Day 324: Success at the movies again
Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds
Breakfast – diner – omelet and bacon
Lunch was disappointing. I had purchased some shredded pork at Kroger when I went searching for new meal ideas the other day. The package claimed the pork was spicy and good for making carnitas. I heated it at work and made it into a taco with a low carb tortilla. It was bland and boring. I didn’t taste even MILD spices. Bleck.
After work, we went to see Skyfall, the new James Bond movie. On the way, we stopped in a McDonald’s for a quick 20-min dinner/snack. I ordered the angus wrap and ate it without the wrap.
I had a Diet Coke during the movie. Success! (The nachos sure did look delicious, but, oh well.) I discovered a really good treat, though: a small cup of jalapenos. They were salty and good and reminded me of eating a small bag of potato chips. Who needs the nachos to go with them? They were quite delicious by themselves.
When we got home, I had 2 squares of 70% chocolate with peanut butter.
Day 323: Cheat day
Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds
I had lunch and dinner out, and both went over my carb count. Back to the keto plan tomorrow.
Day 322: Unplanned Buffalo chicken salad
Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds
I cooked 3 scrambled eggs for breakfast and nukes some pre-made bacon. It was quick and I had time to relax before work, although I missed the waitress pampering me.
I ate 2 beddar cheddars and some almonds for lunch in the late afternoon.
After work, we were planning to have Cincinnati chili, but Rick didn’t start cooking the sauce early enough. He was out working on cleaning out the garage and forgot. Oh well. It was almost six, and we made the executive decision to grab something quick. We pass Big Boy on our route, so we went there. I do love that buffalo chicken salad. I have to admit, the time I goofed and ordered it with the regular chicken tenders, it was tastier. However, the grilled chicken is much lower carb and it is good as well.
I ate an Adkins chocolate coconut bar for dessert. Oh, and I drank a glass of red wine. Still on track.
We eat out a lot. It’s just a necessary part of our lifestyle – and something we enjoy. Combining a full-time job and with owning a small business means we are working almost around the clock. After eating at Big Boy, I spent about 3 hours on the computer working on client projects and bookkeeping for our business. Having dinner out is a nice treat between the day job and the evening work.
That said, it really is fantastic that there are so many delicious low carb options in so many restaurants. And if it’there aren’t readily apparent options, there are always choices that come with bun, potato, or tortilla that can be substituted for something better. If that fails, remove and toss the offending carby product.
A coney dog with no bun, a burrito with no tortilla, a burger with no bun, spaghetti squash instead of pasta, cauliflower instead of potatoes – all these options have become second nature to me by day 322. I can do this. Once the weight is off, I can also maintain. Carbs are not a necessary part of my diet. I just need to remind myself of this every now and then. Here’s to “re-losing” that 2 pounds I gained over the past month.
Day 321: Monday trivia and a cheat cupcake
Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds
We started our week at the diner. We’ve pledged to only go 2 times a week, and I think Monday morning is the perfect day to start.
I had the omelet and bacon.
For lunch, I heated 2 beddar cheddars at work. In the late afternoon, I ate some almonds.
Dinner was at Albert’s for trivia. I have to say, their chicken club salad is one of the best salads in town. In fact, my trivia team and I agree that ALL their food is really really good. The salad is chock full of ingredients: arugula, cheese, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, really good “real” bacon bits hot off the grill, and of course, the grilled chicken. I gave away my tomatoes and cukes and it still took me about 45 minutes to eat the salad. I’ll take a picture of it next week.
I drink about 4 glasses of water while I’m at trivia. For one thing, although the food is delicious and well cooked, the pop leaves something to be desires. Flat and tasteless. So, since I’m always trying to drink plenty of water, I opt for that in most restaurants in the evening, especially if I start the day at a diner and have pop for breakfast. I really am trying to cut down, even if I only drink diet cola. I just know it isn’t healthy, even tho low carb.
There were 2 birthdays being celebrated last night. I was offered 2 cupcakes, and I caved on the second offer. I ate it. It’s over. ‘Nuff said.
Day 320: Dinner guests and Jet’s pizza
Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds
Sunday morning, I made an omelet and some of that precooked quick-zap microwave bacon. I enjoyed my NYT puzzle and had a cozy meal in my pj’s.
After breakfast, I unexpectedly fell asleep in my chair. I’m still not quite recovered from the respiratory ailment and I was really tired. Rick convinced me to go back to bed even though I’d only been up for 2 hours! I did, and I had a great sleep. When I got up, I sat in my recliner dozing while he cleaned the house. What a treat!
Rick’s son George, wife Beccy and our granddaughter Danielle were coming by to let Rick take pics of Danielle with his new camera. After a couple hours of visiting, we decided to get a pizza. I hadn’t been up very much during the day, so I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I was hoping I would have the will power to avoid the pizza crust.
I did. We ordered Jet’s pizza, and it had a nice thick topping that slid easily off the crust. Some pizzas, like Buddy’s for example, are just too difficult and frustrating to eat sans crust. The crust is almost the central point of a Buddy’s pizza and eating only the topping leaves me feeling dissatisfied.
The Jet’s pizza topping were filling and tasted great. George and I shared one with pepperoni, spicy pepperoni, jalapenos, Italian sausage, and something I can’t remember. I also ordered naked boneless wings so the others could add bbq sauce, and I could eat mine with low carb buffalo sauce.
At the end of the meal, I made low carb chocolate mousse.
The crazy thing is, before going to bed I was disappointed that I had gone off and had an unplanned cheat meal. I just had a bad weigh in, what was wrong with me? Then I had to laugh when I realized I had eaten okay for the whole day. I didn’t eat crust, I didn’t eat boneless wings with coating or bbq sauce, and I had stayed well under my carbs. You know it’s a good meal for keto when you think you went off. Jet’s pizza is going on my list of good keto options.
Day 319: Doomsday (er, I mean weigh day)
Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds. Sigh.
Yes, I gained 2 pounds. How depressing. I’m over it by now, but it took quite a pep talk – from myself. Rick chimed in a bit. It could have been worse. I’m doing okay. 39 1/2 pounds is a significant amount. Yada yada. I just hate going backwards. I want to see that 50 pound loss and soon!
So, I went on. I ate well and stayed under carb limit. We had breakfast at home. I didn’t feel like cooking and Rick was already enjoying his newspaper over cereal, so I didn’t ask him to cook for me. Instead, I ate a bowl of leftover taco soup. That finished the pot I made last week, so I’ll be sure to make some more to carry me through the upcoming week.
Lunch was cheese in a low carb tortilla topped with jalapenos.
We worked on the garage a bit. The house we renovated may be sold, but its former contents are still stowed in boxes all over our garage and basement. After that, I did something rare: I went grocery shopping with Rick. I know, I am spoiled. Most people have to go into a grocery store more than one time every few months. However, if the man LIKES it, and I don’t, who am I to insist on accompanying him on such a mundane task. He buys all the food I need for the diet, and has become a real expert on finding the lowest carb foods and ingredients. I just decided to take a quick walk-thru and see if I found any new inspiring foods.
I was craving coney dogs, but didn’t want to eat out again. I headed over to the canned bean aisle and found some canned chili toppings for hot dogs that were only 1 net carb per serving. I’m looking forward to trying them out this week. Other than that, I grabbed some low carb yogurt and some avocados, and we headed home.
Dinner was 2 beddar cheddars.
Day 318: Mongolian Barbecue inspires
Total weight loss: 41 1/2 pounds
After the usual breakfast at the diner, I headed off to work. I only needed to work until 1:30 because I worked late a couple of days this week. Rick called and offered to take me to Bonefish Grill for lunch to make up for a “bad vacation weekend” as he called it. It’s true, Thanksgiving Day/birthday was great fun, but driving up north and back in two days, followed by an upper respiratory ailment did make for a short and awful vacation.
But I digress. We stopped by the Apple store to pick up a new battery for my Macbook, then headed to Bonefish Grill. We were both very hungry since breakfast was at 7:30 am. I am not a fish lover, but I do really really like their shrimp tacos. Unfortunately, the sign on the door said they opened at 4!
What to do? Well, if you read the title of the blog, you know the answer. Brandon has been telling me that Mongolian Barbecue is a great place to eat on keto, since they now labeled all their sauces with nutritional content plus offer lettuce for wraps in place of tortillas. We decided to check it out.
I loaded up my bowl with chicken, shrimp, onion slices, and mushrooms. Brandon recommended the Asian black bean sauce. I know beans have carbs, but the label says 1 gram of carbs per ounce. Sounded good to me! I added a bit of garlic and waited for the griller to do his work.
It was very very very good. It was one of my favorite keto dinners to date! Rick liked his alot too. I went for seconds, and didn’t change a thing. It was spicy, nutritious, and delicious. We didn’t take the waiter up on the offer to take a full dish home in a carryout container for only $2.49. I was full and it didn’t appeal to me, but the next day, I rued that decision. It would have made a cheap and delicious leftover meal on Saturday at home. Oh well. Next time.
I do have to say, the only spoiler was trying to roll up a lettuce wrap around a portion of my meal. It was just too soggy to handle. I ate the meal with a fork and ignored the lettuce altogether. I also ignored the bowl of rice. I know it is deceivingly delicious looking. In reality, I didn’t need it as filler to detract from my flavorful dish.
All in all, I would say this is in my top five low carb keto meal choices when eating out. In fact, if I could find that Asian black bean sauce, I would cook this at home in our wok at least once a week. So far, I have scoured Amazon.com and other sites, but many of them have similar looking sauces without any nutritional info. I’ll keep searching.
Day 317: Family trivia night and some boring food
Total weight loss: 41 1/2
Wow. My fingers slipped on the keyboard, and I accidentally posted 51 instead of 41. I can’t wait to see that number. I have been stuck at this weight for months. Of course, that’s bad AND good. I still have more than 40 pounds off. That’s a bit of success for me.
Yesterday started at the diner, AGAIN. We really will stop doing this, but after some long busy and broke months, we are relishing the free time and the extra cash. Pampering ourselves feels good. And my breakfast is always very low carb.
Sooo, enough rationalizing…we ate at the diner, and I had the omelet and bacon. For lunch, I heated up two better cheddars in the late afternoon. My niece picked me up from work at 6:30 and we headed straight to the bar/grill for trivia at 7. I was really hungry. I hadn’t eaten much and drank a bit of water to hold me over.
I ordered a grilled chicken salad. I had looked at the menu online before going to this new venue. It always pays to be prepared. The salad was extremely boring. Not enough GOOD lettuce (I really having iceberg lettuce in a salad) and there wasn’t much cheese or anything else besides grilled chicken. I made it through the day on keto, but didn’t have very inspiring meals. Let’s hope it gets better tomorrow.
Day 316: Early movie night – success!
Total weight loss: 41 pounds
Hump day! That was quick. We splurged on breakfast – again. Oh well, here are my rationalizations: I still have a bad cold, I’m up and going to work in this horrid cold winter weather, I deserve a little morning relaxation to get my day going right.
Rick and I both had our usual breakfast and I enjoyed the NYT puzzle. It IS a very relaxing way to start the day. My entire life I have been the “get up at the very last minute, shower, dress, rush out the door” kind of morning person. In other words, I am NOT a morning person. This habit of getting up a bit earlier to take time for a relaxing breakfast is new to me and I’m enjoying it – mostly – I still go to bed so late that I only acquire about 5 hours of sleep, but I’m working on going to bed earlier, too.
I digress. I had the grilled onion and egg omelet with bacon.
Lunchtime was spent out running around. Rick needed me to sign for his new camera delivery at Fedex. We went to the wrong store, rushed to the right one, then didn’t have much time for lunch. I got a Wendy’s chicken sandwich and ditched the bun. I ordered it with cheese, but they forgot to add it, although I was charged 40 cents for it. No time to go back and bitch.
We moved our traditional Thursday night movie to Weds, just for this week so I could meet the family for trivia on Thursday – which is the only night that worked well for all of us. Rick picked me up from work a half hour before the movie started, and I was famished. That chicken breast didn’t last very long.
I already know that I can’t go near a concession stand hungry, so we went through the drive thru at Mickey D’s and I ordered some kind of angus burger with cheese. I ate it without the bun (gulped it down quickly, I should say), then made it into the theater just in time for the beginning of “Lincoln.” My tummy was full, and I didn’t even blink an eye at the nachos (or the Sno-caps).
After the movie, we were up around 10 watching The Daily Show, when Rick wanted a snack. I caved and had a small piece of leftover chicken and about a 1/4 cup of leftover caulitatoes. I didn’t NEED the snack, but it couldn’t hurt. I figured I was way under carbs for the day.
Day 315: Back to work after the long holiday weekend
Total weight loss: 41 pounds? (I haven’t weighed in weeks – Saturday is D-Day)
I still felt a bit under the weather, but it was time to get back to work. I only have a week of vacation left, and I don’t want to waste it lolling about the house in the winter. I foresee a beach in my future.
Since I had to make the sacrifice of getting out of bed and all, we treated ourselves to breakfast at the diner. I had the onion and cheese omelet. I keep reading that eating the same foods as a habit for each meal is good for you. I hope so, because I do that alot.
Lunch at work was a tortilla with some shredded cheese and a dab of cream cheese. Low-carb tortillas are a pretty good way to stay on keto yet still feel like I’m having my traditional Mexican food. Quick, easy, comfort food, all rolled up in one gooey cheesy tortilla. YUM.
I had some almonds for a late afternoon snack.
Dinner was the chicken with artichoke that I bought from Costco. (I love Costco!) It takes 6 minutes and tastes great with some quick caulitatoes. I know processed food isn’t good for you, but I worked all day, I was tired, and it took less than 10 minutes to have a nice warm meal. So sue me.
Dessert was 2 squares of 70% chocolate (topped with 2 squirts of Reddiwhip! – 1 gram of carbs per 2 tbsp).