Day 122: Chicken shawarma pizza – a new favorite
Weight loss: 24.5 pounds
I woke up yesterday morning feeling awful. It actually started the night before. Just before going to bed, I found it difficult to breath. When I awoke in the morning, I felt like I had some type of bronchial asthma.
A few years ago, I had these symptoms and had to go to emergency. They gave me an IV, pumped me full of fluids, and that helped immediately. I didn’t go to work and drank lots and lots of water.
Around 11 a.m., I felt a little like getting out of bed, so I got up and went to work in my home office. We have several deadlines at work and I don’t want to get behind. I felt good enough to work, but didn’t have the energy to shower, dress, and go into the office.
I also had no appetite. I ate a yogurt, but didn’t eat again until 5:30, when Rick picked up a chicken shawarma pizza for me. I then did the (formerly) unthinkable: I ate 3 pieces with the crust!
I have been learning that just maybe I am a little too regimented about the whole no-carb thing. I have been on this plan nearly 4 months, and I’ve only had 3 cheat meals, and never a whole cheat day. Brandon and Lindsey are much looser about eating a few carbs now and then, and they are losing weight like crazy. I think on a day when I felt like hell, I could eat three pizza crusts.
So, that was that. I was full, took a late nap, awoke to watch some TV in my easy chair and called it a day.
Day 121: Bon voyage party at Red Lobster
Total weight loss: 24.5 pounds
Yesterday was the last day at work for my friend Chris, the IT guy at work. He is off for greener pastures, and the boss threw had a goodbye lunch at Red Lobster.
Before going to lunch, I had a breakfast yogurt. I didn’t want to go into the den of temptation ravenous.
My best accomplishment? Ignoring the cheesy biscuits. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Red Lobster cheesy biscuit. Which reminds me, I have some Carbquik and should work on perfecting that fake biscuit recipe some more. But I digress.
We had a lobster pizza appetizer, so I ate the top off of my piece. I ordered the shrimp scampi with a side of broccoli. Do I have a halo, or what? Normally, I order the Walt’s fried shrimp with garlic mashed potatoes and unlimited CBs. This time I ate sparingly and had a little Caesar salad with my meal.
I really am not craving the carbs, and it really wasn’t that difficult to eat keto-friendly choices.
After work, we stopped by to see my dad, but he was sleeping. I’m always disappointed when I don’t get to talk to him.
We then set off for the Home Depot. We stocked up on the rest of the supplies we need to finish up the house for sale, then headed home for dinner.
I made another successful spaghetti squash and we had Cincinnati chili leftovers. The meal was just as good as the day before.
Day 120: The secret to successful spaghetti squash
Total weight loss: 24.5 pounds
Tuesday morning started with a tasty low carb banana cream pie yogurt. The boss bought pizza for everyone for lunch, so I had the toppings off of three pieces and a healthy salad.
After work, we worked on the house, put down some more molding and a couple of thresholds, then called it a day. I decided to make Cincinnati chili over spaghetti squash, since I hadn’t had it in awhile.
The sauce was simmering and it was time to start cooking that difficult spaghetti squash. Half the time, it’s so tough that I can’t cut into it. Other times, it takes a really long time to cook, and one time, it blew up in the microwave.
This time my process worked like a charm. Here is my secret method:
1. Stab the squash with a fork about 10 times in various places.
2. Put it in the microwave for 6 minutes.
3. Take it out and find it is still hard.
4.Nuke it for another 6 minutes.
5. Remove with oven mitts and plop onto a large cutting board
6. Slice in half long-ways
7. While holding in place with hotpad, scoop out seeds and membranes with large serving spoon (don’t take too much; only the really obvious goopy stuff)
8. Put one half in a flat glass cooking “Pyrex-type” dish and put about an inch of water in the bottom
9. Microwave for approximately 10-12 minutes
10. Remove with oven mitts, place on cutting board and use the large spoon to scoop out the spaghetti
If you’ve done it right, the shell should be very thin and all the squash should be scooped out
Look at that delicious bowl of “spaghetti.”
I portioned some out for Rick and myself, topped it with Cincinnati chili, onions, grated cheese, and soy black beans. Yum de yum yum! And plenty of Chili leftover for tomorrow.
Day 119: Disappointing meal choice at trivia
Weight loss: 24.5 pounds
Breakfast: yogurt
Lunch: 2 Beddar Cheddars
Dinner: trivia
I wanted to try something different at trivia, so I thought I’d get the steak and cilantro empanadas with spicy Ranch sauce. How difficult could it be to eat only the insides, right?
Very difficult. I cut each of the 8 empanadas in half, and used my fork to scoop out the insides. There was about one and a half teaspoons of filling in each. The exterior “shell” was really thick and made up the composition of most of the empanada. They were good, but I left unsatisfied and hungry.
When I got home, I made 3 ham/cream cheese rolls to tide me over until bed time. I guess there are some foods that just can’t be adapted to the keto plan.
Day 118: Get-together with the old gang – the low-carb hostess
Weight loss – 24.5 pounds
I skipped breakfast and worked on website projects all morning. We decided we didn’t have time to work on house projects before we were due at my friend Traci’s at 3.
I boiled one and a half dozen eggs to devil for the party, then shelled them and put them together.
When we arrived at the party, I was thrilled to see that Traci had provided some great low-carb appetizer options. Turns out she’s been eating low carb for a couple of years. The spinach/artichoke dip and veggie crudites were great. I drank vodka and Diet Coke, and all in all made it through a potentially high carb get together. Thanks for being a thoughtful hostess, Traci!
Day 117: Saturday – the usual
Total weight loss: 24.5 pounds
Saturday morning started at the diner. I had a cheese and onion omelet with sour cream and a side of bacon.
Afterwards, we picked up supplies at Home Depot, then worked on the house for a while.
Lunch was a burrito/no tortilla at Del Taco.
I’m writing this a week later, and I can’t remember what I had for dinner!
Dinner
Day 116: Small meals and not much appetite
Today’s weight loss: 3 pounds Total weight loss: 23.5
Well, it appears I’m going in the right direction again. I’m not as excited about a 3 pound loss when it’s the same pounds the second time around. I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If I lose another 4 pounds, I’ll be at my lowest weight since starting keto. Hope next week’s numbers are just as good.
Some Fridays I work at home. Other Fridays I only have a few hours to work. Yesterday was a short day.
I had yogurt for breakfast, but didn’t have any lunch. I got off work at 1:15 and headed over to the nursing home to see my dad. I’m trying to switch up when I go to visit in hopes that he’ll be awake and aware.
He was. I buzzed his hair with an electric clipper and he fell asleep. LOL
We headed home, and I made a lunch of some Mama Lupe’s tortillas filled with Monday’s leftover chicken. I topped it with grated cheese and sour cream. It was dull.
I wasn’t hungry for dinner, so I drank a couple of glasses of water and had some cheese.
Later, ate a handful of almonds, then had a container of one of the delicious new low carb yogurt flavors from Kroger: banana cream pie. It was really good and hit the spot.
Day 115: Steak with onion and blue cheese sauce – one of my all-time Keto favs
Breakfast was yogurt, as usual. I do think I’m going to start eating a bigger breakfast next week, since I’ve been ready about the issue of slow metabolism and eating a good breakfast is a key to improving it.
Lunch was 2 delicious slices of leftover shawarma pizza. If you recall, I accidentally took crusts only for lunch yesterday. I really like this pizza, even without the crust.
I had about 3 hours after work before I had to be at the Thursday family trivia night at Marvaso’s. We’ve been winning steadily and had $40 more gift certificate dollars to spend, but they don’t have a lot of low carb choices. Rick offered to grill up some steaks, so I made the onion, blue cheese sauce, plus sauteed some mushrooms as a side dish. The combination was delicious. I posted the recipe on my site, but if you’d like to see the original, it’s here: The Pioneer Woman website.
I ordered a Caesar salad and water at trivia and took half the salad home for tomorrow’s lunch.
I’m back in the swing of things. We’ll see how the weigh-in goes.
Day 114: An evening at Greek Town
Breakfast: Yogurt
Lunch: Planned – leftover chicken shawarma pizza; Reality – Taco Bell
I left home with what I thought was a grocery bag containing 2 pieces of shawarma pizza with garlic sauce. In reality, I had grabbed the leftover pizza bottoms/crusts I was going to give my dog. Since I was having a cheat meal later in honor of my son’s birthday, what the heck? I had 2 chalupas and nachos from Taco Bell
Dinner: Brandon wanted to go to Red Smoke in Greek Town. I knew up front that this was going to be a cheat meal. I had the pulled pork which comes on Texas toast. I chose mac and cheese as my side order. The meal also came with jalapeno corn bread. There were a half dozen bbq sauces from which to choose. I tried them all and my 2 favs were the poblano and the cherry bbq flavors.
At the end of the meal, I felt giddy and light-headed. I think I was actually drunk on carbs. I didn’t drink anything harder than water, so it could only have been some kind of carb effect.
The meal was delicious. The conversation flowed. Afterwards, someone had the bright idea to get ice cream (me) and I had one scoop of chocolate peanut butter. When I returned home, I crashed and tumbled into bed.
I certainly got any carb cravings out of my system. I seriously do not want to eat like that as a habit, which would have been my normal future. I feel better and more energetic on keto, and I look forward to formulating new and exciting menus and getting back to the plan.
Day 113: Jimmy John’s Lulu unwich and chicken shawarma pizza
Total weight loss: 20 pounds. Next weigh-in: Saturday, May 5th
I started my Tuesday with yogurt (am I a creature of habit, or what?)
For lunch, I opened up my “half” of leftover salad and discovered that I had only put chicken into the container. I think I started to halve the salad and we were asked a trivia question which distracted me. It is what I’m there for, after all.
So, I tried eating some almonds, but I was disappointed that I didn’t have a very exciting lunch, so I asked Brandon to pick me up a Jimmy John’s Unwich while he was getting his own. I’m a staunch liberal, as well as an aware consumer, and I don’t frequent Jimmy John’s on principle. He is a conservative who has denigrated my favorite president and he supports everything I dislike politically.
So, that being said, I had an Unwich. Sigh. I’m SORRY, my liberal friends. I won’t do it again. I promise.
After work, Rick and I went to work on the house. On the way, we noticed that our local restaurant was serving chicken shawarma pizza. That just sounds yummy. On that way home, I stopped in to pick one up, and ordered some fried kibbies for Rick. I ate 2 bites. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get the cravings under control.
Of course, while there, I tried to interest the owner’s nephew in a website. I left some company literature, so we’ll see.
The pizza was just scrumptious! I ate only the top with some extra garlic sauce. It was like eating shawarma imbedded in cheese. yum yum yum. Here are some before and after shots. LOL
I have to say, I will be getting the shawarma pizza again. And my dog loved the crusts! Rick ate some, but we had two leftover pieces for the next day’s lunch. We had low-carb mousse for dessert.