Ten Pounds Lighter
I’m three weeks in to the weightloss challenge, and as of this weekend I hit the 10 lb. mark — 10 lbs. lighter that is.
I can cinch my belt one hole tighter and “feel” a tad smaller, although I’m sure most of that is psychological. Although David had a good perspective to add to that (as he usually does when I’m seeing the glass half empty) — it’s as if I took if a 10 lb. backpack or 5 lb. weights off each leg, so there could be some truth to “feeling” lighter.
I started off planning to just do low-calorie and low-fat and add exercise, but instead I’m doing low-carb. I thought low-carb would be hard but really it’s just a shift in way of thinking. David has done it before quite successfully, so it’s just been a matter of him teaching me everything he knows.
Breakfasts are either a cheesy omelet with bacon or sausage, or an Atkins’ bar. Lunch and dinner is usually salad or meat and cheese wrapped in a low-carb tortilla. Tortillas have been one of the saving graces of this diet. They have only 3 carbs and you can make them into pizza! I gotta have my pizza. David even makes this yummy cinnamon dessert thing using tortillas, cinnamon, honey and butter fried in the skillet and topped with low-carb ice cream — it’s yummy!! I want some right now just thinking about it.
The other saving grace has been sugar-free candy. I’m a grazer, usually of cracker-y foods, and there are no crackers or chips on a low-carb diet. The closest you can do is pork skins in dip, which believe it or not are really good. They make Sweet Heat Barbecue pork rinds too, which I like. But I digress from telling about the sugar-free candy. York peppermint patties and the Russel Stover sugar-free Pecan Delights and sugar-free Reeses peanut butter cups are great for a pick-me-up when you just need something small but with flavor. Coffee with sugar-free creamers and/or diet hot cocoa is a good afternoon flavor pick-me-up too.
In addition to food changes I’m only drinking water. If I have a soda craving I’ve got Sprite Zero nearby, and it actually tastes pretty good and does the trick. I only have it like once a week though, if even that. I miss juice, but David bought me a few diet and V-8 juices I can have and those actually satisfy the craving pretty well. I also add sugar-free juice-flavored packets to my water sometimes. In fact, those little packets to add to water have been the other saving grace of the diet, helping me down my water when I’m not really in a water mood. And if I’m really wanting to have some fun I’ll mix one of the flavor packets with the Sprite Zero. Mmmm.
My weaknesses? I fought really, really hard not to give in to cake at a birthday party week one of the diet. I miss milk and haven’t really found a good, easy low-carb sub for milk yet. Looking at options though, like almond milk or maybe coconut milk?
Another thing I miss is cookie dough. I’m a late-night cookie dough eater, but I found a recipe for low-carb cookie dough using almond flour. I just need to buy almond flour. Publix and Target didn’t carry it. Kroger did but it was kinda expensive so need to decide if I really want it. And I’m thinking I do.
Exercise — I’ve done the treadmill a few days each week and added weights and crunches this week.
All in all, going well. Hoping I can keep it up. The first official weigh-in is this Friday (Feb. 11).
Insignificant Nutrition
With coffee as my new love and my new Keurig right here at my desk, I needed to find a way to make coffee that worked with my diet. Per my co-worker Jo’s suggestion a dieting tip is to make it a mocha using diet hot chocolate (25 calories, 3 carbs). I also bought sugar-free vanilla caramel creamer (30 calories, 2 carbs). I could even top it off with whip cream for just 1 carb.
But how many carbs was in the coffee itself?
I googled and read up on it and it’s kinda hard to find out because — get this — coffee is exempt from having to have a nutrition label because it has “insignificant amounts … of all of the nutrients and food components required to be included in the nutrition label,” according to the FDA’s Food Labeling Guide.
It’s like drinking nothing. Which if course is not totally true because it’s chocked full of caffeine. But for the purposes of calculating calories and carbs, it’s nothing.
Coffee, you are nothing to me. Except sweet, wake-me-up goodness.
