national Smoothie chain were because while the smoothie of choice was 450+ calories, it only had 1.5 grams of fat.  AND THERE WAS NO MENTION OF THE CARBS or SUGAR!

By now, I was ticked.  While I paid nothing for this podcast episode, I felt ripped off!  I quickly grabbed for my iPhone and was all set to call these guys!  Only then did it occur to me that I didn’t have their number and it didn’t work that way!  Not to worry, I left them a 2 star iTunes review.  I gave them a couple brownie points for good rapport with each other.  I ended my misery when they were debating whether rice pasta or wheat pasta was better for you.

Fear not!  I can recommend some good podcasts!  For low-carb, there’s none better than Livin’ La Vida Low Carb with Jimmy Moore.  He has set the bar high for any other low-carb podcasters that dare to follow in his footsteps!  For general good health and fitness, there’s Shauna & Carla’s Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone, and for sensible eating and weight loss, there’s Russ & Jeff from Fat 2 Fit Radio (though with more of a “calories in/calories out” bent for my tastes, but I do appreciate their work!  They were my first podcast subscription!).  I almost forgot Logical Weight Loss Podcast with Dave Jackson.  Dave isn’t on board with the cutting the carbs too much either, but he keeps me in the loop with diet and exercise gadgets and is entertaining.

So the moral of the story is that there are a lot of voices out there.  Listen for a minute to each one, decide who’s speaking from wisdom and from foolishness, and tune in accordingly.

Ore-aren'ts!

Tonight I tried a recipe from my friend Maria who blogs over here and who’s also a Facebook friend o’mine.  Being on this low-carb journey has left me wanting some junk food!   I know it’s not supposed to work that way, but for me, I will ALWAYS crave the sweet stuff.  That’s just who I am.  I grew up on Oreos and Chips Ahoy along with mom’s baked goods (and my own!) so it was natural that I would get around to trying her recipe for, as she calls them, “Healthified” Oreos.



I should have made my cookies smaller, I realize now, as I ended up with mini whoppie-pies instead of the flat cookies traditionally seen in an Oreo.  I also made too much creme filling.  Though, if I’d had more cookies, it might have been just right.

I added some vanilla to the filling as well as another packet of Truvia.  I just wanted them sweeter.  Next time I may add another tsp of Truvia to the mix, as well.

Thanks, Maria, for the recipe!  I have been known to polish off an entire 1/2 package of Double Stuff Oreos in one night in my past.  But these are filling and overwhelmingly chocolate – and two of these were more than enough!

Slow & (not so) Steady...

It’s been so long since I’ve checked in that I couldn’t remember my password for the blog!  That’s not good.

I’m in the middle of a couple weeks off from work and though I am not going anywhere, not getting much done, I’ve been busy!  I picked up a few garage sale and Craigslist items, cleaned out some closets, and just enjoyed leisurely shopping.  I have also successfully forgotten about work.  So this is what it feels like to NOT have cortisol coursing through your veins!

My weight loss is slowly continuing.  I am still low-carbing it, and finishing each day with about 40-50 net carbs.  For the most part, my carbs are from the foundations veggies but I have some berries each day and the occasional slice of Ezekiel bread.  If I had to pick any area to correct in my food choices it would be to drop back on the Atkins bars – I like them a little too much and they are easy.  But they are also “processed.”

I made a 1/2 batch of Peanut Butter Porkies, a recipe that I found from Dana Carpender.  This was after I’d received my order of Chocoperfection bars and chips, which are made with chicory root.  Seriously, a girl’s got to have some CHOCOLATE.

These were great and there was no hint of the pork rinds that they were made with – they tasted like a very rich Rice Krispies Treat.  Even my husband had a couple and he is NOT a sweet eater.  I found myself reaching for these more than once a day, though, so I need to be careful that I don’t find ways to eat low-carb but not eat the essentials.

Today I ordered some “Just Like Sugar” (sugar made from chicory root) from Vitacost and I am looking forward to getting that along with the Jay Robb Whey Protien powder that I ordered yesterday.  I’m hoping to combine those ingredients with the Chocoperfection chips and the almond flour that I purchased and come up with some good alternatives to traditional carb-laden foods.  It’s not that I’m a good cook by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m getting tired of the same-old-same-old.  I imagine that most other low-carb eaters don’t have the same drudgery in their diets as I do, but I’m not a big fan of a lot of “good” veggies and it gets boring.  That’s just me.

I’m still listening to Jimmy Moore’s podcasts who always seems to bring the guest that I need to hear.  Recently he did a series on thyroid and introduced me to a cast of thyroid advocates which was just in the nick of time, as my TSH test (the only test my doctor ran on me) came back high and I have been put on an increased dose of Synthroid.  Not to worry – I have an appointment with her in a week or so and will be pressing this issue and asking to be put on a different medication.  More to come on that, as it unfolds.

That’s about all I have for you today.  My weight today was 183.6 on my white scale and 181.4 on my silver scale.  I’m getting itchy to see the 170’s!  (Of course there’s a story behind why I have 2 scales).  My total weight loss so far is 15.4 pounds since March.  Slow & (not so) steady.

Turkey "Lasagna" or "Pasta Burgers"

I haven’t decided what to call these little delicacies!  The idea came from my South Beach days when I’d make chicken roll-ups with ricotta and douse with sauce and pretend it was pasta.  But on a night like tonight when I have a zillion things to do, even those were too much work.

So, I layered a few slices of Boar’s Head Low Sodium Turkey, a bunch of whole milk ricotta, and more turkey.  See that ricotta oozing out?  I whipped up some sauce from a can of tomato sauce and paste (I haven’t found a good commercial brand of sauce that’s low in carbs and isn’t loaded with HFCS) and spices.  Poured some over the whole lot and sprinkled with pizza blend cheese.  I covered and microwaved for 2 minutes and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.  Quick with lots of short-cuts but relatively low carb (About 350 calories, 12 net carbs, 17 g fat and 30 g protein).  The search for spaghetti sauce continues as that would cut the carb count down quite a bit.

So with the pizza the other night and the Pasta Burgers tonight, I’m not feeling over-run with meat!

On a sweeter note, I’ve been listening to some back episodes of Jimmy Moore’s Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb podcasts and heard his interview today with the founder of Chocoperfection chocolate bars and chips, Mary Jo Kringas.  And yeah, the credit card is still smokin’!  I’m looking forward to getting those and seeing what I can create!