February in Like The WInd

Well, even though I said I wouldn't, I hopped on the scale today.  Down 5lbs from Thursday!   Boo ya!!   I knew a whoosh would come.  I should have a good showing at TOPS this week if I keep it up.

As I suspected, I started my period.  Sigh.  I know that's why I didn't lose much.  So bloated but once I start, I usually get back to normal quickly.

My appetite is pretty much nil.  Ketosis in full swing over here.  Yesterday at lunch time I was feeling kind of dizzy and weird.  I didn't have enough time to make lunch so even though I wasn't hungry, I just ate a pork chop and some raw green beans plus lots of water.  After resting a bit, I felt better.  I don't know if it was low blood sugar or low blood pressure but it was a weird feeling.

I also have to remember to drink enough because I'm bad lately for drinking lots of water.  I worry about getting dehydrated.

I keep sitting on the fence about tracking what I'm eating.  I know I probably should but I don't want to stress about it.  As long as I'm eating enough of the things I need.  I haven't thought ahead to today very much but I guess I should figure out what I'm eating.  I'm making two supper options as hubby has chorale tonight and often doesn't like to have a big meal before hand.  I have a pack of pork chops in the fridge we can either have today or tomorrow.  I just want to bake it and enjoy some yummy crispy fat!

Meal Plan:

Breakfast: Bulletproof coffee, two eggs fried in  butter
Lunch: Haddock, spinach, raw green beans
Supper: Baked pork chops, cauliflower, another veg   OR low carb soup (either cauliflower or pork)

Last Weekend in January

Ack, I forgot to write yesterday.  I was just having one of those days.  I thought of blogging once or twice but in the end, I didn't.

On Friday we went to Barrington as we haven't been anywhere in sooo long.  When we got there, it started snowing.  By the time we left, it was a super slick, blinding blizzard.  It took twice as long as normal to get home and I was terrified the whole time.  The roads were so bad and everything was covered in a foot of white, making it hard to see where the road was.  We were glad when we finally got home!

We ended up going to McDonalds for lunch.  Here's my delicious meal:

Yep, my McDouble with onions, pickles, mustard and cheese and a large coffee, three creams (I got a refill but I drank it black).  Try to ignore the Big Mac and fries across the table.  I had to ignore three of them :( .  Even though it wasn't a lot of food, it was enough.  I felt satisfied and while what everyone else was eating looked good, I wasn't tempted.  I didn't even think about sneaking fries until after when I realized I didn't!  Every little victory is a good one.

I have been contemplating posting about my abstinence on Facebook.  See, my mother in law invites us out most Sundays for supper.  Last week we didn't go because we were tired out but she was making ham that was boiled in pop and fruit juices then glazed with more fruit and juices and sugar.  It sounds delicious but that's too much sugar.   I always feel rude not eating when going to someone's house for a meal but I am determined to stick with this.  

I am at a critical stage where I am early into recovery.  It is not just about weight loss but also about breaking the bonds of food addiction and obsession.  To take away the triggers that lead me to binge while maintaining the delicate balance of still having to eat.

Last night I almost had a break down.  Hubby and I were shopping and it seemed like there was literally nothing I could have.  Walking past isles and isles of junk food, packaged foods, snacks, treats, it was almost overwhelming.  I almost started crying in the ice cream isle.  You may wonder what I was doing there but it also has cereal, frozen fruit and breakfast foods.  It just struck me, I may never eat this again and I felt sad.

What I did was turn away and walk out of that isle as quickly as possible.   It's hard because I need to find things for my family to eat and I especially need snacks for my son who doesn't eat enough and  needs the calories.  I ended up getting him a couple of bags of what we call "Death Popcorn" (jalapeno and cheddar) and some corn nuts that are popped, not fried and non-gmo, and huge.  I think he's tired of peanut butter sandwiches and bananas, but it's so hard to find anything he likes.

I really want to get my family on a paleo diet, especially my daughter.  She is so much like me and can't moderate food well. She always looks like she's going to cry or actually does cry when I say something because she is super sensitive (just like me!) but I am going to have to start putting my foot down more.  I don't want her to go through the problems I have had to face, mainly getting to be as big as I was.

Today I'm hoping will be super low key.  I'm tired  It's dreary out.  I already need a nap and it's only 8am, lol!

Since I didn't post yesterday, I'll write what I ate yesterday and what I plan to eat today:

Saturday Meal Plan:

Breakfast: Black coffee, 1/2 cup egg whites

Lunch: Ham and cheese salad with mayo, leftover soup

Supper: Pork chop sprinkled with garlic and parmesean, roasted garlic and red peppers

Sunday Meal Plan:

Breakfast: bulletproof coffee, 1/2 cup egg whites

Lunch: Cauliflower soup

Supper: If home- Loads of Caprese burger, salad, green beans

              If out-?

Trust The Process

The problem with having a lot of weight to  lose is trusting the process.  It can be hard to be patient, waiting is difficult.

Part of me is fine about how I look, the other is, like, get this weight off me NOW!!  It is frustrating.

Yeah, the scale stayed the same again today.  I know there's a million reasons why, number one is I need to give it time.  My body is doing incredible things inside.  I need to just be patient and not get hung up on the numbers on the scale.  I feel smaller, less bloated, clothes feeling better and that's a good sign!

I need to think of this as a marathon and not a sprint.  I'm in it for the long haul.  I have a broken down metabolism that I need to fix and it won't happen overnight.  I don't want to set myself up for failure in the future by tweaking too hard now.  Clean eating is where it's at.

I'd like to eventually go paleo, but that will be when I am at goal.  I am basically already eating low carb paleo.  Honestly, I'm just trying not to over think things in my daily life and use this blog for all my random thoughts, hahaha!!

Last night the kids had french fries for supper with their hamburgers and I had baked green beans!  I think they would have been amazing if I had allowed them to bake a little longer because the ones that were a little crispy were the best.

I'm sitting here trying to think of what to eat today and it's hard.  I'm tired and while we have many things to eat, I don't know what to have today.  I try to have the biggest meal for when my husband is home and often it is lunch time.  With my son home at lunch, I try to find foods he likes too.

I'm thinking of starting bullet proof coffees again.  I'm not going to go all crazy with the fat, probably just a teaspoon of coconut oil.  We're getting low on butter but I find it's great with just the coconut oil.  It's like a latte even though it is just coffee and fat whirled together.

I also want to start taking turmeric again.  A while back I had what I called my health concoction.  It was turmeric, black pepper (to help the bio-availability of the the turmeric), cinnamon, coconut oil and raw cacao.  It was nice and I know it was helping my health.  I would probably go the golden paste route and have it in cashew or coconut milk.  I'll write more in the future about the amazing things turmeric is good for.

Meal Plan:
Breakfast: 2 eggs, bullet proof coffee
Lunch: fried garlic pork, sauteed spinach, broccoli coleslaw w/mayo
Supper:Left over roast beef au jus, green beans, 1 tbsp cream cheese or some skyr yogurt

Knowing How To Shop

If there is one things you should know about me, it's that I LOVE to shop!  This is good and bad.  I've learned to channel my shopping to getting good deals for things that we need and will use, mainly groceries.

So I was in Superstore today to get one of those burner liners as I was cleaning a big mess on our stove and realized one had disintegrated.  This was the cheapest place to get them, but they didn't have any.

Actually, I had to go back to look for it because I was having soo much fun finding deals.  Here's what I got for under $10:

Okay, deep breaths.  This is a box of lean sirloin burgers, regular $15.99 that I got for the, get this now, 

Super

Low

Price of....

FREE!!

Yatta!  I love stores that have a policy that if the item doesn't ring up on sale, you get it for free.  There is nothing better than free :D .  Now when the rest of the family  has their carby beef burgers, I can have this containing only beef, salt and spices, no fillers.

The yogurt was 50 cents and will be good for my daughter's lunches.  It's usually $3.50 or so when it's not on sale.

The garlic was 49 cents each, usually $6.99.  It is so good and potent.  I absolutely avoid any garlic from China.  I won't go into it here, but if you google it. you'll find out more than you want to know.  

Finally, the turkey slices, 0 carbs and lower sodium.  They are delicious.  They were $5.99 each for 2 for $2.50.  I mean, really?  What a deal!  This will be great for lunches too and just rolling up (like I did this morning with some mayo).

Good deals, sigh, I need a life, lol!

On the weight loss front, well, nothing is happening.  I got on the scale and I was the same weight at I was last Thursday.  I'm sticking to low carbing more rigorously than I have in my life.  I keep telling myself usually after a whoosh comes a stall and it's not a real stall until you can't lose for  longer than just a week (I'd say a month for so, but usually whooshes will come).

I don't want to go all crazy with counting every little thing I eat and tweaking things.  I'm eating clean, keeping my carbs low, 100% avoiding sugar, flour and fillers.  It's the way to go.

I've had exercise on the mind.  I know I need to start but it's hard to get going.  My heels have been killing me the last few days for some strange reason.  A year or so ago I had really bad plantar fascitis and it made everything I had to do on my feet torture.  I know it's not that but I worry about getting it again.  I got it from exercising too much at the time.  I even continued when I was at my worst then left having to crawl around the house.  I literally tortured myself to lose weight and I'm sick of doing that.  

I want to do something I can live with.  I want food I like to eat.  I want movement I can enjoy.  I want to live a life that makes me happy.  I am not in competition with anyone.  Life isn't a race. I need to be the best me so I can be the best for my family.  I want to be a good example to my daughter, who really needs to lose weight too but I don't want her to develop the bad body image I always had.

For the first time in my life, I love how I look.  I think now, at the age of 40, I look better than I ever have in my life.  Yeah, I'm still fat, but confidence makes up for a lot.  A big smile instead of always looking gloomy goes a long way.  A REAL smile, not a fake one, like I spent most of my life wearing.  I don't have a perfect or even a good life in some regards.  But I have a lot of satisfaction knowing I'm a good person and I'm WORTH taking care of.

So even if I don't lose all the weight I want, I can live with myself.  I am feeling better, my clothes are already starting to fit better, it will all come together :D

Today's Menu Plan:

Breakfast: 2 eggs fried in butter, 2 turkey slices with 1 tsp. mayo, black coffee with 1 tsp. coconut oil

Lunch: garlic fried pork, spinach and cauliflower and broccoli

Supper: hamburger patty, baked green beans

snack: skyr yogurt, radishes, 2 turkey slices w/mayo

Food Prices

One of the biggest reasons I was hesitant to go low carb again is due to the high cost of food.  It is unreal how much food prices have soared due to the crappy Canadian dollar, droughts, shipping costs and whatever other reasons there are.

Every time we eat a meal, I am mentally calculating how much it costs.  Every time I shop, I hunt the bargains.  I am not fussy and will eat whatever.

Our Walmart converted into a Supercenter just before Christmas.  Right now, as much as I hate it, I am finding the most bang for my buck there.  

All the other stores will mark produce down but by the time they do, it's in pretty sad shape.  Walmart will mark them down a couple of days before the date, plus they have a rack of produce in bags that cost only $1 each!  Plus in general, they have pretty decent prices.

I don't always luck out with good deals but I always make sure to check.  Here are yesterday's good buys:

1lbs bag of radishes $0.97

Large clamshell container of organic baby spinach $2.98 (half price)

3 large avocados $1.00

2lbs bag of baby carrots $2.00

Large english cucumber $1.47 (to compare, these are $3.49 at other stores)

Pork rinds $1.97 (probably not a good idea since I ate the whole bag, lol!)

I also popped into Sobeys to pick up hubby since it was stormy out.  I found a few bargains there too.

3 200g bags of Roast Beef  $0.99 (regular $5.49)
3 small packs of stewing pork $1.99/lbs (I will season this with garlic and bake for supper)
Greenfields Ham $3.49/2lbs pack (regular $9.99, all natural, humanely raised)

I am feeling good eating this way.  I am thinking I can do this.  I'm not really having any cravings or feeling lousy but I'm pretty early into it.  My scale was wrong (I had to re-calibrate it) but I am still down.  My official weigh in will be at TOPS tomorrow.

Today's Menu Plan:

Breakfast: 2 fried eggs, black coffee and a few radishes

\Lunch: Leafy greens, can of tuna, mayo, sauerkraut

Supper: Baked garlic pork, string beans with butter, cucumber slices
Snacks: a bag of the roast beef deli meat, 2 hard boiled eggs
Midnight binge: 1 hb egg, more meat, less than 0.25 cup peanuts, heaping tablespoon natural peanut butter, lots of regret, lol!

Before I go, two things.  I will update my menu plan to reflect what I actually eat so I can better keep track of things.  And secondly, sorry for the crappy pictures.  I'm using my not so fancy HTC phone.  I figure this blog is mainly for myself and it's easier to transfer pics from it so unless this blog somehow goes big (which I doubt!), please put up with my crappy pics ;)

Meal Planning Monday November 23rd, 2009

It's the start of a new week! Today is DH's birthday. We ended up eating at his parents house. We'll be going to Pizza Delight tomorrow for lunch. I am expecting that there won't be a single thing there I can have but who knows. I know he is dying to try the bread grill bar and chow down at the buffet. The kids will have pepperoni pizza. I'll have a glass of water. Or maybe I'll have a salad, but they are so expensive there I hate to waste my money to only come home and have something else.

So it's Meal Planning Monday. My first one. Honestly, I haven't sat down and planned anything yet so I am winging it here.

Here is how it works. I don't always know when DH is working but we always have our main meal when he will be home. Sometimes it's breakfast, sometimes it's supper. Breakfast is almost always eggs. Small meal will be leftovers or soup or salad or whatever I feel like having. The main meal is the daily planned meal. Here goes:

Monday: Salad at IL's, Eggs and leftover pork when we got home (the meat was all breaded and I hadn't eaten anything all day so I was famished!)
Tuesday: Eating out (come home and have pork soup, I'm making the broth overnight in the crockpot)
Wednesday: Crockpot roast, a couple of veggies (have some brussel sprouts need to get used up)
Thursday: Spaghetti for family, salad and taco bake for me (in freezer)
Friday: Pizza (regular for them, legal for me)
Saturday: Pork tenderloins in crockpot, rice for family, salad and another veggie
Sunday: Breakfast for Supper (bacon, eggs, pancakes, fruit)

I have a treat to post about tomorrow. Since it was DH's birthday today, that may give you a hint, as should chocolate and yummy :)