Weekend!
The low-carb diet’s main selling point, for me personally, is the whole “eat as much as you want, just off of this startlingly narrow list” thing. What’s weird, though, is the impact that this food plan has on the first weighing after starting the diet.
I remember the first time I went through one of those things 10ish years ago. We had memberships at the YMCA and we weighed ourselves before starting the diet… then spent a week eating bacon and eggs and cheese for breakfast, spinach and spring mix salads with a couple of chicken breasts for lunch, then steak salads for dinner. When I walked back up to the scale at the Y, I felt so dumb. “I’ve gained 5 pounds, I know it. When you eat a ribeye for dinner every night, you’re going to just gain weight. You dummy.”
And I got on the scale and I had lost 8 pounds. My jaw dropped. I was so excited! Holy cow! The diet worked! That one quick success gave me the push I needed to start going to the gym more, really throw myself into the diet, and get myself into decent shape. (Where, believe it or not, I actually stayed for 3-4 years. Okay, 2-3.)
Well, once again, I did the walk to the scale (this time at the doctor’s office) and I thought “dang, I’m so dumb… I’ve been doing nothing but eating steak salads and bacon and eggs.”
And, once again, I’ve lost 8 pounds.
I know that it’s primarily water weight at this point but, hey, that’s still 8 pounds of water. The next weight loss that shows up on the scale will be the fat. I hope.
All that to say, this weekend will be devoted to cooking. The 3-C Casserole that I made last weekend treated me very well all week, but I can’t do that two weeks in a row.
So I bought one of those “as seen on TV!” veggiegetti thingamabobs. I figure some spaghetti sauce would do well for a week. And if veggiegetti tastes as awesome as it sounds, I know that Maribou doesn’t mind taking over the sauce-eating duties.
Man, I can’t wait until Easter.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Photo is “Footrace finish line, 1925” from the Seattle Municipal Archives, used under a creative commons license)
Hope you’re doing some calorie burning as well not just changing your eating habits too 🙂
Weekend: I think I got out of a massively expensive black tie event with the lady friend. We will see.
Still playing FC4Report
Here’s a tip: when you make pasta-like shapes out of zucchini or squash or whatever, salt them and let them sit in a seive for a bit to drain some of the water out. They get less mushy when you cook it that way.
Also, fake rice made out of cauliflower is very good, until you get sick of it.
And spaghetti squash is great for this sort of thing, as well.Report
Alton Brown says that it’s also possible to make a spaghetti substitute out of eggplant.
I’ve tried to make it using his instructions. He’s lying.Report
We’re going to the symphony – for me, it will be the first time in over a decade! I am excite!
There’s an awkward schmoozing with plastic cups of wine event at the art gallery beforehand. We might or might not go to that part because hey, free gallery admission, depending on how successful we are at eating supper early.
Allegedly we are going to try to get somewhere on our taxes this weekend. We’re currently embarassingly many years behind.Report
We have a party to stop by on Saturday and a visit with friends (and their new puppy!) and some other friends (all together) on Sunday.
Other than that, lots of reading and normal chores and figuring out which unusual chores should be done when, given that not this weekend, not next weekend, but THE WEEKEND AFTER THAT I WILL BE FLYING TO PARIS (woohoo).Report
I am leaving for Zurich today (business, but we’ll try to have some fun as well.)Report
My company just sent me to Fullerton.
Feh!Report
The town founders should have gone with the other suggested name, Moresatedville.Report
Yo, Snark.Report
Yo, Tod.Report
@mike-schilling chocolate? skiing? 🙂Report
I have many orders for chocolate to fill while I’m here 🙂 And we have an outing to a mountain resort planned on the one day when it won’t be snowing/raining/crappy in general.Report
Hmm. Taking my parents out to eat Saturday for their birthdays (conveniently their birth dates are within a week of each other). My wallet is already hurting (the restaurant is 50+ bucks a person, if you eat cheap and if you’re going to splurge, why eat cheap?) but my mother will really like it and my father will be..pleasantly surprised. And they’d never go on their own.
Then right after that a party for someone else — which has a theme, but I’m not bothering beyond removing the tie from my previous meal/celebration.
Then trying to clear up one bedroom (plumbers need in to get the back of the shower on Friday) and clearing out cabinets (over the range microwave died, they’re replacing THAT on Friday) and doing some other overdue chores.Report
Not just water, you’re also drawing down the level of carbs stored in your muscles. This has an unfortunate effect if you do “endurance” exercise. Years ago I was going through the early part of a no-carb diet with my wife, and was in the habit of going out for an hour-and-a-half on the bike every couple of days. About day ten, 45 minutes into an out-and-bike ride, I had to stop and call my wife to come get me — I barely had enough energy to walk, let alone ride.
The flip side of that is the Tour de France. If you watch closely, on the flat stretches the riders are constantly feeding their faces, mostly with high-carb stuff. One of the differences between the top riders and the rest is how many carb calories they can absorb through their gut in a day.Report
Years ago I was going through the early part of a no-carb diet with my wife, and was in the habit of going out for an hour-and-a-half on the bike every couple of days. About day ten, 45 minutes into an out-and-bike ride, I had to stop and call my wife to come get me — I barely had enough energy to walk, let alone ride.
I’m at a bit of a loss for a physiological explanation for this. If you’d been eating virtually no carbohydrates for ten days, your glycogen stores would have been depleted before you started. What could explain this happening 45 minutes out?Report
Don’t know. Found lots of similar stories online.Report
I’ve a similar cache of stories. The first time I went on a low-carb diet, I realized quickly that I needed to do stuff like “lift weights” at the beginning of the workout instead of doing stuff like “use elliptical” at the beginning of it.
If I did the elliptical at the start of the workout session, I would run out of gas and be unable to lift weights. If I lifted weights first, however, I usually had enough gas left to use the cardio machines for a pitiable amount of time.
(Compared to when I worked out and ate whatever I wanted… when I could work out for as long as I liked no matter what I was doing.)Report
To me the “Sudden lack of energy when doing a routine workout” would be a sign of a problem. I’m not sure I’d want to stick to a diet plan that caused that.
Then again, I’m still trying to figure out how to condition my shins here for jogging. (Not shin splints, thank you. Either weak or tight muscles there. I jogged yesterday, and my muscles are still a bit swollen and sore. But unlike shin splints, slowing to even a fast walk will stretch out the kinks. The pain doesn’t escalate and force me to stop. It forces me to slow down and stretch. I think it’s an imbalance somewhere. It seems to be slowly improving, at least, rather than getting worse — and I’ve bumped back up to a 40 to 45 minute session…)Report
The Wife came home yesterday after a week helping her dad (knee replacement) so just getting to spend some lazy time with her will be nice. Then hopefully some writing.Report
Sick 🙁 and working job #2Report
Forgot to mention, Cecilia (the kitty we were worried about last weekend) has recovered really well. She has a bit of a hematoma (expected because the lump was so big), but she’s jumping around like old times, and she’s nicer to the other cats than she has been in a year. She’s in great high spirits. As for the future, well, the lab said, “It’s definitely cancer but we don’t know what kind. We also can’t tell if you got it all or not, because there are a few spots on the margin that were too close to call. So, you should do a giant muscle excision just in case.” The vet and I basically looked at each other and said, “Perispinal? UM NO.” and we are just going to wait and see. What’s important is that she’s very happy, and has been since about 3 days after the surgery.Report
I am in Pismo, taking a four day break.
Wineries and olive oil joints and the beach.
Oh, happy St. Paddy’s, everybody!Report
What are olive oil joints? Those sound like fun.Report