Thanksgiving, Greek Toast, and More Seemingly Pointless Food Journaling

11-25-08

This was a long and stressful day, with a lot of running around and even a confrontation or two. It wasn’t to be a great day outside of low carb – and it wasn’t a great low carb day either. 

Recollect is I had lunch around noon – and that was my first meal. Next was a hot dog with cheese at home about 2pm – I had to leave work to pick up house guests at the airport. I then had nothing until an Atkins bar at about 9pm. 

When we arrived home, there were goodies that the house guests brought and I gave in. The cheat was a particularly rare type of cookie unavailable anywhere near here – so of course I had to have 4 or five of these large carb bombs.

I also had low carb toast with butter. A seemingly pedestrian thing, I had just bought the first toaster we had in over a year. Our toaster broke, and I replaced it with a ‘toaster oven’ which did a lot of things, but made lousy toast.

The toast was a welcome treat.

Not so welcome was the number on the scale the next morning: 207.0.

11-26-08

No Atkins bar in the morning again – I have been having a large dollop of cream in my coffee, so perhaps that fat injection is staving off hunger? Anyway, I had one of my frozen meals – the chicken and bacon – at about 1 pm, then was hungry mid afternoon and had a large handful of macadamias. 

When I got home, things were in disarray with the guests here and the holiday approaching. I grabbed a hot dog and cheese prior to going out food shopping, and didn’t arrive back home until 10pm when I had some wine and some toast, yet another of the wondrous cookies the guests brought, and sat in a chair and read a Greek cookbook lent me by a coworker. There were some beautiful and simple recipes in there – some that were naturally low carb, some I thought I could recreate as LC. I munched on a very tasty bit of Camembert cheese that we pick up shopping, and nodded off in the chair.

The morning scale laughed at me and my pathetic attempts to avert a fat and bloated future of wearing stretch pants and shopping at the big and tall clothing store – 208.0 was the reading. The cookies they brought had a magical ability to make me swell up apparently, as the previous day was not particularly immoderate or terribly off my usual low carb tack – except for that one cookie.

These cookies are of the type where you can say: don’t bother even eating it – might as well just staple it to your ass – it will be quicker.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I can only hope to keep the weight from not going up more – and my goal number is looking like a distant and delusional fantasy.

11-27-08

Thanksgiving! A day devoted to too much food. Exactly what I need right now. I can only hope to stem the tide – there will be no success on the weight loss front today. I need to change something – I’m not quite sure what it is. Maybe a few days of vacation off the treadmill of wake up, get kids ready, drop off kids, commute to work, meetings, research, writing, emails, phone calls, more meetings, commute home, dinner for wife and kids, cleanup, get kids ready for bed, then jump in exhausted myself – might provide some clarity – and a clearer approach to getting rid of this extra blubber that wants to hold me close and not let go – and invite friends.

I first made the cranberry sauce – a bag of fresh cranberries, cover with water in a pot, 8 packets of splenda and 15 minutes on low heat on the stove top. Easy peasy. I think I might make more of this going forward. While not super low carb, it’s pretty low, and cranberries are good for you. A little of this sauce would go nice with my frozen chicken and bacon, perhaps – or add a zing to other dishes that could benefit from a slight sweet/tart note.

For breakfast I was inspired to take an idea from the Greek cookbook. I read that the Greeks on the island of Crete might start their day with some black bread drizzled in extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with oregano and a bit of salt. I tried this with a piece of my low carb bread toasted, and it was a great piece of toast.

Certainly nothing wrong with upping the extra virgin olive oil in ones diet, eh? Especially if it’s in a new and tasty way.

While waiting for the turkey to come out of the oven, I had some cheese with a few bits of leftover chicken.

While waiting, I also had a few glasses of wine while tidying up. 

The turkey dinner I had consisted of the turkey, some gravy, the cranberries, some mashed cauliflower, and some fried yellow and green squash. 

I did cheat with some small portions of high carb stuffing and potatoes – as well as two more of the amazing weight-gain cookies my house guests brought. 

Oh – by the way – they haven’t seen me in over a year, and commented that I am looking ‘meaty’ and ‘old’ – THANKS! 

Stop pushing the damn cookies on me then.

I also had the pumpkin cheesecake and was disappointed. The ground almond crust was too strong a flavor and overpowered the filling, which didn’t seem sweet enough. 

If I were to make this again, I’d up the Splenda considerably.

I was very pleased with the cranberries – and my wife even enjoyed the mashed cauliflower. She did NOT like the cranberries as I told her it had Splenda in it – she says she can taste it, though I think if I told her I used sugar, she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

The scale was unforgiving – at 210.0 this morning, I’m on the road to fatville.

So today – AGAIN! – I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.