Bad Eating Week

I must be burning out on this diet. I have managed to eat poorly two nights this week. My husband was out of town all week so I was a single mom. I had two evenings of late teaching that required hastily eaten dinners. If I don't get to sit down and properly eat dinner than I graze on crap all night. I feel like I haven't really eaten so I end up consuming half a bag of gold fish at 10pm. UGH. I've always found these low-carb diets to be difficult when you have to eat on the run. I just hate replacing meals with bars or shakes. It just doesn't make me feel like I've eaten. I also drank half a bottle of wine while three way video conferencing with my best friends on Monday night. One of them lives in NYC, the other in Chicago. It was our first successful three-way video conference. It was fun and we were trying to replicate the experience of being out at a bar drinking togethe broke a diet rule while doing it. But I don't want to be the kind of person who doesn't have a drink with her best friends.
lad

10 pounds down!!

So I achieved my goal of losing 10 pounds midweek last week. Even with a cheat day yesterday that included breakfast potatoes and a half a piece of chocolate cake I have successfully weighed in at 10 pounds down. Everyone has been very complimentary from my husband who said, "I didn't think you needed to be dieting at all," to my mom saying I look really good to my students giving me lots of, "girl-what have you been doing, you look great. " I feel much better about the way I look and feel. The two best things that have happened as a result of all this dieting include
1) Knowing that I don't have to drink every night. I can make it without a glass of wine or a beer. I even coped my way thru a post therapy session evening with a walk and some knitting.
2) I just love the Pilates Center that I am working out at. It is a peaceful, woman-centric environment where the focus is on how you feel not how you look and on taking care of your body and yourself. Going to classes there is like getting a massage or meditating. I feel so focused and so calm while I am there and after I leave.

So now I think I am going to try for 5 more pounds. I'll continue the New York Diet for a few more weeks. This is my last week of Phase 1. Next week I can add in a few more carbs-sweet potatoes, whole grain bread, and beans. Whoopee!
lad

Mommy's diet cont.
Day 1 cont
A salad for lunch with palm hearts, yellow bell peppers and sliced turkey breast with vinagrette dressing
Tea in the afternoon
Baked Tilapia with sundried tomatoes
Baked tomatoes and zuccini slices
1/2 cup of low-carb chocolate ice cream for dessert

Overall a really good eating day. Starting to feel better too.

Ruby's Nutritional (or non-nutritional intake) Day 1 cont.
graham crackers for a snack (pears refused)
chicken nuggets
vanilla yogurt
raisins
banana


Day 2 Mommy's Diet
South Beach meal replacement bar
salad for lunch with sliced turkey
10 almonds for a snack
green tea and diet coke and coffee to drink

Ruby's Day 2 diet
english muffin
Special K Bites
Pineapple
I can't really continue Ruby's diet on the days she's at preschool since I don't know fully what she ate and what she didn't.


I did an hour of pilates this morning at the Pilates Center and I bought an 8 pound medicine ball to start doing the NYD workouts at home.
The next two weeks seem a bit more in my control regarding social engagements.

later,
lad

I'm afraid to get on the scale

I'm pretty sure 2 pounds of the 8 that I lost are back after a bad week of social engagements and indulging. Plus I am sick again. What is going on? The doctor diagnosed strep throat this time. I remember distinctly the student who sat in the front row of one of my classes last week and said, "I shouldn't be here I have strep." UGH. It's a no-win situation. If I tell my students to most definitely stay home when they are sick I will have a gazillion students skipping class. But if I'm a stickler about attendance then I'll end up catching everyone's colds, etc. Anyway my daughter and I made chicken noodle soup yesterday. then later in the day she and her dad made a chocolate cake. Ugh. So I am starting another 14 days of the New York diet with renewed vigor.

I am also going to chronicle everything I eat so that I can honestly see a list in front of me.And just for fun I'll keep track of my daughter's intake as well.

Day 1: Monday 2/20/07: Mommy's diet
3 eggs whites scrambled with garlic, spinach, and half a tomato
5.5 ounce V-8-30 calories
A South Beach snack bar-100 calories
a large diet coke-0 calories

A cup of throat coat tea


Day 1: Ruby
2 whole wheat/rolled oat banana choc chip muffins-- disected in order to only eat the chocolate chips
3 orange slices-juice sucked out and the rest discarded
2 raisins picked out of a bowl of oatmeal
1 bite of a scrambled egg

Sugar and cinnamon licked off of two Auntie Anne pretzel sticks
A handful of Mike and Ike candies
Several animal crackers
a little chocolate milk

A half an order of french fries and ketchup
some apple juice
and a little diet coke

To be continued later today

Dieting is Anti-Social

My diet is being thwarted by social engagements:

1. Sunday night was Pizza night with the family at Happy Joes Pizza (succumbed to a beer and two pieces of pizza). My brother-in-law suggested his favorite pizza place from when he was a kid-how could I not try the pizza? These relationships are delicate and I like to particiapte in anything he suggests.
2. Mom's German home cooking on Monday night including pork roast, noodles, and carrots (I told her I could only eat the roast and she looked like I was starving myself-moms don't like this!)
3. Wednesday night was Valentine's Day. Much to my surprise my husband made reservations at one of our favorite Italian restaurants-Bartolinos on the Hill. I did not order or eat pasta but did have two cocktails and a glass of wine along with a piece of bread dipped into olive oil-one my favs.
4. Tonight our daughter's daycare has parent's night out so we will most likely be out for dinner and drinks again.
5. Tomorrow night some friends have invited us over for dinner. I politely asked what we were having so that I could bring something. On the menu-lasagna. UGH. How do you say I'm not eating pasta right now? I will probably instead disect the lasagna and try to eat around the pasta as much as I can. My plate will look a lot like my 2 year old's.

On a happier note I had a free hour to shop on Tuesday and with a Macy gift card burning a hole in my wallet I shopped the winter clearance racks. I grabbed a really cute pair of gray skinny jeans in a size 7 juniors and THEY FIT! I proceeded to wear them to teach in the next two days with big sweaters and black knee high boots. A few of my students noticed and said, "Girl, look at you, you look fantastic." That felt great. Most women will agree that when you try on a size smaller than you normally wear and it fits you buy it regardless of whether you love it or not. Then you walk around all day thinking to yourself these are a size 7. I think I'm going to pull the jeans out of the hamper and wear them again today! :)

The scale lies...

How can the scale say I haven't lost any weight this week? Yet I feel smaller, lighter, my clothes fit better. I have had nothing to drink for 4 days. I've barely eaten. I've had no bread. The only cheating food I've had all week include half an egg roll, and a handful of wasabi peas. The scale has to be WRONG......

But then the only exercise I've gotten all week has been one pilates class. I am so sick I can hardly breathe at all. It's freezing outside. Winter sucks.

The New York Diet is actually not bad. Knowing you can go 4 days without a drink makes you feel just a little less like an alcoholic. The Augesten Burroughs memoir "Dry" has helped keep me on the wagon (or is it off?-just like the Seinfeld episode I've never understood this phrase). I have been wondering when you know you have a drinking problem? Is it when you can't remember the last day you didn't have a drink? Is it when you drink to the point of passing out every night? What if at 5:30 pm every day you want an ice cold beer? Or at 9 pm when the 2 year old is tucked away sound in her bed and you hear a glass of wine calling your name? Is it when you hide your drinking? I mean really hide it? Like in your car? in the basement? When you dilute liquor bottles to make it look like you drank less? When one 18 pack might not be enough for a Saturday night? Now these are not all true for me but I've known people for whom they are.

I don't have a drinking problem I have a drinking habit. I think that's probably on a t-shirt somewhere.

I made it thru Friday night pizza night with a new recipe for portabello pizzas where the mushroom is the crust. They were really good. I made two of them for me. A wheat crust pizza for the hubby and a bisquick crust for the 2 year old. I would definitely make them again. They were just as fulfilling as the wheat crust version. I simply cut off the stems and degilled them. Then brushed them with olive oil, salt and pepper and baked them in the oven for about 10 minutes. Pull them out and top them with your choice of toppings. I put onion, garlic, turkey pepperoni and tomatoes on them. Along with sauce and cheese. Then put them back in the oven and baked another 5 minutes.

I have mastered the desire for bread.
lad

How do you diet and exercise when you are sick?

I have had a cold for roughly 5 weeks now. It comes and goes every few days. It's back again. My daughter has had it too. She's in a pre-pre-school with roughly 60 other kids. I teach 4 classes and come into contact with over a 100 students. It seems like we get every cold, flu, and stomach virus possible. I have seriously thrown up so often since she was born that I shouldn't need to diet.

So how do you diet and exercise when all you really want to do is lay in bed all day?

I worked out Sat. but not yesterday and don't plan on it today. I can hardly breathe let alone huff away on a treadmill.

The dieting is not as hard since my appetite is diminished right now since I can barely taste anything. I started the New York Diet yesterday. I have one day of soberiety under my belt as if I was in rehab. I doubt I will make it 14 days but if I at least make it thru the weeknights I'll feel like I succeeded. At the same time I am reading Augesten Burroughs memoir "Dry" about his time in rehab. Fantastic book but not as funny as "Magical Thinking." So the David Kirsch NY Diet is basically the south beach diet with some tweaks. It seems like phase 1 is a bit stricter (1 teaspoon of olive oil allowed per day plus no dairy and very little red meat (meaning no bacon which you can gorge yourself on when doing the SB diet). But then Phases 2-3 get a little easier. He is kind of an "everything in moderation" guru.

Plus I have some fantastic motivation now. My daughter and I are meeting my best friends in Florida for Spring Break. There' s nothing like getting into a swimsuit in March to keep you on your diet.