The Clock Demons and Guilty Foods

I know that I have been away from my blog for longer than ever. Sorry about that.

First, my life was sucked into that pit of despair called "no time for mom." Some of you must already know this song. You get up at about 6:30am to start getting kid ready for school and animals fed and yourself dressed and so on. As soon as the kid is at school you come home and go to work. As soon as you're off work, you're busy doing errands, things for the kid's extra activities, etc. As soon as that is done, you realize it's now nighttime and you forgot to eat all day.

Or, you didn't forget, you just didn't get a chance. And since unlike high-carb eating, it isn't quite so easy to "grab something quickly," you can bemoan not eating all day, but if you're busy and you can't leave work, that's just the way it is.

Not-eating regularly tends to make me gain weight. I realize many people can't grasp this because they think weight is all about calories. I am here to tell you, my body is apparently a survivor. Down through millennia, my ancestors must have survived the long winters and the ravages of illness by storing more fat faster than anybody else. Low carb eating has helped me realize that I lose far more weight eating a bunch of food several times a day, than eating almost no food, but a carby meal once a day.

But eating "several times a day" is easier said than done, isn't it? That means that at some point, you had to get off your butt and PREPARE that food. Even if it was some cheese sticks, a garlic clove and green onions (one of my favorite snacks, which I haven't had in a long time. Yum! I think I'll have it tomorrow!), still there is at least a minimum of "pre-effort" required.


Let me backtrack to not long after I last posted. First, I gained ten pounds. IN A DAY. Now since this is physiologically impossible to do via fat or muscle cells, I figured it had to be water, and wondered if it was time for 'that time of the month', or TOM as some call it online. Mine has always been so irregular it tends to surprise me. Yep, the very next day, TOM arrived. And I lost 9 of the pounds. Of course the next day I gained four. And the next day I lost those. At that point I decided I was an idiot to weigh myself during the menses and I would have to wait until it was over.

TOM was more intense than any I've had since I was a teenager. I could hardly move off the quadrupled towel and TWO tom-utilities. To example how bleeding that heavily can make a hormonal woman completely deluded, I actually uttered to my friend that on the bright side, thanks to all the blood loss I bet I'd be at least a pound lighter.

Now that is optimism.

Today I am five pounds lighter than I was when I began it, though it seems TOM slowed the 'momentum' I had going for the weight loss.

Don't let me lie. I haven't been drinking nearly enough water and I know that matters. So it's my own fault if it's slowed down.


Meanwhile, back at the underfed home office, desperation about my lack of available time to "deal with" having food available kicked in.

First it was the puddings. Any chocolate pudding that tastes decent (only when very cold) and has 20g protein, 100cal and 2 carbs (1 fiber) is my friend, so as I've mentioned before, Instone Pudding is my lowcarb hero.

It's a frankenfood, to some degree. Sure, no real reason why a pudding has to be moreso than a bake mix I realize, but something about the fact that it tastes good and comes in a pop-top can makes it seem inherently sinful in some way. As if it can't possibly be good for me if I *like* it.

But even I don't like it enough to eat it every day, let alone more than once a day. The novelty wore off and although I like them, I have not had one in probably a week.

Then, I talked DH into making me a ton more of the "heavy on the meat chili verde". Although this batch was not quite as good as the one prior, it was still very yummy. I ate that in the little 1/2 cup Glad plastic storage bowls for literally a week, several times a day. It took that long to get rid of it, worrying it would go bad if I didn't eat it. Since only a few days before I had ended an 18-meals-in-a-row sized dose of the stuff, suffice to say that now, I think I am ready to not eat it for awhile. Possibly a long while.

But wait, it got better. My SLIM FAST LOW CARB order arrived! That's right, in pop-top cans, chocolate and vanilla, seriously overpriced online, slimfast has a 'lowcarb' option. I bought a couple boxes (4 per box) each to try them out. I had the following conclusions.

1. I detest the chocolate. I'm normally the chocoholic. My 10 year old likes it though. So now when she wants to go eat carby snacks I tell her to drink a slimfast. It's 180 calories, 2 net carbs, 20 grams protein, and a bunch of vitamins.

2. If they are not cold, and I mean REALLY cold, even the vanilla is kinda yucky. But I turned my little room-fridge I got just for lowcarb stuff up a bit, so it's on the verge of nearly freezing, and now I really love the vanilla. I suppose with the cold all I can taste is the "creamy sweet" of it.

Alas, this has resulted in me making slimfast my primary food group. I feel rightfully guilty about this. Slimfast is NOT A FOOD. And to add injury to insult to my poor sweet body-spirit, because SF is a liquid, (a) I'm drinking it instead of water and (b) I don't have solid food making me thirsty for water. So I've drank vastly less water lately. I have, however, managed to plow through quite a few slimfasts.

They are not cheap. 24 cans cost me $39 plus $8 shipping. So, sucking down 3-4 a day of these things could add up.


And so I've felt guilty. I had no time to write, but I also felt like a tree sloth, a beer slug, a burnt-toast kinda gal, because here I am all enthusiastic about lowcarb and so on, but I can't seem to make even an hour or even half an hour to prepare some cheese sticks or rollups or something. (It just occurred to me that a variety of meats and cheeses rolled up in a LC tortilla and sliced in medallions, with a little mustard on the top of each, would be a yummy snack. Yay! Tomorrow is sounding better already!)

Oh yeah! And DID I MENTION the ultimate "you should make better choices" lowcarb snack: pepperoni nuked with mozzarella cheese and some oregano and red pepper flakes on top. I had that a couple times. Felt so guilty... between all the carcinogens probably in pepperoni, the "interesting" digestive results that a massive dose of it gives me, and the fact that it's ingesting enough calories for an entire day in one paper-plate sized pizza-toppings meal... well it is not ideal. But, if you really need protein and calories and you don't have much time, it works.


So that's about it. Time is such a problem for me sometimes... and I've felt guilty about the fact that although I have maintained low carb, and generally made my protein and calories each day, still I feel as if I'm not doing things as completely and well as I should be. I feel I'd be losing weight a little faster if I were.

My scale varies by about 5lbs depending on whether I am leaning ever so slightly on the front of my feet vs. the back, so I have begun measuring always the front. I am still keeping my spreadsheet. I haven't been recording my food, but I can sum it up: "a combination of 4-6 elements per day, which are either 1/2 cup servings of chili verde or cans of slimfast."

I need to do lowcarb penance, except my literal "penance" stage of lowcarbing is keeping carbs just as low as I have been keeping them, more by accident than design.

Tomorrow, I ASPIRE, damn it. The cold snap happened and we have two grocery sacks stuffed with beautiful fresh garden peppers. I want to eat as many as I can before they go bad. (We usually give a bunch to the guys at the local mexican food restaurant, as they are some of the few in our area that really seem to like HOT food as much as we do!) I want to have scrambled eggs... and peppers. I'd like to have tuna and mayo and green onions and some miracle-mayo in a lowcarb tortilla... with peppers. (No, I've never tried that, I just thought of it, but it seems possible.) I want to have some cheese just melted over slices of peppers. I can probably carb myself out on peppers if I'm not careful. (Especially since I have a daily cap on how many 'deductible' carbs I can have, as well as carbs themselves.) We can have a big chicken stirfry with tons of peppers. OK! I have SO cheered myself back up now!

I was feeling all pouty about myself but I feel better now. Tomorrow is another day! The first day of the rest of my life. I can do better!

(Reminder to self: LC SLIM FAST IS NOT FOOD!)
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