I Haven’t Given Up Yet!

Today marks my 4th official day back on Atkins.  This, was breakfast.  Red bell pepper rings filled with eggs and mozzarella cheese, and it was amazing.

Being one of my suggested recipes on the new and improved atkins site, I wondered if it was just some blah recipe that someone just put together because it happens to have things in it that you can have during induction.  Nope, simple to make but it has some complex flavors dancing through it, and 2 eggs and rings is only 5 net carbs!  Woooo!

But yet, again, I’m still alive, I haven’t abandoned my goal for a better body, better health, and a more fit active lifestyle.  I power walked on the treadmill for a half an hour yesterday, and if anyone that knows me well is reading this, then they know just how big of a feat that is.  Treadmill you say?  Whaaaaat?  I thought you’d only ever do eliptical?  Well that may be true when not wanting to building up my bone density, but Atkins definitely allows for high impact, because the diet helps your body better absorb calcium, vitamin D, C, and A.

I still maintain that Atkins is the healthiest lifestyle you could hope to achieve.

On a more personal note, my parents are both struggling with high blood-pressure, and a surgery that my father was suppose to have, to take care of his knee has been postponed until they can get his down, which in turn means that they have put him on a low-fat diet.  My uncle (his brother) has apparently either been partaking in Atkins, or something similar, and has never felt better in his life.  I tried to talk to my dad about trying it himself, and he, surprisingly, didn’t dismiss the idea.  Then again, when your doctor is making you drink skim milk, and the best thing you can tell me is, “I’m usually good, but sometimes I slip up.”  of course my best  recommendation for you is going to be to get some good fats and proteins into your system!!!  I do love my parents, and I’m positive my mom isn’t taking care of herself either, considering I know how they eat, and I got the, “I’m not sure I like that you’re doing this diet, Charli, it’s not good for you” from her.  I think I’m going to send them a copy of “The New Atkins For A New You” book.  Mostly since my dad showed nominal interest.  I think he’ll be far more successful in getting his blood-pressure and any other lurking health problems that he has, under control.  And perhaps my mom will jump on the whole-food, optimal protein bandwagon once she actually sees what the diet entails.

Until next time, happy nomming!!

So Tired

Part of that has probably been how I’ve been eating.  Not a fan of how I’ve been treating my body.  I haven’t had a scale since I lived with the roommates, so I’ve no clue just how much I’ve gained in the past 8 months or so, but if my pants are any indicator, it’s not a happy time for me.  Stress is definitely a cause, but it’s no excuse.  I keep telling myself that I’m going to get myself back on the wagon, but every time I try to do so, I fall off trying to get on.

“oh, I’m going to get a Greek Salad today, with chicken so that I get all the protein that I need.”  crap… I ate a french baguette with it…. carb. count rendered too high… eat a whole box of cupcakes.  Yeah, I think it’s official that I have a food problem, one that I don’t know how to rid myself of, food is like a drug, and I’m a horrible addict, and I NEED to figure out how to get it under control.

This is going to be HARD!!!!

Okay, so I just got a job at Panera.  Seriously, going to be hard to not eat carbs when part of the job is eating the product to be able to help customers know what it is.  Now, I don’t have to eat ALL of something, I just have to try it.  The other thing that will be difficult is reminding myself to get salad and soup instead of a sandwich and soup, at least after I’ve tried every sandwich, which is required as part of my “breaducation”.

I hate that I love bread so much.  The good thing is, I can get a different sandwich each time, and then while I’m still trying breads, get basic sandwiches on different bread until I’ve tried all of it.  THEN I can change around the soups and salads and save on the carbs.

I’ve already tried almost everything in the cafe bakery, so it’s not like there’s TOO much that I have to try still, just some of the newer things, and things that I’ve never even wanted to try because I was always jonesing for something specific.  I love Panera, I want to move up in Panera, work full time at one job and be able to do my freelancing on the side, instead of trying to fit in 2 jobs and freelancing, and hoping to still have any energy whatsoever to go out and do things with Eric.

SO, I have to do an occasional cheat my first 60 days of working at Panera, to finish trying everything, then, shove myself back on track, only eat the things there that I know I can, and get on with it.

Though, the one things that’s hardest, is even minding my carbs at a place like that, there aren’t many thing that you can get, most of the soups are far more than I would hope to consume, even in half portions, and the only salad that I can really eat is the chopped cob.  Which is good, don’t get me wrong, it’s just, even then, I’m consuming about half of my desired daily intake.

 

UGH!! So frustrating!!!!

I really want to get a juicer now, and just do a juice detox for a month after all of the stuff I’m going to have to put in my body for starting this job!!!!!

Holding myself accountable…

Yep, I need to.  I’ve not only fallen off of the wagon these past few months… I’ve sort of taken a running jump.  Sort of started with that horrible job that I quit a month later, that one I was talking about in my last post… biggest waste of time, but live and learn.  I had no time to eat, and instead of making smarter choices, I found myself cheating, and cheating.  I would just say, oh I’ll just do better tomorrow.  HA!  I had gotten myself down 20 lbs only to throw it all away.  I don’t even know how much I weigh right now.  We need to get a scale so that I can assess the damage, but we have more important things to tend to.   I had tried to get myself back on track by slowly getting myself back into Atkins, but I think I’m just going to have to jump in again, head first, do what I need to do, start walking again, find time even if it’s hard and even if  have to do it myself if I can’t find the time to do it with someone else.  It’s hard to work my schedule around things.  I’m home very little and when I am, I’m doing commissions.  It’s very deterring.

So, I’m going to set myself some goals.

Goal #1:  Stop drinking soda

It’s an easy one, usually at least.  It’s not hard for me to stop drinking it once I’ve put my mind to it, it’s just,  once I’ve decided it’s alright to take a sip, I go a little nuts for it.  No soda, unless I have the occasional Diet Rite, which I sort of want to get cans of so that they don’t go flat as fast.

Goal #2:  Throw out all of the old veggies that have been sitting in my fridge unused for the past 2-3 weeks, and get new one’s

An equally easy one that just needs to happen anyways.

Goal #3:  Get a Scale

Goal #4: Induction for a month.

 

I really should detox, but I don’t have a juicer, so I have no way to do a juice fast, or I would do this first for a month.  Maybe I’ll look into them price wise, I’ve been wanting a juicer for awhile now, I’d much rather have fresh juice than processed anyways.  Couple it with Atkins, see how it all goes.

Hello Again!!

I always make it a point to try new things, no matter how scary they seem. So I am literally always trying new foods, new opportunities, new anything really.
One thing new, my new job, I’m now a direct marketing expert, on the distribution level (entry), working at View Marketing. Yes, I am a walking commercial, and I’m actually pretty good at it.
Something else new, Eric and I are moving next weekend to our new apartment, so I’m currently pretty excited about that.

As far as trying new things go, if you’re looking for an awesome no-calorie coffee flavor, Splenda has started making flavor packets just for your coffee, I just bought the mocha flavor and holy crap it’s delicious. Get this stuff, it’s seriously super awesome. It’s a little pricey, about $4.00 for a box of 30, but if you have one mug a day, that $4.00 lasts you a month. GET SOME!!!

Sorry for the absence…

It’s been super hectic the past couple of weeks. I now have a full time job, and my free-time is greatly reduced. I started induction over this week, and it’s even harder doing it the second time.
I just didn’t feel like I was quite getting it yet, and I also still have a substantial amount of weight to lose, about 75 lbs or so, so I’d like to stay in Induction a little longer this time, to trim down a little quicker, get my cravings under control, and keep my energy up.

I noticed while I was trying to get through O.W.L. it was getting harder to loose much weight, even at the beginning it was instantaneously down from about 5 lbs. a week to 1 or 2 lbs. Now, I know that’s a relatively good pace that I should ultimately shoot for, but after about 3 weeks, I just wasn’t really losing anything at all. So, I want, not to start over, but to simply recall how many carbs. I’m getting a day and restrict what I intake for a little bit longer, so that I can figure out exactly what my level of intake is for losing, while losing it just a wee bit faster.

Happy nomming!!!

I’ve just noticed something…

Something rather big as well.  I’ve noticed a huge impact on the appearance of my skin over the past month.  In the past 4 years or so, I’ve gone from having virtually no skin blemishes and no dark circles under my eyes, as well as zero discoloration in my skin, to having clusters of acne all over my face, super dark circles under my eyes all day long, and blotches of red throughout the skin on my face.

Over the course of the past month or so, the dark circles under my eyes are virtually gone.  Most of the women in my family have them, and I was hoping I never would get them, since I still hadn’t by the time I was a senior in highschool, while my not yet teenage sister already had them.  But I was sadly mistaken a couple of years ago when I noticed that I was starting to get them.  Now, they’re hardly noticeable, which leads me to believe that they are a causality of something lacking in the diet.  If I could figure out what, I’d tell you guys, but I honestly haven’t the foggiest clue.

My acne is almost nonexistent as well, and the discolorations are completely gone.  Proactive… eat your heart out.

I just got done…

playing the 20 minute Beginner class for Zumba on the Wii. Can I just say I’m now exhausted? Oh. My. God. It was crazy, my calves are BURNING!!! I will say, my heart rate was definitely up, I was literally dripping sweat everywhere.
I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, and did it all very poorly, but that’s not really the point here is it? It got me moving, like, seriously, all over. I can still feel it.

I definitely recommend this game for anyone that really wants to up their game stamina wise. Wii Fit was getting boring for me, this will definitely keep me entertained and moving for months to come. For $40.00, it was absolutely a good investment. Yeah, it may not be super sensitive to my movements, but honestly, I’m horrible at the whole dancing thing, so I don’t really need it telling me that I’m doing it wrong, just that I’m doing it.
I may end up switching it out for the Kinect one later on, when we get the new x-box and such, but this is just what the doctor ordered for me!

I’ve been doing some super awesome thinking and…

I think I want to start doing recordings of me cooking my Atkins stuff.  This will include things that I’ve been making off of the site, as well as my own personal staple concoctions.  I know my kitchen isn’t ideal for recorded cooking, but when Eric and I move, I’ll have an open bar to easily show off ingredients, and I’ll be able to record the actions as I do them, and voice over it later.  I wonder if people seeing a real, normal, non-celebrity person doing this cooking, seeing how super easy it is to make healthy food, would sort of nudge anyone deeming themselves “cooking deficient” to start taking some steps out of their comfort zone and take some baby steps to start cooking.

I will warn people, at first the video quality will be that of my hand-held digital camera, but hopefully, if it takes off, I’ll fork out the dough for some better equipment.  This is something I really want to do.  I’m super nervous, because I don’t really consider myself much of a camera personality, but I’m willing to do anything if it’s something that is going to help others.

Question of the day:

What recipes would you like to see me make?  This includes high carb. foods that you’d like to challenge me with for making them low-carb.

Also, how many of you out there would like for me to do this?  Would this little low-carb cooking show be something that you’d want to see?

I will say, that whether or not it gets much feedback, I will probably still do it, because even though it may not be watched, at the very least, the videos are going to be out there, posted and available for those that wish to see them.  And if that helps one person, I think that’s really all that matters, right?

Breakfast

It’s omelet time!!!!