Let the Dining Begin!

Tomorrow begins Day One of the Week of Holiday Eating. I want to end out the year at 155 lbs, so I wish I had a larger cushion to start the week with, but I'll just have to do damage control afterward. I got a little head start with a tiny piece of fudge after school today. The Ultrametabolism plan calls for eating a piece of dark chocolate every day, so I thought maybe I could get away with a small substitute.

I don't plan to go hog wild or anything, but I do plan to enjoy some treats and not stress about whether there's processed sugar or artificial colors in everthing I put in my mouth for the next week.

What is your plan for dealing with holiday eating?

Dinner Out Hangover

After sticking to my new eating plan for three weeks, DH and I thought it was time for a dinner out to be followed by a movie. He had a good day in court and wanted to celebrate.

I ate my first bread (focaccia roll) and drank my first beer (half a pint) in three weeks. The rest of the meal was gluten and dairy free, but fairly high in fat (the good kind) and salt.

I was already nursing a headache from the afternoon and it started to get worse after dinner so we decided to skip the movie because I'm out of migraine medicine. I lay down when I got home at 7:30 and slept for 12 hours. I woke up a couple of times during the night to discover the return of my chronic sinus congestion. It's stayed with me all morning, and I finally caved in and took my first allergy pill in three weeks.

It's disappointing that after just a couple of days of dairy back in my diet and one day of gluten, the allergies are back.  I got online and researched gluten intolerance. I do have some of the symptoms, but not enough to diagnose myself. I already know that my insurance doesn't pay for a broad panel food allergy test, and I don't know if I should ask my doctor about gluten testing. It would probably be seen as unnecessary without some urgent medical crisis. i really wish I could find a doctor that knew something about nutrition and weight loss.

Today I have to go to Wild Oats to buy food for myself for the week, then head to the regular store to buy processed crap for the food I'm going to prepare for other people!  No reason wasting money on all-natural, organic ingredients on people (my co-workers) who eat Chee-tos for breakfast on a regular basis.

I'm going to try Sara's crockpot oats this week as well if I can find some kind of all-natural syrup. Ultrametabolism doesn't allow artificial sweetener, and I'm trying to stick with that. I'll make it work somehow!

Type to y'all later!

Miraculous Recovery!

I've heard of a 24-hour virus, but a 12-hour virus? That was the shortest, but most severe, illness I think I've ever had. I feel great today!  

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who got it. Two of my students were sick yesterday at school. We compared notes and found that we all fell ill at the same time Wednesday night and had the same symptoms--fever, chills, sore throat, vomiting, etc .-- We all felt fine by yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, I was safe at home and they were stuck at school all day so they wouldn't lose their exam exemptions, which are based on attendance. Exams are Monday. Poor things.

Our school district really needs to reevaluate that policy. It's insane to create a situation where seriously ill students feel forced to come to school or face an exam the next day they are totally unprepared for. I could go on and on.

Well, I got lots of work to do to make up for yesterday! Ciao!

The best laid plans . . .

Well, folks, my food reintroduction plan is out the window. As you know, I'm trying to test my body for reactions like congestion and joint pain due to inflammation. However, it's a little hard to assess those things when you have the flu.

That's right. Last night as I was making curried chicken salad for lunch tomorrow and washing clothes in my new Wild Cherry washer, my ears started ringing and I just felt the overwhelming urge to lie down, so I abandoned the food in progress and crawled in bed where I proceeded to become wracked with chills and fever. Poor DH had to finish the cooking and the laundry.

There are only four days of class left and I thought I was going to make it despite the fact that my students have been dropping like flies. At our school we have flu, strep, and a stomach virus going around. I almost made it . . . damnit.

After sleeping about 10 hours straight, I'm now up and trying to take advantage of one of those three-hour windows of productivity one has when sick after sleeping for a long stretch. Unfortunately, all my papers to grade are at school, so I'll be working over the weekend AGAIN.

What's even worse is that I'm wide awake and there's nothing good on TV. I've already watched all my recorded shows on the DVR. The only book I have is one on the Yellow Fever Plague of 1878, which just doesn't sound too appetizing right now.

On the good side, I have passed my personal mini-goal to be at 155 lbs by the end of the year. That gives me a little wriggle room for holiday eating next week! Maybe with a little gain I could still be at 155.

I want you all to know that I am HOLDING FAST against holiday treats. As far as I am concerned, the holiday eating season will not begin until Tuesday, which is our workplace feast, which is well worth indulging in. I will allow myself to enjoy all holiday meals--there are six of them--with moderation. if I don't pace myself, I could easily make myself sick in the course of a week.

I had a conversation with my stepfather last night about what dish I would be bringing to Christmas Eve dinner. Both my mother and I are at the end of a weight loss journey. He has had multiple by-pass surgery and should stay away from cholesterol.  He wanted to know why I had nixed my brother's suggestion that I bring a cheese and sourcream hashbrown casserole. I told him I could bring it, but I wouldn't be able to eat it. I said I'd rather cook something I felt more comfortable eating. He wanted to know why I couldn't go off my diet for "one meal." I had to tell him that it wasn't just "one meal" for me, it was an entire week-long minefield. Plus, I will already be eating steak and dessert at the meal, which are not in my plan, so surely there's some room for compromise. Grrr. He just wants hashbrown casserole.

OK, I'll stop babbling now. I know your reading time is precious and the rest of you are not sick at home. Later!

Hello out there . . .

Seems like I'm talking to the wall lately. My counter at the bottom of the page is moving, but I'm hurting for posts. Is it just me, or have all my Extrapounds pals gone MIA? Or have their fingers fallen off? Or do I smell?

Anyhoo, I'm still interesting in logging my progress on my new eating plan even if it's just for my own mental process. Sorry so boring . . .

I did my three days of egg reintroduction with no ill effects (YAY). I decided to take to take it easy on the dairy phase, however. I kept the soy milk in my cereal and coffee and just had a yogurt after dinner. I'm happy to report that I experienced no congestion.

I've really read a lot of bad things lately about dairy. I knew that info was out there, but I've avoided reading it because I didn't want to know. I love milk, yogurt, and cheese and I didn't want to give them up. I finally decided, however, that my health might be more important. On the Ultrametabolism website, the author blogs about the evils of dairy and he recommends only eating yogurt for the bacteria and avoiding the rest.

I'm willing to compromise on this because I do believe what he's saying. I was only having 2-3 servings of dairy a day because Jenny Craig told me to. I'm going to continue to eat organic yogurt with natural sugars a few times a week, but not every day. I'll eat cheese for accent only, such as a little parmesan or gorgonzola on my salad occasionally. I'm going to cut out the cheese toast for breakfast and any large slabs of melted cheese as a main source of protein.

You know, I thought these dietary changes would be some life-altering sacrifice, but they haven't been. I haven't missed eggs, dairy and gluten as much as I thought I would. The thing I think I missed the most was just the convenience of bread, the ability to just grab some toast and go. However, eating a hot quinoa or amaranth cereal for breakfast is certainly more tasty and nutritious than toast; it just requires more effort and can't be eaten in the car.

I also found some gluten-free bread that's not half bad. It's made of rice flour. I couldn't eat it the first two weeks because it's a processed food, but I can eat it this week while I'm waiting to reintroduce gluten. Starting Saturday, however, whole wheat is back, baby!

Gotta go work now.

Detox Debrief

After two weeks, the initial detox phase of the Ultrametabolism eating plan is over and the transition week to the regular eating plan begins. In this week I will add back eggs, dairy, and gluten one at a time to test for intolerances. I will also get to add back in some other foods, such as honey and flour-based products like pasta, that were restricted in the detox. All flour products must be whole grain of course.

The initial results are good. I lost 4.2 pounds and probably would have lost more if TOM hadn't landed in the second week. I'm very happy with the results.

I'm on day 3 with the eggs and so far there haven't been any negative results. I haven't been sleeping well (again), but it is finals week at school and I'm under the gun. Can't really blame that on the eggs. Oh, yeah, and my house flooded. Really can't blame that on the eggs.

I'm supposed to start dairy today, but I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow because I have a sinus headache due to bad weather. I'm expecting to get a sinus reaction from the dairy, so I want a clean slate, if you will.

Gotta run--more later if I have time.

Treasures from Tragedy

A little holiday story: Yesterday, DH and I headed out to Shelby Farms to frolic with the dogs as the start to a lovely weekend. We planned to take a hike, wrap presents before the fire, take a nap, then make a leisurely dinner.

Well.

When we returned from the park, we opened the front door to the strong odor of petroleum. Not good. We moved trepidatiously through the house until we reached the utility room, where the washer had been overflowing for the previous two hours, flooding the back of the house and the basement below.

My DH's articulate response to this was just to (non-ironically)shout, "Flood! Flood!" ::::laughing just at the memory:::::

The petroleum smell was coming from the basement where the water was dripping through the floor into a pan full of motor oil my husband had neglected to dispose of after his last oil change. It overflowed and the oil was mixed with the water all throughout the flood water in the basement. Lovely.

Of course after doing immediate damage control, it only got better when we called Sears and were told the repair to the machine would cost $200 and couldn't be done until Thursday. Since the machine is nine years old and DH bought it for $75 from the previous homeowner, buying a new one was a no-brainer.

I got on the The Google (Thank you, Mr. President) and researched what customers were liking and saw that people were practically orgasmic over the LG front loading steam cleaning washer. It was quite pricey, so I mentioned it to DH, but didn't expect him to go for it. We do a lot of dry cleaning and this would save us a lot of trips, so I was crossing my fingers. Plus it comes in Wild Cherry  and I've been wanting to do something kind of fun and funky in the utility room with my old Hatch Show Print posters.

Anyhoo, DH whined all the way to Home Depot about not having any money and not wanting to over extend himself. I told him he should only spend what he thought he could afford. When we left, we had the washer AND dryer in Wild Cherry. LOL. I SWEAR I did NOT twist his arm. 

 Merry Christmas to us!

The even more fun part is that he opened a home improvement line of credit, which is good for six months. When we redid the kitchen last year, we never bought a fridge, because he didn't yet have a job and we really were afraid of making the payment too high. So now, I get to go back and get the fridge--I mean, I have to before the six month are up. It really is something we need to do. The whole kitchen is new and white and the fridge is old and beige. ICK to the 10th power. We just have to get a water line run for the ice maker first, which will be a collosal pain in the you-know-where because our house is 100 years old and anything like that is a major hassle.

So, out of the blue, we're getting all kinds of home improvements. I only hope, the water doesn't damage the flooring in the utility room and cause us to have to do major structural work. That would suck. We're planning to add on to the house right there, but we're not ready right now. It would be a waste of money to put in a new floor that's going to be ripped off the house in a year.

On the diet front, TOM has passed and the scale has resumed its downward motion. I've reintroduced eggs into my diet and am so happy to have them back!

Two questions

1.) Why am I so sleepy? I thought a whole foods diet is supposed to make me more energetic. The last two nights, I have been sleeping like the dead and have been totally unable to wake up with the alarm. It feels like the middle of the night. I usually have an internal clock that makes me pop right up at 5 a.m. What happened to my Circadian rhythms? I am so sleepy--not just tired-- right now that I could lay my head down on this keyboard and be cutting some Z's in mere moments. What's up with that? I don't feel like my blood sugar is low, and I did have some coffee this morning. Hmmmm.

2.) Is it unusual for my husband's office to have it's Christmas party on Dec. 22, the Friday before Christmas? Won't most people have conflicts? Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy? This is my first year attending this party, as my DH was hired at this law firm last January. I have to say I am disappointed in the location. The party will be at a bar called Fox & Hound that is a pool hall/singles meat market. Hardly a place for a classy holiday affair. I guess I won't need a new dress . . . or any dress. This does not fit my impression of a successful downtown law firm. DH says that have a swanky party at the firm for clients, but spouses aren't invited.  I don't know why I even bothered marrying a lawyer if I can't even get dressed up for a fancy office Christmas party! Hmph.  I lost all that weight and I don't even get to buy a new dress!

The end of cynicism

When I picked up the Ultrametabolism book 11 days ago, I was only vaguely enthused. I’ve tried every diet on the planet and they’re all pretty much the same. They all have you reduce your calories in one way or another. I truly thought that I was already eating a fairly healthy diet except for a few convenience foods here and there: I eat whole grains, fruits and veggies every day. I lay off the alcohol and the processed sugar. I drink skim milk and eat fat free yogurt. I avoid artificial sweetener. I keep my calories low, but not too low. According to everything I had read, I was doing everything right. RIGHT?

But I wasn’t losing weight.

When I first started reading, I read the predictable line, “It’s not your fault you can’t lose weight! Just follow my ‘prescription’ and all your woes will melt away.’ . . . or something like that. I had read it before. I flipped ahead to the actual eating plan part and began the detox. I was desperate. After a couple of days, I went back and started reading the actual book.

It was very scientific. It explained the science of how the body works—how food and your DNA interact. It’s a relatively new science, since we’ve only recently cracked the human genome. The author said he is very angry with the scientific community and the U.S. Government for not aggressively promoting this new science, since it could benefit so many people who are overweight.

He talks in the book a lot about inflammation and oxidation and about how certain foods cause multiple systems of the body to become inflamed and oxidized (a.k.a. rusted).  It’s very technical, but the short version is that it prevents our metabolism from working. He says that the foods we are provided to eat at the grocery store—processed, preserved, artificial foods—are basically toxic to many people’s bodies. We are allergic to them in a way—we react to them negatively in ways we can’t even see.

The most visible signs are nasal allergies, common sinus infections, and joint pain. These are versions of inflammation we can see from the outside. We may thing we are allergic to something in the environment and go pop a pill for it, but it could be our food.

He says in his medical practice he sees people who are sensitive to three things most often: gluten, dairy, and eggs—and they rarely know it. So those are the things he removes from the detox phase of the eating plan (along with all the artificial and processed junk, of course).

Honestly, I didn’t believe for one second that I was allergic to those things, as I have been eating them my entire life and have never had any kind of real “reaction” to them. But as I read, I saw that my weight gain could be the reaction.

The first thing I noticed after three days is that I hadn’t taken any allergy meds. No steroid spray and no pills. I had experienced no congestion at all. I didn’t think much of it because a cold snap had hit and sometimes that gives me some relief. But then, when I ate all that party food Saturday and my sinuses swelled up like a balloon, I started to think, “Hey, maybe there’s something to this.”

Well, people, there is definitely something to this. I have lost over 4 pounds since last Monday, and that is unheard of for my pokey metabolism. My DietPower software, which evaluates my resting metabolism has me up from 1100 calories a day to over 2200 calories a day in less that two weeks’ time. It has gone from recommending I eat 960 calories a day to recommending I eat 1800 calories a day.

This eating plan WORKS. My metabolism is on fire. The greatest thing is that it’s not really a diet. It’s just a list of foods to eat and to avoid. I can eat as much as I want of anything on the approved list. Except for the preparation that goes along with a whole foods diet, it couldn’t be easier. I’m definitely planning on sticking with this system after my detox is over on Sunday.

I’m cynical about diet book doctors no more!

Yummy New Foods

Here's an update of some foods/recipes I like on the new detox eating plan.

As I've mentioned, coming up with things to have for breakfast that are quick and easy has been a challenge. I have finally conquered that challenge with the concoction of a hot apple amaranth cereal.

The night before mix 1 cup of dry amaranth to three cups of unsweetened soy milk. Chop up two apples (small) and add along with a healthy sprinkling of cinnamon and a dash of salt. I put this in a saucepan and popped it into the fridge to soak overnight to lessen the cooking time in the morning. You could do this right before cooking, of course, I'm all about saving some time.

In the morning, put it on the stove and heat it to almost boiling, then reduce it to as low as possible and let it cook for about 15 minutes or until the amaranth turnes cereal-like and the apples soften. This dish boils over easily and makes an unholy mess if you don't watch it.

When it's done, serve about 1 cup with some toasted nuts on top and a drizzle of honey. It's really tasty. I stored the remainder away and microwaved the rest the next two mornings. It's a delicious and hearty breakfast.

Now, on to dinner. Last night's was so good, I'm going to duplicate it again tonight: Sesame-crusted fish over wild rice with ginger-soy greens.

First, take the fish of your choice and coat it lightly with sesame oil. Then press the fish on both sides into a plate of sesame seeds. Place the fish in a hot skillet that has a couple of teaspoons of sesame oil heated in it. Cook the fish a few minutes on each side or until the crust is brown and crispy and the fish is flaky. Do not disturb it too often or all the seeds will fall off.

Now, take the fish out and set aside. Take some greens, like bok choy or even some veggies like snow peas and toss them in the pan with the leftover sesame oil. Grate some fresh ginger in the pan and add a splash of soy sauce. Saute over high heat until tender-crisp. Serve the fish and veggies over the rice. Wow! The fish and veggies take all of 10 minutes to cook, which is awesome for busy persons like myself.

Enoy!