I guess I run now

& apologies….

The company discussed in the article was featured in the movie Food, Inc. Check out my Food Movies page for a summary of that movie, a must see.

Meanwhile, I hesitated to post this link since it’s pretty shocking if you don’t know what’s really being done to hamburger meat in this country, but it’s one of those MUST KNOW…oh how I wish I didn’t know…sort of stories.

& if you’re eating burger this week, odds are good you’re eating at least a little of this oh-so-special scrap-meat, ammonia-treated “beef.”

From the NYT: “Company’s Record on Beef Treatment Questioned“

toyed with calling it “waning” or “loosening” or “slipping,” but “withering” seemed more appropriate. I’ve been worn down by the onslaught of carbs.

It’s been nearly impossible since carbs seem to be the only thing on the menu at my mom’s & sister’s homes. My last night at home I had the following conversation with my sister:

Me: what are our plans for dinner (thinking: one more night of eating just turkey will kill me)

Sis: how about pizza?

Me: I don’t really want pizza, is there someplace we could go out to eat?

Sis: we could try that pizza place on main street.

Me: I’m trying to watch my carbs, so pizza’s not good.

Sis: fish & chips?

Me: (thinking a fish place would offer some possibilities for carb-friendly entrees) that might be good.

Sis: or we could try P***’s Pizza

Me: (withering) with the carb thing, I guess I could just eat a bunch of meatballs at the pizza place (thinking: oh joy, no veggies again)

Sis: then we’ll have pizza.

By the time we got home, she’d changed her mind back to the fish & chips place, but then we ended up at home eating turkey, only I couldn’t take it any more, so I had stuffing & mashed potatoes as well.

Now we’re back in the midwest with the inlaws & if I can get past their pantry stuffed with donuts, bagels, chocolate, birthday cake (mine courtesy of grandma inlaw who made angel food with frosting), candy, beer, booze, and loaves of bread (that hubby will bring home after dropping off grandma inlaw this afternoon), I should be okay.

Had chicken crepes at a family restaurant last night, not cool carb wise, but I had them with salad & veggies (rather than starch) & thanked heaven for veggies…gotta get back on track. I don’t even feel good with all this sugar in my body.

Food today:

Breakfast: Everyone had donuts, I had a handful of nuts & a slice of American cheese, But I think my late lunch will be celery with cheese spread…yum.

Lunch: celery with cheese spread, slice american cheese, more nuts (notice a pattern here? I’m ’bout ready to go outside & forage for food with the squirrels).

Dinner: it’s my birthday & my hubby SUCKS at anything romantic including giving a damn that it’s my birthday, so it’s 8:10 & he’s spent the whole freakin’ day with his grandmother & father in Peoria. MIL made herself leftover spaghetti for dinner, so that left me trolling for food on fast-food row around 7:00. Did I mention it’s my BIRTHDAY?!

There was a moment, OH BOY!, where I considered my best options for a full-on pity party & carb binge evening.

But I got a hold of myself (and there’s still a lot of me to hold on to), called information for Red Lobster & ordered the half salmon (grilled) with extra broccoli instead of the starch & a salad. The heavens knew it was my birthday (at least someone gives a sh*t) & so I ended up with two dinner salads, which I’m saving for lunch & dinner tomorrow. Had half of a cheddar biscuit (for a whopping 8 carbs)…I’m sure I’m over carb-wise with the nuts & all, but all things considered, not bad for food. One of my shitty-est birthdays on record, but at least I showed my (now officially older) body some respect by not filling it with junk.

It’s a new year’s eve tomorrow Chicks, what kinds of plans do you have for the new year?

Okay, yesterday was less than great, but not terrible.

Had turkey, about 4 tablespoons stuffing, 3 tablespoons potatoes, salad. Made sure to choose the smallest plate, and at this point, that much starch on my plate already feels like an indulgence. Then had 4 chocolates (2 were sugar free, but still packed with carbs), sliver of cake & sliver of cheese cake, 2 ounces of Proseco, and a 1/2 cup serving of spike egg nog. No, not a carb-lite day at all, but under the circumstances, I think I didn’t do any major damage to my diet & I’ll be back to burning fat in a couple of days of clean living.

Stepped on mom’s scale to confirm no weight gain or loss today. Happy & hopeful about that. Of course, I’m operating two scales away from my home scale. Weight checking on the inlaws scale when we get back there may tell a different story & my scale at home may tell a very different tale next Saturday when I may come to regret last night’s indulgences.

Meanwhile, Food, Inc. has me thinking. When we get home, I’m going to find local farms to buy our chickens, eggs, milk, and cow. Thinking about not eating pig ever again…hubby’s constant reminders that “they’re smarter than dogs” sunk in after seeing the free-range pigs in the movie. It’ll be more expensive to eat free range, grass-fed meat, but I’ll find other corners to cut somewhere. I think we’ll be healthier in the long run & I’ll feel better knowing that the animals who died to keep me knee high in hamburgers at least had some sunshine & joy in their short lives.

Sorry…not trying to be preachy…this stuff just hasn’t run through my head since I quit my 11-year stint as a vegetarian four years ago.

a moment of wifi here at this one spot on my mom’s couch, but if the barometer or wind changes, I could be out of luck.

It’s been another starch-filled holiday, but I’ve been obsessive about stepping on the scale & keeping my morning weight within the same .5 pounds every day…mom’s scale records down to only half pounds, so I figure I’m within a single pound no big gain, no big loss. Cakes have been replaced by cookies, pies replaced by pastries, pot pie yielded to spaghetti & meatballs. I’ve said “no,” “no thank you,” “looks delicious, but I’ll pass” to all of the desserts except a sliver of pie (split with hubby) & a couple of tablespoons of ice cream last night. I’ve picked meat out of every other meal.

My big splurge was Christmas Eve, when we typically celebrate as a family, by eating a ton of Chinese food (avoided the rice so I could have one dumpling & one veggie spring roll with my meat and veggies). With the Chinese food we have a traditional giant helping of fighting among my sister’s family, crying, stress, and general ugliness, so I opted for a 2-ounce glass of wine as well.

Today’s menu for my mom’s big party includes Turkey (the only thing I could eat until I insisted on shopping for lettuce & tomatoes for salad); mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, chips, crackers, pie, cheesecake, cake, cookies, egg nog, beer, wine, and cider.

It’s been difficult, but I have plans for this body & apparently those plans are more important to me now than eating non-stop for yet another Christmas of my life. I’ll eat next year when I’m thin.

Happy Holidays Chicks!

too much weight to go. Okay, not too much. I can handle this. & if I’d do some damn exercise, I’d see more progress than this. Oh, hey, but I made it into the 170s this week, so no back-sliding allowed over the holidays!

I started watching season 8 of BL on Hulu. Can’t believe I didn’t watch it when it was on. OMG! I love this season. But don’t tell me, don’t spoil it…I’m on episode 4 with a very healthy loathing for Tracy. This should get me back in the exercising mood!

It’ll be light posting over the holidays since my mom’s house has only the neighbor’s wireless (in a good wind), but I’ll be thinking of you all & hoping you have a safe & healthy time with family and friends.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS CHICKS!

I’ve created a separate page for some of the food-related movies I’ve been watching lately, but this one deserves its own post as well.

Food, inc. is an absolute MUST-WATCH. Unfortunately, it’s also potentially life-changing, so fair warning here. Don’t watch Food, inc. unless you really want to understand where our food (everything from breakfast cereal to fast-food hamburgers) comes from & what the consequences are for what we eat. Some of the other movies on my list cover some of this stuff, the politics of genetically-modified food, of obesity, of fast-food, of industrial farming, of the (impotent) FDA, loss of seed variety…but Food, inc. covers it all: the human, animal, and environmental toll of what we eat as Americans. Again, I wish everyone could see this movie, but maybe ease into it with one of the others on my list like King Korn, The Future of Food, or Killer at Large.

But it’s not all bad news. In fact, one of the things I like best about Food, inc. is that it concludes with the message that we, the consumers of all this crap food, can change this awful system by just changing what we buy at the grocery store, eating at home more often, foregoing meat for one dinner (or many meals) a week, supporting farmers markets, finding locally grown food in season, and locating farms that raise free-range & grass-fed meats and eggs. The message that stood out for me…aside from the fact that while I eat them all the time, I never knew pigs wag their tails when they’re happy…is that when you buy cheap food, you get what you pay for. Our meat is cheap for a very good (and very disturbing) reason…our processed carbs are cheaper than veggies for a very good reason. But we can insist on high-quality food that doesn’t degrade animals, destroy the environment, or poison people.

Okay, that’s my soap box message for the year.

In kale form..

Thanks to Irisheyes & Sunny!

Irisheyes, today was my snack experimentation day anyway, so I ran out & grabbed a bunch of kale. Used this recipe, and yum! the recipe calls for bite-sized pieces, which I did for two cookie sheets, but decided to see if I could go bigger than that since they reduce quite a bit as they dry. That last batch was okay, but I think bite sized is the way to go. I also used a pastry brush to lightly (and not too carefully) brush on the olive oil…next time I’ll buy a spray. These may have saved me from popcorn/chip cravings & what an interesting way to get your greens in! Although I need to go lighter on the salt next time.

I also made cheddar chips, which are good, but tasted pretty heavy after the lighter-than-air crunch of the kale chips.

Sunny, I haven’t tried the pork rinds yet, but I’ll pick up a bag on our road trip to the inlaws on Monday & I’m thinking the celery/cheese snack would make a great appetizer when we get to my mom’s!

I also have olives on hand & I hit trader joe’s for some nuts…I buy a few of their big bags & make my own mix in a ziplock…their nuts are pretty cheap & the bag lasts for about 5 months. I like olives & nuts & laughing cow wedges as road food, but it’s easy to go overboard if I let myself get bored. This trip instead of coffee, I think I’ll see how much water I can drink.

Okay, food today

Breakfast: (still not my favorite mealtime, but I wanted to make hubby breakfast in bed, so) two eggs, 4 pieces of bacon, 3 slices of plum tomato

Lunch: snack time! 1/3 cup mixed nuts, a whole bunch of kale chips, 4 small cheese chips (about 2 oz total?)

Dinner: will be leftover country ribs & spinach casserole.

Water is huge so far! Weigh-in day is Monday. Nervous! Happy Saturday Chicks!

Oh & please do keep the low-carb snack ideas coming!

in a bad mood, taking it out on hubby, no fair.

Okay, but I’ll just change that right here & now. No more bad mood, no more making hubby suffer. He’s a great guy & I’d be sunk without him, so I need to stop playing Mrs. Not-So-Nice-Guy.

Food today:

Breakfast: coffee (I’m not even kidding myself about eating breakfast now…it just doesn’t happen)

Lunch: 2 deviled eggs, leftover chicken salad with lettuce

Snack: 1/2 atkins bar

Dinner: 2 small country ribs, broccoli

Snack: about a 1/3 cup of pecans

I think I do better without nuts for snacks, but I was a bit hungry & craving popcorn, so the pecans were a decent compromise. I’m going to try to make some cheese “chips” tomorrow for a snack & then I need to think about travel food & snacks for the trip to see hubby’s folks & then my family & then back to hubby’s folks & then home to start the semester a short heartbeat later. Argh. I already need a break & the semester hasn’t even begun!

Wait, I didn’t start that last paragraph intending to complain…what I wanted to do was ask for your favorite carb-lite or carb-less snack ideas! I guess I really am in a bad mood. Sorry about that.

Happy Weekend Chicks!

Hubby & I have been eating chicken for the last couple of days. I bought two roasters, which made dinner two nights, chicken salad for lunch, & tons of stock that I’ll use in soup when we get back from visiting family.

& I’ve been drinking water like crazy & watching my portion sizes like a hawk.

I need a win this week to keep me from losing hope during the holiday & to make me stronger than the temptations. Stepped on the scale today to check progress & saw a number in the 170s for the first time in I don’t know how long. Now if I can build on that loss before my official weigh in on Monday, I’ll be all set.

I also need to weigh myself the minute I get to my mom’s house & just plan on seeing the numbers go down while I’m home. I’m hoping for a Thanksgiving-type miracle when there were so many carbs and only many carbs to eat, so I ate very little & lost 8 pounds. That was a good week. I’ll be pleased as Christmas punch with a 2-pound loss this week & next.

So the goal today is to stay the course during a lunch out with hubby & a colleague. She wants something spicy, so could mean Chinese, Thai, Middle-Eastern, or Indian…all are heavy on the rice. ARGH! But I can do this because I need a loss this week.

Hope your Thursday is sliding quickly into Friday!

Food
Lunch: went to BD’s, a stirfry place…beef, chicken, tofu, egg, veggies, peanut sauce, & rather than rice or tortillas, had lettuce to wrap the stuff up in. Was yummy, but I need to check the carbs in the tofu & undoubtedly the peanut sauce as well. Okay, looks like about 6 carbs in the sauce & 1-2 in the tofu…not bad considering all the protein- & veggie-goodness.

Dinner: argh, this is up in the air, which drives me nuts! Maybe we should just have bacon & eggs! Update: Out to our favorite, cheap, family restaurant where I tried something new: steak and eggs and instead of the hasbrowns or pancakes AND toast, I went with sliced tomatoes. This was yummy!

Well, it’s better than bad change. So I held steady, not exactly what I was hoping for, so I need to look back over last week & figure things out. Here’s what I suspect: 1. too much food on my plate; 2. not nearly enough water.

Okay, where was I with food recording? Yesterday: atkins bar, total of 4 deviled eggs, 2 handfuls of pecans, 1 big bowl of chili with cheese & sour cream.

Today:

Breakfast/lunch: 3 deviled eggs & 4 pieces of bacon
Dinner: will be loaf-less meatloaf, cauliflower with cream sauce, asparagus.

My boss brought me an oatmeal cookie from out of a gift basket our admin assistant gave him. Funny…I literally screamed “no! take it back! no, no no” when he put it on my desk. He was a little shocked, I think, since my reaction was genuine fear. Then I realized I was being an idiot, thanked him for the cookie, and when he was gone, brought it to my hubby’s office so he could enjoy its brown-sugary goodness. I’m so tired of temptations already & the holiday season is barely upon us!

Happy Monday Chicks!