The Yo-Yo

I've paid about as much attention to weight loss as I have to this blog, and what a mistake that has been. I've yo-yo dieted for years, and my excuse for it was "at least I'm not back up to my heaviest." What a crock. I've gained back half of what I lost - not so bad I suppose, if it was only a few pounds, but we're talking 60 lbs I've gained back here!

What I didn't blog about in the years I've been silent, was a new good habit - biking. I love it, and despite the accident I still make it out to bike. Don't read the "accident" as a terrible life changing event - it wasn't. I was unable to bike for only a couple weeks, and at this point things are mostly healed. I had some bone chips in my elbow, a leaky irritated bursa, and a row of stitches on my forearm.

The problem wasn't the accident, the problem was the downtime afterwards - I got lazy and de-railed a terrific exercise regimen. The day I got hurt I was performing better atheticaly than I had ever performed before. I hiked/rode for 2 hours to get some altitude, rode for another hour, and through all of it was 85 percent to max heart rate and was feeling like I still had more energy to burn! Then, I fell - right when I started to enjoy the payoff of all the hiking and hogging up the the hills with that bike. Perhaps I was tired, so wasn't as carefull - or I simply was going to fast out of inexperience.

Basically, I want that feeling back and it's been a bitch trying to get there. I had plans for my fitness, and like my dieting and this blog I let bumps in the road get in my way. I'm tired of my fragile good habits, they don't stand a chance against the sturdy and well entrenched poor habits. Here's to another try. I'm getting older, so just maybe its my last chance.

Andy's Chicken Quarters SST with mesquite and grilled onions

Yes, high performance chicken quarters. SST = Spicy Smokey Tasty!



The other day I grilled me some quarters that came out pretty good! If you want to give my recipe a shot, here is what I used:




4 chicken quarters

1 cup Tabasco sauce

1 Whole onion

1 Tblsp Dried Parsley Flakes

2 Tblsp minced, chopped, smooshed, or sliced garlic - take your pick. I smoosh mine under a wide knife after chopping, making a paste...

4 Tablsp butter

Salt and Pepper

Large Ziploc bag (or a few smaller ones, big enough for the chicken)

1 Handful of mesquite chips

Your favorite grilling device


First things first! In a large ziploc bag, throw your chicken quarters. Add into the bag a few dashes of salt and pepper and the Tabasco. Seal up the bag, give it a few shakes to coat the chicken and throw the bag in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Overnight is best, but not critical. Next, slice up the onion into thick rings. Don't break them apart yet, you'll want them like little onion pucks so they're easier to pick up off the grill.

While your coals are getting to temp, or your gas grill is warming up, soak the mesquite chips in a few cups of water. You'll want to soak them at least 30 minutes. Soaking is very important! If they are dry, your chips will burn up too fast and won't have time to impart that tasty smokey flavor to your food.

To check your grill for appropriate temp, hold your hand just an inch or so over the cooking surface. Starting counting the seconds - if the heat becomes uncomfortable after 6 to 8 seconds or so, you're good to go. You've got yourself medium heat! Too hot, and your chicken will burn before cooking all the way. Too cool, and you'll be there for hours.

When your grill is at temp, toss half your woodchips on top of your coals. Slowly and carefully distribute the chips - you don't want to drop too much at once and create cold spots as a result of a high concentration of wet woodchips. Keep the other half of the chips for when you move the chicken to a lower heat area.. more on that later.

Place your chicken on a medium heat area, skin side up and cover your grill. Covering is best for maximum smokiness.

After about 20 minutes check the underside of the chicken - if it's dripping and appears to be seared go ahead and place the chicken on a plate off to the side. Add in the rest of your woodchips and wait about 5 minutes and replace your chicken on the grill, skin side down this time. Give it another 20 minutes.

At this point your skin side should look pretty brown and crispy, but your chicken probably needs some more time to cook all the way through. To check, give the leg bone a twist - if it doesn't want to break free more time is needed. If it twists easily and wants to pull right out, you're done! The best way to be sure though is with a meat thermometer. 165 degrees internal temp is sufficient. I usually just twist the leg though, and haven't seen any pink yet...

If you need more time, don't fret - at this point you'll want to move your chicken to a lower temp area to finish cooking. (low temp is 10 seconds or so of "hand holding" time)

Place your onion rings in a higher heat area, and close your lid. When the onions start to take on a slightly golden hue and have some good looking grill marks on em, they're ready for a new home. Wrap them up in tinfoil with the parsley flakes, butter, and garlic and toss on the grill to finish cooking.


Lastly, when your chicken is at temp, be sure to let your chicken quarters cool for about 10 minutes before serving. Poultry needs to rest to taste the juiciest. You can serve the onions perhaps over some broccoli or as a side all on it's own.

Servings = 4 (2 if you're me)

Carb Count = 4 net carbs per serving, (3 from onions, 1 from tabasco)

Enjoy!

Back in the saddle... again

So, here we go again! It's taken me weeks, but I've finally gone from half-hearted "every other meal" good diet choices, to actually hitting the gym every day (sundays off) and eating well consistantly.

Before, when I first started this blog, I did what I seem to do alot - I overplan and overthink. Now, by just doing a little bit at a time, I'm doing much more for my health then when I tried to go ahead full force.

Remember those charts I made to track my weight loss? They were really fun to make (geek) and I loved seeing my progress graphically. BUT it didn't help keep me on track, it just served as a reminder about how short lived all that shit was. But, unlike all those charts and weekly progress reports I live on to shrink another day! Perhaps I'll track progress and make charts every few months instead.. yes I'm a lazy geek.

I'm going to take a much more zen approach to the weight loss thing.. I'll remain active and eat what I know is good for me.

Speaking of which, I had a terrific salad today!! The star of my wonderous creation were some of my roommates olives I found in the fridge (sorry Mike, I'll buy some more). Very tasty.

For exercise I've been doing some very careful resistance training (because of my back injury, I can't do anything that exerts pressure on my spine) and also some swimming. I love being in the water again! I don't have to deal with being self concious, since I swim on my lunch break which occurs at around 3am since I work nights. One of these days I'll just not give a shit about what people think of my body and just do what I want!


Theres a good subject for another blog, the whole body image thing.. what would YOU do if self-image was irrelevant?

Oh and as a last minute thought. The back is feeling awesome from the swimming and the sit-ups and such... yay for my back.

And now, your moment of Zen.....
<~~~ I stole this picture from someone I don't know and put my junk on it. I'm so bad...

Writing what I know

I feel compelled to write, but what should I write about? I've heard writers should write what they know. What do I know?

I know music, to an extent. I know games, and I know what it takes to make someone feel like shit.

I can lie, and sometimes I know how to get caught.

I know what it's like to be made to feel weak and worthless. I've also discovered what it feels like to be seen as strong.

I also know food. I know food like a lover is known; from head to toe in intimate fashion. And food, like an ever present object of desire, need and affection, is a monstrous and needy partner.

I simply can't keep her from killing me, yet if I quit her I'll surely die.

Pictures promised

Long long ago, in a post far far away... (well not that far, just scroll down) I promised some vacation pictures from when my friend visited from the east coast and we tooled around SF and Muir Woods...

Here's a banana... slug.

Wait. No picture... I can't upload!

WHY OH GOD WHY!!

I'll try again...

month or so later, I have some success - yes, this is an edit of a draft =)

So.. it worked.

In other news, I've been swimming lately and have been enjoying it immensely. I wish I had started earlier.

Tonight I went on a lunch break. Well, dinner break.. or is it breakfast... break? I work nights, so I never know what to call my 2 am food time and stuff hour.

It's been tough keeping at it, but I'm on track again when it comes to exercise, which was my barrier to good eating in the past. When I hurt my back, I had to stop lifting - in turn, I had a hard time eating well since when I lift I crave the good-for-you stuff.

So, swimming and very light lifting has replaced hard core pumping iron. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Heres a another vacation pic...
I printed this one and put it up on my wall. So.. you might be saying, "Snow in San Francisco??" Nah, by this time Matt and I had enough of the city and visited Yosemite a few hours away. It's in the mountains, so gets plenty of snow in the winter.

Au revoir, bon chance, est bon voyage!!

Low Carb Cheesecake Recipe

Hello Folks!

As promised, here is my version of simple low carb cheesecake, without a crust as I like:

3 8oz packages cream cheese
4 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoon (1/2 Tablespoon) vanilla
1 and 1/3 cups Splenda
1/4 cup sour cream

I recommend letting your eggs and cheese get to room temp before you begin to blend.

Blend the cream cheese with one egg first. When adding the other eggs, wait until each is blended before adding the next. Add vanilla, sour cream, and Splenda last.

Pour into a 6 inch springform pan and bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then finish off at 350 for about 20 minutes or until sides are firm and light brown and center is still a little soft. You can also use a thermometer - look for a center temp of about 150 degress. For a thicker cake, double the recipe and use a 9 inch springform (or use the 6 inch pan). If you'd like to experiment with pan sizes and cake thickness, definitely use the thermometer to check for doneness.


Enjoy!

Weight-loss jumpstart

Ok, I promised info on how I get a headstart to get back into ketosis after a slip. A day turned into a few, but here we go!

First off, it's not my way to take planned binges. I can't seem to do them correctly. So, when I binge it's because I had a moment of weakness. My moments are usually followed by several more moments give or take a day or so. The best way to get back on track is to eat. Yep, eat alot. Eat to your hearts content. Find your favorite low carb foods and USE them.

Now, eating alot while low carbing doesn't always work for everyone in the weight-loss stage. Many still have to pinch their intake a little bit which is pretty easy since most don't get hungry eating as such. But that first day back in the saddle is not about losing - it's about about breaking the cheat cycle. For those of you who may binge like me (at least 2 meals in a row) it's a difficult task to get going again.

Now, after I've had a day to satisfy myself and start eating the right foods again I reinduct myself. Sometimes for a week - sometimes longer. As tmy appetite comes under control, I'll eat less and less for the first week and then continue that for the second. Then I adjust my caloric and carb intake so I lose at a decent speed.

It's been my method since way-back-when I weighed 385 pounds, and it's not failing me now even though I screw up from time to time.

Later in the day, I'll post my cheesecake recipe! I should have thought of that myself... shame on me. Now where is my recipe pile...

Week 4 Progress Report

Starting weight: 300.6

Current weight: 288

Total shrinkage: 12.6 lbs


It's that time again! It's been a very interesting week. I fell off the bandwagon pretty hard for two days. I ate not only once outside of my normal low-carb diet, but TWICE. Twice in a row. On Wednesday and Thursday. I made the very large mistake that often leads me to stray - I didn't eat during the day. I could use all of the normal excuses: "I was busy and didn't have the time," etc. but I won't.

I try to avoid the feelings of shame associated with cheating - shame and embarrassment is captured quite effectively in a vid I posted previously. I can't think of a worse feeling than what that lady must have been experiencing.

Instead, I'll talk about what I should have done differently to prevent this from happening. The big thing for me is time, so I shorten the time it takes to prepare meals. For instance, in preparation for the upcoming week I'm buying a big bag full of chicken breasts from Costco. They're great - I can cook 6 in the same time I cook one, so I cook a few days in advance. I very tired of eggs, so instead of the normal breakfast fare I have a diced up chicken breast with some raw veggies. The first thing I should do every single morning is get some food in my mouth - more is better, but I absolutely must eat breakfast. It sets me up for a moderate day, and makes me less hungry at night.

Something else I consider my golden arrow of preparing ahead of time is low carb cheesecake. Getting some fats in the tummy first thing in the morning is key to appetite control - what better way to do it is have a slice of cheesecake for breakfast? Sounds weird I know, but nothing is easier than grabbing a slice and getting ready to go. You can eat it one handed when chilled (my recipe is more firm than some) as opposed to something like eggs or my diced chicken breast option. One handed is good if you're collecting items for work, although I'd suggest to finish before getting in the car.

I'm not too worried about the extra weight I'm carrying. What is normal for me, is that when I slip two things happen: I immediately stop losing, and gain back a few pounds of water weight. I can't be sure that my extra weight this week isn't actually fat since I don't trust the BMI/hydration results from my scale.

The other thing that happens is that a few days after being careful once again, I end up being almost as light as I should have been if I had never fallen off the bandwagon. Now, if I were to forsake my dieting for an entire week, I certainly would gain back the fat I lost PLUS the 8 lbs or so of water weight I seem to carry when I eat unhealthily.

So, for next week I predict to be 8 lbs lighter than this weeks final weight in.

Lets see how close my estimate is. Think I can be 280 in a week?

I plan on using a special jump start technique that goes beyond what I've already written about - tune in tomorrow for more details!

New favorite breakfast spot

For those of you that may be in or near the San Francisco/Oakland (that's right, the bay) area, you really should make a trip to Point Richmond and check out Little Louie's Cafe. They have a ton of not-on-my-diet items, but I won't hold that against them. Bread is baked fresh daily, sandwiches are crafted, and various coffee drinks are brewed within their walls. I hear they make a mean burger too, but I've never partaken.

Now, what I show up there for is the ham-and-cheese omelet. And the (slightly not-on-the-diet) coffee! The omelet is made with monterey jack and black forest ham, and I have to say; the consistency of the egg in their omelettes is possibly the best I've experienced. They use just the right amount of oil, and have the grill set to what I would guess to be the "perfect" setting. To state it plainly, it's the best omelet I've ever not made myself.

The only thing that makes my omelets better is that I don't have to pay almost 9 bucks for 'em. But, Louie's has a nice atmosphere and the service is honest. Honest, yes. What I mean by that, is they don't seem to have the curse of "professional" servers. I mean this in a good way! I'm spared the memorized food propaganda that I would normally get at larger, and perhaps more expensive, restaurants.

"Can I interest you in BLAHAHAH BLAH BLAH today?'

No thanks. Not today. I didn't yesterday and probably won't tomorrow either.

What I got instead was:

"Hi."

and then,

"Here's a menu, lemme know when you're ready."

Then the gentleman went back behind the deli counter to ring someone up for a latte. A few minutes later I beckoned him over. Five minutes after that he brought me my HUGELY stuffed omelet. It was packed with a ton of ham. Well, a few ounces at least. Come to find out, he felt a little bad that I didn't want his potatoes or toast so he had the lady on the grill stuff some extra ham in there. Black forest ham can be expensive; they lost money on me I'm betting.

Maybe someone who reads this and eats bread can tell me how the sandwiches are...

Until next time.

A pat on the back goes a long way

There are a bunch of low carb blogs out there, and one of the best is Jimmy Moore's "Livin' La Vida Low Carb" blog. If you take a search engines word for it, Jimmy's blog is #1. If you ask his readers they'll tell you the same thing! Since I've been in the low carb blog world, his blog has been my destination of choice. In fact, it was his writing that prompted me to start a blog of my own. Imagine my surprise when my picture ended up in one of his posts! No, it wasn't a wanted poster.

It set me all a gigglin' when I caught wind of it. I'm glad you dig my blog Jimmy! Maybe I'll get to meet you one of these days. I'll hunt you down when I hit my goal weight. Until then I promise NO stalking.

Week 3 Progress Report: Slow but Steady

Starting weight: 300.6

Current weight: 286.8

Total shrinkage: 13.8 lbs


Week three has arrived, and I overshot my weekly goal by just a tad - 2.6 instead of 2.4. I'm not going to cry over that. As I hoped, the weight loss slowed to a more reasonable pace. Perhaps I should start tracking caloric and carb intake, it would be interesting to see what happens if I change things up for a week or so. I didn't try to reinvent the wheel yet, I just added a few more carbs in the form of a larger salad each day. Also, I added it one particular day in the form of pizza.

Yeah, it's true - I ate a piece of pizza. Interesting thing happened - I still kept losing weight, but my hydration levels/BMI changed dramatically for 48 hours according to my "broken" scale. I'm thinking that it's not as much broken as its just pissing me off. Check out my post about the stupid scale.

When I'm dehydrated, my scale gives me a depressing BMI. Basically, it's all over the place. Every two months I'll be creating a chart like the one above tracking BMI and hydration as its reported by my scale. Stupid or not, I think I may just have to take the numbers as they are given then sort it all out in the end.

Good news! I'm moving, most likely, to a place with a pool. I need to strengthen my core, and swimming is a great low impact way to do that. A few months ago I ruptured a disk, and since then exercise has been boring and only effective for healing my back. Sure that's vital, but I want to be able to lift again. Weight loss is so easy with lifting! Plus, I really enjoy the workout.

An added bonus to swimming in my condition is that the pressure on my damaged back is greatly reduced when in the water. A bonus on top of that is the heat in the pool will improve circulation and help reduce swelling in the long run, which causes the nerve pain I experience in my leg from two other disks that are bulging out. If I treat my back before a swim with some good stretching and an ice down, that heat afterwards will feel great. My therapist will also be thrilled.

Thanks for tuning in this week for my third progress report! Time to get back to life - I'm going out to breakfast today, I found a great place downtown. I'll write about it on my return.

All Hail "In-N-Out", my guardian angel!

Everyone that has an In-N-Out near them MUST go eat there. Low carbers especially. There is a secret menu (many of you already know this) that is found on their (notsosecret) site that includes a "protein" version of any of their burgers. Yes, like many other fast food places they'll wrap up the burger in lettuce for you. How they differ from other fast food joints is that the food is actually TASTY wrapped in lettuce and I never feel like they're confused by my request. In-N-Out has saved my fast food loving ass more than once.

Near where I work there is an In-N-Out next to a few other fast food places. It's like a filter - just when I'm about to toss my diet down the drain, I get saved by all those perky burger-wranglers who find it natural that I don't want their buns.

The reason the holiest of holys is on my mind, is that I put myself in a precarious position tonight for dinner. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch today. Bad, I know! When I don't eat during the day, I get hungry (of course) and my will weakens. I tend to eat anything that gets in my way when I'm at this point. Burger King usually gets taken out first with a vengeance. Late night, Taco Bell usually falls victim to my beastly hunger. Nothing is safe. Not even my co-workers.

When I hit the road for dinner tonight, I heard that little voice in my head, the addict in me; "Go ahead and just grab some Taco Bell. You can do some extra pushups to get rid of it! You can stop anytime you want, just DO IT." I felt my hands take on a life of their own as I switched lanes in order to position myself for the kill. Thankfully, In-N-Out is closer than Taco Bell so I pulled in there instead. It tasted 10 times better, and was completely low-carb.

"Double Double, Protein Style please!"

"Hackers on Atkins"

I read a clever article discussing the Atkins approach and its draw to those who enjoy thinking out of the box. It's called Hackers on Atkins. I get a kick out of blowing peoples minds who aren't too informed about Atkins by telling them I lost over 100 lbs eating 2500 calories a day. They usually think I exercised a ton (I didn't) or ate low fat (I eat about 100 grams of fat a day). I did exercise, but not until I lost about 75 lbs. I was just too self conscious to go to a gym.

Reading the Hackers article reminded me of why I did Atkins in the first place - I was fat and pissed off at diet gurus like Susan Powter that encouraged eating a high volume of carbs. I got even fatter doing that!

Check out the article, its a good geek read.

The Razor Blade Diet

I thought that diets were sometimes difficult, even painful. Until I saw this video I thought I was having a hard time...

Week Two Progress Report - Charting and Predicting Progress

After two weeks of charting my weight, I have enough data to give some idea of how fast I may be approaching my goal.

In the chart to the left, the light blue bars represent actual loss. The dark line represents a trend, calculated using the equation you see at the top right. I chose this equation based simply on gut feeling rather than any special knowledge I have of this sort of thing. The resulting line simply looked like it may represent the diminishing returns of losing weight over a period of time. It's hard to tell by looking at this particular graph why the trend looked appropriate. Here is what helped me make the decision:



Notice in this 6 month forecast there is a bit of a curve to the trendline. It does seem steep - six months is too short of a time period to lose this much weight. I'm thinking this only because LAST time I lost that fast, I packed half of it back on!






So, I'd like to get to goal as close as possible to my 52nd progress report. It divides up to just about 2.4 lbs a week on average. I'm currently averaging 5.6 lbs a week. This average will fall, mostly because I lost water weight in the first few days. Notice the erratic numbers in the first graph?

So, 11.2 lbs lost in the first month. My chart tells me I'll lose another 11 lbs or so. Think I'll prove it right or wrong? Only time will tell. If the equation is good, then with more data I get closer to making a decent prediction!

Stay tuned...

Ramping down the carbs

Over the last week or so, I've been gearing up to start (for the ump-teenth time in my dieting life) the first phase of the Atkins diet. Basically, the first phase (called the induction phase) is the point at which the carbohydrate intake is at its lowest. Twenty grams of carbs, about a small salad, each day for two weeks. Some people stay in this phase longer than two weeks if they have alot to lose.

In the past, I remained in induction for as long as 4 months at a time. Doing this allowed me to lose fast - not always the best medicine for a food addict! I'd lose fast, then gain even faster when I messed up. This time around, I'm going to follow the Atkins Book to a tee and carefully add in the carbs over time. There is also the The South Beach Diet. It's a lower fat (bleah) alternative. Notice I say "lower"! It's still a nice amount of fat, they just go into more detail about which fats are better for you than others. I think they encourage too many carbs - but I haven't formulated a very strong opinion of it yet. I should try the diet perhaps, just to check. =)