Low Carb Confidential

12-02-08

Ate the remainder of my turkey salad with some cranberry relish – or whatever it is that I made. Had some mac nuts mid afternoon, as well as a few tablespoons of cream cheese at work.

On the way home was an Atkins bar, and when I arrived home, I just grabbed 4 pieces of American cheese and a slice of low carb bread, followed by two hot dogs with cheese, before heading out on a family errand that would take most of the evening.

We arrived home near midnight and were starved. I had 2 slices of bread with mozzarella, pasta sauce and pesto – along with some Korean ribs we cooked up (a few minutes in the frying pan is all they need).

Seems like a lot of food, doesn’t it? I didn’t feel quite right today, and was very thirsty as well. It seemed as if the last of the turkey didn’t agree with me.

The scale read 210.2, which doesn’t surprise me – my body doesn’t feel quite right, and it stored up some water for repairs. Of course, I’m not happy about the upward climb of the number, but I think this is a temporary gain – if I stay the low carb course, of course.

If I didn’t put in this constant effort to live low carb, I’d have been back at my 265 lb weight – if not more  -some time ago.

12-03-08

I go up as usual and had my usual coffee and cream. This morning I thought about my paleo bloginistas out there and, in their honor, decided to try and avoid the ritualistic Atkins bar and go for some hard-boiled eggs. The problem I’ve had with eggs is that if I find myself hungry on the road, they are hard to peel going 65 miles per hour on the highway, so I solved this by peeling them beforehand.

I also had the idea, probably a dumb one, of using Twitter to track at least some of my eating. I honestly don’t ‘get’ Twitter – 140-character blog postings seems somehow bizarre, but you never know until you try.

I do feel that the notion of using Twitter to keep track of what I eat would be about as exciting as this blog.

Anyhow – the food. I brought 2 eggs to work. The first got eaten around 10am, the second around noon. Mid afternoon I had my pre-prepared frozen Italian stew.

When I got home I decided to cook up something resembling one of the recipes in the Cretan cookbook I had borrowed, so fortified by a cup of wine, I proceeded to cook the following:

Pork & Tomatoes

• 2.75 lbs. of pork cutlets
• 1 large can organic whole tomatoes
• 8 tablespoons olive oil
• 5 cloves of garlic
• salt
• pepper
• cumin

Now, I more or less followed the directions, at least regarding the order of cooking, which is not how I would have approached it. 

First, I took the chopped garlic and browned it in the olive oil while taking the pork cutlets and chopping them into smaller pieces with a meat cleaver. I don’t typically chop meat in my preparations, and it showed – my haphazard cuts looked like the work of an axe murder rather than a cook – and I am neither.

Into the browning garlic and olive oil went the tomatoes, which instantly started splattering hot grease all over myself and the stove top. I took this Stoically (It’s a Greek recipe) and found the pan top way too late to help the situation.

I let this simmer while I chopped the meat, then threw in the pork chunks and some red wine, along with the salt, pepper, and cumin. I don’t know how much cumin to use, so I took a stab at it – maybe a tablespoon, total.

I covered and let cook at a low heat for about 30-40 minutes.

The result was quite good – I had a bowl of the ‘soup’ from this concoction to eat the meat with and it was a quite satisfying meal. The simple seasoning was the right amount. 

I also had some low carb bread and cheese – not too much – just the heel with 2 slices American – and that was it. 

The morning scale reports 209.2 – 1 lb. closer than yesterday to last month’s goal of 200, which I made this month’s goal as my November goal was totally shot to Hell.

I also got my irvingia. I did decide to purchase it. The box was at the door when I got home, so I took one. The capsules are non-descript – filled with a brown dust. I opened one up and took a sniff but it didn’t have any powerful odor. 

I’m still thinking that this is a ripoff, essentially – but hey, I’ll take one for the team and be that dope who buys it.

If you look at this blog for the whole of 2008, the story is simple – I peeled of 20 lbs. by Jan 16, then the rest of the year was an inexorable creeping upward to fluctuate in the 200 to 210 range, which seemed to resist just about every half-hearted effort I took to hammer away at the pounds.

So now we’ll see – does my taking irvingia for 60 days change this? 

Stay tuned.

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