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Eileen - February 9, 2011 - Wednesday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes exercise video
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6   Yesterday: 287.2   Today: 286.8
Change Today: - 0.4   Total Progress: - 9.8
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Nine whole days into the second month and I still haven’t lost ten whole pounds yet!  LOL!  I actually laughed at the scale this morning because I really just wanted to see ten pounds or more and there it sat at 9.8 down!!  I think I heard it laugh back at me.  Really.

I mentioned the other day that there’s a woman at work who is trying to lose weight on WW.  She’s done really well, lost over 30 lbs (took her more than six months, she’s old like me, lol!) but she always complains that she’s starving.  Today at lunchtime she had some turkey breast on whole wheat with vegetable soup.  Meanwhile, I had meatballs (frozen ones, less than 3g carbs per serving of 6 meatballs, they’re pretty good!) with some leftover spaghetti sauce, and with a biscuit and a big ol’ romaine salad.  By 2:30 pm, she’s whining, “I’m soooooo hungry.”  Me, I was so thankful to be still full-a-protein!!  I wasn’t hungry at all.

I can’t stand being hungry.  I don’t mind the little twinges ya get that tell you, “oh, golly, look at the clock, it’s time to eat” - but I can’t stand having my stomach all rollin’ and grumblin’ and feeling painfully empty.  If I had to feel like that every day so that I could lose weight, then I guess I probably wouldn’t lose weight.

Interestingly, though, she eats about the same number of calories per day that I do.  Roughly 1200 or 1300 or so.  Yet she’s “tortured” because she “walks around hungry all the time” (her words, not mine!) and I feel satisfied and hardly ever feel hungry.  How weird is that?

I know that WW is the #1, most utilized, most documented as most successful weight loss plan in the world, and I know, personally, many people who have lost weight on WW and swear by it, but it’s just not for me. I need that relief from intense carb-cravings that only a low-carb WOE can produce!

Lisa (my coworker) said today that she tried low-carb for about three days and it made her crazy, she had to quit because she could not stand the restrictions from all those foods.  That on WW she can eat anything she wants to but she just has to “save” her points to make room for high-pointage foods.  Before I started low-carb, I did low-calorie and I said the same thing, that I could never live with a diet where I was restricted from certain foods, from experiencing certain tastes or textures.

As it turns out, I was wrong.  In a couple ways.

I can live with a diet that restricts certain foods.  Whenever people compare quitting smoking to dieting, they say, “But it’s different, I can’t just stop eating.”  Well, that’s true, but I can just stop eating bread.  And pasta.  And potatoes.  And sugar. I can.

And low-carb doesn’t mean I can’t ever experience tastes and textures.  Yes I can.  But I can experience something in a bite or two.  I don’t have to experience it in twenty or sixty or ninety bites.

Anyway, I’m just delightin’ in not being hungry.

FitDay totals for the day:
1276 calories, 26.7g net carbs

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Eileen - February 8, 2011 - Tuesday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes elliptical
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6   Yesterday: 287.6   Today: 287.2
Change Today: - 0.4   Total Progress: - 9.4
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Today I was in the mood to cook stuff.  This does not happen very often.  It generally correlates with my own personal craving for a specific food that cannot be purchased.  If it could be purchased, I wouldn’t be making it myself, that’s for sure.

At lunchtime every day, I make a meal for my Hubby.  He works evenings and eats a frozen dinner every night (the same frozen dinner every single work night for the past eight years - how can he stand that???  Anyway…) so I cook him his main meal at lunchtime.  Or, I take him out and let someone else cook for us.  Yeah, that’s my preferred option, but usually once a week, I make spaghetti for him, it’s his favorite meal.

He is very picky.  He will not eat spaghetti sauce that has anything ”chunky” in it, so my only option is to use Ragu Traditional, which happens to be the only sauce he will eat (won’t eat spaghetti at any restaurant because they don’t use this particular sauce, so therefore, he won’t even try it).  In addition, he won’t eat even the Ragu unless it has ground beef in it.  So once a week, he eats this same very bland and plain version of spaghetti with meat sauce, and he loves it.  And today was the day.

Thing is, I can’t have spaghetti.  I can have a little of the meat sauce, so I usually have some over cauliflower and it’s good, but what I’d rather put the sauce on is … a cheddar bay biscuit.

So while the spaghetti was cooking and the sauce was simmering, I made a batch of ‘em.  I made myself a nice romaine salad and then spooned the sauce over two fresh-from-the-oven-hot biscuits, which were heavenly, then sprinkled the works with parmesan.  Mmm-mm-mm. 

I froze the rest of the biscuits.

Then this evening I wanted something yummy.  Over a week ago I found unsweetened coconut at one of the local grocery stores - been looking for that for years!!!  I hadn’t yet tried to make anything with it, so I went onto Linda’s Low Carb recipes website and looked around for some kind of snack or dessert with coconut.  I found a recipe for “Low Carb No Bake Cookies” and I had all the ingredients on hand so that’s what I chose to make.  I was a little apprehensive when I saw that the recipe called for cocoa, though, because I have yet to make anything with the combination of cocoa and splenda that wasn’t bitter and borderline inedible. Apparently Splenda doesn’t cut the bitterness from the cocoa like sugar does.

Well, I guess I can count this as my first edible cocoa recipe!  I’m thinking it’s because the recipe called for the cocoa and the liquid ingredients to be brought to a boil, giving the splenda and cocoa an opportunity to bond?  In any case, these are delicious (if you like coconut), perhaps even a little too good.  I had to wrap ‘em up and freeze ‘em quick before I gobbled down half the batch!

Tonight I hopped on the elliptical for 20 minutes during The Biggest Loser.  I won’t say much about this episode, other than… “Oh boy, here we go!”  (insert rolling eyeballs here)   

FitDay totals for the day:
1302 calories, 32.4g net carbs

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Eileen - February 7, 2011 - Monday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes exercise video
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 287.6  Today: 287.6
Change Today: - 0.0   Total Progress:  - 9.0
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Tonight I decided to try the exercise video again, for two more 10-minute segments.  The next two sections were called “Fat-Burning Dance Party” and “Butt & Thigh Blaster.”  The Dance Party one was a little difficult for me to follow (and a little rough on my knees) but I really liked the second one.  Lots of lunges and stretches.  It’s good these are only ten minutes long, I get bored doing the same thing again and again.

This morning I decided to rearrange my living room.  Even though we were searching for a desk to put by the window, we were looking for a small desk to put there.  This big rolltop - even though I love it - I don’t like it by the window.  So I switched the love seat with one of the chairs and put the desk on the opposite side of the room.  I don’t think it’s a perfect design (the love seat does not have a side table anymore), I kinda like it.  However.  Hubby.  Hates.  It.

*Sigh*  Back to the drawing board.  I suppose, since he lives here too, that he has a vote.

I didn’t change it back yet, though.  I thought we could try it out for a day or so, and see if it grows on us.  I’m thinking it’s probably not gonna make a difference with him.

My son, the one who moved out into his own apartment in December, asked today if he could come over and do laundry at my house.  Well, somehow that morphed into me doing his laundry for him.  I didn’t mind, he had a physical therapy appointment he had to get to (from the car accident), and was panicked that he wouldn’t get everything done, so I found myself saying, “Just leave it here, I’ll do it.”

Thing is, my husband would be MAD if he knew.  He wants Eric to be truly independent, to take care of his own chores and responsibilities.  In his opinion, Eric should be taking his clothes to a laundromat and paying his own money to wash his own clothes.  He’s right, I know, I can’t be doing Eric’s laundry for him every week, that would be silly.  He’s 22 years old. And prior to this, I stood with his Dad, insisted that Eric take care of his own clothes. Just when he does that whole panicked omg-I-won’t-get-everything-done-what-do-I-do-Mom-thing, I just melt.  And he knows it!!!

So I washed and dried and folded his clothes and then texted him with “Dad gets home at 11:30, you need to get these clothes out of here before he gets home.”  I feel bad for that.  I don’t feel bad for washing his clothes, I feel bad for the subterfuge, and for admitting it and involving my son in it.  BUT.  It’s the way it is.  Dad would be mad, and why make him mad?  (Just for the record, Dad doesn’t DO anything when he’s mad, other than — be mad, LOL.  He hardly ever even yells.  Just no one wants him mad.  Ever!)

If he were to ask me straight out - Did you do Eric’s laundry, I would tell him the truth.  My lie is one of omission.  One of those “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him” lies.

Sometimes I feel like my job around here is to remove all the bumps from my husband’s path.  Anyone else ever feel that way?  What about the lying?  Am I the only wife to “protect” her spouse from stuff that would upset him?  Or do you think I’m a jerk for lying?  Be honest, it’s okay.

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Eileen - February 6, 2011 - Sunday
Exercise Today: 45 minutes shopping-walking
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 289.4  Today: 287.6
Change Today: - 1.8   Total Progress:  - 9.0
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WOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!  Almost back down to the weight that I was six days ago!!  LOL, that should not make me THIS happy!!!  But it does.  I don’t care if my net loss over the past 7 days is only 0.2 lb - it’s a LOSS!!!

It was another overcast, rainy day and we did something we rarely do - ummm, nothing.  We were bums.  Watched TV, took naps, read, and hubby played computer games.  It was absolutely heavenly.  We finally decided we’d better at least go to the grocery store, but other than that, it was a wonderful day “off.”

Hubby noticed at the grocery store that our cart had a lot of beverages in it.  ”Look, more than half of what’s in our cart is drinks.”  Yes, I said to him, and look at whose drinks they are.

There were five quarts of milk.  We buy them by the quart because Hubby takes one to work for lunch every day.  Then there was a full gallon of milk, he needs that to drink at home.  There’s also Sunny Delite, which he drinks every morning because he buys the smooth kind and with his acid reflux its the only kind of orange juice he can have.  Oh and let’s not forget his PowerAde, which he drinks every day at work during break.  And also two eight-packs of the little bottles of Coke Zero, one for at home and one for at work.

For me?  I didn’t buy any liquids this week because I have water already.  I did, however, buy a package of Crystal Light Strawberry Orange Banana flavor (Thanks Jenn!).

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Eileen - February 5, 2011 - Saturday
Exercise Today: 45 minutes shopping-walking
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 289.4  Today: 289.4
Change Today: - 0.0   Total Progress:  - 7.2
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It’s been an overcast, rainy day here in Central Florida.  Very rare to have a whole day without sunshine!  Years ago, the St. Petersburg Times used to give out free newspapers the day following a whole day with no sunshine, and that didn’t happen very often.  It still doesn’t, but they don’t give away papers for it anymore.

My scale said that my weight was exactly the same today as it was yesterday.  Sometimes I don’t believe my scale, I think it lies.  Or — I think it gets confused.  I think it gets hung up on a certain digital location and can’t find its way free.  I don’t know.  In any case, I’m happy it’s not a gain.  Truly.

Hubby and I ate at Chili’s this evening.  He ordered his usual - Chicken Crispers (1300 calories for one meal!!!) and I ordered Chicken Fajitas - but without tortillas and without green peppers (they don’t like me) and with only sour cream and cheese.  The online nutritional values say that the chicken fajitas without tortillas and condiments have 330 calories and 24g carbs.  I couldn’t figure out where that many carbs could possibly come from - but when they brought out my skillet, I figured it out pretty quickly.  Some of it is from the onions and peppers (of which they give you a LOT) but probably most of it is from whatever kind of sauce they put at the bottom of the skillet, sauce I’d never noticed before.

I noticed that my chicken wasn’t very well done, it’s supposed to look like this:

But the chicken looked more like this:

I mean, it was done, just not browned, ya know?  And at the bottom of the pan was this river of sauce, which I assumed the reason I’d never noticed the sauce before was because usually it cooked into the food and also reduced as the pan sizzled.  So I very politely asked our server to please see if they could drain off some of that sauce and throw my skillet back on the fire.  What came back was much, much better, nicely browned.  Still, I was careful, scraped the remainder of the reduced sauce to one end of my skillet - as well as about 3/4 of the onions.

Sounds like a hassle but it wasn’t really.  I ate the chicken with (some of the) onions - topped with cheese and sour cream and it was *heavenly*!!!  No need for tortillas - that’s not the good part of the meal anyway!  The good part is the stuff inside!

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Eileen - February 4, 2011 - Friday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes elliptical
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 292.4  Today: 289.4
Change Today: - 3.0   Total Progress:  - 7.2
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AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!  <— sigh of partial relief!

Yesterday, susan (was the first who) said that there would be a “whoosh” in my future - and look!  All of you were right.  This morning the scale said I lost three whole pounds overnight.  Isn’t that crazy???  I will say, though, that last night I got up three times to visit the water closet.  Three!  I was makin’ like a racehorse, I tell ya.

So I guess it was water, LOL!

I’m still not back where I was, however.  So I would like to see a continued downward trend on the scale, yes I would.  Let me just put that out there.  To the universe at large.  ”I’d like to drop four more pounds please, and no I don’t want fries with that!”

Ah, if we could only order our wishes at a drive-thru window.

I had a taste for hot dogs tonight.  Geesh, they are high in calories, even without a bun.  But they were yummy.  I also made twice-baked-fake-potatoes, though I haven’t had any of them yet.  They smell awesome but I’m still kinda full from the hot dogs, so I’ll wait a bit.

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One of the women at my work is over fifty and single and she’s been meeting men from plentyoffish.com and then coming to work and telling us all about her adventures out with these men (I am soooo happy to be married and off the market!!!).  She has been dieting, doing weight-watchers, and she’s lost 30 lbs in the past few months, putting her at about 170 lbs. right now.  She wants to continue until she’s 150.  Anyway, this guy she met last weekend told her that he just wasn’t interested in getting involved with a woman as substantial as her.  That he prefers younger women because they are usually thinner.  What a jerk!!  Oh, and what did he look like?  Five-foot-seven with a beer gut!!  What a loser.

It’s not that fact that he prefers thin women - I don’t have a problem with that, I mean, most men do.  But you don’t SAY it.  TO the WOMAN!!!

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Eileen - February 3, 2011 - Thursday
Exercise Today: Twenty minutes cardio video
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 290.2  Today: 292.4
Change Today: + 2.2   Total Progress:  - 4.2
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Oh my GAWD!!  I actually LOL’ed when I stepped on the scale this morning.  It isn’t possible!!  I gained TWO MORE pounds??  I went from over nine pounds lost back to four-point-two lost???

Thing is, this isn’t chipping away at my resolve.  Yes, I’ve had a few “well why shouldn’t I eat [insert yummy food here], I might as well since I wasted a whole month being good” thoughts, but they were easily brushed aside.  Nahh I’m not gonna quit because of this but damn, it’s actually so ridiculous it makes me laugh!

This is incredible!!  Exactly five pounds gained in three days.  Three days!!

*Deep Breath*

Eh, it’ll be fun taking it back off again.

Tonight I decided to try something different for exercise.  I have mentioned before here that I have NetFlix… well, it occurred to me that there are probably workout videos available to stream online.  Yep, there are!  So I tried “The 10-Minute Solution Fat-Blasting Dance Mix.”  There are 5 different 10-minute workouts, so I tried the first one, called “Simple Slimmer.”  then the second one called “Calorie Meltdown.”

The first one was pretty good but the Calorie Meltdown included some moves that I just could not follow!  They both were kinda rough on my knees though, so I don’t know how often I’ll return to that particular video.

It was fun though!  I worked up a sweat and got my heart pumping for 20 minutes, so that’s good.  I just hope my knees don’t swell - ha!  I could wake up tomorrow morning with 2 more pounds on me!!

Okay, so my little ticker thing over there says that to meet my 10-lb goal for February, I need to lose 14.4 lbs!!  It’s really fun starting out at a deficit!  It’s okay, though, I just love a challenge!

Speaking of challenge… to my friend brseay:  Nah, I didn’t think you were suggesting work for me… I was just wishing out loud.  I miss those little gold stars, heheh.

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Eileen - February 2, 2011 - Wednesday
Exercise Today: oops, worked all day & evening too
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 288.0  Today: 290.2
Change Today: + 2.2   Total Progress:  - 6.4
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SIGH.  I was hoping to never ever see a number in the 290’s on the scale again.  This is so crazy to gain three pounds in two days!  I know it will drop back off again, but holy cow this doesn’t make sense.  Oh well, it’s part of the dealio when ya weigh in daily.  Ya get to see all the crazy inexplicable fluctuations.

As for my food intake …

I’m back on the wagon!!   I stayed on plan today and didn’t have any bread!!!  I stayed so busy at work all day (was there ’til 11pm) that I didn’t even think to crave anything - but I also didn’t get my exercise today.  Yeah, didn’t think of that either.

(For those who might care about such things, the reason I chose such a strange-looking wagon photo is because the origin of the phrase “back on the wagon” actually referenced the water wagon, meaning that the person was back to drinking water instead of alcohol.  That is a water wagon from the early 1900’s.)

I mentioned yesterday that I really want to lose a full ten pounds in February, and brseay left a comment saying she’d be up for a challenge… awwww man, I wish I hadn’t let my website go!  I tried to recover all the files so I could rebuild the site but apparently at some point I deleted them off my old laptop.  I even tried to contact Luka, the guy in England that helped me tweak the site, to see if maybe he kept his copies - but he must have changed email addresses because he never answered.

Annnyway, what’s done is done and I’m not in a place right now where I can expend the time or energy to rebuild my old site from scratch.  Woulda been cool though!  I miss doing the monthly challenges!!

Anyone else wanna try for ten pounds in February?  Heheheh.

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Eileen - February 1, 2011 - Tuesday
Exercise Today: 12 minutes elliptical
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 287.4  Today: 288.0
Change Today: + 0.6 Total Progress:   - 8.6
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Ha!  Serves me right for wanting to extend my end-of-month to the day-after-weigh-in.  I went UP instead of DOWN.  That’s okay, though, I’m not unhappy with 8.6 lbs for January … but I REALLY REALLY wanna up the game and actually lose a WHOLE TEN POUNDS in February.

That said, I’m not too happy with myself today.

Yeah, I went on and on yesterday about my wussy willpower and how it’s workin’ so great for me — and then today, I had a really rough time.  I checked my ketosis status and I’m still in the pink - barely.  I think I know what did it and dammit I should have known better!

I made soup again, using mostly fresh vegetables, and it (again) turned out awesome!  But at lunchtime I made the decision to use 11 of my daily carbs on 2 slices of Nature’s Own Honey Wheat bread.  I just really wanted toast with my soup!  It’s only 35 calories / 5.5g carbs per slice - and it’s whole wheat, so I figured, why not?  Well, the rest of today I felt hungry.  I ate one of my chocolite candy bars this afternoon, thinking that would satisfy me but it didn’t.  I ate 3/4 of a peanut butter QuestBar and though it took me a while to eat it (chewy!), I still wanted more.

At 5:00 I wanted dinner.  I made myself wait, even took a nap so I could escape from the hungries.  When I woke up around 6:30 I had my dinner of leftovers:  cabbage & kielbasa plus meatballs with tomato sauce.  I thought about making a salad (I always try to eat salad with dinner!) but I just didn’t want it.  Full?  Nope.  I had another small helping of cabbage and then followed that with some sugar-free jello.  Finally around 9:00pm I looked in the fridge - what could I have that wouldn’t totally blow my day?  I knew that I had already gone over for my carbs for the day but I wanted to keep my total calories under 1400.  So I had a low-carb tortilla with peanut butter.

And here it is 10:25pm and I still want to eat.  Why??

Why, some days I have to make myself eat something because I don’t want to fall below 1200 calories, and other days are like this?!?  I don’t have TOM anymore so I have no idea how my hormones affect me now.  Is that it?  Am I having phantom TOM symptoms??

Or was it the bread?  It’s the one thing I had today that’s different; I don’t usually indulge in one slice of bread, much less two.

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Not including any comments which might be spoilers, just in case someone hasn’t watched it yet:
So I watched Biggest Loser tonight… I’m a little confused by the dynamics of the teams this season.  More than once I sat there, shaking my head.  I suppose the addition of two new trainers has mixed it up because of the division into two separate groups, but I find it weird.  Is it just me?

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Eileen - January 31, 2011 - Monday
Exercise Today: 20 minutes elliptical
Starting Weight 01/02/11: 296.6     Yesterday: 288.0  Today: 287.4
Change Today: - 0.6 Total Progress:   - 9.2
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Down another .6 lb - YAY!  Today is the last day of January so do I count this morning’s weight as my end-of-January weight or do I count tomorrow morning’s?  The only reason I even care is because I had a goal for January to lose ten pounds and today I’m at 9.2 lost.  There’s no saying that I’m gonna necessarily lose any more tomorrow (like .8 lol) but it’d be cool to see how close it is.

I say today is still January and I’m still dieting and exercising today so I should see what the result is tomorrow and that will be my end-of-month weight.  Yeah.  That’s what I say.

But either way, I’m pretty happy with 9.2!!!  Ten pounds is this:

Ick.  I mean, I think it’s a neat representation, and I like the visual especially when we’re talking about weight that’s been deleted from my body - but geez what are the little red things in there supposed to be?  Never mind, I don’t really wanna think about it.

Okay, on to other things…

Saturday when Hubby and I were out and about, he ordered a slice of carrot cake.  So I asked if they had cheesecake.  Yes they did.  I ordered a slice.

Now, a regular-sized slice of carrot cake is about 540 calories and 70g carbs.  A regular-sized slice of cheesecake - made with sugar but without the crust is about 200 calories and 12g carbs.  Certainly more low-carb-diet-friendly, but not exactly something I’d wanna indulge in without moderation.

So here’s what I did.  I ate about a quarter of the slice, savored it slowly with my after-meal-coffee.  Then asked for a box to take it home.  Hubby didn’t finish his cake either, so it went home in the box with mine.

That was Saturday.  Sunday I pulled it out of the fridge, and with my morning coffee, I consumed another 1/4 slice.  I did not touch the carrot cake.

This was taken this morning:

Notice the crust from the cheesecake is still intact.  And Hubby’s carrot cake is still untouched.  You would think this is a prime example of willpower, but it’s not.  If I were not currently de-toxed from white sugar, I would have scarfed that slice down right there at the restaurant, plus I probably would have finished off Hubby’s carrot cake for him.

It’s not calling to me.  It’s not requiring me to use a bunch of willpower, which is good, because I’ve basically proved repeatedly during the course of my life, that I really have none.

Okay I’m kidding, I don’t have none.  I’m not saying that staying to 12 or 13 hundred calories a day or 30 or 40 carbs a day doesn’t require a measure of willpower - omg yes it does.  But.  As long as I stay away from the white stuff (sugar, flour, starches), the willpower I have to expend is more like determination.  WILLPOWER has always meant to me something like “hold me back! tie me down if you have to!”  What I expend on a day-to-day basis is more like uhhhh wussy willpower.  Yeah.

My point, if I ever had one, is that I have an actual addiction to the white stuff.  And the only cure for that addiction, is to pretty much stay away from it.  I can have a little without bringing the crave-demons back, but I have to carefully manage even the smallest amount of intake.

The recipe I used to calculate the nutritional values in cheesecake-without-the-crust was a simple one from cooks.com.  It had three basic ingredients: cream cheese, eggs, and sugar.  Only 2/3 cup of sugar for the whole cake.  So how much sugar is in each slice?  Less than a tablespoon.  So here’s me, eating only a quarter of a tablespoon of the evil stuff each day.

(If the cheesecake had been made with liquid Splenda instead of sugar, one slice would have had about 150 calories - and only 1.7g carbs.)

Here’s to wussy willpower!!  I’m very very happy to have it!!