"To Thine Own Self be True, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."
Inspiration for Thursday of Week 3 Induction Continues: Feeling better is the best reward!
*******************************************
Random Thoughts:
A good day - I stuck with our All-or-Nothing challenge and had a good workout.
PERSONAL HAZARD (S)- How much I feel wracked by loss of energy when I raise my arms (a good way to get the heart going) - makes me want to stop right there!
******************************************
Assignment:
Progress so far:
Doctor Appt (for your numbers): Did it. The follow-up checkup is already scheduled for March.
READ THE BOOK: Did what I needed, still referring to as I "work the system."
ONGOING ASSIGNMENT: Induction continues: Food, Water, Exercise!! Continuing to develop a schedule and alternatives for exercise. Next week, I think I will let eDiets give me menu choices and work with their menus to develop a shopping list - takes some of the guesswork and pressure off for a week - just follow the recommendations to keep me at 25 carbs (yep - gonna come out of Induction "officially" next week and let eDiets figure out where 25 carbs are (versus the 20 or 30 that could easily happen on my own.)
NEW ASSIGNMENT: Schedule my entire day's mix of work, work-out, food, food prep, etc...not that it is immutable, but at least to give myself boundaries so I am TRUE TO MYSELF and PRIORITIZE what needs to get done so I FEEL GOOD about what I am doing and stay motivated to continue.
**************************************
Vitals:
BP - not today
Weight: 186.0
Cholesterol: Numbers from 30 May 08 (Doctor's office):
Total: 250
Trig: 56
HDL: 93
LDL: 146
Vitals that day: Wt: 171 BP: 126/82 Pulse: 72
Exercise:
Stretching 40 min yoga
Cardio 60 min zumba
Strength
Water: 96 oz
Food:
Breakfast: Eggbeater omelet with cinnamon and splenda, 1 sausage pattie, 2 mugs of coffee with 2 S/L and milk
Lunch: ground beef mixture with some mushrooms/onion mixture.
Dinner: Flank steak and salad
Snack: 1 oz of smoked cheese, 2 mugs of coffee with 1 S/L (for both) and milk
Dessert:
________________________________
NOTES:
Wt: Down a pound. Figgers. Good, tho - very good that it's moving ...and in that direction.
BP: Will take again at end of month.
Ketones: Will see later in the week - maybe Friday?
Showing posts with label OP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OP. Show all posts
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Recipe for Low Carb Moussaka (or Mousakas)
I love unusual recipes - part of having moved around globally growing up I'm sure, and Moussaka (or Mousakas) wa the first dish that made me fall in love with eggplant. I've discovered others since, but it's always been my favorite.
It didn't take much to make this dish low-carb, but I also need to watch the vegetables in here because they fall under the 2nd category of vegetables for Atkins: those where we are limited to one cup while we're in Induction (while having 2 cups of the other, more leafy green, vegetables.) The veggies in here are Eggplant, Onion, and Tomatoes (in the form of tomatoe paste).
There's also a little bit of cheese, and we're to keep under 4 oz of cheese per day while in Induction as well. Not a problem in this recipe (only 1/2 cup of parmesan in the whole recipe, but something to keep track of for the day.
The only tweaks I had to do was replace the flour and the sugar. Since sugar was not needed as a "cooking" ingredient, it was a "no effect" replacement with splenda. I went one-for-one as it was only a pinch, too.
For flour, I'd used Atkins Bake Mix in the past and it was a perfect substitute. I can't find it nowadays, so I had bought some Almond flour from an online health food store (netrition.com) and had that on the shelf. Local health food stores most likely carry it as well. It turned out to be an interesting choice.
The flour was used in the cream sauce, which has to thicken with egg yolks. It's initially browned in butter (like the beginning of most sauces - white sauce, alfredos, and even a good roux), but it was really nuts, so I thought of how I "brown" nuts and how quickly they start to turn. Word to self: not to overdo this. Generally we want to cook the wheat flour, but in this case, not to overcook or burn the nut flour. It also starts out darker. So, just a few minutes on the heat.
The cream seemed to be getting a bit lumpy when it was supposed to be thickening. This is not looking good. I use a whisk to stir it, hoping to defeat that. I am dubious about the outcome, but let it cook longer on the stovetop in order to thicken as much as it can before I add it to the layering process. Luckily, it's poured over the top of the eggplant and meat layers and it works out perfectly well. The texture is just a bit nuttier, as is the flavor, but the dish is still fabulous!
More greek and middle eastern recipes good for atkins can be found on the Atkins official website. I may try some of them myself next as I love meditteranean cuisine. If you do, let me know how you like them.
Here's the original recipe - taken from Middle Eastern Cooking by Rose Dosti, no longer in publication, but worth a search for any copy anywhere you can find it - and my notes on altering it for low-carb.
Eggplant Casserole ~ Mousakas (Greece)
Meat Sauce, see below
Cream Sauce, see below
2 large eggplants, unpeeled
Salt
Oil for frying
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (3/4 oz.)
Meat Sauce:
2 T butter or marg (butter for Low-Carb)
1 onion, chopped
1-1/2 lbs ground lean beef (I use higher fat, then blot the oil out with paper towels)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of sugar (Splenda for Low-Carb)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (no stems)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Cream Sauce:
2-1/2 cups milk (whole milk for Low-Carb)
6 T butter or marg (butter for Low-Carb)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (Almond flour for Low Carb, or Atkins Baking Mix)
6 egg yolks
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (3/4 oz.)
Salt and freshly ground WHITE pepper to taste
This is a layered dish that is easy to make once the layers are prepared. Begin by preparing the Meat Sauce and then the Cream Sauce. Set aside. Then prepare the eggplant layers.
Meat Sauce:
Saute onion in butter until translucent, then add ground beef and brown. Add in remainint ingredients, stirring thoroughly and let cook to marry the flavors. Ms. Dosti adds all the ingredients but the tomato paste to the beef while it is browning, then cooks 3 min after adding the tomato paste. I have found that just about anything goes, as long as you brown the beef and stir well after adding the tomato paste.
Cream Sauce:
Heat milk until it begins to bubble around the edges. I've found using the microwave in spurts (cook, stir, check, in short bursts) works well, but Ms. Dosti recommends using a 1 quart saucepan. This is not used again, so I like a cup measure in the microwave to reduce stove top use and the number of dirty pots and pans. Do not burn the milk in any case, nor create a skin over it. If that happens, just remove the skin and go on.
Next, brown the flour in the butter, basically stirring costantly over a low heat. After browning, gradually add the hot milk and stir constantly until thickened. Note that using almond flour, it does not thicken much at this point.
Beat the egg yolks in a separate small bowl and add a small amount of the hot milk mixture to the eggs, stirring so that you raise the temperature and can safely add the yolks to the saucepan without cooking the eggs.
Stir in nutmeg, Parmesan cheese, salt and white pepper. (Black pepper is not a good substitute here; cayenne (red) pepper may be an alternative, but it will change the flavors).
Continue cooking and stirring sauce until it thickens. As said above, this almond flour mixture did not thicken as it does with flour or Atkins Baking Mix, so cook over low, stirring occasionally, as you complete the eggplants.
Eggplants:
Leaving unpeeled, cut eggplants into 1/2-inch medallion slices. Sprinkly lightly with salt Let stand 15 minutes to leach out bitter flavor. Pat dry with paper towels. Repeat on other side.
Cooking the eggplants. These can be either fried or broiled. Eggplants are notorious for soaking up oil, so I did some by frying and broiled the others. Those fried will absorb more oil and be tastier, but I had so many slices to do that I had to fry 3 batches and broil 2 batches. For broiling, brush with oil and broil 3" from Hi-broiler until golden brown (about 3-4 min) then turn and brown the other side. When frying, put about 1/2" of oil in a frying pan and fry 3-4 at a time for 3 min per side. Drain the eggplant on paper towels while finishing the rest.
To layer the casserole:
Start with 1/3 of the eggplant slices, then 1/2 of the meat sauce, repeating til all is gone, and you end with the last 1/3 of the eggplants on top. Pour the cream sauce over, spreading it into the corners and letting it fill in the dish, then sprinkle with 1/4 cup of parmesan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until golden brown on top. Let sit for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.
I'll post nutritional information as I get it, but the Almond flour I used (Bob's Red Mill) has 6 carbs in 1/4 cup, 3 of which are dietary fiber, so net 3 carbs in 1/4 cup. This recipe called for 1/2 cup, so the total for 8 servings is 6 net carbs. The tomato paste (Del Monte's Organic, but it was on sale, regular is the same) is 6 carbs per 2 T, and 1 carb is dietary fiber, so 5 net carbs for the entire recipe (which was only 2 T). Eggplant, onions, and parmesan cheese are the only other ingredients with significant measurable carbs, while there is some in parsley as well.
In addition, we need to eat less than 1 cup of the eggplant and onions per day while on Induction. If you're in OWL (on-going weight loss), you simply need to measure your total carbs. Adding a salad during the day should help you get the other 2 cups of leafy (think romaine) vegetables you need. [Note that spinach is in the 2nd list and is not part of the 2 cups, but part of the 1 cup allowance. ]
Eggplant: 2.5 carbs in 1/2 cup of raw eggplant. How many cups in 2 large eggplants? 4 cups? 6 cups
Onion: 6.9 carbs in 1/2 cup of raw onion. How many in 1 large sweet onion? 1? 1-1/2?
Parsley: 1.9 carbs in 1/2 cup of fresh, 1/2 carb in 1 tsp of dried (I used fresh)?
Parmesan cheese: .2 carbs per 1 oz; approx 8 oz in 1/2 cup?
Black/white peppers: 1.3-1.4 carbs in 1 tsp - approx 1/2 tsp used in each "to taste"?
Casserole:
From the eggplant: 20-30 carbs per casserole
From the onion: 14-21 carbs per casserole
From the parsley: 1.9 carbs per casserole
From the parmesan cheese: 1.6 carbs per casserole
From the almond flour: 6 net carbs per casserole
From the tomato paste: 5 net carbs per casserole
From the peppers (black and white): 1.3-1.4 carbs per casserole
Total per 8 servings in casserole: 50-67 per casserole, or 6.3-8.4 carbs per portion
(or 12.6-16.8 if you eat two portions - in which case, have to very carefully count the other carbs during the day.) Be sure to measure how many cups your eggplant and onions are, as these are less exact.
It didn't take much to make this dish low-carb, but I also need to watch the vegetables in here because they fall under the 2nd category of vegetables for Atkins: those where we are limited to one cup while we're in Induction (while having 2 cups of the other, more leafy green, vegetables.) The veggies in here are Eggplant, Onion, and Tomatoes (in the form of tomatoe paste).
There's also a little bit of cheese, and we're to keep under 4 oz of cheese per day while in Induction as well. Not a problem in this recipe (only 1/2 cup of parmesan in the whole recipe, but something to keep track of for the day.
The only tweaks I had to do was replace the flour and the sugar. Since sugar was not needed as a "cooking" ingredient, it was a "no effect" replacement with splenda. I went one-for-one as it was only a pinch, too.
For flour, I'd used Atkins Bake Mix in the past and it was a perfect substitute. I can't find it nowadays, so I had bought some Almond flour from an online health food store (netrition.com) and had that on the shelf. Local health food stores most likely carry it as well. It turned out to be an interesting choice.
The flour was used in the cream sauce, which has to thicken with egg yolks. It's initially browned in butter (like the beginning of most sauces - white sauce, alfredos, and even a good roux), but it was really nuts, so I thought of how I "brown" nuts and how quickly they start to turn. Word to self: not to overdo this. Generally we want to cook the wheat flour, but in this case, not to overcook or burn the nut flour. It also starts out darker. So, just a few minutes on the heat.
The cream seemed to be getting a bit lumpy when it was supposed to be thickening. This is not looking good. I use a whisk to stir it, hoping to defeat that. I am dubious about the outcome, but let it cook longer on the stovetop in order to thicken as much as it can before I add it to the layering process. Luckily, it's poured over the top of the eggplant and meat layers and it works out perfectly well. The texture is just a bit nuttier, as is the flavor, but the dish is still fabulous!
More greek and middle eastern recipes good for atkins can be found on the Atkins official website. I may try some of them myself next as I love meditteranean cuisine. If you do, let me know how you like them.
Here's the original recipe - taken from Middle Eastern Cooking by Rose Dosti, no longer in publication, but worth a search for any copy anywhere you can find it - and my notes on altering it for low-carb.
Eggplant Casserole ~ Mousakas (Greece)
Meat Sauce, see below
Cream Sauce, see below
2 large eggplants, unpeeled
Salt
Oil for frying
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (3/4 oz.)
Meat Sauce:
2 T butter or marg (butter for Low-Carb)
1 onion, chopped
1-1/2 lbs ground lean beef (I use higher fat, then blot the oil out with paper towels)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of sugar (Splenda for Low-Carb)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (no stems)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Cream Sauce:
2-1/2 cups milk (whole milk for Low-Carb)
6 T butter or marg (butter for Low-Carb)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (Almond flour for Low Carb, or Atkins Baking Mix)
6 egg yolks
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (3/4 oz.)
Salt and freshly ground WHITE pepper to taste
This is a layered dish that is easy to make once the layers are prepared. Begin by preparing the Meat Sauce and then the Cream Sauce. Set aside. Then prepare the eggplant layers.
Meat Sauce:
Saute onion in butter until translucent, then add ground beef and brown. Add in remainint ingredients, stirring thoroughly and let cook to marry the flavors. Ms. Dosti adds all the ingredients but the tomato paste to the beef while it is browning, then cooks 3 min after adding the tomato paste. I have found that just about anything goes, as long as you brown the beef and stir well after adding the tomato paste.
Cream Sauce:
Heat milk until it begins to bubble around the edges. I've found using the microwave in spurts (cook, stir, check, in short bursts) works well, but Ms. Dosti recommends using a 1 quart saucepan. This is not used again, so I like a cup measure in the microwave to reduce stove top use and the number of dirty pots and pans. Do not burn the milk in any case, nor create a skin over it. If that happens, just remove the skin and go on.
Next, brown the flour in the butter, basically stirring costantly over a low heat. After browning, gradually add the hot milk and stir constantly until thickened. Note that using almond flour, it does not thicken much at this point.
Beat the egg yolks in a separate small bowl and add a small amount of the hot milk mixture to the eggs, stirring so that you raise the temperature and can safely add the yolks to the saucepan without cooking the eggs.
Stir in nutmeg, Parmesan cheese, salt and white pepper. (Black pepper is not a good substitute here; cayenne (red) pepper may be an alternative, but it will change the flavors).
Continue cooking and stirring sauce until it thickens. As said above, this almond flour mixture did not thicken as it does with flour or Atkins Baking Mix, so cook over low, stirring occasionally, as you complete the eggplants.
Eggplants:
Leaving unpeeled, cut eggplants into 1/2-inch medallion slices. Sprinkly lightly with salt Let stand 15 minutes to leach out bitter flavor. Pat dry with paper towels. Repeat on other side.
Cooking the eggplants. These can be either fried or broiled. Eggplants are notorious for soaking up oil, so I did some by frying and broiled the others. Those fried will absorb more oil and be tastier, but I had so many slices to do that I had to fry 3 batches and broil 2 batches. For broiling, brush with oil and broil 3" from Hi-broiler until golden brown (about 3-4 min) then turn and brown the other side. When frying, put about 1/2" of oil in a frying pan and fry 3-4 at a time for 3 min per side. Drain the eggplant on paper towels while finishing the rest.
To layer the casserole:
Start with 1/3 of the eggplant slices, then 1/2 of the meat sauce, repeating til all is gone, and you end with the last 1/3 of the eggplants on top. Pour the cream sauce over, spreading it into the corners and letting it fill in the dish, then sprinkle with 1/4 cup of parmesan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until golden brown on top. Let sit for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.
I'll post nutritional information as I get it, but the Almond flour I used (Bob's Red Mill) has 6 carbs in 1/4 cup, 3 of which are dietary fiber, so net 3 carbs in 1/4 cup. This recipe called for 1/2 cup, so the total for 8 servings is 6 net carbs. The tomato paste (Del Monte's Organic, but it was on sale, regular is the same) is 6 carbs per 2 T, and 1 carb is dietary fiber, so 5 net carbs for the entire recipe (which was only 2 T). Eggplant, onions, and parmesan cheese are the only other ingredients with significant measurable carbs, while there is some in parsley as well.
In addition, we need to eat less than 1 cup of the eggplant and onions per day while on Induction. If you're in OWL (on-going weight loss), you simply need to measure your total carbs. Adding a salad during the day should help you get the other 2 cups of leafy (think romaine) vegetables you need. [Note that spinach is in the 2nd list and is not part of the 2 cups, but part of the 1 cup allowance. ]
Eggplant: 2.5 carbs in 1/2 cup of raw eggplant. How many cups in 2 large eggplants? 4 cups? 6 cups
Onion: 6.9 carbs in 1/2 cup of raw onion. How many in 1 large sweet onion? 1? 1-1/2?
Parsley: 1.9 carbs in 1/2 cup of fresh, 1/2 carb in 1 tsp of dried (I used fresh)?
Parmesan cheese: .2 carbs per 1 oz; approx 8 oz in 1/2 cup?
Black/white peppers: 1.3-1.4 carbs in 1 tsp - approx 1/2 tsp used in each "to taste"?
Casserole:
From the eggplant: 20-30 carbs per casserole
From the onion: 14-21 carbs per casserole
From the parsley: 1.9 carbs per casserole
From the parmesan cheese: 1.6 carbs per casserole
From the almond flour: 6 net carbs per casserole
From the tomato paste: 5 net carbs per casserole
From the peppers (black and white): 1.3-1.4 carbs per casserole
Total per 8 servings in casserole: 50-67 per casserole, or 6.3-8.4 carbs per portion
(or 12.6-16.8 if you eat two portions - in which case, have to very carefully count the other carbs during the day.) Be sure to measure how many cups your eggplant and onions are, as these are less exact.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Planning Vacations
Recently someone on E*Diets reported she was on Day 3 of Atkins and doing well, then mentioned her upcoming vacation in August where "everyone (would be) eating pasta and drinking wine" and wondered how she'd deal with that. Here's a reply I wrote to help her, having gone through that myself - in more ways than one - during my own journey to drop 40 pounds; perhaps it can help you plan for your upcoming vacation, too!
"Hi Jazzee*,
You are right to think about the trip and vacation with everyone else eating pasta and drinking wine. Now is the time to develop a plan that works for you and that will deal with that. If you are very strict with the induction and continue til vacation time, including increasing your exercise a little bit each day (and taking a rest day or two per week so you don't feel you are killing yourself), plus drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water, you will have more leeway in what you can do while on vacation.
I would suggest the following:
1. Make a plan to ensure you get enough water per day THAT YOU CAN DRINK and work on a plan that will ensure you DO just that.
For example, if the tap water is not drinkable, can you buy bottled water for each day or the entire week or so that you are gone and label them for each day so you can keep track without having to think about it while on vacation?
If you CAN drink the tap water, do you have a system in place for vacation-time that helps you keep track of how much you drink without having to work too hard at it during vacation? I find - must be the golfer in me :) - that I cannot count past 3-4 and remember. With things that "look the same" in my memory (like the same bottle or glass), this holds true anyway.
So, I buy 32-oz gatorade bottles and either save the gatorade in a pitcher for my son or others, or empty it, so that I have a good wide-mouthed container which fits in MY van's cupholders (not my fiance's SUV unfortunately) easily.
I started needing to drink 3 per day and am down to 2-1/2, tho I am trying to up that to 3 since I am trying to lose weight (10 lbs I regained falling in love and the effects on all three areas with time constraints mostly).
2. Food - do you like chicken or steak Caesar salads? These, and those with meat/cheese primarily and caesar, blue cheese, ranch, and some italian dressings are easily found at italian restaurants (tho I can't speak for Italy itself if you're going there!). Chicken wings, meats, eggplant parmigiana, etc, can work well ESPECIALLY if you can FORGO the pasta itself.
Italian restaurants did me in back in January, starting at New Year's Eve and going to 3 such places within a month. The first one I did pretty good at, but then I gave in to the pasta.
3. Find a way to exercise daily - 10 min of stretching in the morning, racing (for you) up and down flights of stairs for 3-5 minutes at some point during the day (or just walk an extra one til your heart or breath feel it, then maybe one more if you can), and then 15 min of stretching at night.
If you can turn on a song and dance like it's 1999 thru the whole thing (i.e., full gusto of joie de vivre involved, no matter which beat you choose), try that once a day too.
If you can go dancing, do that and choose water to drink instead of alcohol.
4. Try to limit your wine to 6 oz of red wine per day, enjoying it thoroughly while you do. There are heart benefits to this, even tho it's verboten during induction. Only 4 carbs for red wine - more for the others.
5. Game plan alternatives to staying OP (cause we all know you won't, the above are ways to LESSEN the effects):
a. goal is to maintain weight loss (no gain)
b. goal is to say the heck with it, and start over when you return (remember day 3 of Atkins is the hardest, but you will eventually beat the cravings).
Remember, we do this so we can enjoy the things that matter the most to us. Weigh each bite against the enjoyment obtained with the work it will take to get that off again, assuming you want to work it off, too. Some things are worth it; some are not.
Have a great time! When do you leave?"
*Name changed.
Another thing I did not mention in my reply to her - because she had not mentioned it in her own post - was dealing with car trips, where boredom on the road can lead to road munchies and crunchies (my favorite are Carb-heavenly Combos and Gummy Bears). I learned that I needed NEW MUSIC to keep me entertained. With a child in the car, that means (s)he might need headphones so the adult(s) can play their own music without listening to whining, too. Always have back-up water sources in the car, too, in case of highway stalemates that come up in the middle of nowhere and lead to road/block parties for 1-2 hours or more. Plan for potty breaks as well.
"Hi Jazzee*,
You are right to think about the trip and vacation with everyone else eating pasta and drinking wine. Now is the time to develop a plan that works for you and that will deal with that. If you are very strict with the induction and continue til vacation time, including increasing your exercise a little bit each day (and taking a rest day or two per week so you don't feel you are killing yourself), plus drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water, you will have more leeway in what you can do while on vacation.
I would suggest the following:
1. Make a plan to ensure you get enough water per day THAT YOU CAN DRINK and work on a plan that will ensure you DO just that.
For example, if the tap water is not drinkable, can you buy bottled water for each day or the entire week or so that you are gone and label them for each day so you can keep track without having to think about it while on vacation?
If you CAN drink the tap water, do you have a system in place for vacation-time that helps you keep track of how much you drink without having to work too hard at it during vacation? I find - must be the golfer in me :) - that I cannot count past 3-4 and remember. With things that "look the same" in my memory (like the same bottle or glass), this holds true anyway.
So, I buy 32-oz gatorade bottles and either save the gatorade in a pitcher for my son or others, or empty it, so that I have a good wide-mouthed container which fits in MY van's cupholders (not my fiance's SUV unfortunately) easily.
I started needing to drink 3 per day and am down to 2-1/2, tho I am trying to up that to 3 since I am trying to lose weight (10 lbs I regained falling in love and the effects on all three areas with time constraints mostly).
2. Food - do you like chicken or steak Caesar salads? These, and those with meat/cheese primarily and caesar, blue cheese, ranch, and some italian dressings are easily found at italian restaurants (tho I can't speak for Italy itself if you're going there!). Chicken wings, meats, eggplant parmigiana, etc, can work well ESPECIALLY if you can FORGO the pasta itself.
Italian restaurants did me in back in January, starting at New Year's Eve and going to 3 such places within a month. The first one I did pretty good at, but then I gave in to the pasta.
3. Find a way to exercise daily - 10 min of stretching in the morning, racing (for you) up and down flights of stairs for 3-5 minutes at some point during the day (or just walk an extra one til your heart or breath feel it, then maybe one more if you can), and then 15 min of stretching at night.
If you can turn on a song and dance like it's 1999 thru the whole thing (i.e., full gusto of joie de vivre involved, no matter which beat you choose), try that once a day too.
If you can go dancing, do that and choose water to drink instead of alcohol.
4. Try to limit your wine to 6 oz of red wine per day, enjoying it thoroughly while you do. There are heart benefits to this, even tho it's verboten during induction. Only 4 carbs for red wine - more for the others.
5. Game plan alternatives to staying OP (cause we all know you won't, the above are ways to LESSEN the effects):
a. goal is to maintain weight loss (no gain)
b. goal is to say the heck with it, and start over when you return (remember day 3 of Atkins is the hardest, but you will eventually beat the cravings).
Remember, we do this so we can enjoy the things that matter the most to us. Weigh each bite against the enjoyment obtained with the work it will take to get that off again, assuming you want to work it off, too. Some things are worth it; some are not.
Have a great time! When do you leave?"
*Name changed.
Another thing I did not mention in my reply to her - because she had not mentioned it in her own post - was dealing with car trips, where boredom on the road can lead to road munchies and crunchies (my favorite are Carb-heavenly Combos and Gummy Bears). I learned that I needed NEW MUSIC to keep me entertained. With a child in the car, that means (s)he might need headphones so the adult(s) can play their own music without listening to whining, too. Always have back-up water sources in the car, too, in case of highway stalemates that come up in the middle of nowhere and lead to road/block parties for 1-2 hours or more. Plan for potty breaks as well.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Ediets Community DOWN
The community support groups on E*diets have been "down" for a few days now.
What's been going on with you today? Here's the list of 3 things we should all be doing daily:
Is anyone out there needing to vent about this? Drop your comments here now.
What's been going on with you today? Here's the list of 3 things we should all be doing daily:
- Drinking water: 1/2 our body weight in ounces of water (up to 100 oz daily).
- Staying "OP" or "On" program - within our carb level, our calories, sodium, whatever each of us tracks to see how we are doing daily with our energy/food intake.
- Exercising - 20-30 min a day usually. I like to do about 250-300 min/week and put it into about 3 days a week rather than daily.
Been a bit lax on that myself lately. I did get all my water in yesterday.
Stress has not been my friend this week - coming at me from all directions, and I see it in the food choices I am wanting to make. Forcing the water in yesterday helped me. Taking my supplements helps me. I will get back on track; just knowing that gives me strength.
The "demons" that tempt us to eat badly, neglect our exercise and neglect our homes, family, and friends, and ourselves most of all, do come back to visit from time to time. Know that you do not need to let them stay long. Use the 3-day rule (both company and fish goes bad after three days?) and send them packing after you've had your little visit.
Going into work today this Sunday, planning to take off tomorrow to take in an opening day major league ballgame - I hear they are pretty fun.
What are you doing for yourself today?
I'm eating the elephant, one day at a time.
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