February 22, 2011

Woke up at 5:00 AM

6:30 AM & 8:00 AM– Iced FV Coffee with cream & Truvia

10:30 AM – Maria’s Chocolate Chip Cookie (s-t-a-r-v-i-n-g!)

12:45 PM– 3 eggs scrambled, cooked in butter, 1/2 square Ghirardelli 85% Dark 

4:00 PM– 20 minute dog walk

5:45 PM – Chicken Lasagna (Boar’s Head chicken sliced thick, ground beef, spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, ricotta); 1 oz Chocoperfection Bar

23 g Net Carbs/1350 Calories/97 g fat/89 g protein

I’m not sure this is working.  When getting up this early, a typical work day for me, I’m hungry by 6:30.  I can stand it, but by mid-morning I’m dying.  You can only drink so much coffee and water to quell the hunger.

I’ll give it another day or two or three, but this intermittent fasting gig might have to be for weekends only. 

February 21, 2011

Woke up at 7:45 AM
9:00 AM– Iced FV Coffee with cream & Truvia,
12:00 PM – 3 eggs cooked in butter, 10 g Chocoperfection (1/5 bar)
3:16 PM– Dog walk, 35 minutes in the FREEZING cold! 
4:00 PM– 1 Maria’s Chocolate Chip Cookie, diet root beer with cream (starving at this point)
5:45 PM – Left-over cauliflower mash, 1/3# Angus burger cooked in coconut oil, 5 sweet pickle chips (no sugar added), Planning on the remainder of the Chocoperfection bar after dishes are done and lunch packed for tomorrow.

12g Net Carbs/1320Calories/107g fat/57g protein

I’m on a  new “plan” courtesy of my friend, Jimmy Moore, who took a look at my typical diet and made some suggestions for improvement.  Hopefully one of the improvements will be WEIGHT LOSS!!!
I didn’t have much trouble skipping breakfast this morning with the iced coffee (I have not been a coffee drinker long and find the effects of the caffeine work on controlling appetite).  The late afternoon I was watching the clock waiting for dinner time.  So I caved to the cookie and was content. 
My concern is that tomorrow, when I’m up at 5:00 AM and at work by 7:00 AM and have to put in 5 hours of work before eating that it’ll be a different story.  All I can do is plan to do the best I can and if I’m starving and cannot think straight, I’ll have to eat.  We’ll see how it goes.  But for today, the 18 hour fast was moderately successful.  I have to figure out how to define success – will I feel guilty if I have 3 meals instead of two if my carb count is good?  It’s all a big experiment at this point, which I’ll have to analyze as we go!

February 20, 2011

10:30 AM

Iced Coffee - (coffee, heavy cream, Davinci vanilla syrup)
2 scrambled eggs w/cheddar
4 links breakfast sausage
1 square Chocolove 70%
2  Maria's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 PM

1 cheese stick
1 slice of Boar's Head ham
diet Coke

5:30 PM

(Things I ate while I fixed dinner:  4 tortilla chips, handful of popcorn, 1 square Chocperfection bar)
_______________
2 pcs steak tips from The Meat House
Cauliflower Mash
Green Beans with butter
1 square Chocolove
1 square Chocoperfection Bar

33 g Net Carbs/1750Calories/126 g fat/105g protein

Have you heard about Low-Carb Conversations??

If you’ve been around the blogosphere lately, or are one of my Facebook friends, you may have noticed some buzz about a new podcast show with this guy named Jimmy Moore.  Well, the rumors are true and I’m happy to announce that I am co-hosting the new “Low-Carb Conversations with Jimmy Moore & Friends” podcast!

Jimmy Moore is a long-time podcaster and a true champion of low-carb living who brings us the twice-weekly “Livin’ La Vida Low Carb” podcast and has interviewed everybody who’s anybody in the low-carb community and beyond.  Along with the show, Jimmy is the consummate blogger who keeps us updated all the time on all things “low-carb.”  One of his recent blog posts was about The Top 10 Podcasts Every Low-Carber Should be Listening To.  As a self-proclaimed podcast addict, I was listening to all 10!  But for a long while I had been thinking that the low-carb community needed a new podcast that was a little friendlier – one that offered advice and encouragement to people just starting out on their journey.  I wrote Jimmy, who knows everybody, and asked him if he knew of anyone who might be interested in partnering with me on such a venture.

Well, to my surprise, Jimmy said he’d been thinking the same thing recently and, long-story-short, we teamed up to start this new podcast!   The rest, as they say, is history!  We have started recording and have a website, a Twitter account, and a Facebook page to get questions from our soon-to-be listeners.  We’ve got lots of “friends” lined up to come on the show and talk about some current events in the health & diet world and to share their stories and have fun with us!  It’s really, really awesome!  (You’ll have to take my word for it for now, as it will be a few weeks until our shows are released).

I hope you’ll keep an eye on our pages and join us when we “go live” and join in the fun and the conversation!  We’re always looking for more friends to share in the fun so email us and let us know that you want to take a turn!!

Low-Carb Super Bowl Eats

As the countdown to the big games occurs, I’m taking a moment to psych myself up for the food awesomeness I’m going to be having later.  I will have to forego some “good” food that my family will be eating, as I’m on this Low-Carb journey alone in this household, but I’ve stacked the deck in my favor.  There has to be SOME benefit to doing the grocery shopping, after all!

My family will have pizza, popcorn, nachos, and ice cream.  In addition, they’ll be eating my choices of Meat House steak tips, Boar’s Head little franks, yellow and red peppers with Laughing Cow cheese washed down with Waist Watcher’s Root Beer with heavy cream.  And if that doesn’t fill me up (actually, I’m full just thinking about it!!), I may give myself the green light for a small scoop of Breyer’s Low Carb ice cream.  Or, I almost forgot that I made Dana Carpender’s Cocoa Peanut Porkies yesterday – YUM!

Seriously, with all that “approved” low-carb eating, why bother with the chips & pizza??

Killing the Diet Coke Demon

Well, as promised (to myself) tomorrow, February 1st, starts my month-long induction challenge.  I have some left-over Low-Carb Orange Chicken that we had for dinner tonight (thanks Kent, for that recipe – AMAZING) and I’ve cooked 2 eggs in butter for breakfast.  I also baked some bacon so may throw a slice or two of that in my cooler too.  That much fat and protein will more than satisfy my hunger, but I will still *want* to eat more, and other things.  One problem with working outside the home is that the environment is not yours to control.  I work in an office building where food is abundant!  Many of my co-workers are doing Weight Watchers but that doesn’t really change the status quo, which is bagels and muffins and cookies and whatever someone concocts in their kitchen that they think is worth sharing.  It’s a friendly bunch, no question, but sometimes I just don’t want to be tempted.

I think the biggest challenge tomorrow (and everyday for the next 28 days) will be the lack of diet Coke.  I am not kidding about this.  I have tried to give it up on several occasions only to cave 4-5 days into it.  Everyday I stop at Cumberland Farms for my “Chill Zone” 32 oz diet Coke.  I drink a ton of water all day…yet that AM diet Coke…..I don’t know.

On my commute this AM I was listening to a podcast (as usual), I think it was Hank’s My Low-Carb Journey with the founders of the Whole9Life, who mentioned that diet soda could cause an insulin response even though it is calorically of no value.  That reinforces my resolve to give it up, but I know this will be my biggest challenge, at least initially.

So cross your fingers for me and stay tuned to see how I make out!  I’d love to see a nice drop in the scale and to conquer the diet Coke demon!!

Induction Self-Challenge

A couple of weeks have gone by since my last post, and in that time I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-e-y reading Gary Taubes’ Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It.  Last night I got to the depressing part.  Gary said, in chapter entitled, “Moderation or Renounce Them Entirely?  Part I”:

“…if you’re not actively losing fat and yet want to be leaner still, the only viable option (short of surgery or the prospect that the pharmaceutical industry will come through with a safe and effective anti-obesity pill) is to eat still fewer carbohydrates, identify and avoid other foods that might stimulate significant insulin secretion – diet sodas, dairy products (cream, for instance), coffee and nuts, among others – and have more patience.”  (emphasis mine)

Gary’s point in this chapter and Part II which followed, as I understood it, is that if you’ve done so much damage to your metabolism as a result of years of abusing your body with sugar and flour, AND you have other hormonal influences at work in your body (not that a 44-year old woman would, ahem!) that it may not be possible to get the hot bod that you might be striving for.  However, in my case, I know I have not given it the old college-try!

Have I been “low-carbing it?”  Yes.  My carb load is about 40-80 net carbs per day which is significantly lower than those that eat a standard American diet (SAD).   And my weight has been steady.  Clearly, this would be a pretty good maintenance level for me.  However, I don’t want to maintain!  I want (need) to lose a good 20 pounds if not 30 to be anywhere close to where I want to be and that’s not going to happen if I don’t apply what I know – apply what I believe.

So, my challenge to self, in an effort to kick-start this process, is to go full-on Induction for the month of February (which is thankfully a short month).   In all honesty, I have not done induction.  I started with about a 30-40 carb level and this was the impetus for my 20 pound loss.  But I have months of evidence that it’s not going to get moving until I take it lower.   Goodbye Flat Out wraps.  Goodbye roasted sweet potatoes.  Goodbye diet Coke.  That one’s going to hurt!

So, I may be doing the ole’ Jimmy Moore plan of eggs and beef for a few weeks but if that’s the way it has to be, so be it.  Let’s see what happens!!