The 3 Week Mark…

So, I’ve been back on Atkins for a couple days past the 3 week mark.  I’ve been going to bed at weird times, because when I’ve decided that it’s alright to stay up, because I don’t have to be up at the butt crack of dawn the next day, I just sort of… forget what time it is that night.

I’m still having problems waking up consistently in the earlier morning.  I need to make it a cast-iron goal of mine to go to bed between 10-11 pm, and try to force myself up and about by 7 at the very latest on days that I don’t have to be at work super early in the morning.

That’s the funny thing after all.  When I have to be up at 4:30 in the morning to open up the bakery at work, I have absolutely zero issues with the whole waking up part.  But on a day when I either have the whole day off, or don’t have to be at work until the afternoon or evening, all bets are off, and whether I’ve had enough sleep or not, I just keep sleeping until I’ve decided to stop being lazy that day.  I could be getting up, making myself an early breakfast, and get some commissions out of the way, or just use that morning time to read or draw for myself or something, but no, I’m sleeping, even if I’m not particularly tired.

Great example, last night, I went to bed around 11, fell asleep at about midnight-or 12:30.  Decent time, right?  For someone my age and of the generation of insomniacs.

I woke up at 10 this morning, and was still seriously considering staying in bed for another hour, just because I could.  I hauled my ass out of bed though, because I was hungry, and wanted bacon. HAHAHA!

There’s so many books I want to read, you’d think that would be incentive enough for me to lurch out of that bed quicker.  I will say, though, my bed is pretty much a predator.  It wants you to die sleeping in it, it’s so comfortable.  Lures you in… with it firm, yet soft springs, we have down pillows, so that certainly doesn’t help either.  Seriously, I think my bed has some evil spell on it that all who sleep within it will never return to the waking realm.  Eric tends to agree, because on the weekend he also sleeps for nearly 12 hours a night.

Sadly evil beds are no excuse, and I will always call myself out on bullshit.  I need to start making myself get up after about 8 or 9 hours of sleep, because 10-11 is just waaaaay too much sleep.  I certainly feel the lethargy for the rest of the day, no matter how well I eat, or how active I am.

 

One thing to celebrate, I’m down to 42 inches around my waist, and about 52.5 inches around my hips.  My arms and legs about an inch bigger from last week, but I have been starting to build more muscle in my arms and building and toning the muscles in my legs, so it’s to be expected.  My body seems to hold onto weight in weird ways when I’ve lost weight and then gained it back, so it’s trying it’s damnedest to hold onto the inches in my hips.

Also, I’m down to 1 cup of coffee every few days as opposed to 1 or 2 cups a day.  I love coffee’s flavor too much to ever completely give it up, but substituting tea curbs the withdraw symptoms, and is also super tasty.  I drink a few mugs of tea a day, and I usually have tea and water at work with my meal.  The water helps fill me up faster so that I don’t feel pangs of hunger later.  I used to have the problem of being hungry about an hour or so after pretty much every meal.  Now, it’s more like 3 hours later I could use a chunk of cheese or an Atkins bar, and I’m good for another 3-4 hours.

I’m still trying to get myself used to the whole… going to the gym thing.  I’ll only have the time to make it there Friday this week, but hopefully going with a friend will help, and if he was able to get the spotlight from his job, we should be rockin’ out some filming on Friday, which means you all will get to see the first ever Fruits of Wisdom episode next Tuesday.  *crosses fingers*  I really, really, really want this to work.

Anyways, back to the land of stuff, hahaha!!

Until next time, happy nomming!

Hold for filming this week…

Tomorrow, the day that I’m suppose to start filming… I get to spend my time running around getting my tire replaced… so, I’m not entirely sure if we will be able to begin filming tomorrow or not. I will keep everyone posted on the situation.

Status on the Cooking Show…

Tonight, my friend Brook and I have discussed a bit of what we’re planning on doing for the show.  We’re going to be testing the lighting in the kitchen shortly, and if it’s not adequate for night time shooting (since that’s when we’re mostly going to have time to shoot), we’re going to be playing with what we can do to make sure we have good lighting.  If all goes well, we’ll be shooting next week for the first week of episodes.

I’m thinking to start, we’ll do 2 episodes a week, one on Monday and one on Thursday, it’s a decent break-up of the week, even though it seems like an odd scheduling.  I’m super excited.  There will much methodical planning so that I can make the best damn cooking show that Brook and I can provide.

 

So yeah, thoughts on the first tutorial post…

So, if I had to gauge interest off of the first post, I’d have to say it was kind of a bit of a flop. Not many views, and no suggestions for any future tutorials. This may end up having to become a once a week thing only, because that sucker took me about 5 hours to put together, and if it’s not going to be something that people are going to look at often, then I don’t want to set aside 15-20 hours a week for it. Five hours, fine, I can take the pictures on one day, and take a couple different days to put it all together. I will give it this one post, to see if any of you have any suggestions on food that I can try to make low-carb for those of you out there. If I get more responses, I will keep trying to do this more than just once a week. Hell, I may even start trying to film it! I have this nice spacious bar that is just begging to be filmed…. without papers all over it, haha!
I really really want this to be worth it for all of you out there, but you have to show me that it is, or I’m just going to assume that only 5 people are looking at it and getting any use from it. Which, hey, that’s 5 people that are getting a nifty step-by step recipe, and for that, I’m a truly happy, but the whole point of this is, I make you tutorials/ or videos, you give me suggestions to chose from for the next batch of recipes, so that I know what you guys are wanting to eat!
I hope to hear from more of you. I look forward to hearing from more of you.

Feedback on the first tutorial? What could I change, make better, was anything unclear for anyone out there? Was I too thorough, not thorough enough?
Leave suggestions and feedback in the comments section, and I will definitely give them all consideration!

Thank you!!

About the omelet

One thing I didn’t put into the tutorial, that I will from now on, make sure I put into the tutorials, is net carb amount.

this omelet in particular only has about 3.5 or 4 on the high end, depending on how many veggies you put in.

Also, if you’re adjusting for a plain-jane cheese omelet, it’ll only be about 1.5 net carbs, each egg, is 0.4, and the cheese is about 1 per ounce.

 

Also, I may or may not have typed like a retard when I made the tutorial.  I didn’t proofread my typos as well as I should have.  WHATEVER, you’ll still be able to make the super awesome omelet of awesomeness.

Cooking With Fruits of Wisdom Presents…

Tomorrow…

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be the first day that I post a “Fruits of Wisdom” cooking tutorial, and I may post a little video to accompany it.

What am I making tomorrow?  I guess you’ll just have to pop over tomorrow to find out now won’t you?

I don’t want to give away too much information, but it’s my hope to do 3 tutorials a week to start with.  One for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Eventually, I may throw in some snack tutorials after the main dish.

I would love to see what you all would like to see me make.  The more info I have of what others want, the more I can meet your demands, and ultimately, be of the best possible use to you guys.

Submit suggestions in the comments section!  Suggestions used will get a shout-out in the post, who knows, yours may get chosen!

Happy nomming.

Goals for 2012

Yes, I know it’s a whole month late, but being on time is so mainstream (chuckle).

1.) Get a scale

2.) Stay in Induction for another 3 weeks

3.) Start either the “Low-Carb Cooking How To” blog, or the “Cooking with Fruits of Wisdom” cooking show before June.

4.) Drink less coffee and more tea.

5.) Draw more

6.) Do a self portrait of myself before October.

7.) Be down to at least 200 lbs. by my birthday, May 25th.

8.) Be within 20 lbs. of my goal weight (140 is my goal weight) by December.

9.) Stay on top of going to the gym at least every other day, if not every single day for cardio, at the very least.

10.) Run a full, flat-out mile on the Treadmill without stopping by December.

11.)  Walk a 5k by my birthday.

12.) Get my exhaust fixed, my front tires changed, and a tune up for my car.

13.) Throw away more junk that I don’t need, or take it to the Goodwill when I do spring cleaning.

These are my goals, and some of them aren’t fitness or health oriented, but they are things that I want to do, none the less.

What are your goals for this year?

I’d love to read them!

Happy nomming!

What’s in Your Kitchen?

I had a friend, on my last post… a whole… 2 or 3 hours ago, ask the simplest, yet probably one of the most important questions I can think of when trying to eat healthy.

“What should I keep in my cupboards and refrigerator?”

I answered her question, directly to her, but it spawns a whole new post simply because I think anyone eating low-carb, or anyone just trying to get their cravings under control should have a place for answers.

So, what do you keep in your fridge and cupboards?

Ask yourself this, seriously.  If you’ve never thought about it before, perhaps you should.  Knowing what’s there could make or break what you do in moments of weakness when it comes to cravings.  I have to be super diligent, because I have a boyfriend that can eat whatever he wants, and doesn’t like vegetables… at all.  So we have things like nutty bars, oatmeal cream pies, cupcakes, sugary cereal, bread, peanut butter, jelly, soda, banquet homestyle bakes, macaroni and cheese… that particular list gets longer when you realize that the only reason you still have ALL of that, is because you used to eat it too.  Which I did, when I was so far off the wagon that I said screw it to catching up and just went in the opposite direction.  Eric (that’s my boyfriend, for those of you that don’t know), can get away with eating PB&J’s daily, and have snacks like swiss cake rolls and candy, he’s also a bean poll (glares in his general direction).

I cannot.  So instead of whining that I can’t eat homestyle bakes, bread, and candy, I’m going to shut-up and think about the baked, buttered broccoli that I can eat, and the baked chicken that is currently screaming for me to put my mouth around it’s delicious, delicious chicken-boob goodness.  Yes, I realize that sentence was mildly pornographic, but hey, food is very, very close to porn in my opinion.

If you have the ability to control what’s going into your kitchen, either because you live with people with similar nutritional interests, or you’re on your own, excellent, cleaning out junk won’t make anyone want to stab you with a spoon.  I’d tell you what exactly to put into your fridge, but sadly, I can’t be the end all judge on what you consume.  One main difference, I’m low-carb, and doing induction right now, so if you’re in a similar position, you should be stocking up on foundation vegetables, proteins and fats.

If you’re doing a low-fat diet, first of all, I’m sorry, second of all, I’m not trying to be judge-y, just honest.  One question though, are you doing low-fat because your doctor told you that was the only way to either, A: lose weight, or B: lower your blood-pressure, blood-sugar, cholesterol, or… well, anything?  If so, give a few low-carb books a read, I’m not trying to tell you what to do, just give you more information to arm yourself with.

Also, random food for thought… why would you tell someone who’s diabetic to eat a diet that’s high in carbohydrates?  Ever?  That makes sense right?  You have high blood-sugar, here, eat bread.

Anyways, KITCHEN!!!!  Yes, your kitchen.  It can be your best friend, or feel like going to the in-laws.  All that food, just looking at you, wondering why you haven’t gotten a real job yet.  Just kidding, not everyone’s in-laws are like that(snicker).  If you’re thinking of going down the Atkins path, there are sites you can go to, and books you can read that will set you down the proper path.  Or, you can just ask me directly, I try to be relatively informative.

Anyhoo, Happy nomming.

Just Do it.

Finding yourself in a position of wondering when it would be a good time to start a new lifestyle/diet is always an uncomfortable place to be.  Oddly enough, it’s the times that I’ve thought about it too much, that I end up failing miserably, and having to start all over.  So, I usually just tell myself, “Dude… Nike, just do it.  Just do it, start it, get the whole complacency of starting the diet over, and get on with it.”

Yes, I have that conversation with myself.  I’m also most successful when I’m not thinking about being on a “diet” or whatever.  I’ve yet to ever make it down to my goal weight of 140.  Which is something that I WILL change this year.  I’ve found that I do best at everything when I’ve already decided that I’ve accomplished it, or that it’s an inevitability.  That’s kind of how you have to think.  Don’t just imaging yourself getting down to your goal weight, image that you’re already there, and on a nutrition plan like Atkins, yeah, I may not be able to have refined carbs, but holy crap, I can have up to 6 oz of meat with a meal, butter, whole cream, eggs, bacon.  Y0u know, everything they tell you isn’t good for you, but actually is as long as you cut out the sugars like white/bleached breads and pastas and starchy veggies at the start.

People that don’t understand Atkins look at me like I’ve signed my death certificate already.

“You need carbs, this isn’t good for you.”

I do eat carbs, just not refined ones, and not in excess.  And it’s not like I’ll never be able to ever eat these things again, I just can’t base my entire diet off of it once I’m where I want to be.  So no more, Chicken Alfredo, would you like a little chicken with your Alfredo?  Once I’m in Pre-maintainence, it’ll be more like, would you like a little pasta with your chicken, spinach and broccoli?

I’m still gung-ho on eventually doing my low-carb cooking show.  It’ll never be for profit, and it’ll be all for those of you out there that are terrified of the cooking world, and would like a little bit more of a step-by-step on some Atkin’s friendly recipes.

My personal goal this year, aside from getting myself in shape and healthy, is to help at least 3 or 4 other people who want it, to do the same.  It can be either in person, or online.  Message me on facebook, email me, call me if you have my number, whatever you have to do, if someone else wants to do this, I will help you find the tools, and give you the motivation to be successful.

Just do it.  What do you have to lose?  You know, except for the weight and/or health problems.

Happy nomming.