March 11th-April 15th

Regrettably, I must again start out with an apology. 8/ Turns out I am not quite as disciplined as I would like to think...remember the days in January when I blogged every day? I have no clue what happened to them. I am not that busy-not any more than I was in January. I guess I could make excuses all day, but I won't. I apologize for the absence. I'm here now, and I'm going to try to be better! Promise.

On the diet/weight loss front it has been a win/lose situation here recently. On a happy note, this morning's weigh in unveiled that I've lost over 40 lbs(!), but today is the first time in three days I've been able to really eat anything substantial-and even then it's been a little touch and go. The slow carb thing that I am doing throughout the week seems to be working wonderfully for my tummy all except for cheat day. I feel great until about Sunday afternoon. Saturday is cheat day-the day of bread, ice cream, and chocolate!! Those three make weekly appearances on cheat day for me. They are my weaknesses. Not too bad, right? A little chocolate, a biscuit or two, or maybe a sandwich, and a bit of ice cream. Yes, these are all fine things to eat...for normal people. I know that being allergic to gluten, or having a gluten sensitivity is all the rage right now, but I really do think gluten dislikes me with great intensity! I also (recently) have been wondering if I have a dairy weirdness too.

I was doing pretty well with the exception of Sunday and sometimes Monday. I was just about ready to decide that I was going to just start skipping cheat day all together and just always do the veggies and beans (and sometimes fish and chicken) route since it was working so well. Then Easter came and with it came a family potluck...dun, Dun, DUUUUNNN!! My mom made all these yummy foods and I even, upon the request of the men in my family, made a yellow layer cake with homemade chocolate icing. I went to their house Friday night to help my mom get her taxes together-which is always a beast because my dad is self-employed. We worked all through the night Friday then got up and finished them around 2 o'clock on Saturday. Since no one can handle getting food on their own in my family, after the taxes were done we went out to get some food. Pizza was chosen (not by me). Pizza always hates me :C I also had a little bit of cake on Sunday. I have had the worst week of my life this week! Lots of liquid...not much real food.  As a result of the Easter belly badness though, I made an appointment with my normal doctor for Monday night to talk to her about all of this. And hopefully she will send me on to a GI doctor who will at least be able to tell me what I'm up against! Hopefully! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

February 15th-March10th

Ok, so...it has been a while! My computer crapped out on me the week after my last post and then Meredith, my roommate (aka the person who owns the only other computer in our house) had mid-terms the next week.  She is doing a distance learning program through UTK, so she had to have her computer for mid-terms, of course.  Then, last week, I had all four wisdom teeth yanked out of my head.  I am still in a bit of pain...and I've had a bit of trouble this week.  Meredith has gone home this weekend for her mom's birthday and she left her computer.  So, I am finally felling a bit better (no hurting so bad) and I have been left home alone with a computer.  Here goes!

Up until getting my teeth out these are the kinds of things I was eating:

Basically sticking to the four hour body way of eating (beans!) while implementing fish in the month of February. These are the only pics I have, but they are pretty representative of what I was doing.

**Gross picture alert**

After getting these things yanked out (I totally asked to see them after the "operation" and they bagged 'em up and gave 'em to me!) this has been my diet-for a WEEK! :C

Don't get me wrong.  I love eating things like ice cream and pudding, but after a week of eating this and this alone-hardly anything solid-it gets really old!!

The good news is I had an awesome cat nurse:

My wonderful roommate made me a really cool basket of things to do while I was out:

I got a free shirt out of the deal!

And! Last, but not least...I stole an illegal pic of my teeth!

Getting this picture was quite the experience...This was after my consultation-the dentist (who's name is...are you ready?...Harry Joe Mack...His real name is Harry, but everyone calls him Joe) had already turned the light off and walked out of the room.  I was free to go, but I saw my chance and I took it!  The reason it is weird and not straight on is because I thought I was going to get caught at any second!  I actually had to turn the light back on and then snap the pic...I got it though and I didn't even get caught!

I have actually been eating real food today!!  See...

I feel like I have been starving for a week solid, but today after eating things like this I feel stuffed!!  I think it may take me a while to work up to eating right again.  

Updates on the food front: Starting in March I am going to give chicken and turkey a go.  That is turkey bacon on my egg sandwich, by the way!  Fish went really well in February, so I thought I would give chicken a chance!  I really think that my problem is gluten, I really do.  Hopefully birds won't give me any grief!  

February 8th-February 14th

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!  This week has gone by incredibly fast for me.  I just don't really know where it went.  I am going to try to start blogging on the weekends (hopefully with next week's post).  I think a nice Sunday afternoon blog session won't be too hard.  We'll see though.

This week has been a bit of a rough one for me.  Nothing really to do with food.  My wisdom teeth are giving me grief-really just one of them.  My top two have been up for a while, but it is like the bottom two got stuck or something.  They are about half way up...and the left bottom one is trying like everything to fully meet the rest of my mouth this week.  I have had a fever (off and on), an ear ache, a big swollen face, and (of course) a very achy tooth.  So, I have not been able to eat a ton of anything since about Thursday.  Want the good news? I have a consultation today to schedule the removal of all my teeth of wisdom.  I have been told for a while they all need to come out and by multiple dentists.  So, now is the time!

I do not have many pictures this week because I haven't been terribly excited about even trying to eat, but here are a few.

Meredith made us this Tuscan bean soup with kale earlier this week.  The Tuscan bean part of the soup was really good, but I found that I am not the biggest fan of kale.

Basically this week I have kept to the 4 hour body style of eating.  Veggies and beans, veggies and beans, beans and veggies...

For breakfast on cheat day this week-Saturday- I made vanilla bean scones.

They were yummy!! I also made walnut chocolate chunk brownies.  (Yea, I am really good at taking it easy on the gluten...)  I am bad at this cheat day stuff.  By Friday at lunchtime I am extremely tired of just beans and veggies-extremely!  So, by Friday night, when I head to the grocery store to stock up for cheat day, I want to buy every bad thing in the store. We ended up buying a brownie mix, some chips, M&Ms, small candy coated Cadbury eggs, and some ice cream. You see what I mean? As it stands right now, cheat day is just a day for me to totally pig out and make myself feel sick.  I feel like I eat so much junk on cheat day that I don't really want it through the week that much (until about Friday).  Maybe that is the point.

My tummy is still doing really well throughout the week (when I am only eating veggies and beans).  I am still having a bit of trouble surrounding cheat day...but I am eating a whole bunch of junk, so that could be it.  One day I am going to be strong enough to not go completely insane on cheat day.  I hope.

Also, just this morning Meredith told me that I look like I have lost weight...in my head.  She just kept saying that it was my head that looked thinner.  I laughed quite a bit and then asked her if my big ole head really looked thinner.  She, of course, meant my face. =) I hope she is right. 

I will leave you with this- Happy Valentine's day, rawr!

   

Believe it or not, you can get this little guy at your local Wal-Mart on a shirt in the ladies section.  I thought it was perfect for Valentine's day!

January 27th-February 7th

Hello, all!  Sorry it took me so long to get around to my "once a week" post.  So, remember the post about the two books I was reading-Skinny Bitch  and The 4 Hour Body? The last couple days of January I started the 4 hour way of eating.  I will not reveal everything about the diet because I think you should read it for yourself if you want to start it don't assume what I say about it is all right.  The aspects of the diet that you will see displayed here are as follows: eat meat, veggies, and beans at every meal (for me though, eat A LOT of veggies and some beans at every meal); and you get a cheat day every week!!  It has been weird getting used to not only eating breakfast consistantly, but eating a big breakfast everyday.  I am actually eating 3-4 eggs every morning with veggies and beans on the side.  It is a ton of food!  I think I am getting used to it now, but the very first morning I thought I was going to puke! 

This is a representative breakfast, a 3 egg black bean omlette with sliced tomatoes on top.  I made this bad boy, and it was tasty!

You would be surprised how hard it is to find a restaurant with beans on the menu.

.

I've been eating a lot of Mexican lately.  They always have beans!  It is getting a bit old though.  You can only eat Mexican food so many times before you are sick of it!

I am seeing results already after eating this way for exactly a week and a day, (side note...I am down roughly  15 lbs from December!) but I am really bored! Really, really bored.  This diet isn't supposed to be fun it is supposed to work, but I need variety!  I need it bad.  I think, for me, it is the diet mind-set is the trouble.  Before I started eating this way I was eating salads a majority of the time, but I was never bored.  I think when I start a diet my brain sabotages the rest of me.  I really want to get healthy this time though...so I am going to stick with it for at least a month.

This week also marked the start of implementing fish into my diet.

This was my first fishy meal of the year.  Grilled Salmon, homemade pinto beans, and some over roasted zucchini slices.  I had a bit of tummy trouble after this meal, but in retrospect, I am thinking it was because I hadn't eaten any fish in a while.  This is what Meredith whipped up for dinner tonight:

Steelhead trout rubbed in pesto with a small salad and some english peas.  It was so good I could have kept eating for a decade!  

My stomach has not been acting up at all (save on cheat day) since starting the 4hour way of eating.  Cheat day, oh glorious cheat day!  That is a big bonus on this diet.  I was raised with a bag of chocolate in my hand, so I have trouble taming my sweet tooth.  

This is what I have to walk by a million times a day at work.  Every time I go to the bathroom these chocolatey wonders stare at me from my neighbor's desk and there are multiple jars like this sprinkled throughout my office.  Even the guy who delivers our office's paper also brings a bag of warm Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.  I has been hard.  I look forward to cheat day every day of the week.  

Discoveries of this week: 1) I think my tummy has issues with gluten.  This diet totally nixes all bread, rice, and grains of any kind.  As I said earlier, I have been doing great.  On cheat day, Saturday I ate a big helping of mushrooms in champagne sauce over pasta.  I had a ton of trouble that night. I was miserable.  I was able to further confirm my suspicion of gluten just last night.  Meredith and I hit up a Chinese buffet.  I love shrimp-love it!  Every time I get to eat it (usually at a Chinese buffet or something similar) my stomach goes crazy.  Last night though, being mindful of gluten-I couldn't eat eggrolls anyway-I ate a plate full of peel and eat shrimp.  No trouble AT ALL.  I am going to continue to try and experiment with this gluten issue and I'll let you know.

2) Extra desert Delights gum is amazing.  It tastes like it is straight out of Willy Wonka's workshop.  I recommend the apple pie kind (it tastes like you are eating a big slice of pie) and the orange creme pop kind (just like a dreamcicle).  Every time I want to run around the office, gather up all the candy jars, run into my office, slam the door, dump my booty over my desk, and face plant into it Gimme style (Gimme, the animalistic alter from United State of Tara) I pop a piece of gum.  I almost always feel better.

3) All of a sudden this week I have been having a lot of trouble with cigarette cravings.  I don't know what's up with that, but hopefully I can conquer it!

Day Twenty Seven:

Friday mornings at the Harris/Long house are a little hectic.  I don't know if other people have this issue, but by the end of the week I am drained of just about everything.  It is hard for me to just drag myself out of bed.  This morning was no different.  We woke up late, couldn't get started at a decent pace, and ended up running out the door in a full out tizzy with no breakfast to be seen.  If you have ever been on a breakfast kick (eating breakfast consistently for a while) and then something happens and you don't get it one day you know that it is terrible! This morning was a bit sad because of the no food thing...but! look what I had for lunch!

These nachos were good, but not what the menu said they were going to be.  Hate when that happens.

Dinner was a thrown together salad.

Ok, so on to the changes I was talking about last night. Dun, DUn, DUN!! They really aren't that big.  First of all, it is a bit taxing to formulate a blog post five nights a week.  I know they are not awesome pieces of literature, but it still takes quite a bit of time.  So, to (hopefully) make my blog a little less blah, blah, blah, here's a picture, this is what I ate today, the end, I am going to try and write more like once a week from here on out.  I will take some pictures of my favorites or new things and post them.  Second change-fish!  My tummy has been doing pretty ok, but not 100%.  So, in order to further pin point my specific problem foods I am going to introduce fish for the month of Feburary just to see how it goes.  Beef, pork, chicken, all other meat is still out (at this point it really just a personal preference for me). Also, I am going to drastically cut back my milk and cheese intake.  I was raised in a milk and bread kind of household.  Milk, big tall glasses of milk, and at least one piece of bread with every meal you ate at home.  Instead of trying to cut out all dairy all at once, I am going to try to just focus on milk and cheese.  So, we shall see how all of this goes.  I'll keep you "posted." (Hahaha...I'm a nerd, I know!)

Day Twenty Six:

Today started out with what Meredith calls a frittata.

It was like an egg pie with mushrooms, spinach, and (of course) some cheese!

I had left over kryptonite for lunch.  I have been eating lunch in my office's break room this week and people are giving weird looks when I take pictures of my food. So, I didn't today.  *see last night's dinner for picture*

Dinner was on the fly tonight because Meredith and I went to our favorite hair guy, Jason, to get our heer did!  He is amazing.  Jason Henderson at the Buzz hair salon in Hendersonville, TN (615) 824-4338.  Call him!  Get him to do your hair.  You will never go back to anyone else. Period.  Anyway, I had a cheese quesadilla from taco bell and a "beans and cheesus" as the cashier so aptly called my pintos and cheese. :D


Just so you know, changes are a-foot.  Hopefully I will have time to go into more detail with tomorrow's post-and maybe I'll have everything laid out better in my head by then!

 

 

Day Twenty Five:

I've been wanting a good smoothie ever since I tried and failed miserably the other day.  I still haven't bought the true necessary ingredients, but I gave it another go this morning. It was a bit more successful. I could actually drink it this morning, so that's a plus!

  Lunch was a little frustrating, but only because it took so long in coming. Puckett's is a restaurant on the first floor of my building.  The food is usually pretty good.  It is good ole country food.  The problem with this place is that it takes f o r e v e r for your food to come.  I get an hour for lunch, and as I said, the place is in the bottom of my building (just an elevator ride away), but I have had to take a long lunch before because they are so slow.  Today was no different.  I was so rushed when I finally got my food (a veggie plate with a side salad) that I didn't snap a picture of it.

Dinner is what Meredith so fondly calls "kryptonite."

It is a white bean chili of her own creation.  It has all kinds of white beans, green chilies, jalapenos, tomatoes, artichokes, cheese, and some other things.  I don't know she has ever revealed the entire recipe to me, but it is amazing!

Day Twenty four:

Breakfast today looks suspiciously like yesterday's...

I'm telling you though, this is the best cantaloupe I have ever eaten and I could always-at any point in the day-eat some eggs.

Lunch was a bit small, but I just wasn't feeling it today.  I wasn't that hungry, so I just picked up some chips and salsa.

and...don't tell my boss, but I illegally ate it in my office :/

Dinner was also Mexican inspired.

a nice big bowl of Chipotle rice, beans, veggies, sour cream, and cheese!

Day Twenty three:

First, I hope that everyone is safe after last night's round of crazy storms here in Tennessee.  I had trouble sleeping through all of the insane booming and flashing.  Finally, around 1:30 AM, the biggest clap of thunder I've ever heard woke me up good enough that I headed to the living room to look for some weather.  Meredith was already up and watching diligently.  Needless to say, I think I'll be going to bed pretty early tonight.

I started out today trying something a bit different.  I found it on Pintrest a while back, but I did not pin it at the time.  I thought I could make it work though...I was wrong.

The eggs and cantaloupe are not what I'm talking about. The "smoothie" was the bad stuff.  I heard if you throw a handful of spinach into a fruit smoothie you can't even taste it.  This is false.  Well, maybe not if you do it correctly, but I figured out this morning that I don't even know how to make a plain ole smoothie.  Our blender was broken-it started squirting juice out everywhere-and we didn't have any yogurt to put in it.  I'm going to try again when I get a few necessary ingredients.

Lunch was so good.

This was my first go at a "Black Bean Patty" sandwich at Which Wich (my favorite sandwich place in downtown).  It was so yummy!  I have never had a black bean burger or anything, so I was intrested to try a form of black bean meat alternative.  If they are all as good as this...I am sold!  Which Wich is awesome.  They have a few different vegetarian options.  I'm excited to try all of them!


Meredith spoiled me yet again for dinner!

Eggplant Parmesan with a tasty side salad.  I don't know how she did it...I was working on some laundry...I just know it was delicious!

She also whipped up some homemade mango ice cream in our food processor somehow.  She is the kitchen Queen and my belly is fat and happy to have her!

Weekend! (Days 21 and 22)

This weekend has been a bit of a bust.  I have had what I suppose to be a bit of a stomach bug.  The whole weekend, starting Friday, I have been a constant visitor to our bathroom-night and day.  This virus means that I haven't been eating much of anything...just some snacky things (popcorn, some fruit, grilled cheese, etc). Late Friday night I just knew that my trouble was that I had eaten quite a bit of fried food that day (which I am, from this point on, going to try to avoid more) but now I am not so sure.  I even missed my sister's wedding shower today over this crap.  I hate viruses!  I just feel weak and yucky.

Luckily though, on Friday Meredith and I hit up a book store after work I bought these two books:

 I bought this one from talking to a friend who used it to help her.  So far it has been very infromative!

  This book is a written by two, seemingly, catty women.  They do seem to know their stuff though.  I haven't read a terrible lot in either one, but I am pretty excited to dig into them.

Day Twenty:

Breakfast=a biscuit honey wheat biscuit, some pretzel sticks and some coffee.

Lunch:

Supper:

Day Nineteen:

I'm afraid I didn't sleep well at all last night and am feeling a little beat down.  I literally cannot see straight. So, tonight this will be short and sweet!

I was in charge of breakfast.

I have always hated oatmeal.  Always.  Most of the fights I ever had with my mom started over being forced to choke down oatmeal.  I wanted to try it this morning.  So, I made some cinnamon, walnut, blueberry oatmeal this morning.  It was disgusting!  The (back-up) french toast was yummy though!

Lunch and super were both salads.

 Lunch was a cobb from Panera.

Supper was a salad of my own creation.  It had just about everything you could ever think of in it.

I was hungry pretty much all day.  If breakfast stinks and I don't eat much I feel like I can't get caught back up.  It also may have something to do with the fact that we are out of morning breakly food, so I don't get any snacks throughout the day.  Eh, I'll live!

Day Eighteen:

Meredith is the best!  We are trying to switch up who is in charge of dragging themselves out of bed early to magic up some breakfast.  This morning it was Meredith's turn.  I've always known that she's the better cook, but I think today sealed that fact-with gorilla glue.

Breakfast, the delicacy of the day, was this!

Meredith must have been up with the chickens this morning.  She made biscuits and these ridiculously good mini quiche/breakfast casserole things.  I have no idea what all she put in it, but there were mushrooms, cheese, and of course, really fluffy eggs.  It was buttery and awesome!  Bottom line...Meredith wins!

Lunch was just a salad...

Quiznos yet again.  You would think that I would be so tired of salads.  I'm not though!  While munching on this yummy bowl of veggies I had a thought.  I think that at this point you could put a bowl of plain lettuce in front of me and I would be tickled.  I love vegetables!

Dinner was my duty tonight.  Now, this picture is going to prove my previous statement about Meredith's cooking prowess.  When she makes dinner...we eat things like homemade ravioli.  When I cook we get this:

a sad, ugly, plain ole stir fry.  It is fresh zucchinis, squash, onion, garlic, mushrooms (of course), canned water chestnuts, lima beans, and baby corn all spiced up and cooked down practically into mush-oops-over jasmine rice. As mushy as it looks, it actually tasted pretty ok.



Happy Woden's day, all-especially my good buddy Will ;)

Day Seventeen:

This morning started out on the right track! (Finally!) I woke up in time to whip up some scrambled eggs and sauteed mushrooms.

The muffin is left over from Sunday dinner with Meredith's grandmother.  It has broccoli mixed in...delicious!

Lunch was a little bit of an ordeal today.  I went to Deli Dave's, a deli in the Arcade.  They have really good baked potatoes, but they tend to run out early.  So, I was rather surprised to see a sign to the effect of, "we still have potatoes!" at 1:30 today.  A little further down the line, however, there was another sign that read, "Sorry, we are out of potatoes."  You can see my confusion.  I asked the cashier whether or not they had potatoes.  She said no...so I told her about the double signage.  She looked really confused...and never (the whole time I was eating) took either sign down.  I also got a bit of grief about ordering a salad that they had to make-they usually have quite a few pre-made.  Ultimately, my lunch was good.

I just had a bit of trouble getting it.

Dinner wins!  Even Nyon waited patiently for this culinary delight...

Meredith hand made ravioli.  Yea, she's pretty awesome!  She made cheesy spinach ravioli with a homemade vodka tomato sauce.

She also tried these egg yolk ravioli!

I know it sounds weird...an egg yolk in a ravioli pocket salted and peppered with olive oil drizzled over top...but it was so good.  All of it was!  Here is a oozy picture just in case you are wondering about the innards.

: D : D : D

I think I have figured out my Starbucks dilemma from a couple days ago.  There is a Starbucks in the building right across the street from me...and it is a weakness of mine.  I got the same drink as last time (Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate) today after lunch.  I just got a smaller size.  I was hit with just the right amount of tastiness with no tummy upsets!

Day Sixteen:

No sodas and no meat for 16 whole days...that is so weird to me!  I still have quite a bit of energy, although I didn't wake up on time again.  Breakfast was a bit of disaster this morning.  I needed to get gas so, we stopped at the nearest gas station.  I got out and pumped gas while Meredith went inside to scrounge up some breakfast.  Being the awesome, considerate friend she is Meredith decided to grab some eggs and a fruit cup for me.  I don't know if you have ever eaten boiled eggs from a gas station...but I do not recommend it.  I only ate one out of the two pack, but it tasted really weird and kinda made my tummy hurt.  So, no more gas station eggs for this gal!

Lunch was a lot better!

I ate the Strawberry fields salad from Puckett's in downtown.  Puckett's is good, but slow and expensive.  So we never go there unless we want salads.  It was so good! A little messy to eat...but delicious.

For dinner we picked up some Chipotle!

I love Chipotle!  It is really easy to eat vegetarian there too.

Weekend! (Day 14 and 15):

This weekend I chauffeured Meredith to her parents' house.  We have been a one car household since December 17th.  I know it is weird that I have it down to the day...but that was the day my sister got married!  Meredith's car crapped out on the way home from Bumpus Mills.  We have been solely using my car for a month now while Meredith looked for a replacement. 

Bada Bing, Bada Boom...

This is her beautiful, new 2003 Toyota Camry!!

Day Thirteen:

Happy Friday, everybody! Breakfast was kinda gross looking today! Last night Becca told me about a diet which has you eat quite a lot of protein first thing in the morning. The idea is that protein is very helpful in the losing fat department. Ok, so this is what I came up with...3 eggs, 2 mushrooms, 2 handfuls of spinach, a cup of red kidney beans, and 2 cloves of garlic all mixed up together and scrambled up with cheese grated over top. It was a weird texture and it looked a bit like a big pile of cat vomit, but it didn't taste that bad. I kinda snacked through lunch today. Pretzels and clementine oranges, etc. Dinner was a delicious mushroom alfredo. :D mushrooms again!

Day Twelve:

Breakfast this morning was a sad bowl of honey nut Cheerios on the run.  I didn't realize how dependent I have become on a nice breakfast.  I was absolutely starving by 9 o'clock this morning!  My stomach was growling...and I have the world's most noisy stomach. When my tummy growls it sounds like an airplane is about to crash into the room!  Luckily, I have an office, so no one could hear it. 8)

By lunchtime I thought I was about to pass out!  It was so cold today we ate lunch at Pan Asian, a Chinese place connected to my building.  I have never been a huge fan of this place, but Meredith likes it pretty well.  I ordered a side of vegetable lo mien and a bowl of egg flower soup (which I had never tried before).

The Lo mien, albeit rather greasy, was tasty.  I would not recommend the egg flower soup.  It didn't have much of a taste...

Dinner was awesome tonight!  Not so much the food, but the company.  Meredith and I met up with a friend at Fido in Nashville. We talked and had a good time.  I truly enjoyed myslef!

I had a veggie burger with a small salad.  It was a black bean burger and had chipotle peppers mixed in. By about halfway through it my mouth was on fire!  I am a bit of a pansy about spicy foods though.  I was not impressed.

Not the greatest day for awesome food...it was nice to catch up with an old friend though!  Oh, and today was Tennessee's first snow of the year!