Day 13

So here it is, the final day of trying to be good. What have I learned over the past 13 days? Well, it is really hard to not have gluten sometimes. A burrito is not the same without the flour tortilla. A hamburger, while healthier eating it on a lettuce leaf, is just not the same without the bun. I learned that while I was good a majority of the time, the 20% that I was not did not kill me, it just slowed me down from losing weight, but weight was still lost. I also learned that portion control is up to me, not the restaurant, not Walter, nor anyone else. If I don't want to eat it all in a restaurant, then I will not and take the rest home. I also learned, or better, was reminded that you make really bad food choices when you don't get enough rest, when you are drinking, when you are overly hungry. Avoid those and I you will be better at avoiding bad foods.

So food for today. I had a smoothie. I ran out of almond milk, so it had about 1/4 cup almond milk and the rest water. Bad. It tasted fine, but I was hungry a mere 3 hours later which is not good when I drank it at 6am. I ate a LARA Bar for a snack. Lunch consisted of the last of my awesome pot roast with broccoli and couscous. Dinner I made pasta primavera and added some albacore tuna to it. We each ate 2 helpings. I got a bit snackie later and ate some Love Crunch organic granola. So I weighed myself this morning and gained 2.2 pounds. Here are some more lessons learned...

You can eat what you want, but you gotta burn it off too. Right now, with me not exercising, I'm burning pretty much what I consume. After 13 days, I only lost about a half pound. The times I ate less, I lost, but imagine if I had been burning more too. I can take a log of lessons from this but when it boils down to it, I can eat as healthy as I want, but without exercising to burn off any extra, I am not gonna lose anything more than a few pounds here and there. The moral of the story: move more.

Catch up for Days 9-12

Well, it was pointed out to me last night that I had not updated my blog. (Thanks Kay!) I had to agree, but I did not realize that it had been since last Friday that I did it. So here it goes....

I have not been really good. I am not sure what is up with me. Stress? Anxiety? Not sure. I have had gluten...too much in the past 4 days. I seem to be doing fine on the sugars, good on the oils (except last night) and soy, well that is easy to not eat since I have not had it in so long (other than when they sneak it into foods). Oddly, I have been eating more dairy than usual. Mostly in the form of cheese. Not massive blocks of cheese by any means, but I usually don't have any, so the small amount I have been ingesting is "more".

So I had weighed myself on Saturday. I lost another half pound bringing me to a full 3 lbs lost by day 9. Healthy amount, and seriously, after the pizza and wings night, I was thrilled to have lost anything!

Now to the food part. Well, Saturday Walter and I ate a nice breakfast of eggs with broccoli, potatoes with onion (and ketchup on top..mmmm), and coffee. We did a little shopping and while out, I was craving burgers, so I bought the stuff to make them. Yes, gluten in the bun. I had to. I made Bleu Cheese Burgers for lunch. They were awesome! Some horseradish and smoked salt mixed with the meat and some bleu cheese melted on top. They rocked. I was full the rest of the day until we went to a friend's house for dinner. She is gluten free so it was easy to avoid gluten there. She had made some cheese stuffed chicken breasts which were delishous. A lovely salad with a strawberry balsamic (no oil), and some risotto. It was so nice. I did enjoy 2 glasses of white wine.

Sunday: well, it was "SUNDAY FUNDAY" and boy was it. It started off at Kerby Lane and I had an Chicken Verde Omlete and on the side some Gluten Free Apple Spice Pancakes. OMG! Those pancakes were amazing! I was shocked they were gluten free. Then we drank. All afternoon and evening. From 2pm until 8pm. According to our receipt, I had 8 mimosas and a Xrated Vodka drink...at the first bar. Second bar I had...shit, I really don't know what I had. I remember there were 2 of them and a shot of butterscotch and something known as a "cocksucker". I did however drink 2 glasses of water there too. I remember that! At the last place, there was a shot again (damn those shots!). Not sure what it was. It was a bartender choice shot. Then another Xrated vodka thingy. I stopped at this point. Mind you, Walter drank exactly the same thing as I did. So take all that I just listed and double it! UGH!! After some sobering up, we headed home. I stopped and got a burrito at Taco Cabana. It was good, but the gluten in the tortilla was...well, gluten. After eating that, we decided we were still starving (mind you, it is 9pm now), and went to Taco Bell and got some burittos, tostadas and chicken soft tacos. Not he best choice of food, but effective.

Monday was a long day. Not only after the booze day we had the day before, but allergies, and effects of Taco Bell. Ugh. I had my smoothie for breakfast. Lunch, well I was not well behaved. I think it was still the after effects of the alcohol escaping my system. I had some smoked sausages and double the side of mac and cheese. OMG! GLUTEN AND CHEESE! Oh it was so good though! I was a little more bad. In the store they had Parmesean Crisps. Basically you throw fresh parm on a skillet and melt it together and make it crispy like a cracker. I bought some of those. I ate half the container. See, no self control 2 days in a row!! For dinner I had made a pot roast. I was behaved and added a side of couscous, fresh broccoli and made a nice gravy for it. I ate a reasonable portion and packaged the rest up for lunch for Tuesday and Wednesday. I had a dessert of baby food; pears and mangos. It was great. Don't judge people. It is a good portion, sweet enough because it is pure fruit, and it is organic.

Tuesday, I woke and had my smoothie. Walter made us cappuccinos too. I was so tired when I got to work that I had to go down and get an energy drink. I got hungry mid-morning so ate the rest of the Parmesean Crisps. Lunch was my awesome pot roast. I had a non-fat milk caramel macchiato in the afternoon (about 240 calories). I was really bitchy yesterday though. I got no sleep. The neighbor above was playing his fucking video games all night and I did not fall asleep until about 2:30. I was up at 5:30. So I was very iritable all day. I am surprized I did not eat the farm! So I stayed at work an hour later because Walter and I carpooled. We headed home. I had nothing planned for dinner so once we sat in traffic, we decided to hit happy hour at NXNW. Ok, here is where I lost it. Gluten and oil. We had 2 beers each (gluten). Got onion rings (oil and gluten), calamari (oil and gluten), and 2 individual pizzas (gluten and if you count the sausage, more oil). We went home and crashed. My spirits were up at this point. Maybe it was a beer, maybe it was not being at work, maybe it was Walter. Who cares though. I sleep well last night.

Today is the last day....of the "trying" part. It definitely is not the last day of doing though. I will sum up tonight how I feel it all went. Until then....

Hate vs. Tolerate

With the political debates going on, the stories of bullying, the fight for gay marriage, and the conflicts in the Middle East, there seems to be a lot of hate being slung all over the place. I am not sure why as humans we are too stupid to figure out the damaging effects of hate. It is something we are not born to do. It is something we learn.

I read I great article by Shawn Blackburn talking about this thing we learn, hate. There were so many points that were amazing that I think it would be worth others reading as well. But what I want to know is why do we still hate? We are smart people.

I have a friend from high school that posts her political views very intelligently on Facebook, no different than others post. She had friends argue with her and ultimately "unfriend" her there. Is this a hateful action? I think it is. Instead of realize that her views were different then theirs and understand that everyone thinks and believes differently, it was easier to argue and then not talk to her anymore. THAT IS IGNORANT!

I was sorrowed to hear of another teenager resorting to suicide over being bullied in school. I wonder if this happens because the bully feels bullied at home and needs to regain power, so bullies at school. Is it a power issue? Or is it just pure evil? I don't think it is pure evil. I think they learned how to be bullied elsewhere by being bullied. But why? Where does it stop? When will it end? Is it worse now with the open media outlets? or do we just hear about it more now? What makes it ok? and where the fuck are the parents?

Why can we not learn to just accept others for who they are, what the believe, how they act, and move on? What causes us to draw lines? The article mentioned above talks of ethnocentricity. I think this is part of it. We fear what is unfamiliar to us so we demonize it rather than try to understand and accept it.

I learned a long time ago that I was not going to agree with everyone or understand everyone. I will never forget when I was on my mission and I had a friend who talked about going nude at the beach with his whole family. To me I could not comprehend seeing my family naked. It was not my culture. Not how I grew up. To him, he could not understand why it was odd to me because it was so normal to him. It taught me a huge lesson. It taught me that the way we were raised is not the way everyone was raised and I needed to understand that to understand people and accept them.

I may just be babbling now, but can't we focus on learning and teaching to just tolerate rather than hate? I think that is something that will bring a lot more peace to the world; more than war and bullying (and I am not just talking in schools, but in politics, pulpits, foreign relations, etc.). I may be idealistic in my thinking, but hey, isn't that where the best things begin?

Days 7 & 8 Here I am!

Well, I am a bit off yet again, but there I am to catch up. It is not that I was bad or that I was avoiding this. I actually just was busy and tired.

I admittedly have not been great on the gluten free thing. Yesterday I had more gluten in the form of mini burger buns (work provided lunch) and a piece of dulce de leche cake which was for my birthday celebration at work. Yes, I gave in and had it. So back to my eating for yesterday. I had my usual smoothie (can you tell I like them in the mornings?). For lunch it was mini burgers at work. One was lamb, one veggie, one was turkey and oh yeah, I did have a 4th of beef. It was with some rice crackers (6) and some cheeses that were there also. Dinner was nice really healthy though. I made some chicken thighs (skinless) in red wine with fennel tops to season it.

For the sides I had some steamed spinach seasoned with some fennel powder, cumin and a little garlic salt. Also made some butternut squash and sprinkled some cinnamon on top (picture above). Oh, I did also have some hummus and rice crackers for a snack while waiting for Walter to come home. I didn't do the peanut butter like I did the day before. I was good :).

Today was not horrible. I had eggs with mushrooms and red peppers and some hash browns in the morning. For lunch I made some fresh burgers with some horseradish and smoked salt in them, topped with some blue cheese on a buttermilk bun. Yes, I know..more gluten. I was craving. I had 2 cups of coffee; one at work and one at home since I came home at 10am today. For dinner I attempted to make my mom's waffle recipe using gluten free flours and almond milk. I cannot say it was bad. I was actually surprised how they turned out. Good enough to have 2. One had syrup (and the real 100% maple kind, none of that high fructose corn syrup shit) and the other had organic strawberry jam. I added some "fried" eggs (3) to it. I basically sprayed a nonstick pan with PAM and cooked my eggs that way so they were kind of "fried". I drank water and have been pleasantly full since.

So, I have a problem with gluten. I guess when you cannot have something you want it even more. I have been eating it moderately with I am proud of. I am proud that I pulled the skin off the chicken when I cooked it last night and it was still delicious. I was proud that I did not eat out which meant I had better food and most likely better portions. I was even stopped by a second coworker today to be asked if I was losing weight because she saw my yesterday and was like "WOW'. So it was nice to see my efforts going. Tomorrow is a weigh in day. I will see how it goes. Last time I had lost 2.2 lbs. I am hoping to see more tomorrow, but fear my gluten and bad "pizza choice" might be my downfall this week. In the morning it will be known! Until then...good night.

So day 6. Here I am!

Well, I think I am doing well. I even got an unsolicited comment that I looked like I was losing weight. It was nice to say I had and that I have dropped a whole belt notch. It has been a busy week here for me though. Just a lot going on at work and allergies and making me exhausted. DAMN YOU CEDAR FEVER!! Anyhow my food for today so far:


Breakfast was my ever so tasty smoothie. I am glad that I have run out of the coconut milk for them and tomorrow will be back on almond milk!


Lunch part 1 was at about 10:45am. I packed soup. The same from earlier. I still have some frozen to keep for days like these when I had nothing prepared. Unfortunately it did not do it for me. Kept me going for the next 2 hours or meetings, but not much past. So for lunch part 2 I went to the store and got a baked potato with lean brisket, BBQ sauce, cheese and sour cream. It sounds heavy, and the cheese and sour cream were probably not the best thing to add to it, but it was damn good! Not sure the plan for dinner tonight. I am thinking a large salad, but a few hours from now, after sitting in an hour of traffic, who knows what I am going to do!

Ok. In all honesty, dinner didn't go so well. I got home after a long almost 12 hour day. I knew Walter was almost off and I was so not in the mood to cook ESPECIALLY since the kitchen was still dirty from the night before. I pulled out some rice crackers and ate half the package (about 190 calories). I dipped about half in hummus and half in natural peanut butter. Talk about a mixture of light and fat! OMG! What was I thinking! I was not. My blood sugar was probably so low, I was seriously not thinking at all. But wait...it gets worse. Walter comes home and I ask him what he wants. We banter through a few things, none of which sound good. Mind you, it is 7:30pm now. Finally Walter states he really wants pizza. Well folks, I lost it. Pizza did sound good to me too....AND WINGS! So I hop online and headed to pizzahut.com. I cannot say I am too proud of this moment, nor of the ordering of a large everything pizza and 14 honey bar-b-que wings. We finished eating. It was good. I cannot say I regret it. Proud of it I am not. But in a moment of tired weakness, it happened. We went to bed shortly after.

Day 4-6...a little late

So I am a bit behind on this. I am not sure what happened. I know I was really tired and did not do it Monday and Tuesday. I think somehow Sunday just got away from me. But I think I am doing pretty well. I did have a little gluten in the form of tortillas. Honestly, I did try to get corn on Monday, but being a holiday, the restaurants supplier was closed. Anyhow, here is the rundown for the past few days:

Sunday:
Breakfast with Walter of breakfast potatoes with very little oil, steamed greens, and eggs. Lunch was at Rudy's BBQ. I went for the lean brisket (yes, I did not get the juicy kind). I also had a sausage and some bean and potato salad. Dinner that night I had been cooking ribs all day and had those with corn and some really AWESOME gluten free cornbread I made. I had maple syrup with the corn bread. I know, not much on cutting back the sugar with that one, but it make it so great!

Monday:
My typical breakfast smoothie, Lunch was left over ribs and a salad with tomatoes, a little feta, and some vinaigrette. Dinner was where I had the gluten. We went to Hugo's and I had 3 margaritas (they are so good there and were only $2.50 each on Monday night) the Dueling Enchiladas (and from their website are: pulled chicken, wrapped in flour tortillas, drenched in salsa verde and roja enchilada sauce. Served with rice and black beans). So not a bad choice. Really good and really fresh. I did ask for corn tortillas instead and their supplier was closed for the holiday. Still goo fresh food though!

Tuesday:
Same breakfast smoothie. Lunch was still some left over ribs and a salad with feta, tomatoes and vinaigrette. Dinner, well we really tried to be good. I cam home and we made some talapia filets broiled with seasoning and fennel tops and lemon. We chopped up some kohlrabi and steamed it for the side and Walter made a lovely salad with carrots, tomatoes and vinaigrette. Then we went shopping. Love World Market! Bought some stools for the new place and finally found chairs for our table that we really like. While we were there we both started getting hungry. AGAIN! If I had not drank the Nile that day, I would have just thought I was dehydrated. Walter agreed, it was more than that. So on our way home we stopped at Taco Cabana and got burritos. Mine was chicken with rice, lettuce, pico and cheese. Again, in a flour tortilla. So gluten again! But very little. Oh..I almost forgot. I had a hand full of peanuts too. It keep me satiated and I was fine the rest of the night. Fortunately it was a few hours before bedtime.

So there it is. I am all caught up and really going to try to do it more daily, but promise I will catch up if I don't.

Day 3 Started Great!

Why you are wondering did it start off great? Well, I slept pretty well. I woke up early and decided to weigh myself. Wait for it......-2.2 pound. Oh yeah! I am not starving, and other than some gas (damn greens and fiber), not feeling uncomfortable. So the morning began well. Once Walter woke up I made some coffee with agave nectar and coconut creamer. For breakfast we had some steamed greens, eggs, and boiled then PAM "fried" sweet potato hash with some onion. I sprinkled some cinnamon on the hash and it was awesome!

Lunch was a trip to Torchy's with Willie. I did good and chose the corn tortillas again (I am not a huge fan of them, but getting used to it now) and had a Democrat and a Trailer Park "trashy". So I had some extra queso on the Trailer Park, but it was good. I had a coffee from Coffee Bean (a White Chocolate Latte..my favorite) on my way home.

Dinner, well I am still working on that. I am not in the mood for anything so I am warming up some of that soup from the other day and gonna combine it with an omelet. The omelet will prob have a little cheese for flavor and fat but nothing else. That's it! Off to eat!

Day 2 - Happy Hour Temptation

Well, today is starting out kind of bad. Not in a "bad" bad way, but in a "I woke up at 3:45am and could not go back to sleep" kind of way. I blame it on all the veggies and beans I ate yesterday! No, not really. I am sure my nap yesterday had a little to do with it. Not sure what else, but oh well.

Already my eyes are stinging with allergens today, and it is only 7am. I had my smoothie (same as yesterday) and gave a big ol' F U to the tea. I really like my coffee. Instead of refined sugar, I put agave nectar in it. Sorry...I just cannot do the stevia thing. It changes the flavor of my coffee way too much!

Ok, so here I am at lunch time. I was starving but have a lot to do so only have my soup from last night. I fully intended to go get a protein in the store, but alas, I have not. It is ok. I will be leaving in an hour and 1/2 so if I am starving, I can get something with Walter. The soup is good and hearty though so that is a good thing. I may possibly lose it at happy hour today since the extra sugars and empty calories in the drinks, but if I order food, I will be very concious.

Here i am back at it. I came home too late and went right to bed to finish it...so here is the rest of the day. I did go to happy hour. I only consumed 2 small margaritas, some steamed muscles and some fries...oh and I dipped the fries in some mayonnaise. A few hours passed and we went to dinner where I drank water and have a pollo asado taco and pastor taco both on corn tortillas. Not bad. I was quite proud of myself limiting my drinks and making a small choice for dinner since it was so late (9pm). That was day two which, other than the allergies which I am sure I will keep complaining about, was great.

Well, I am off to the a great start

I cannot say today was the easiest day ever. It was a start. Not a very bad start either. So last night while I wrote the last entry I had been baking a cake. I ate the piece of cake I was craving and when Walter came home I insisted he take the rest to work with him today. VERY good choice I my part. Plus, all his people liked the cake. I had the worst allergies today. Cedar fever time in Austin combined with mold allergies I have been dealing with ok....until today. Usually my regimen is to take my Cleratin in the morning with my other vitamins and I have eye drops at work for the scratchy eyes that only seem to surface there. It works. I works pretty good. Today...not so much! I was feeling glazed over in my first meeting at 8am and was getting drowsy in my 9 and 10am meetings. I had to bring out the big guns. BENEDRYL. I had to. It actually woke me up and allowed me to finish my day. I did however come home and take a nice hour and 1/2 nap.

Foodwise I an doing pretty good. I started the morning off with my normal protein shake consisting of a cup of blue berries, 3 strawberries, one banana, a tsp of olive oil and a cup of coconut milk. I added my scoop of protein powder in and blended it all up. I love this breakfast. It keeps me filled until I eat lunch around 11....except today. I swear! What was going on today?? By 10am I was ready to chew my arm off! I normally have a snack or two in my drawer for these moments and when I went there in-between meetings all I found were crackers...WITH GLUTEN! "Well shit!" I thought to myself. So I grabbed my water and started downing that. I drank what I normally drink in a full work day by 11 when I had lunch. I cannot say I was less hungry, but it gave me something to do instead of eat. I have to tell you though, I HAD TO PEE SOOOOO MUCH TODAY! I also switched from drinking coffee to having tea. I am not sure if that is going to last. I really missed my coffee.

So lunch finally arrived and I had some white beans in a chili sauce I have been gnawing on for days and a smoked chicken breast. I was really good and took the skin off the chicken and threw it out! I had a very small salad with it with a little vinegrette. I was good until 3. Then I was ready to gnaw my arm off again. I got home around 3:30pm and was looking for something to eat or snack on. At this time I was super tired too. Too tired to even play my SIMS game on the iPad. I ended up downing a full sleeve of rice crackers (gluten free and under 400 calories for the whole thing) BUT dipped each one in cream cheese. It was good! But now looking back, not the best choice, but not a bad one either.

Right now I am cooking dinner. Tonights menu - baked chicken breast with a root vegetable soup. This soup is awesome. I have turnips, celery root, kolrabi, bock choy, carrot greens, and cabbage in there. Seasoned with some Vegeta and pepper. It smells awesome and it nice a hearty and comforty for the windy cold night we have going on right now. I may have an apple later, but we shall see.

Looking at it, I did not do too bad. I made some good choices and some less than the best ones too. All in all, it was a great start. I hope tomorrow will go as well!

Something for the New Year

I am not one for making New Years resolutions. I actually think they are lame. Most people make them and then cannot even remember them after a month let alone have worked on them. I also think that if there is something you feel you need to change or improve on, then why wait until New Years to do it? Seriously? If you want to quick smoking, stop now while you have the chance! If you want to lose ten pounds, start now because it might have to be 20 by New Years after all the holiday gluttony. So, I don't make them. I do however feel that I need to say something at the beginning of this year. I need some thoughts in writing. I need to vent something, or just reflect. I don't really know where this is going, but I guess we will see what comes.

First of all, I am fat. I am so pissed at myself because of it. I have let this happen and tried to blame it on so many things that it is ridiculous. While one excuse was legit, that has been corrected for 5 years now and I am still fat. I like food. I cannot help that. I like the flavors. I like the textures. I like the smells and the aromas. I love to learn about it. I love to cook it. I love everything about it. One thing I cannot love about it is my self control around it. I could easily portion things out. I have done it before and with great success. But I don't. I could be cooking more nutrient dense foods that will leave me more satiated. But I revert to my old standbys. I am in full control, yet I sit back and never change the channel. Oh, don't get me wrong. I browse the TV Guide A LOT, but I just cannot seem to change the channel. It is not like anything is that great on the channel. I am holding the control right here, but I never change it. I guess what I get pissed off at the most is I have the tools and the knowledge to eat right, get fit, slim down, yet I do not have the motivation. What I don't want is to be forced to get the motivation by getting diabetes or heart disease or some other preventable thing.

Ok...so this is going to start to look like a resolution...but it is not. But here I say it....and I am sure I have said it before, but here it is again....I am going to do this. Starting today. Starting right now (after I end this blog). I am going to do better. AND HERE IS MY PLAN from tomorrow until I leave to my mom's 70th Birthday on the 26th.

I will blog daily about my food I eat, my cravings, my trials, my exercise or lack there of, my stress levels. That is part 1. I will call my blogging the "accountability stage".

Part 2 will be the "eating my own words" stage. In this stage I will be eating MORE veggies and green, MORE grains, LESS meat, MINIMAL to NO refined sugars (can't help the sugars in fruits and I am going to do honey in my tea), NO gluten, NO soy, NO dairy (sorry butter), MINIMAL oils (still need some good fats to be satiated and for my joints), MORE fish, LESS beef. Okay...those are my word and I will eat them!

Part 3, "Get off yo' damn ass". Yup! That's it. I think of that being said in the southern tone of Kenisha Jackson! She has got some spirit in her and would smack the shit out of me with all her love and kindness to get me off my ass and do something! Stretching in a great start...yoga, meditation, long, meaningful stretches. Going with that I have a decision to make. I have a spin bike, practically new, that is either going to be sold or taken in our move in March. If I start using it, it will be taken, if not, sold. My goal is to take that sucker because I would not be able to live without it. Getting off my damn ass and using it is the key. OFF...MY...DAMN...ASS!!!

Well, I guess that is what is on my mind for the new year! Thank god I know how to make a gluten free corn bread when I get the craving!

You know, I often think to myself that I am not passionate about anything. I think this is what I am passionate about. Being the best me, and giving that best me to Walter, my family and my friends. Not only do I deserve it, they deserve the best me too!

See you tomorrow on my blog! Wonder what I am going to be eating....