Wednesday, June 6, 2007

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

Sunday, June 3, 2007

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.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

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.

Friday, June 1, 2007

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!