Food Diary - June 6

7:15a
- BS 122
8:15a
- Hamburger quiche
- 16 oz. water
11:15a
- handful walnuts
12:15a
- 16 oz. water
1:30p
- chicken parmesan (without the spaghetti this time)
- small side salad
2:30p
- 16 oz water
7p
- grilled chicken breast (marinated in italian dressing and allegro marinade)
- broccoli
10p
- 16 oz water

MUCH better day that the previous week. Still not getting enough water. If I have to I think I'll set a bunch of outlook reminders to pop up every 2 hours to remind me to drink water!

Food Diary - June 5

Didn't get am blood sugar
7:30a
- 16 oz water
10a
- hamburger quiche (crustless)
- diet coke
12:30p
- 16 oz water
2:30p
- Cici's Pizza!!!!
- large caesar salad
- 3 slices pizza ( very small)
- 2 slices cheese bread
- 2 glasses iced tea (unsweetened)
8p
- chicken parmesan with spaghetti
16 oz water

I think this day speaks for itself! Not a good diet day at all. And AMAZING that my am bloodsugar the next morning was only 122! when eating out at CiCi's at least I did start with a large salad and only had very thin slices of pizza. BUT then they brought out a fresh pan of cheese bread and I couldn't resist eating a couple bars. I'm only human! Then when supper time came I ended up putting my chicken parmesan over spaghetti instead of by itself with a side salad like I had planned. Didn't even fix the salad.

So it was a bad day. I'm not fretting over it. Just started over again the next day.

Food Diary - June 4

6:30a
- BS 123
7:30a
- Atkins shake
8:30a
- 16 oz water
9a
-walnuts
11:15a
- Atkins shake
- 16 oz water
4p
- Atkins granola bar
7p
- Hamburger pattie with cheese
- 16 oz. water

Again:
Not enough real food
Not enough water
Inconsistent meal times

Food Diary - June 3

7:45a
- BS 116
- 16 oz. water
9a
- Atkins shake
12
- Atkins Advantage bar
4p
- peanuts
5p
- Hamburger w/cheese and tomato wrapped in a lettuce leaf
- 16 oz. water
7p
- 16 oz water
10p
- Atkins bar
12:30a
- 16 oz water

What can I say but:
Inconsistent meals
Not enough "real" food
Not enough water

Food Diary - June 2

7:15a
- BS 125 (not tooo bad after rice/gravy the night before!)

8:45a
- 16 oz. water

9:30a
- BS 117
- 3 eggs scrambled with a bit of cream in bacon drippings
- 3 slices bacon
- 1 slice toast made from low glycemic index bread from HEB. This bread really does live up to it's promise to not raise blood sugars as I get basically the same BS readings when eating the same breakfast with the toast and without.
- 8 oz milk

12:30a
- 16 oz. water

1p
- BS 101
- Smoked pork shoulder (plain with no bbq sauce)
- green beans
- 2 slices tomato
- diet coke

4p
- grilled chicken wrap at Sonic (ditched most of the tortilla keeping just enough to hold it together so it could be eaten with no fork in sight)
- 20 oz water

6p
- peanuts

9:45p
- small apple

1a
- mushroom soup

Downfalls:
- Inconsistent meal times. I'm supposed to eat within an hour of waking. Obviously I have a problem with this.
- poor food choices due mostly to the inconsistent meals and letting myself get way too hungry before eating.
- came home from town and neither of us was very hungy at suppertime nor felt like cooking. So we didn't! I fell asleep about 7, woke up hungry at 930, ate the apple, stayed up for a few more hours and was absolutly STARVING by midnight. Finally caved and heated the soup about 1.
- not nearly enough water!!!!!

Need to work on:
- drink more water!
- try to get regular meals/snacks no more than 4 to 5 hours apart.
- ditch the bread and milk with breakfast, the tortilla from the wrap, and the mushroom soup. NONE of these items are acceptable on Atkins Induction. No they did not cause a significant raise in blood sugar but if I'm going to do this I need to go all the way and not change the plan to suit my whim. It works. I know this as I've done it before. And when I cheat I'm only cheating myself.

Good points:
- BS of only 116 this am even after the after midnight mushroom soup! The best am bloodsugar I've had in a VERY long time.
- Making the best choice possible from the Sonic menu (except maybe a salad and that's hard to eat in the car!) and ditching the part of the meal (the tortilla) that I wasn't supposed to have.

On to Day 3 as the adventure continues.

Food Diary - June 1

7:30a
- BS (blood sugar) 133 - could be a lot better but supper the night before was restraunt food with few choices of side dishes. NO green veggies in sight except the green salad that goes with every meal. Iceberg lettuce at that. But they do have The best homemade ranch dressing I've ever eaten. Anyway so I had fried okra as my side. I figured it to be a better choice than french fries, baked potato, or onion rings. And I caved and ate 1/2 my slice of toast cause I forgot to tell them to not put any on my plate.
- 16 oz water
- Breakfast bar (Atkins Granola) - I was late getting up so had to eat at work. This was the best I could do.

10:30a
- BS 107
- small apple
- handful of walnuts

12:30a
- BS 95
- 16 oz water

2p - fast food on the run :-(
- 8 chicken nuggets (breast meat chunks instead of pressed pieces parts but coated and fried none the less)
- slaw
- few waffle fries - in my defense I didn't know I was ordering a combo and once they were in my car I was gonna eat a few. At least I tossed them with the bag still over half full.
- med. diet coke. Something I almost never do as I don't usually drink pops that have nutrisweet in them. I prefer to buy the ones sweetened with Splenda.

4p
- 24 oz. water

7p
- pork steaks - lightly coated with whole-wheat flour, browned on both sides then baked until done and crispy. These are soooooooo good but will only show up on my menu occasionally as they're not the best food choice I could make right now. But I had these and David requested them to be cooked this way so I caved.
- sauteed mushrooms/onions
- rice/gravy - but only 1/2 cup. MUCH better than the 1/2 a plate I would have eaten before as I LOVE rice and cream gravy.
- diet coke (w/spenda)

9p
- 16 oz water

In looking back over my meals I see where I had several bad spots.
First I overslept and couldn't get a good breakfast at home. In fact I didn't even have time to stop and get anything so had to depend on a bar for breakfast.

The apple and walnuts was a okay snack. Not Atkins induction but it's what I had on hand (except another granola bar and I don't like them well enough to have 2 that close together!) And not enough to carry me into missing lunch which led to the poor lunch choice. I should have taken lunch even though I was leaving at noon because I knew my only choices would be restraunt food (which I didn't have time for) or fast food. And fast food at a late hour which means I was VERY hungry and thus didn't make very good choices. But sleeping late didn't leave me time to prepare anything.

Too many carbs with supper after the bad lunch I had. But supper had already been planned and I caved and ate some of the rice/gravy I made for David.

Not enough water. I need to up my water consumption. When I did this before I drank LOTS of water. Close to a gallon a day. Now I find it hard to get in 1/3 to 1/2 that.

What can I do to improve?
Drink more water. At least 12 eight oz glasses. (or 6 sixteen oz bottles)

Get up in time to fix breakfast.

Fix lunch the night before so even if I am running late I can just grab it from the fridge.

Try to avoid meals out. Not always possible but make the best choice from those available and try to go super low carb on the other meals that day.

When fixing potatoes, rice or other carby veggies for David ONLY fix just enough for him to eat one meal. Then I'm not tempted to get a bit for myself.

So day one could have been better. And a blood sugar reading this AM of 125 shows it. But today is a new day so lets see how my willpower holds up today with a trip to town planned which probably means lunch eaten out.

Day one of the new and improved Nancy!

I know when I started this blog it was intended to be about cooking and gardening. Well there ain't no gardening going on and my cooking will be focused on lowcarb so I guess this is about to become a diet blog. Sorry in advance to anyone who finds their way here expecting to read about gardening and "real" food. :-)

So this is it. Day one of the new and improved Nancy. I HAVE to get my weight under control and hopefully that will also help with my diabetes, high cholesterol, acid reflux, back and joint problems. That's a lot of hopes to pin on a few (hundred!) lost pounds but I know in my heart that if I get the weight down the other problems will lessen significantly or go away entirely. And I'll be much more likely to live to be that cantankerous old woman I've been practising up to be. :-)

I'm not sure exactly what direction this blog will take. For now I'll be using it as a diet journal. I'll be posting my meals - with recipes if I think it's an exceptionally good one - and anything else that flips into my head. I'm sure there will be an occasional rant and hopefully lot of patting myself on my back as I drop pounds like crazy. (Okay so I can dream can't I?)

My plan is to only weigh once a month on the first. I find if I obsess over the number on the scale I get discouraged too easily. Especially since I have a problem with fluid retention in my feet and legs and I know many days the ups and downs have more to do with water gain/loss than fat gain/loss. That said - todays starting weight is 328 lbs. Actually almost 2 pounds down from when I weighed Tuesday morning which was a "slim ankle" morning as opposed to this mornings' "fat ankles". I don't have my camera to get a before picture but the one I posted here is within a few lbs of where I am now and will do.

Let the journey begin!

I had to make a change in meal plans today because of the rain. We were SUPPOSED to be having smoked pork ribs. Instead I decided to cook my ham today instead of tomorrow. But I didn't want to have the same sides today and tomorrow so I just made a few deviled eggs and opened a can of green beans and a can of sliced new potatoes. Make a simple cream sauce with a handful of cheese stirred in for the potatoes and we had a quite good meal for having to change our plans. Tomorrow we'll have ham again with a different selection of sides since it's supposed to rain again. Guess the ribs will just have to stay in the freezer until next week.

BTW, Fitzy asked about my dishes. They came from Wal-Mart a few years ago. Service for 4 for about $20. I loved them so I bought 2 sets. David HATES them. LOL! But I lived for years with his plain white with a blue rim. About 4 different sets all about the same. So he can live with my bright cheerful ones for a few years. :-)

On a gardening note. There won't be one this year. :-(You see the spot where that pile of wood is? THAT'S where the new garden was supposed to go. And it still looks like that so not likely to happen this year. Especially since it's rained every freakin weekend all winter/spring!And this is the old garden. It hasn't been planted in 2 years and the last time was just as my back was starting to give me problems so it was allowed to go to pot and hasn't been cleaned up since. So nothing going to get planted there this spring either.

And you know what? That's okay. I'll just spend this year getting the old garden cleaned out and set up for planting this fall. It's not as convenient to the house and means I'll have to use a 4wheeler to get back and forth as I'm not able to walk that far at a time. And it's on the other side of the creek that runs thru our property so it's harder for David to get to it to help me. But he's said if I'll get it laid out where he can get between the beds he'll just toss his wheelchair in the trailer and haul it over there behind his 4wheeler. So I will be setting this up in raised beds. Probably with cinder block sides so the planting area will be 32" wide by 12' long. I have room for 8 of those beds in my 40'X40' fenced in lot with 4 foot between each bed and 5 to 6 feet all the way around the outside. This will give David plenty of room to maneuver between the beds. And to answer another question asked by QuiltFitzy. (Who is probably the only reader of this blog. LOL!) I do have the Square Foot Gardening book by Mel Bartholomew. I have the original that I've had for years and recently purchased the updated version. I will be following his methods pretty much exactly with a few changes. Instead of filling my beds with only Mels Mix I'll also be blending in some good rich, black dirt I have a huge pile of on the back of the property next to the creek bank. When this lot was originally cleared about 20 years ago everything was pushed to the back of the property and burned. What didn't burn was left to rot. For the past 20 years. Which left a HUGE pile of the best dirt you could possible use for planting. I'll never in my lifetime be able to use it all. I've dug into it almost every year for the past 9 years and you can't even tell a shovelfull has been taken out of it. When I need dirt I just mow the end of the pile, run the tiller thru a small spot to loosen it up and dig out what I need.

So this will be my exercise program this year. Getting the garden cleaned out and ready to plant this fall. If I just do 20 to 30 minutes a day I should easily be able to get it done in plenty of time. I plan to post pictures of the whole process here so feel free to skip them if it bores you silly. :-)

Yes, QuiltingFitzy, I do still eat. LOL!

And to prove it here's a sampling of last weeks meals.
First up is baked fish with a side of sauteed onions/bell peppers/zucchini. For this all I do is saute the veggies in a bit of butter until about half-done. Melt a little butter in an ovenproof pan. Put fish fillets in pan turning to coat all sides with a bit of the butter. Salt and pepper to taste. Surround with the sauteed veggies and bake for about 10 minutes until fish is light and flaky. Any kind of fish will do. This happens to be catfish but I've used whiting, salmon, maui-maui, and flounder. Some are more "fishy" tasting than others but they're all good.

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDORgEKV8fYOF7Dsoz6vF6LPcZw8wwACEG0wgq2SLTwli4Vs2FONp-p7mItw-38yuEfWxsFMBrBqj8oRARGdudKIQ0EqqONdsUJg2mhvHjaM9I1jNiS_xqiVoZHMtdgPelof1bk2B-8s/s1600-h/Apr07+011.jpg">Next we have broiled pork chops, corn and broccoli. No recipes here. Salt and pepper the chops and throw them under the broiler. Turn when about half done. Boil broccoli in a little water until tender. Drain and toss in a pat of butter. Open a can of corn. Drain. Heat in the microwave with a bit of tad of butter. Simple meal but yum, yum! (PS, best part about THIS meal. David cooked it. LOL!)

Now here we have one of my FAVORITE meals. Hamburger casserole aka "clean out the refrigerator casserole". Brown some hamburger. When almost done add chopped onions and bell peppers and let them cook in the drippings as the hamburger finished cooking. Drain well and return to skillet. Add a can of tomatoes, a can of mushrooms (unless you have fresh, then I toss them in along with the onions), a can of tomato sauce, some kind of vegetable (this time it was diced zucchini and a bit of broccoli and corn left from the night before), and a handful of raw macaroni. If you have another type of leftover pasta or rice you can use that, just don't add it until everything else is pretty much done. Oh and add whatever seasoning you like. I usually add a bit of dried italian seasoning. But if I have fresh basil and parsley I like to use them instead. OR if you want an mexican flavor to it you could add a bit cumin and cilantro. Let it simmer until the veggies and pasta are done. Add a handfull of grated cheese (and here's where you'd add the already cooked pasta or rice) and cook about 5 more minutes until the cheese is melted. I LOVE this stuff! And except for the pasta there's nothing in it that's not on my diet. So I've started cooking the pasta on the side and adding it to David's half after I've taken mine out of the pot. So what you're seeing here is actually David's plate, not mine. I do miss the pasta cause I like the texture it adds to the dish but it's still yummy without.

And that brings us to the final meal for this week. Pot roast with a side of green beans. Just a good chuck roast cooked with potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. Salt and pepper everything, add a packet of onion soup mix and about a cup of water and bake at 350 for 2 to 3 hours depending on how big your roast is. Open a can of green beans and heat in the microwave with a bit of bacon grease. This is always good for at least 2 meals since there are only the 2 of us. And if it's a very big roast it will also yeild enough meat for a bit of stroganoff for another night. But no stroganoff recipe this time as this was a very small roast and barely made the first planned-over meal.

So, see. I do still eat. And will try to be better about blogging my meals more often. It really does help me stay on focus if I know I have to fess up to what I've been eating. And I've lost a total of 9 lbs and have lowered my AM blood sugar numbers by 20-30 points in the past couple weeks. I've started adding a bit of exercise. Not much but ANYTHING is better than I've had for the past couple years. I've been doing yard work for 20 to 30 minutes a day. Which reminds me I really do need to get off this computer and get out there in the fresh air and sunshine. :-) See you again tonight when I promise there will be content that doesn't focus on food.

Okay so I'll admit it wasn't the healthiest lunch I could have had but it sure was tasty! Grilled pork chops with deviled eggs, potato salad and baked beans.

It was a beautiful day today and did I do anything out in the yard? NOPE! I stayed inside and sewed all day. I really have to spend less time in the sewing room and more time outside in the fresh air at least until it gets too hot to play in the dirt. :-) Tomorrow I need to get out and pick up all the limbs and branches that have fallen from the trees this winter so I can mow. Hopefully it will be a calm day so I can burn cause it's going to be a pretty big pile. My yard is looking REALLY raggy. I don't think it's ever looked this bad even back when we first moved here and all we had was dirt and weeds! At least it gets dark later and later so I can work on it a bit each evening after work.

Lunch

This is lunch. Leftovers from Supper last night (except for the avacado) but oh so much better than the fast food choices near my office. :-) Simple food but good and mostly healthy. The hamburger patty is made from 93% lean meat. When I cooked the patties I got so little grease I had to put a bit of butter in the skillet to saute the onions/peppers/mushrooms that are on top. Add a slice of cheese on top and it makes really good eating. Usually I use Swiss but this time I didn't have any so I used provolone. I'm not sure I don't like it better than the Swiss. This used to be my favorite hamburger when I was eating them on a bun. Now I just leave the bun off and add a couple veggies. David wasn't really enthusiastic about it the first time I made it. Until he tried it. This time when he saw I'd bought fresh mushrooms he requested it. :-) With the addition of a couple cans of assorted veggies it makes a good, quick meal when you come home from work and are too tired to put much effort into cooking.

Until recently I ate lunch out most days. Which gets expensive and isn't all that healthy. Especially since most of what is available within 5 miles of the office is Mexican food, or burgers, or pizza, or carb-laden meat/vegetable/bread meal specials. So I'm trying to limit myself to lunch out just once a week and the rest of the time I'm bring leftovers from supper or a chef salad. And surprise, surprise I'm not NEARLY as sleepy in the afternoon as I was after eating all those heavy lunches. Not that I still don't continue to have a bit of lethargy from my out-of-whack thyroid levels but at least I don't have the carb-coma adding to the problem. And one day when my thyroid gets regulated maybe, just maybe, I'll even manage to go a whole afternoon without falling asleep at my desk!

I went to the Dr. a few days ago and it's official. I'm a diabetic. I've been borderline for a while now but knew in my heart as I've watched the AM bloodsugars rise that I'd crossed over the border. Added with the other health problems I already have it's almost enough to make me want to just curl up in bed, pull the covers over my head and sleep the rest of my life away. Almost. But I'm a stronger person that that so instead I choose to firmly take a grip on my eating habits thus controlling my blood sugar and cholesteral and hopefully losing a ton of weight in the process. After all I've been looking forward for a long time to being a persnickety old woman and I sure want to be able to enjoy it when I get there. LOL!

Okay, so this is me. All 334 lbs. of me! You don't know how rare a photo this is as I do NOT like to have my picture taken. Not photogenic doesn't even begin to describe me. But I wanted a good "before" picture so I asked my friend Mary to take this. Go ahead. Take a good look because this is the Last time I'm ever going to look like this! This blog will not be focussed on weight loss but as it will focus on cooking better meals and growing better food to aid in my weight loss I thought it was appropriate to post the BEFORE picture here. In addition to the health benefits from eating good, homegrown vegetables my gardening will also serve as a large part of my exercise program.

Let the Journey begin!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog. This is where I'll be posting about my adventures with square foot gardening along with recipes and my progress as I try to lose weight and regain my health.