Update: Weight Loss, etc.

Well, lately I’ve been too busy to update, but I’m in a good place right now, work-wise, so what the hell. I was gonna do a long update in one post, but I think instead, I’ll split it up into different subjects since it’s been so long and there’s a lot I could go into.

Anyway, weight loss … uh … it actually hasn’t been going that well. Before I went Primal, I was around 220-230. I eventually got down to around 180, which was great. I’d actually been 200+ for pretty much my whole adult life, so getting well below that was a huge accomplishment for me.

Unfortunately, the move to Sacramento (much as I’m glad we’re here) meant lots of stress and changes and … I kind of just said “fuck it” to dieting for awhile. Next thing I know, I’m back up to 200.

Once it got up to 209, I freaked out a bit and decided it was time to go back to trying to lose weight again.

I am kind of half-assing Primal some days, but I still keep all the rules in mind. For example, I don’t eat bread every day, and I eat my burgers with no buns, but I’ll make grilled cheese sandwiches 1-2 times per week. I also drink flavored sparkling water with artificial sweetener in it. Yah, not Primal, but not that bad.

Unfortunately, I am having to cut down on fat. When I first went Primal, I could have all the “good” fat I wanted and the pounds dropped off effortlessly. Now it seems that excess fat of any kind stalls my weight loss. I’m still technically doing HFLC, but I’m watching the fat.

I’m also trying to keep my calories around 1000. I don’t know if that’s healthy, but I feel okay doing it and it’s not that hard if I just have a couple cups of coffee for breakfast. ie: I don’t feel like I’m starving myself.

As I kind of indicated above, I’ve had to start looking at the numbers again. I can’t just magically lose weight on Primal anymore. I have to look at calories, carbs, and fat. It’s kind of a drag, but I’ve gotten used to it.

Anyway, all that seems to be helping because I’m below 200 again (if barely–I’m in the 199 range as I type this).

I think I’ll just leave it at that for now. My thoughts were already kinda scattered, but I think they’re getting worse  =P  Hopefully I’ll post more in a few days or so.

This is how not-used to eating fruit I am …

Or something similar with better grammar that looks less like something Yoda would say. Anyway …

While I’m still not making a serious attempt at losing weight, I’m trying to at least do simple things like not eat junk food at work. The vending machines only charge $.25 and the two freezers are stuffed full of free ice cream bars–talk about hog heaven. Due to stress and just the sheer convenience of it, I’ve been indulging way too much lately.

What helps for me is to weigh every morning. I know a lot of people would advise against that because people end up obsessing over every little pound instead of looking at the big picture, but if I know I will weigh the next morning, I’m less likely to overeat and/or eat the wrong things. Tho, yes, sometimes I also end up obsessing over every little pound, but the upside is that it makes me more aware of my eating habits.

Anyway, went off on a bit of a tangent there. More to the point, I’m trying to eat more fruits and veggies–maybe I’ll make another entry about that later.

Well … I gotta be more careful when it comes to overripe fruit. I bought 2 huge peaches from the grocery store and decided that 1/4 of one is the perfect post-lunch dessert. The problem with that is that a cut-up peach sat in the fridge for 4 days. That last piece was not looking so good. Normally, I trust my senses, so since it smelled and tasted (marginally) okay, I figured it was safe to eat. This was Friday afternoon.

Friday night, after working on a project for hours and staying up until 2:30 AM, I decided to go to bed. Then my stomach started to hurt. Badly. Plus … err, there’s that other thing that goes along with stomach cramps. I go to bed thinking this couldn’t possibly last that long.

Nope, stomach was KILLING me and I was not gonna be able to sleep. So I get up, take some Immodium AD (couldn’t find the Pepto) and wait about 90 minutes for it to go away. Somehow, chamomile tea seemed to make it worse, but after 90 minutes, it subsided to the point where I was finally ready to try to go to sleep again.

I sleep until about 8. Stomach still hurts, and I’ve still got that other issue. I find the Pepto, take it, then go back to bed. Around 11, I wake up again and finally feel mostly better, but I have no appetite and decide not to make breakfast that morning. Sure enough, after morning coffee, stomach starts hurting again.

We had errands to run, so I buckled down and did it (going to Walmart on the weekend SUCKS!). By the time I got home, I was more tired and irritable than anything, but still with no appetite. Around 3 or so in the afternoon, I finally feel hungry, so I go with something simple: peanut butter on toast with just a little butter and honey for taste (I read somewhere that toast with PB is a good remedy for stomach cramps and … that other thing).

Dinnertime comes and I’m finally ready to eat real food. Since we didn’t have our usual breakfast and it was sounding good too me (and Lee) I made it for dinner. Can’t even describe how good scrambled eggs, sausage, and a little bit of grits with coffee tasted after not eating for most of the day. I don’t think I was ravenously hungry–I think I just missed food.

Anyway, I’m fine now. Sorry if this was a bit of TMI, but I’m posting it partly as a warning to myself to be more careful in the future. I mean, I basically ruined half of my weekend because I decided to be stubborn and eat a piece of fruit that I think I knew, deep down, had gone bad, and gave myself mild food poisoning. I think I just didn’t realize the results could be so devastating. Damn.

Things I’ve Noticed While Sick

Firstly, yeah, I’m seriously sick (well, “seriously” in my little world of being a mostly-healthy person). Mostly congestion, but I also felt just generally crappy yesterday and ended up being light-headed shortly after getting home from work. My husband has it worse–he has a full-blown flu with nausea and fever and such–but I’m pretty sure what I have is different, tho I guess it’s possible that my body is just fighting it off somewhat better.

Anyway, more rambling about sickness in a bit–the stuff I’m noticing:

• I’m sure that by the time this is over, I will have drunk my weight in tea. I don’t quite consider myself “a tea drinker”, but it’s one of those things I keep around for when I am in the mood for it. It’s also good for when I’m trying to avoid desert–that single spoonful of honey is nowhere near as bad as eating cake or something like that. It’s also–big shock here, I’m sure–something I like to have when I’m sick. My sick “diet” used to consist of almost nothing but orange juice and chicken broth. Now that I no longer drink orange juice (too much fructose–it’s more sensible to just eat an orange), I guess I’ve more or less replaced it with tea. I do find hot tea to be kind of comforting. Not a tea snob, by any stretch–I usually get Celestial Seasonings’ herbal tea, usually in the sampler box–no caffeine, since I normally drink it in the evenings, when I do. I usually like it with about a spoonful each of honey, lemon juice, and Truvia.
• I really like the smell of menthol–I find it oddly comforting. I think it’s because … well, as I said, I’ve generally been a pretty healthy person, but at one point I started getting a really bad flu-like cold about once per year (usually around the holidays–fun!). The upside to improving my eating habits is that that seemed to stop shortly afterward and, up until a few days ago, I haven’t been sick since–so this is the first time I’ve been sick for something like 3 years? Not a bad track record. But anyway, as I said, I used to get sick at least once per year, mostly during the time when my husband and I lived with his parents. What they always did when one of the kids got sick is that they’d set up a vaporizer. I had never used one before, but I came to really like it. Which is weird–shouldn’t the smell of menthol bring up memories of feeling crappy? I guess, instead, it reminds me of staying home from work and napping. The fact that my job was REALLY stressful and I was doing tons of overtime around that period probably has something to do with it too.
• Possibly craving fruit more than usual (?) Not sure, tho. I have been really enjoying the strawberries and blueberries I had left over from July 4th. Maybe it’s because they’re another substitute for orange juice? Or maybe it’s just because they’re strawberries and blueberries  XD

Well, I guess that about wraps up my sickness ramble. Taking today and Friday off of work in hopes that I’ll be up to going back on Monday.

Potato Hack Diet: Final

Okay, I was able to weigh and I’ll tell the result, but first let me explain where I started.

The lowest weight I got to when I hit my plateau was 182.

After quitting my job in Memphis and moving to Sacramento, I started consuming a lot of junk food, and surprisingly I only ever got up to about 184.

After doing the potato hack (and probably because of the exercise as well), I’m now back down to 182. So not spectacular or anything, but at least I undid that small amount of damage.

What I’m going to take away from this diet is that I’ve re-learned some self-control when it comes to succumbing to junk food cravings, so even though I’m going to go back to regular-Primal-ish, I’m going to try to apply that and stop cheating so much. Since it’s a much less strict diet, it should be easier to control myself.

I hope I can get back to losing weight again. I’m really only about halfway to where I hope to eventually be. I have accomplished a lot, but at the same time, I’m still a work-in-progress.

Potato Hack Diet, Day 4

This one was intentionally only semi-potato hack, since I was running out of potatoes.

Basically, I did a similar thing as yesterday. Had a normal breakfast, potatoes for lunch and dinner, plus half a chicken breast for dinner.

Unfortunately, I cheated big time and had some Cheeto’s, but it didn’t screw up my numbers too badly other than calories. I didn’t do as well with the fat either–couldn’t keep from adding a little butter to my potatoes. I think I could pull this off for maybe 2 days, but 4 is too many. I did get the cravings mostly under control, but by the end of the day, I was just dying for something different and the Cheeto’s were calling to me. But I did, at least, get my 15 minutes of walking in.

This isn’t something I could do regularly, but if I ever decide to do the “carb refeed” thing one day a week or something, like some low-carbers do, this might be a good way to do it.

If I get a chance to weigh tomorrow, I’ll post the progress on that (or lack thereof).

Potato Hack Diet, Day 3

I messed up and ate half a chicken breast. I had just gotten back from going to the doctor with my husband (he’d been having panic attacks for two weeks), and after eating a potato’s worth of fries I’d made earlier … it just didn’t feel like enough. I was stressed and not feeling satiated so I ate the other half of the chicken breast I’d cooked for him.

I did do much better on the fat, tho. Only about 29 grams, where yesterday I had more like 50.

I also finally got around to taking a walk around the buildings–15 minutes of walking. I also did the PB exercises (squats, push-ups, and planks) for the first time in ages.

I’ve only got about 2 servings of potatoes left, so tomorrow will be my last day, plus I’ll probably have a little chicken with dinner again because it won’t be enough, otherwise. So I’ll do one more semi-day.

Potato Hack Diet, Day 2

Day 2 went well, I guess. I’m having a hard time not getting hungry a couple of hours after eating potatoes, so I think I’ve proven that I can’t pull off a nearly-vegetarian diet, if nothing else =P This is definitely not a long-term thing for me.

Slight change in how I’m handling it–I was trying to add fat, but the MDA forum users convinced me to stop (tho I will continue having eggs and sausage for breakfast, but starting tomorrow, I’m only gonna have 1 egg, and add a bit of some form of potato), so I’m no longer adding butter to the potatoes. I’m probably still using too much fat, since I’m still eating the mashed potatoes I made a few days ago, but I had less than yesterday.

I think I’m gonna run out of potatoes at the end of either tomorrow or the next day, so I’ll probably just end it then.

I’ll see if I can weigh after it’s over–of course I didn’t weight when it started, but I think I have an idea of what my weight was then, since it’s been pretty consistent lately.

Oh yeah, I’m craving sweets a lot–I think it’s probably just because I’m using this diet as an excuse to ween myself off of them, so I haven’t had any junk food for the last 2 days after having it daily. Instead of junk food, I’m substituting coffee, tea, or lemonade made with Truvia whenever I get a craving for sweets.

Again, we’ll see how this goes.

Potato Hack Diet, Day 1 (plus recipe)

So, I’m doing it.

I’m still having sausage and eggs for breakfast, but after that, it’s potatoes whenever I get hungry, tho I’m not being super strict even with that part, as I’ll explain below.

First, here’s what I made in advance for the next couple days …

Paleo Mashed Potatoes

Not much of a recipe, and I forgot to take any pics, but here’s what I threw together.

Ingredients:

• 4 red potatoes (they were the cheapest)
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 3T of coconut milk
• Spoonful or so of minced garlic
• Salt, pepper, onion powder to taste

Peel and chop potatoes.

Boil water and/or bone broth. I started with bone broth, then added water until it looked like enough to cover the potatoes. Once boiling, add the potatoes and cook for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender enough that they almost fall apart when speared with a fork.

Drain, then add butter and coconut milk. At this point, I used a stick blender to mash potatoes and mix everything.

Add salt, pepper, and onion powder to taste–seriously, I just eyeballed it.

.

Back to the diet–traditionally, it’s supposed to be just potatoes, according to the info I read, but I have to put something on them. Also, I don’t want this to be a starvation diet (tho it’s near the end of the day, and I’ve only gotten about half my normal amount of calories in–not sure if that’s such a good thing, but I’ll see how I feel after doing this for awhile. I’ll quit if I end up feeling low on energy), plus I don’t want to suffer too much. Did that in spades with the Cabbage Soup Diet–never again! Anyway, in addition to potatoes, you can have only water, coffee, and tea to drink–that part I am sticking with. No sugar in my coffee, either, but I will continue to use Truvia.

For dinner tonight, I made Lemon Chicken with Potatoes, but I only ate the potatoes. Seriously craving something sweet right now, so maybe I’ll have some coffee in a bit.

Like I said, we’ll see how this goes. Unfortunately I don’t have a scale so I can’t really show my progress here, but I’m mostly hoping this’ll help with my junk food cravings.

EDIT – At around 10:15, I couldn’t decide if I was hungry or just wanting food. Came to the conclusion that I was slightly hungry and, since I had a very late breakfast and skipped lunch, decided to eat half a serving of mashed potatoes.

And now I’m craving sweets again. Had coffee earlier, think I’ll make some lemonade with Truvia this time.

ANOTHER EDIT – After midnight, and stomach is growling, so I’m eating the other half of that serving of mashed potatoes. I’ll probably be going to bed soon, but I HATE going to bed on an empty stomach.

Haven’t felt like updating / change in routine

So, yeah … there hasn’t been much in the way of “Ever-changing” with Dena lately (can I just go on record as saying I hate the name of my own blog?  XD  But I digress …)

Still in a hotel room. I have had a string of temp jobs since about January, and we got a nice tax refund, so we’re okay for now. Unfortunately, I am jobless at the moment, but hopefully things will look up again soon. Anyway, enough about that.

There is one change I could talk about–it’s something I decided to start doing while unemployed and now that we have our own space: I shower and make breakfast first thing in the morning.

My routine used to go like this: Wake up, get coffee and drink it while going on the internet for about 30 minutes, then spend another 15-30 minutes getting ready, then leave, and still feel barely awake once I got to work.

Now, it’s: Wake up, shower for about 30 minutes, make breakfast (which also takes around 30 minutes), then eat while going online, etc., for about 30 minutes, then spend 15-30 minutes getting ready.

As you can probably guess, it adds something like an extra hour to my morning routine, but I think it’s worth it–I’m pretty much wide awake once I get out of the shower. I still drink coffee, but I don’t feel chained to it anymore.

On the downside, being unemployed and having my computer set up on the kitchen counter is having a really bad effect on my eating habits–being bored/depressed and with junk food within arms reach, I’m just eating way too much junk lately. But tomorrow, I’m going to try something different, known as the Potato Hack. I just feel like trying a mono-food diet (somewhat) might help get me back on track with eating more responsibly. But I’ll talk more about that in a later post.

I also haven’t been exercising, but with California weather being so nice lately, I think it’s time to change that, so I’m gonna try to start walking again.

I don’t have a scale, but my mom does, so I try to use hers when I’m at her house and I think about it–the good news is that while I haven’t lost anything, I at least haven’t gained either, so things could be worse.

I think that’s about it for now. It’s 2 AM and I don’t have it in me to come up with a snappy ending remark  XD

For what it’s worth, I will try to update more (in case anyone still even reads this).

Two Stove-top chicken “Recipes”

Not really recipes, so much as stuff I threw together that turned out good, so figured I’d share  =P

So, as I said in a previous entry, we’re currently in a hotel, where my cooking is limited to a stove-top and microwave, so I’ve had to get a bit creative. Money is also extremely tight, since we’re (so far) jobless and living off of our savings, so I’m also limited when it comes to ingredients. So figuring out what to cook, so we don’t end up living on instant ramen, has been an interesting challenge. Oh, and my non-primal husband has to like it as well, which ups the challenge even more.

Here are two I’ve made recently that I was pretty happy with:

Lemon and Garlic Chicken with Potatoes

This one was adapted from a recipe from Barefoot Contessa that I saw her make on her show ages ago that I’d been wanting to try ever since (the one I linked to isn’t the exact one, but it’s pretty close, and the one I used as a guide for this one).

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken drumsticks
• 2 small white potatoes, roughly cut
• half an onion, roughly cut
• a few cloves of garlic, only cut into about 4 pieces each
• one lemon, quartered
• dried rosemary and basil
• salt and pepper to taste
• Butter to cook the chicken in (this was mainly because the pan provided by the hotel sticks like crazy and I was hoping more grease would prevent it–you could technically leave it out if you have a non-stick pan, but I think it adds to the flavor)

So, after cutting everything up, I sauteed the onions and garlic in the butter until soft, then I removed them so they wouldn’t burn, and added the chicken, lemon, and spices. Then I covered it and let the chicken cook for 5 minutes on medium-ish heat before turning it over 1/4 of the way, plus I stirred the potatoes and lemons around so nothing would burn. After somewhere around 5-6 times the chicken was cooked through and the potatoes were fork tender, then I re-added the onions and garlic and gave them a chance to heat back up.

The juice from the chicken combined with the lemon juice and garlic forms a really nice sauce. Everything just goes together really well. I’d like to substitute the potato with something a little more healthy like cauliflower, but didn’t think my husband would like it. Maybe at some point I’ll give it a shot.

It made 4 somewhat scant servings–we tend to eat light. Would probably be 2 for most people =P

Home-Made “Ramen”

Okay, in NO way is this authentic or traditional ramen. My husband and I like instant ramen, which I make a specific way–while the noodles are boiling, I add a raw beaten egg during the last minute or so of cooking, then I drain most of the water before adding the flavor packet. Cheap and unhealthy, but we love it. But I was wondering if there was a way to make a healthier and semi-primal-friendly version from scratch. Here’s what I came up with:

• 2 cups of home made bone broth (I should have used more, as I’ll mention below)
• Chopped-up meat from 2 cooked chicken thighs
• Rice noodles (I just threw some handfuls into the boiling water, but I think I ended up with 2 cups total)
• 3 eggs, beaten
• Oriental-ish spices–whatever you like, but I went with ground ginger, onion powder, minced garlic, some chopped green onion left over from something else, and salt

Pretty simple. First, I cooked and rinsed the noodles, then I heated the broth, added the spices, then once it came to a boil, I added the rest of the ingredients.

It came out pretty good, but much less strong-tasting than the instant kind, so I added more salt to mine–in the future, I’d probably spend a little more time adjusting the spices, but it had come to a boil pretty quickly and I was worried it might start to burn or something if I messed with it for too long. The result reminds me a bit of chicken soup with the little chunks of chicken amongst the noodles, even though it definitely tastes oriental, probably because of the ginger. I definitely should have used more broth–probably 4 cups would have been better, as it practically evaporated by the end, as you can see in the pic.

I had never used rice noodles before, and I really liked the texture and it absorbed the flavor of the broth nicely. Of course, rice isn’t technically primal since it’s a grain, but it is one of the more benign grains, so some primal people eat it anyway. A more primal version would probably involve shredding a vegetable of some kind into long ribbons, but again, I didn’t think my husband would be up for that (he’s a total pasta addict, so this was intended as a compromise of sorts, since it’s at least gluten-free).

It made about 5 scant servings.

So there you go. My next experiment will likely be Chicken Vindaloo (file it under “You know you’re a fan of Red Dwarf, When …”).