Tomato pie and Decisions

Tonight, after work I came home and cleaned like a banshee. We're living in a 650 square foot apartment. When you take into account that we're both messy and, as an artsy person, I have art projects lain strung about the apartment, the place gets messy quickly. I swear: overnight little messy elves come out and throw clothes everywhere and re-dirty the dishes. So, I ran thru the place quickly (fortunately a clean up goes really fast), then made my dinner while watching episodes of Futurama.

Dinner tonight: 

Artichoke

Fried Talapia

Edisto Beach Pie (without the pie)

I really recommend the pie: it's nothing but tomatoes, grated cheese, mayonnaise and spices. 

Simply slice about 3 tomatoes (depending on the amount of servings), mix a cup of grated cheese with a cup of mayonnaise. Layer tomatoes with cheese/mayonnaise and spices (salt, pepper, oregano) as many times as you want to fill the pan (I did two layers today) and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. If you want to make a real pie, just buy a pre-made crust and fill the shell with the ingredients; same deal. Below is the finished product:

The finished product: artichoke with melted butter, fried
talapia and edisto beach pie

After that, I was feeling a little creative, but I didn't have enough energy to go get all my art supplies from their various corners about the room, so I got the nail polish. I'm in a Halloweeny mood. Can you tell?

The left hand- no way I'm showing you
the right hand, as it was very complicated
to draw those mini pumpkins left-headed.

Yes, it's a little ridiculous. Which is just what I wanted :)

_________________________________________________________________________________

Serious Time:

I've been struggling with contentment lately over a few aspects of my life. Or, maybe another way to say it is, I've been wanting some things in my life to be different. The question I'd like to pose is this: how to we discern when something in our life:

A) Is a situation sent by God for a specific purpose (aka: for our own personal or spiritual growth, for ministry opportunities, etc), and therefore should be accepted and we should try to find contentment and "bloom where we are planted"...

OR

B) Is a situation in which we have freedom to change if we don't like, or would rather be elsewhere.

To the non-christian, the answer is simple: "Do what you want".  That's what our generation shouts pretty much constantly. It's our natural inclination. We want to do what we want to do, and answer to no One. 

But I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I have given Him my heart and my life. This means I am called to "pick up my cross" and follow Him, to "lose my life so I can find it" and to live sacrificially with eternity in mind. 

So what's the balance? You can't be too extreme about either one. If you are too extreme about doing what you want, you risk missing out on God's spirit. If we live only for ourselves and for we want, we miss out on ministry, we become self-absorbed, we live the unquenchable selfish life that is never satisfied. If we are too extreme about listening to the Holy Spirit (or rather, over-spiritualize decisions), we are crippled in our decision making if we don't "feel" an answer, we run the risk of sacrificing things God hasn't asked us to sacrifice and we could miss out doing what we love and what we were built for, ultimately for God's good purpose. 

I guess what the best thing to do is to prayerfully pursue what you feel you are gifted in. After all, God gave us gifts to USE them. So, I'll knock tentatively on a door, and if I get a knock back, I will knock harder. If the door opens, and I've prayed about it, I have the freedom to walk thru it, yes?

Unfortunately, I am notoriously shy about pursuing things I want. That, and I am ridiculously idealistic, so much so that if something doesn't fall in my lap, or God's voice doesn't boom from the sky in a thunderous affirmation, I don't want to walk forward.

How do you all know when a decision is right?

Spaghetti Squash and married life

Hello, all.

This week was not a great for the low-carb diet. I didn't follow it as strictly as I did last week. But I didn't forsake it all together.

A few nights ago I made spaghetti and meat sauce ... out of Spaghetti Squash. You can find the squash at the local grocery store (I went to Kroger). It's yellow and oval shaped, and around $3.00. What you do is this: You split it in half long-ways, remove the seeds, put on a cooking sheet facing down and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Then flip over and bake for at least ten minutes. After that, soak the squash faced down in water for 20 minutes. Finally, take a fork and strip through the squash, making long string-like "pasta" strands. Add butter and salt to taste (which for me, means drenching).

The outcome: not great. Jesse ate it, since Jesse's great like that, but we both agreed I wouldn't make it again. I think I might've saved some time and bought a regular squash, diced and cooked it, and poured spaghetti sauce on it. The texture of the spaghetti squash is just not spaghetti-like. There seems to be a big flaw in the health world: if something LOOKS like some other food item, it should have the same name. Not so. Let's go by taste, people.

Besides all that, life is going well. I've had more free time, which I have spent painting, so, gotta love that. Married life is happy. We've been married now for a "whopping" three and a half months. Every so often, I look at him and think, "this man is my husband"! We're discovering more about what makes us similar and what makes us see things differently. I'm experiencing my first football season as his wife, which I imagine to be similar to being the wife of an addict lol. The man breathes football. And we enjoy our time together. We giggle and laugh at stupid stuff very few people would laugh at. Plus, can I just say, cuddling is just the best thing ever.

So, anyway, here's to the start of a new week, a new opportunity to get back on the diet completely, and a new week of marriage.

WEIGH IN

Well, I woke up early and scrambled to get to the medical office, and consequently, the scale I've been using. The result? 162- I lost three lbs this week! Easiest week ever. I ate when I wanted, and ate well, and I didn't change my exercising- I walked twice last week, same as usual. 

That concludes with the good news. The rest of the news is this: after happily congratulating myself on the 3 lb weight loss, I went to the break room/kitchen to get some coffee, and there, laid out before me were gourmet donuts. I caved. Very easily and with very little hesitantcy. You see, as I knew I was going to the Texas State Fair (and was prepared to splurge a little), my gluttonous side demanded a donut. So today, it would seem, was my splurge day (except for lunch, because I ate a salad).

Dinner consisted of fried EVERYTHING. It's the Texas State Fair, and so you HAVE you try all the fried things they have. This year had quite a few things. Jesse and I walked around (and walked and walked, so at least we got some exercise) and shared the following items: fried snickers bar, fried Macaroni n' cheese sliders, a mediocre grilled cheese sandwich (with the bread!), root beer, funnel cake, pretzel and, the most atrocious of all: fried bacon cinnamon roll. 

In a word: gross. I cannot wait to eat my carb-less diet tomorrow. This was a splurge day (and I probably gained all three lbs back lol), and we have to have these every so often. But these are not the norm, and I miss my chicken and lettuce and cheese and eggs and, you know, food items that don't leave you greasy and bloated. 

Next weigh in is next Wednesday. I won't be listing my calories this week, but I will be including low-carb recipes that I try. Now that this diet is not such a novelty (to you or to me!), I'm gonna just do it, give you updates every so often, and keep on with other, less obnoxious topics.

K. Good night. I'm exhausted, bluberous from that food, and bone-tired from my 3.5 hour walk.

-Me

Day 6- A weekly review

I know, I know, I've skipped around a bit. But I thought I should at least write on this day, which is the day before I weigh in for the first week. That's right, I've done this for 6 days... not a vast amount of time, but still, impressive for me. Think about it- a week without crackers, a slice of bread, a banana, etc. It's definitely a change.

Some Thoughts:
#1) There are a lot of great substituting recipes you can use that taste perfectly great. I'll go into that this next week. I just stocked up at the grocery store, so I hope to present some really good low-carb recipes that you will enjoy also (if you feel inclined to try it).
#2) This low carb diet, and consequently, this high protein diet, is pretty satisfying. I eat much more cheeses, veggies and meats then I ever have. I don't have to feel guilty about using butter in my cooking, and I can use fattening dressings on my crouton-less salads. Also, like a true man, I think Jesse is enjoying the inclusion of more meat to his diet. Right now, for instance, in my refridgerator I have: bacon, breakfast sausage, hotdogs, pepperoni, burger meat, and salami. Typically, there would be no meat whatsoever, as I usually just eat fish... because preparing meat meals tends to scare my limited cooking abilities away.
#3) I'm missing bread less and less. I was thinking the other day, as I gobbled down a protein style Cheeseburger from In-And-Out, that I couldn't remember what biting into a burger with the bun tastes like. I remember it being more filling, but not less satisfying.

So, Week One weigh-in is tomorrow. I admit, I am nervous.  I'll let you know how it goes, for better for for worse. I should say now, I feel good. My stomach area is certainly smaller and my face looks thinner. And I'm fitting into my fantastically comfortable jeans, which I haven't taken off since Saturday lol. My scale at home is unreliable. It's five lbs lighter than it should be, so, unfortunately, I can't believe it. But the gradual scalings have revealed: "less than before", so I take that to be good news.

Okay. Good night all.
Much love.

Day Three and Four (I got lazy)

Sorry guys, I got lazy yesterday and didn't update. So I don't remember what exactly what I ate,  I know I stayed just below 30 carbs for the whole day until I went to Pei Wei. There, I got the chicken lettuce wraps, which I assumed would be very low in carbs. I mean, it's chicken and lettuce, right? How carb-filled can it be? VERY, it turns out. If I had eaten the whole plate (which I didn't, whew), it would've been 620 calories and 68 crams of carbs! I ate half, so I ate 36 grams. Not really that bad, but it did piss me off.

Anyway, onto Day Four...

As it was Saturday, I splurged a little.
Breakfast: scrambled eggs, two slices of bacon, 4 fl oz of orange juice, 368 calories and 15.7 grams carbs
Lunch: Cheese, 138 calories and 3.8 g carbs, pepperoni, 158 calories and 0 carbs, and seven rice cracker chips 26 calories and 6.3 carbs.
Dinner: Ensenada Chicken Platter, 663 calories and 23 g carbs. We got this at Red Robin, and it was the only dish under 30 carbs! The salads were all very high, obviously the pastas and delicious burgers were a no go, as were the mint chocolate brownie milkshakes...
Snack: Jesse didn't feel very well and was needing some ice-cream, so I went out and grabbed us some frozen yogurts, which have 23 calories and 8 carbs per fluid ounce. I got six (roughly a cup), so I ate 138 calories, which I thought was pretty low, but it had....48  carbs. Needless to say, I'm feeling that difference. I feel pretty bloated tonight and learned my lesson. "No Fat" does not mean you can't gain weight from it.

So today: 1491 calories and 96 carbs. Not so much a success. Back to NO sugars tomorrow.

But the good news: I am fitting into my size 8 jeans! And, if my terrible scale can be trusted, I've lost 3 lbs. I weigh in at the half way point on Tuesday, so I'll post that then. The weigh in helps re-motivate me. No more frozen "fat free" yogurt for me.

Day Three

I woke up today and got on the scale and was rewarded by weighing a pound less! Get it! That certainly helped with motivating me. Unfortunately, an impediment arose that hindered this day from being completely successful, and that would be... sour patch kids candy. I found a bag in my cabinet that had a few left (all the orange ones, which I usually dislike, but to my sugar-deprived brain, they were like heaven itself). Before I knew what had happened, I had eaten the remaining sour candies, about sixteen. Then I flipped the packet around and looked at the nutritional information, and realized I had, in one foul swoop, ruined my carb count for the day! Dang sneaky little delicious candies.

Breakfast: rice cake and peanut butter: 223 calories and 11.3 carbs
Lunch: Caeser dressing, iceburg lettace, tomato, onion, cheese, pepperoni: 427 calories and 21.8 g carbs
Dinner: Cheeseburger double, protein style: 520 calories, 9 carbs
Snack: rice cake and peanut butter: 223 calories and 11.3 carbs
Evil Snack: Sour Patch kids: 150 calories, 37 carbs

Total 1,543 calories and 69.1 carbs... would've been 32.1!!! ahh, regret.

K, night. Jesse needs attention.

Day 2

It's incredibly late and I am incredibly tired, so I will make this short.
A brief synopsis of today: work at the medical office was crazy and full of running and going back over old records. Then, choir practice at a friend's church- they are performing The Messiah and I have joined up. :) It was very exciting to be singing Handel again, despite the melismas reeking havoc on my out-of-shape voice.

Today was not as happily carb-less as the day before. Yes, I still managed to eat less carbs and stay away from the beautiful chocolate cake they brought in for lunch (my powers of self-control are saintlike... ha ha). But, I was drained today and missed the "I'm full" feeling. But, whenever I asked myself honestly if I was hungry, the answer was "no".

So breakfast: 4% cottage cheese, 55 calories, 1.5g
Lunch: Chicken kabobs, mixed veggies and greek salad (yeah): Total 468 calories , 15.3 g
Dinner: Tomato soup, 320 calories and 22 g (I thought this would be less grams of carbs than it proved to be, darn it), and blue cheese salad 192 calories and 15 g.

Today's Total: 1,035 calories, 53.8 grams of carbs

So, the day was a success :)
I think I need to put more fat in the diet though. According to my research, it's a mistake to go to lean on the calories during the first two weeks.

Im thinking an In-And-Out Cheeseburger protein style tomorrow. mmmm....

Day One.

Okay, going on with the last post, I've decided to write a little bit each day of the next two weeks of my  low-carb diet! I promise to be completely honest. This will help me accountable when that cookie smell wafts through the air, or I get sad and immediately want fried chicken to soothe my spirit (which, any southern girl could tell you, it has the inexplicable power to do). 

It's Day One of the low-carb diet. (Do you also hear dramatic music in the background?) Well, technically, it's day two, but last night Jesse and I got ice-cream, so like a true procrastinator, I'm moving Day One to today. Ta-da! 

I'm happy with how today went. So much so, that I'm convincing myself I should put up the day's devourings, so you can see them. I will undoubtably regret this tomorrow, or the next day, if I am too weak to resist something deliciously carb-y. 

As it's Day One, I guess that means I should give you my beginning weight, which seems very cruel and self-inflicting, but here it goes: 165 lbs. I'm 5'6" and have quite a bit of muscle so that should give you some idea of what we are dealing with. The goal is 145 lbs. I hide it well, as I'm pear-shaped, and can wear skirts and look pretty decent. But I'm missing the feel of jeans, wanting some of the weird arm fat to leave, and just all around tired of saying "I'm going to loose weight", and then not. As the daughter of a Marine, this lack of self-discipline simply will not do. Plus, I'm starting to know tricks like "if you're wearing a skirt and don't want your thighs to chafe from rubbing together all day, rub some deoturant on your inner thighs and it won't hurt". Yes, it works, but it's just depressing. Plus, I'm rubbing the fabric of my inner thighs on my favorite pair of scrubs, and it just won't do. 

Anyway, here are the results from today:

Breakfast: skipped- not purposefully- I slept late and needed to rush to work. In the wee hours of the morning, even eating is superseded by the desire to sleep "just one more minute".

Lunch: Like many medical offices, drug reps come and bring lunch every so often (a great but dangerous perk!). Today, they brought Genghis Grill stir fry, snap peas, rice and cookies. I ate the stir fry and snap peas without rice. A grand total of: 121 calories and 11 grams of carbs. But after that, I was still hungry, and I knew that unless I had a good lunch, I would be tempted by those fresh cookies. So, off to Panera Bread I went where I ordered a Creamy Tomato soup (without croutons it's 11g of carbs less) and a pickle spear. They brought it to me with bread... which was a temptation- thank the Lord it wasn't hot and steaming, or I would've caved. So I happily ate my soup and two pickle spears, totaling: 325 calories and 13 grams of carbs.

Dinner: I made Talapia (147 calories, 0 carbs), which I fried in butter- yes, I can do that on this diet- (200 calories, 0 carbs) in a fish fry (0 calories, 7 carbs), cauliflower mashed potatoes (69 calories, 3.5  carbs- which I finally NAILED! It tasted amazing. The secret is in not overcooking the cauliflower and not pureeing it. I'm starting to like it more than the traditional potato, as afterward, I don't feel like I'm a gigantic sleepy slug of a woman. See this recipe to try: 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/george-stella/mock-garlic-mashed-potatoes-recipe/index.html

It's great and a great substitute for the real thing!). As I had quite a few tomatoes in the house, I also made my favorite Edisto Beach Tomato Pie, without the pie. It includes mayonnaise, cheese, tomatoes of course, and seasoning. Amazing, and it comes to 292 calories and 3.6 grams of carbs. 

Snack: I'm thinking I'll eat a piece of chocolate before bed, 80 calories, 6 carbs.

Grant total today: 1,234 calories and 44.1 grams of carbs!

Day One: SUCCESS. I feel full, satisfied, energetic and hopeful. 

Now, I only have to do it again for 13 more days... Also in 13 more days, I'll weigh in, and put my actual weight down... Oh Lord. 

The Evil Word... Diet. or, "The bread-loving girl gives up carbs"

It's been forever since I posted. There are a couple reasons for this: one, writer's block, two, lack of time, and three, I had writing projects due for work, which demanded precedence. 

Life has recently been about: rushing to get church work done, working at the medical office, being involved in two choirs, finding time for fun art projects (yay!) and spending time with Jesse. Besides that, there seems to be little time for anything else. 

I've been TRYING to eat a low-carb diet, but I've been finding it very difficult. This may sound silly, but I'm realizing what an emotional attachment I have to my food, or specifically, to bread. I know a lot of people that are "sweet" people. They crave the candied rush of sugar. While I love a good cookie and have a special fondness for key lime pie and apple crumble, I really love salty carbs. Pretzels. Pasta. Rolls. Chips. You get the picture. 

I don't know how familiar you are, reader, with just how many carbs are in our daily diet. From a young age, I remember learning about the food pyramid, which shows bread as lowest and most important tier (false). I don't want to go into into the science of how bread makes us fat (there are lots of documentaries and books I could offer if you want the information), but suffice it to say: breads and sugar make us fat. The body doesn't know how to break down carbohydrates, so it turns it to sugar and sends it directly to be stored as fat. The premise of of this diet is our body craves fat. Animal products, byproducts, healthy fat and leafy greens are where it's at. If we eat these things, we give our bodies time to tap into our excess fat storages and burn it off. 

Prior to this diet, here is what I would eat (and what I would think as healthy-ish):

• Breakfast: bowl of cheerios, toast, banana and orange juice
• Lunch: sandwich, chips, an apple and maybe a soft drink
• Dinner: Pasta with red sauce, broccoli and chicken, glass of milk
• After Dinner Snack: bowl of popcorn

Doesn't that seem like a reasonably healthy meal? I thought so... until you factor in how many calories AND carbs are in that day: just over 3,000 calories, 416 grams of carbs... that's a pretty bad day. Well after eating like this (with the occasional cheeseburger and fries thrown in like a reasonable person) and exercising about 3 times a week, I was seeing ZERO results- even slowly, over years, gaining weight!

This diet.... has had to completely reshape the way I eat. I've added a lot more protein to my diet and a lot more vegetables, which has been good and actually, quite tasty. But leaving out the bread leaves me feeling like I've left a part of my soul away lol. You'd think I was Italian or something.

Meal now (if I'm good and stick to the diet):

• Breakfast: piece of bacon, boiled or scrambled eggs, strawberries, big glass of water
• Lunch: Salad with chicken, any fattening dressing, no croutons, apple, maybe soup (no noodles!)
• Dinner: Talapia cooked in butter, broccoli with butter, cauliflower mashed potatoes or squash
• Snack: piece of chocolate

The reasons why this diet is great:

This diet naturally has fewer calories- this day would be 1,184 calories and it has fewer carbs: 56.8. And I am still eating quite a bit of fat: any vegetables I eat are cooked in butter, I've started cooking my fish in butter (crazy good- so much better than olive oil!) and I'm snacking on things like pepperoni, berries and nuts. I'm never hungry on this diet, and if I am, I eat fat and am satisfied.

The reasons why this diet sucks: 

1. It's expensive for a newlywed couple (or for poor people in general!)
2. The food generally takes more time to prepare
3. Eating out is difficult
4. and for me personally, it's depressing and more challenging then just counting calories. 

I can count calories like no bodies business. I did that to prepare for the wedding, and it was painstakingly slow-moving and gave me no energy. And, because I was cutting out fat, I was MORE hungry, causing me to eat more bread, and halt weight loss.  

I've never realized how much I depend on that "I am ridiculously full" feeling to be content. It's been sort of a spiritual discovery for me. I'm seeing how much I rely on comfort food to help me feel better when I am sad, or frustrated, or angry. So, this diet has certainly given me the opportunity to lean more on Christ.

That said, I haven't been great at following it. It's hard to break lifelong habits and it's not that practical for my go-go-go lifestyle. I haven't kept it strictly, and so I haven't seen much results on the scale, but I have seen results in inches. But I've certainly been cutting back in carbs and at least sticking to under 100 grams of carbs a day. This week's goal is to stay at or below 50. I'm writing it down so I hold to it lol. In fact, let's write it in bold and make it a font larger:

THIS WEEK'S GOAL IS TO STAY AT OR BELOW 50!!!!

I'll write back about the results next week. :)


This post wasn't really interesting. It was more of a crazy weight conscious lady moment. Sorry lol.