Sweet Tooth

My sweet tooth has been the downfall of every diet I’ve ever been on.  When I was doing the low-fat thing, or Weight Watchers, eating sweet was allowed as long as it was low-fat sweet and there were plenty of options there!  LF chocolate pudding comes to mind (and who couldn’t eat about 4 of those little cups?), 100-calorie packs of cookies, Snackwell’s cookies, and even low-fat brownies.  All of these were “allowed” foods on a low-fat plan but for me, they sent me on a death-spiral into Sugarville each and every time – so that all of my calories were spent on sugar and I would feel like crap.  Crap with no energy, to be more specific. Crap in a sugar-coma!

So now I’m on the low-carb road and am finding that I still crave sweet stuff.  Having been on every side of low-carb in the 7 months that I’ve been on this plan, I now find myself unsure of which way to go.  For a while I did Paleo (October, 2010) where there was no dairy, and the sweetest thing I got to eat was sweet potato & peppers.  And that’s not sweet enough, in my book!  I have eaten Atkin’s bars, artificially sweetened cheese-cake-like desserts, sweetened vanilla ricotta, and Breyer’s Low-Carb ice cream and bars.  I start every morning with a diet Coke and sometimes add some heavy cream into a diet root beer for dessert.  I eat Chocoperfection bars daily, and when I don’t have those, I search out very low-carb, very dark chocolate.

What I struggle with is the question of purity.  Is it better to be low-carb at all costs, artificial sweeteners & all – or is it better to avoid sweets at all costs, stick to “real” food?  And is the diet Coke helping or hurting?  I went off it for 7 days and then went back.  That stuff is like a drug to me.  Sugar is like a drug to me.

I’ll continue to ponder this question for a while, I’m sure.  Stay tuned.

Time for a root beer “float”.

Amy’s Blackberry Style Giveaway

My good friend, and former Paleo co-experimenter, Amy over at superhealthykids.com is giving away 2 Blackberry Style phones from the Sprint network.  She is CONNECTED!  Go on over to check out her site and good luck!

Horrible Start

So much for my commitment to myself to blog twice weekly.  I’m already behind! 

I’ve had the worst start to low-carbing.  I’m embarrassed to admit it.  I have had days that started out great, and made it all the way though dinner only to find myself shoving dark chocolate in my mouth and ruining my best efforts!  I’ve had days that I couldn’t even get past breakfast without carbs, and the day going from bad to worse.  My weight is stagnant, for which I should be grateful.  I’m not gaining at least.

I don’t know what my problem is.  I’ve done this before.  I’m certainly off the sugar-high of the holidays.  But I find myself with one foot in each canoe – and that’s a recipe for disaster!  Add a stress component – this week it was a foot of snow, the full septic, and the blow-out of the pump in my washing machine.  These do not help me focus.

Note to self – this is a lifestyle and not a diet.  Quit beating yourself up and do the best you can (which is better than last week!!) and keep moving forward.

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.