Closed until further notice.

I have made the decision to keep all of this to myself.

My freaking knee!!

So about a month or so ago I was bringing groceries up the stairs and I was bringing about 8 or so bags at once, like you do, when something inside my knee popped. I have injured my knee before. In fact I first hurt it about 20 years ago playing volley ball. It usually flairs up about once or twice a year but is fine 98% of the time. I figured this was the same but a couple of weeks into it my knee still hurt. Not only that but it would hurt at weird times like when I was sitting on the sofa watching TV doing nothing at all. It also hurts while I am asleep and wakes me up and I have to try to move my leg all around to get it to stop. I went to my doctor and she said that she thought it would heal in about six weeks but that it was also possible that I had some loose cartilage in my knee. Two weeks later, I have been wearing my knee braces and it still hurts. I can usually walk all day long at work, which is not non stop walking but fairly regular non the less and my knee doesn't bother me at all. Now it does. Even with my brace. I realize that it has only been two weeks since I saw her and that is not six weeks, but Dragon Con is coming up and that requires a great deal of non stop walking and it is starting to worry me. My leg is bugging me a bunch today.

Removing the thinking part.

So I had my doctor visit and reviewed my last set of blood work. My A1C was over 8. That was down from 9+ but not enough. She wants to start me on insulin. :( She told me that if my weight isn't down and my blood work isn't better by my next 3 month visit she will start me on insulin injections. I don't want that, at all. She called in my meds and we went to Walmart to pick them up. While waiting at the pharmacy I was sitting on the bench that was right across from all the diabetic items and saw this:

Now I have actually looked into this type of program in the past and would have done it but could not afford it. I went to the site and saw that there is a coupon you can print out to get $5 off. I am willing to give this a try. I am not sure if there is any kind of variety or if it is the same set of meals every time. I am still willing to give this a try though. You provide your own dairy and fresh veggies. I won't be able to start it for another week or so but promise I will get back and post about it.

So yesterday was blown out of the water diet wise. I could have gotten away with it if I had not ordered that pizza. I learned my lesson though because that pizza tied my guts in knots and had me out of the bed and in the bathroom in the middle of the night. Back to the straight and narrow for me. I should have known, but I am stupid alot.

180 Dammit!!

My sugar was 180 fasting this morning. I did go over my carb limit yesterday by 42 grams. I am not sure if that is enough to blow it up but since I am still working with my new meds I am not sure. I will be talking to the doctor about this next visit. Either way my sugar is still down from my last visit so I am sure it will reflect in a positive way on my A1C. Also this happened in the last week and a half:

MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

It might be mostly water weight, but I am still cool with that. :D

Fasting Blood Sugar

So this morning I FINALLY remembered to do it after I got up and before I started my day. It was 167. As a diabetic it SHOULD be below 130 fasting. I am hoping that it is just being slow to adapt to my new meds because honestly I couldn't be doing anything different. I am watching what I eat and on point with my drugs. That having been said, thank god that I am not over 200 when I get up any more. Before the new drugs I was getting above 300 in the mornings. How scary is that?

Watch me bleed!

Ever since my insurance decided it was going to stop paying for my Janumet, which was working so great btw, it has been a real struggle to keep my sugar under 200. They stopped covering it in November and since that time my new doctor has been trying different combos. The latest has been working, but my sugar is not down as fast as it was on the Janumet, but it IS working. On the plus side the price of my new meds is MUCH cheaper than the other so that is a good thing I guess. My sugar is not where I want it yet but it is getting there. Anyways, watch me bleed.

My sugar is still kra kra

Fasting is 187 this AM. I guess I should be happy is it not above 200 but WTF, I only had 148 grams of carbs total yesterday and my dinner carb amount which was well over 12 hours prior was 34 grams. Making me crazy for realz.

Blood Sugar

I keep forgetting to take my fasting blood sugar in the mornings. I always remember AFTER I have had something to drink etc so for the last few I have been checking it after a meal. Today at about 3.5 hours past breakfast it was 167. That is not so great, but considering how bad it has been for a while I will take it. Hoping for better soon. My meds got adjusted because my insurance company decided it wasn't going to pay for my old meds, which worked great, any more. Yay for them.... My sugar has been all over the place ever since. I am not very happy about that, but am starting to feel a bit better.

I downloaded an app for my phone that is also a pedometer. Since I wear my phone on my belt it works pretty good. I held it in my hand and moved it around to see if it would count me talking on the phone or sending a text as walking and much to my surprise it didn't. This app is called Moves. I have an iphone so I don't know if there is an android version. I like it because you can look at your total steps and it will also show it to you in miles or minutes. Pretty sweet.

Even though my highest weight was 320 I am starting all of my counters off new as if I were just now starting my diet. It has been several years since I was that huge so I am not going to count it as part of my current weight loss anymore. It does make me happy that I am no where near that but honestly I don't think anybody knows or remembers me like that. So yeah, do over.

Also, I have made the switch from Livestrong to My Fitness Pal, follow me here:http://www.myfitnesspal.com/Speedlace

Just so you know, I have been really backslid. I have gained back 26lbs. What is up with that? Do I have any self control at all? So anyways I am back at it. Have been mixing things up and have started having fruit smoothies for breakfast. So good. I am also thinking of making lunch my main meal every day and having a different kind of smoothie for dinner. Trying to cover all the bases nutritionally. Just for fun, here is a video I just made of myself snacking on an entire sheet of nori at once. Enjoy!

Been giving this a thought, I need to change something.

Alton Brown has lost a great deal of weight and has kept it off. This diet is of his design and allows for pretty much everything just in limited amounts. "Eat Daily" List - fruits, whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, carrots, green tea "Eat Three Times Per Week" list - Oily fish (wild salmon, sardines, etc), yogurt, broccoli, sweet potatoes, avocado "Eat Only Once per Week" list - pasta, one alcoholic drink, red meat, dessert "Zero Times per Week" list - fast food, soda, processed meals, canned soups, "diet" anything (no artificial sweeteners) Notes: Alton doesn't drink milk because it makes him want cookies, cake, etc. He has a breakfast smoothie with reminds me a little of the Eades' (of Protein Power) Paleolithic Punch (though Alton adds soy milk to his). A fruit smoothie made with almond milk daily would hit most of that list, but I have to admit that I would have trouble eating leafy greens and carrots every single day. I am also not super in love with avocados, I wonder what could substitute. Everything else seems like it wouldn't be a problem though.

At the doc

Been struggling.

MIA?

So yeah, Dragon*Con came and went. I didn't meat my weight goal at all, but my sugar was good the entire con so I am counting that as a win. I have been kinda backsliding since the con though and I am about to start ramping it back up. A ton of stuff has happened since con that has had me all side tracked, visitors, school started back and worst, my 17 year old cat died. :(

Go Meat!

So I made some vegetarian chili. When I made it I used Yves Veggie Ground Round. I have used this product a great deal in the past when we had a veggie room mate. I haven't eaten it in about a decade though. Anyways, I knew it worked good in chili so I made some. Last night I ate a fairly good sized bowl of it over some brown rice.
About two hours later I started feeling some intestinal distress if you get what I mean and had to dart down the hallway to the potty. It happened again about 20 minutes later and the again about 20 minutes after that so I knew something was up. I tried to figure out what was causing the problem so I looked up the ingredients of the veggie ground round. First ingredient, wheat protein aka gluten.
When I got up this morning my entire body ached. I took some Advil and soldiered on. It took half the day before my intestinal problems cleared up. I learned my lesson. I am not supposed to be a vegetarian. I had completely forgotten that a fair amount of veggie alternatives get there protein for wheat gluten. I am not making that mistake again, next time, all meat!
I also have noticed that the longer I go without any products with gluten the worse the reaction is when I do eat some. Also my blood sugar was high this morning, 157. It hasn't been that high in forever. I am not sure if the two are connected though. I hadn't been a full 8 hours and tested at about 6 hours after I ate because I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep.

Carb and a protien

The Cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.

Add coffee and your meal is complete :)

Tried a new pasta

When I was at Walmart the other day I decided to check and just see if they had any gluten free pasta. They did and I got and tried this last night. It was pretty good. My sugar was 102 this morning despite having eaten a pretty good sized bowl of it. The texture is good. I forgot to see what it was made of though. It looks more like regular pasta color wise. The brown rice pasta I got at Trader Joe's was darker in color. They also had regular spaghetti, I am going to try that next. I didn't like the texture of the spaghetti I got at TJ's. It came out very gummy. But this wasn't gummy at all, and I didn't rinse it when I strained it either. This costs more than at TJ's, their rice pasta is 1.99 a bag and I think it has more in it.

*edit* Upon examining the photo after posting this, I see that it is corn and rice blend. Has a better texture. I am not sure of the fiber content though.

Eat your fruit!!

Today I am having a banana, at least one clementine and probably some fresh cherries that are presently sitting in my fridge calling my name.

244.2 Ugh.

Got on the scale this morning. It said 244.2, when will I EVER get out of the 240s? I am trying very hard to be good. My work schedule is very messed up for the next two weeks because the other guy that does my job is on vacation until the 22nd. I need to be sure and set everything up in advance because I am going to have no time to do things on days I work and it would be too easy to stray.
The blood sugar thing is doing pretty good considering this is the 2nd week I have been without my Glipizide. That is the med the Doctor reduced, but since I have been too broke to pick up the refill I have been forced to do without. My sugar was 132 this AM though. It has not been above 135 any time that I have checked it, even without that med, so that makes me happy. I should be able to get it on Monday though. I haven't had a low blood sugar moment since I went off of it either so that makes me VERY happy, I was hating those and they were almost daily.
The one bright spot about all this vacation coverage is I have 3 days off next week during the slow days because they need me much worse on the busy days which are the weekend. I feel like grilling out. We haven't grilled out all month because of the afternoon/evening rain storms but dang it, I wants me some char!

Ouch!

So I ate wheat last night and boy can I ever tell it. I couldn't resist those wonderful garlic rolls all drowned out in garlic butter. It was a birthday. Five hours later I could feel it in my knees when I got up off the sofa. Today I ache all over my body, even my elbow joints hurt. I won't be doing that again. Blood sugar was 92 this morning though. I even ate chocolate last night too. The weight is STILL stuck firmly in the mid 240's. I want to be in the 230's by Dragon Con dang it! I got another birthday gig tonight but after that I am going to be super strict with myself. I want to make my DC goal!

Finally got the call from the doctor's office!

She told me to reduce my Glipizide XL to one dosage of 10mg in the morning, down from two a day. I am flat broke right now and actually ran out of that med and can't afford to pick them up yet so I am really down to my Janumet twice a day. I had nachos for dinner with corn chips and some sugar free jello for dessert. Later on I ate some hard candies, about 6 or 7 of them I think. This morning my blood sugar was 128. Holy crap, I think I could do with out that med altogether! I will call the doctor's office on Monday and let them know how it is going, but so far so good!

Frustrated!

My blood sugar has been wonderful. When I left the Doctor's office last Monday she said that she would probably be changing my medication depending on my blood work. The level of meds I'm on right now is what was prescribed back when my A1C was like 12 or 13. It is 5.6 now and every other day I have a low blood sugar moment because of it and it is starting to make me crazy. I didn't see my regular doc because she is moving practices and they have subs in right now. They have a different one every day. I have made about 20 calls at least since my blood work came back in an attempt to get my meds adjusted. 90% of my calls end up routing me to the radiology voice mail. When I finally do get to talk to somebody, I keep getting they will talk to the doctor who is in and call me back or they left a note for the doctor and when as soon as they get to it I will get a call back. Everyday, nobody calls back. In the mean time, I eat dinner, 2 hours later my blood sugar is at 71 when it should be somewhere around 160 2 hours after a meal. Almost every day I have to eat more carbs and snack here and there just to keep from flacking out. I am to the point where I am actually afraid to try to do any exercise. In the last week I have had low blood sugar moments 4 times, 2 while I was sitting at the computer and 2 while I was watching tv. I am not doing anything to cause my sugar to drop. I am positive it is because of the dosage of meds I am on.
I have been stuck at the same weight for almost a month and I want/need to exercise if I am going to break out of this plateau. No exercise and extra calories to fix my sugars is NOT helping me on my journey.
I am SO FRUSTRATED right now!!

Got my blood work back!!

DOING THE HAPPY DANCE!!!
A1C - 5.6 (normal range)
Total Cholesterol - 129
HDL - 34
LDL - 59
Triglycerides - 179
Liver Enzymes - 20 and 24 (optimal range)

Snacking for diabetics 101

That is a nectarine and light string cheese, an orange and an egg and then an apple and more string cheese. I go for a carb and a protein about every three hours or so. These are the ones I brought to work today. You can pic more exotic fruits and cheeses, but these are quick and easy to toss into my lunch kit. If I was at home I would make it something fancier for sure as to make the foodie in me happy. Maybe some smoked Gouda and red grapes or some herbed goat cheese on crisp apple slices instead of crackers for example.

Blood work yesterday

Had my Doctors visit yesterday. It is time for my blood work. Won't know the results for a couple of days I guess. Everything should show some improvement. *fingers crossed*

I need this and I mean right NOW!

and it needs to come with these......

and it needs to last a week and I am not even joking one little bit.

Wow.

Cheat Day Yesterday

We took a cheat day yesterday. Since I have been cutting out the gluten I wanted someplace where I could have pasta but not wheat so we went and got Thai food. It was so great. What we do is only get one entree and split it so that you only get half the bad stuff. We also got coconut soup which I adore and my sugar has been so good here of late I splurged and got a Thai Tea, something I haven't had in so so long. Back to the grind stone again today. Just checked my sugar about an hour ago, it was 89. Yay. Now if I could just manage to skid of this mini plateau! We got one order of Pad Thai and split it, one large soup and split that and one order of spring rolls and split those too, I just used the spicy sauce and not the sweet sauce they gave me.

113 today

My blood sugar was 113 this morning. I am not sure how much I weigh as I am holding off until Friday for that. I don't feel like I have lost any weight though, but here is hoping for a pleasant surprise. :)

1/2 Cup of brown rice and an egg

Since I am not eating bread and am eating brown rice much more instead there are only so many things you can do. Just eating a half cup of rice and an egg seems like it could get boring real quick, but honestly I am always coming up with new ideas to keep it fun and interesting and yummy. I have already posted my egg sushi, still eat that several times a week and still love it. The last two days I came up with another 2 breakfasts but really these could also be dinner.

First is Omurice. This is basically a rice omelet that is very popular in Japan. They can be as simple as just eggs, rice and ketchup. I used some of the fixings I have for okonomiyaki already in the house. I seasoned the rice with a small amount of okonomiyaki sauce and a rice seasoning packet that has seaweed bits and salmon bits and sesame seeds,I put some chopped chives from my patio garden in the egg. I cooked it in the largest skillet we have so the egg would be as thin as possible then put the rice on the right hand side of the pan and rolled the egg up towards it in about 3 moves until the rice was covered and then topped it with the same stuff I put on the top of okonomiyai.

343 cal, 30 Carb, 15gm fat

The second egg dish is Huevos Rancheros. I made this with canned re-fried black beans that I spruced up with onions, garlic, ground cumin and chili powder, brown rice that I put some chopped chives and cilantro from my garden in along with a small amount of olive oil and salt and pepper. I put them on the plate side by side and spooned out two tablespoons of chipotle salsa on top of where they met and sat an over easy egg on top and then sprinkled the entire thing with goat cheese crumbles. The earthy flavors of the chipotle peppers and goat cheese really brought this dish together.

367 cal, 43gm carb, 12gm fat

Both of these were very filling but could easily have been made more by adding a salad on the side with dressing that comes in the spray bottle which would only add about 30 more calories to the meal.

Get Out!

Here is a tip: don't bring junk into your house or you will eat the crap out of it. I know this because I had decided that we could buy some semi bad snacks, such as Baked Lays or Cheetos and then just eat them sparingly. Yeah right. That was fail. If it is in the house I am too stupid not to default to it and ignore the good stuff. Old habits are hard to break. So yesterday we stocked up on fresh fruit and veggies, take that chips and crackers!!

In other news, that orange I just finished was freaking awesome! I have noticed that while I have always liked fruit, for some reason these days I am digging the hell out of it. I think my taste for it has changed or something. Before I liked watermelon but now I LOVE the stuff. Craziness.

In other other news, I made a hummus wrap with a sheet of nori instead of a tortilla, it was pretty damn good!

Going Gluten Free

Yesterday was my first day of on purpose gluten free. I went to Trader Joes and grabbed a few things. They have some cereal and some different kinds of pasta I want to try. I also had the most wonderful chocolate bar ever. It was 70% cacao with caramel and black sea salt from Hawaii. TO DIE FOR!! Can't have that kind of thing often, and I shared it with Geena but when I have something like that, I want to go all out. And it was divine :D

My sugar was 138 this morning,not because of that candy bar though. I ate two other carb snacks and no protein with it just before bed. That always happens when I do that, but still 138 is not really high for somebody with type 2 diabetes. I was 244.8 on the scale today. Not gonna weigh again until about Monday or so. I want to be back under 240 by the end of next week. That is my goal. My next goal after that is to be below 230 by Dragon*Con. The next goal after that is to be below 200 by Xmas.

Egg Sushi for breakfast at work

Instead of rolling it and eating it I always just throw all the ingredients in my lunch kit and roll it at work. I keep a bottle of soy sauce on my desk for just such an emergency!
Pic 1 is the nori (seaweed) sheet with brown rice, a boiled egg, soy sauce and some furikake (rice seasoning that has sesame seeds and other things to flavor rice) laid out and waiting to be rolled up!

Next the sides are folded in and it is ready to roll up

.

NOM!

Aqua Woman!

<------Ok, so apparently this is me. I couldn't help it, I ended up going to pee so many times yesterday at work that I couldn't help but get on the scale when I got home just to see. It said 245. So yeah, I peed out 3 pounds of water yesterday. I figured that was what the problem was. So what the heck? Does wheat make me retain water? Is that even possible? Is that even a thing that can happen if you are gluten intolerant? Whatever the case, it makes me feel better and helps me to understand just how much I can't eat the bread products anymore. My sugar was 111 today so that was rocking.


* Later Edit * - Ok I just read 3 different articles online at Livestrong.com about wheat gluten intolerance and how it causes inflammation, joint pain and fluid retention. I also read an article that talked about gluten and diabetics that said it is very common for people with diabetes to be gluten intolerant, which makes sense because when you are gluten intolerant your body doesn't process the proteins in gluten and that is what is causing the problems with gluten in the first place. Everything makes a bit more sense now. I will be avoiding it like the plague now.

Oops, indeed.

So yeah, I got on the scale today. 248.2, my sugar was 141 this morning, which actually surprised me considering how bad I have eaten in the last 2 weeks. Things have calmed down somewhat as far as stress goes, but the situation that caused that is still underlying so I don't know what I will do but my eating got way out of control and even though I tried to have it not happen it was almost like it was doing it on it's own, which I know that it wasn't, I was just allowing all that to happen. I really dropped the ball. I didn't do any of the weekly prep work that I usually do and that makes it very easy to default to the bad. I did all my prep work last night so most of the week is set up already.
I am really hoping that most of that weight gain is liquid. I do feel more swollen and inflamed. When I get up off the sofa or out of my desk chair, the first few steps make my legs ache. My legs ache when I go to bed. That wasn't happening even just 3 weeks ago. I also have been eating wheat products and I am now firmly convinced that I have a wheat issue. Even with whole wheat. I have decided to just cut it out of my diet as much as I possibly can. I might try some gluten free products to see if there is a difference, but not for a while.
I have also decided not to weigh myself again until Friday in an effort to see how much drops off between now and then. If I lose like 5 pounds then I will know that I have gained water weight and not actual fat weight. Even though I have not been sticking by the diet 100% I haven't been going crazy so I am positive that I haven't eaten 10,500 extra calories in the last two weeks and that is the extra calories I would have needed to eat to gain that much weight back.
Anyways, nose, meet grindstone.

Sigh

I have had a very stressful past couple of weeks. My partner has been out of work and that and a couple of other things have just sent me on a spiral. I have been eating my Xanax like candy and I usually don't take them even once a week. My eating patterns have been all over the place and I am very afraid to get on the scale. In fact I have avoided it for about the past 4 or 5 days. That is never a good sign. I am trying to grab hold of the wheel and yank this car back on the road. I'm nervous.

Legs and back are stiff and sore....

We have a couple of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) machines at work. They are pretty great for exercise. I remember reading a few stories online a couple of years ago about people who had used the game as part of their exercise routine to lose weight.

I really like it because it is a game you kinda forget you are exercising even though it makes your heart go pitter pat. Yesterday afternoon I played for about 20 minutes, which is about 9 songs and today my body is yelling at me. Must have done some good. :D

Back Fat

One of my biggest hates is how the fat grows and hangs on my back. It has always done this. I remember in the Army a Sgt asked me did I lift weights because my lats made me look like a football player. Those were not lats,that was my back fat, even then.
The pic on the left was taken a couple of years ago. The pick on the right is was taken this AM. Still fat, but much smaller. Happy.

This is the difference that 45 lbs makes

This pic on the right was taken over the weekend when we had friends over for a BBQ. I didn't even know this was taken. I can see that I have lost. Same basic body shape, just taking up less air space. 45 more and I will look like a stick, no?
The shorts I was wearing in the pic on the left are 2 sizes larger than the ones on the right and I need a belt now to keep them on.

Also, I am in desperate need of a hair cut.

This just in....

All my bras are too small now. Even the small ones. I don't really have the money to buy new ones, esp. if I am only going to use them long enough shrink out of them too. So until further notice, I'm sagging. That is all.

Junk food Vs Real food

The argument has been made that it is cheaper to buy junk food than to go to the store and buy real food. The graphic below is meant to illustrate that it isn't really cheaper to buy fast food than to buy and prepare real food. Even if you bought the entire meal for 4 off the dollar menu, it still wouldn't be cheaper than buying and preparing the real food. It would only be lazier. So I think the real case people are trying to make is that they are too lazy to buy and cook real food.
Click for a larger image

Low Glycemic is the way to go.

Here is a good list of low glycemic foods. I find that I eat most of these and they are mostly just regular every day foods.
Low Glycemic Shopping List

108 yesterday

I was out of strips this morning, I got some this afternoon so I will know my sugar in the morning. It was 108 yesterday morning. My weight was 242.3 today. It has not been back under 239 since the morning of the cheat meal at Eclipse Di Luna. Even though I saved up all my calories and didn't go that far over my weight went up and that was 4 days ago and it has barely come back down. I have learned my lesson about saving calories and spending them all on one meal. I have been good with the diet all week and have been spreading meals and snacks out and have lost back a couple of pounds, but I will NEVER eat all my calories for the day at one sitting again. I have a barbeque tomorrow. I have planned ahead on what to eat and won't be going outside my plan and will be spreading my food out to the regular 100 calories or so every 2 hours. This gaining weight back is BS.
I have also figured out that I am gonna hit a mini plateau about every 5 pounds. Every time I break past one I think I have made progress and then in just a few pounds I flattens out again. My plan is to just except this and keep on trucking.

138 this AM

I ran out of 3 of my meds for my diabetes so I only had one pill of one med yesterday and that is all I took for the whole day. When I got up today my sugar was at 138, I impress myself. That ain't bad for being basically med free :)
The scale is still being mean to me today though. It said 243. I know that I haven't eaten enough calories to gain that in the last three days, so I know it is not real. Also I haven't had a real potty break if you get my meaning, in about two days so I am going to wait on that and see.
I have decided that my new goal for August 1st will be to be under 235lbs.

Garden Update

Things in the garden are coming along nicely albeit slow. Too slow to make me happy, I want some tomatoes! We did harvest a lone yellow squash and cooked it up the other night and it was delicious! It's been pretty hot and I have been trying to keep them watered daily because being in pots they lose their moister very quickly. I haven't really been noticing any animal molestation. I had a backyard garden once before and all my baby vegetables would disappear overnight and I didn't get much from it. That yard was seriously sunlight challenged so I gave up after that first attempt and this is the first attempt at having a patio garden in about a decade. The back patio gets ok sunlight, I wish it got more, there are many trees that line the back yard so it gets kind of shadowy back there during the day. the front yard gets direct sunlight all afternoon and the sun sets on that side of the house but there is not really any place to plant things or even to set pots. The front yard is on a pretty steep incline. So far there are several tomatoes on the vine, the Early Girl is the only one with fruit at the moment, but all the plants have flowers so it is just a waiting game. There also 3 baby squash sprouted.
Here's some pics:


Herbs


Chives


Parsley


Basil


Tomatoes and Peppers


Tomatoes and Squash


Tomatoes and Lettuce


Baby Peppers!

Alice's Restaurant

My very good friend Alice is in town on business and last night we took her to a tapas place here in Atlanta. This is one of my favorite places to go eat. On Monday they have all you can eat for $18. The food there is wonderful. I saved all my calories for the day up for this meal. We stretched it out over 2.5 hours. I tried to control my carbs. I didn't go crazy. I'm listing the foods I ate below, some of these were shared and they are all small dishes, portions are the sizes you see on fancy cooking shows on TV. My blood sugar was 111 when I got up this morning, my weight also went a couple of pounds but I'm sure that is fake from the sodium or something. At any rate, I am being VERY good today to make up for it. :D
Here are some photos I took.

This is the food I ate. As I said I tried to watch the carbs. I felt like I ate more than this and was surprised when I totaled it up that I didn't eat more.

Ensalada de Berros- Avocado, Oranges, Almonds and Watercress w/ an Orange Vinaigrette

Pan Catalan - Toasted ciabatta bread topped with tomato, garlic & thyme puree.

Ensalada de Manzana - Arugula, radicchio, granny smith apples, candied walnuts, shaved manchego cheese.

Mejillones con Salsa Verde - P.E.I. Mussels in a spicy salsa verde

Costillas Espanolas - Spanish-style ribs in aged balsamic vinaigrette.

Hongos Fritos - Beer-Battered Button Mushrooms w/ Truffle Ailoi

Pollo a la Parrilla - Grilled Chicken w/ Tomato, Zucchini, & Squash Sofrito, Chickpea & Potato Puree

Meat and Cheese plate with sarrano ham, assorted cheese and marinated olives.

Shrimp and cous cous salad with spicy salsa and citrus.

I was very bad yesterday, but still.....

We went and saw two movies yesterday, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Brave. I'm not going to do a movie review though, what I am posting about was how I went 600+ calories over my diet yesterday. I ended up eating most of a large popcorn and 2 different candies, Whoppers and Milk Duds. Honest to god, real sugar filled candy. It was spread out over the course of both these movies and even though I made allowance for cheats in the food for the day, I ended up going way over. I plan to have cheats like that from time to time so I am not beating myself up for it. One thing I didn't do was get on the scale today, I'm not crazy. If it was up it would make me beat myself up and I don't want to do that. I did check my sugar this am to see how awful that would be and it was 89 :)
Today the nose is firmly placed back onto the grindstone. But still, it makes me happy that I can eat real candy again, just not very often. It is a good trade for me. I am happy to only eat it once in a while as long as it can be something real. I will be cutting down to a smaller popcorn though. I found out that if you get a huge one to share, what do you know, you eat a huge one, esp. when it comes with free refills *face palm*

Undecided

I got my financial aid award letter this past week, my hours were cut so much at work last year and my salary went down as a result that my grant went up. In fact it almost doubled. I will be sending my signed award back to the school this week and classes start up in August for the school year. I can't decide what classes I want to take this time but most of all I can't decide on my minor. One is required for my degree (Social Science) I was thinking about Psychology or Criminal Justice but my last psych class made me want to get a double major and add Psychology as my 2nd major, so maybe I will minor in CJ.

Doing the Happy Dance: 239.6!!

239.6 Bitches!!! A week early at that! Go me. :)

Bob Harper's Skinny Rules

Bob Harper, one of the trainers from The Biggest Loser just put out a new book called The Skinny Rules. I haven't read the book but I have seen him on several talk shows recently out pitching his book. On the shows he has given out some of his rules, here are the first nine.
1. Drink a full glass of water when you wake up and before every meal. It keeps you hydrated and helps you feel full faster.
2. Eat protein with every meal. (I agree with this, he said that he keeps boiled eggs in his fridge at all times, I had already been doing this. Helps me feel validated in some way. If you always pair a carb and a protein it will help keep your sugars level.)
3. Eat berries and an apple every day. (I have been trying to eat fresh fruit at least twice a day so I think I have this covered. Berries can be pricey but he says that frozen are also fine.)
4. Plan one splurge meal per week. (That one is easy. This has generally been our grilling night so even though it is splurge we try and keep it healthy.)
5. Go to bed hungry. (This one is very hard. I have been doing this already, but do drink a couple of cups of decaf coffee or hot tea, esp. chai, it helps with the hunger.)
6. Don't be fooled by labels. Keep an eye on calories, sodium, fiber and carbs, but the most important thing is to keep the servings size correct. A box of pasta really does have 8 servings per box. Portion distortion is what causes the most problems.
7. No carbs after lunch, (Ouch! I don't do this one, but if I get stuck, I might add it.)
8. Don't set yourself up to fail. Put things you can eat like the berries apples, some proportioned cups of yogurt at eye level in your fridge. Cook turkey meatballs or check ahead of time and have them in the fridge ready to go. (I have been doing this but instead of meatballs I have been making the onigiri. They are a full meal ready to go.)
9. Eat a real breakfast. (I couldn't function if I skipped breakfast so this is no problem for me at all. Besides if you go to bed hungry you WILL wake up hungry so it isn't a problem)

Grilling on Saturday? What you say?!?

I have had some boneless pork ribs in the freezer for quite some time and since we will not be grilling on Monday because we have different plans for Monday night this coming week and we are both off this Saturday I thought it would be great to gill on the weekend for once. The plan is to also grill some peaches when we do the pork. Since I have not been eating any potatoes or bread here of late I have been getting carbs from fruit and I have discovered that I love to grill it with the meat. I would take grilled pineapple over a potato any day when we are grilling. :)

240.8 and 108

So yeah, got on the scale this morning and it said 240.8. Yes that is just barely under 241 but hot damn it sure did surprise me! Blood sugar was 108. Doing the happy dance today!!