Calyb's Calorie Restriction for Greater Health

2007-10-02T16:27:00.001-07:00

THE LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP I HAVE WITH WEEKENDS

Again, I say; weekends are rough. It's really hard to balance the freedom, fun, and diet.

This past weekend was my birthday and my girlfriend Sara and I took a drive to Western Mass. and camped. It was great and we went CR prepared (minus the bottle of rum). I packed marinated chicken breast for grilling, fresh cut veggies for snacking, black beans, salsa, eggs, whole wheat pasta salad. I had it planned.

However, it was our first camping experience together and our equipment was kind of thrown together last minute. We weren't able to make coffee until 10pm, the second night of the trip. We couldn't grill because we left our perfect little grill at home (Honda accord = not much room) and the grill the camp site provided was just not usable for anything other than a fire pit. Dirty disgusting grates that were too thick to heat even a pan.

So, we ate out. Dinner our first night there was snacky foods we packed. Breakfast and lunch the next day were ate at local restaurants in NoHo. Of course being my birthday, I figured I deserved pancakes and sushi (not at the same sitting of course). Dinner our last night there, again was snacks featuring some super goat cheese we picked up at the local farmers market.

I haven't even added all the data into the CROM. Not because I am scared, but I just didn't document or keep track. Oh did I mention the cupcake and candy I ate?

Again, weekends are rough for me.

This week, I am focusing on learning more about animal proteins. As I do not have a lot of extra time on hand for reading, I am still slowly making my way through "Food Politics". One thing that sticks out to me the most so far is the danger of animal proteins and I normally eat alot.

So far (as in this is only Tuesday) I have cut down to animal proteins (other than yogurt and cheese) to once a day. Here's today's summary;

Breakfast;
1 whole egg
3 egg whites
1 tbsp FF ricotta
2 tbsp salsa

Snack:
1/4 cup almonds

Lunch:
Veggie wrap from Subway (I planned and brought something else, but there is always an excuse...)
85 grams carrots
2 tbsp hummus

Snack:
1 cup pop corn (could have easily done without)

Dinner:
Baked potato
1 Serving cabbage soup (cabbage, black beans and tomato)
1 serving mashed cauliflower

Now, this animal protein thing is kind of rocking my boat. I can easily eat a lot of food and not have as many calories. However, my protein is low and my carbs are high. I can see ways to improve on that (stick with the soup I packed for lunch, no pop corn, etc.), but adding the protein is where I am having trouble.

I could easily add more cheese and yogurt, but isn't that still considered animal protein? Even the veggies that are highest in protein, you would have to eat tons of it to meet my old targets. Beans are good, but just as carby.

My old goals were 130 grams of carbs and 120 grams of protein. I can get in the 90's with proteins eating like this, but the carbs are now around 160.

Does anyone else know anything about animal proteins. How many carbs are too many? What's too much or not enough protein?

2007-09-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

ROUGH WEEKEND

Weekends are hard for me. Especially when my girlfriend visits from Boston. It has nothing to do with her, because when we are together in Boston, we eat a good well balanced, calorie aware diet. I think it's my apartment.

My apartment has a lot of great qualities, one of which is not space. I do live in Brooklyn. My bedroom is spacious and my kitchen is kind of a walk through between two bedrooms. No living room or lounge space. Therefore, we spend a lot of time out of the apartment and eating most meals out, which we all know is horrible when attempting to restrict calories.

Her apartment is a home. Spacious, full kitchen, dining room, living room, back porch, no furniture (lol). There we cook a lot. Breakfast, lunch , and most dinners, eating out just some of the time.

I hate New York. Okay, I don't hate it. I would die without it, I am sure. Still, I am aggravated with New York at the moment.

So this weekend, my calories were way off the charts. Luckily, I tracked properly and I know I averaged around 2300 per day. (Again, eating out sucks!) I can at least be thankful for the data and the knowledge I have gained through the beginning of this experience.

This week is a busy one. Lot's of extra, pro bono projects at work, trying to maintain work out schedule, eat properly, and I am leaving Thursday to go camping for my birthday! I am not a camping regular, so I am gathering supplies, making list, plans, etc. Loads of fun, but lots of extra work to squeeze in this week.

I am excited. Sara (g/f) and I have planned out our menus, bought most of our food supplies and have a great plan for healthy eating, a little cocktail sipping, and lots of fun exercise like activities. APPLE PICKING!

Pabst (the dog) is super stoked too. I can tell you. You know, we communicate. He loves the outdoors! Swimming, hiking, adventuring around! Keep you posted!

2007-09-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

CUT OUT ALL GRAINS

My favorite April post :

http://www.mprize.org/blogs/archives/2006/01/how_to_start_cr_1.html

"3. Cut out all grains. No bagels, pasta, rice, etc. Just stop. Stop putting sugar in your coffee -- if you must have something sweet, use Splenda. If you are addicted to chocolate, find the most expensive, fabulous chocolate you can afford, and eat a small piece when you really, really want it. Count the calories and enter them into your nutritional software."

I am not sure why I have been so reluctant lately to take this step. I guess looking at my CRON, I can easily fit in a couple slices a day on my easy, out the door sandwiches for lunch packing. But when you really take a good look, a closer look the bread just doesn't fit.

My macro nutrient levels are all off and my cravings reflect that. Last night's craving; ice cream. I don't have enough room in my diet to eat the food that I need to get 100% of all my vitamins and minerals, etc.

I have to get back to eating protein and veggie lunches only and leave the carbs for "special occasions" only.

So, here's my pledge;

No bread, pasta, rice, chips (anything carb gaky) for the next two weeks.

Okay; small goal, but I think smart. Not too overwhelming and easily achievable.

So tonight is soup night. I am thinking something like south west chicken. I have some tomatoes some chicken breast, some fire roasted corn, maybe black beans (although a bit carby, at least not from grains and still high in protein).

Hey whatever happened to everyone posting recipes? You guys probably have been doing it and I am just behind. Anyways, I will post full recipe and opinion on taste later. Any other non grain (other than salad) lunch packing ideas out there?

2007-09-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW

Thought I would share my weekly averages, as I actually tracked my intake daily and exercise (big step for me FYI and it feels great!)

So here ya go;

Average daily calories :1939
protein: 109 grams
fat: 72 grams
carbs: 222 grams
fiber: 31

89% Vitamins

low on folate, C, D, E

93% Minerals

low on iron and potassium

96% lipids

107% saturated
82% Omega 3
119 Omega 6
141% Cholesterol

Last winter when I was successfully practicing CR, I was averaging around 1600-1700 calories per day and I was much more disciplined. I certainly had my bad snack moments, but my "quotation diet" was perfect and I am having trouble getting back to that. However, I think doing these weekly summaries will mean so much more than just looking at individual days. Eventually, the monthly reports will be what I will reflect and analyze the most.

Now, here's what I personally have learned from this;

1. No more whole eggs (my girlfriend suggest weekends only), egg whites!
2. More VEGGIES!!!
3. Alcohol being virtually eliminated has helped and I will continue with that.

What do you guys see? Any warning signs? Also, how do you all feel about replacing my whole eggs in the morning with oatmeal and a little yogurt. I did that today and I was hungrier than normal earlier, but my hunger didn't last throughout the day. If anything, I am way lower with my calorie totals then I normally would be.

Also; working out. My basic routine over the last week has been one hour in the morning on the elliptical machine, level 15, burning on average 650 calories (or that's what the machine says at least). This week I will be incorporating some strength training as well. I am guessing to make my rounds on the machines at the gym, about another half hour of work.

Since I go to the gym in the morning, I was thinking of bringing back my old 15 yoga routine to wrap up the evenings. Flexibility is important, I know, but I am just not great at doing it on my own and my little yoga video helps. I just wonder if the difference between working out in the morning and then doing the majority of my stretching at night is harmful or just plain weird.

Thanks for reading and again, I welcome any and all suggestions......

2007-09-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

Morning

Hey gang! Just wanted to post some information about my food today in the spirit of owning up and recording, tracking regularly.

Here's the meal plan and nutritional summary for the day;

Breakfast:

1 cup egg whites scrambles with
1 slice FF TJ's Swiss cheese
2 Morning Star Farms Breakfast Patties (yum!)

Snack:

2/3 Cup TJ's Granola
1/2 Cup TJ's Low Fat Vanilla Yogurt

Lunch:

Turkey and Swiss on
Flax Bread with
Spicy mustard
(I ran out of lettuce and tomato....boring!)

150 grams of carrots
2 tbsp hummus

Dinner:

8 large shrimp
2 cups asparagus (frozen)
Mixed up stir fry style. I will of course add garlic, some oil and some soy, so my information on dinner is not 100% complete.

Also I have stowed away with me 1/4 cup of whole almonds, just in case I get the munchies at work and they may work themselves into the plan somewhere so they are included in the nutritional summary below;

1488 calories
122 grams protein
130 grams carbs
54 grams lipids

32/35/33

Vitamins 95% (just low on D)
Minerals 95% (low on iron and potassium)

So, I am very happy with these numbers. My macro nutrient ratio is looking better all the time as I reduce my crappy carbs (bagels, breads, pasta, etc.) and my vitamins are up. I am able to find where I am low easier and make the necessary corrections.

I am also very happy with my exercise routine. Working out in the mornings is great. I usually do an hour on the elliptical machine, keep my resistance and pace up and burn around 600 calories (though I have been told those machines lie, I like to use that number to at least see improvement, up from around 400 calories per hour).

Strength training is next for me. I want to do some serious research and really learn how to do it right.

In other news, I am finally getting around to reading Food Politics. Didn't I hear some good discussion about this book this past winter? Thoughts?

2007-09-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

Back from Sickville

So all last week I was pretty sick. Didn't post, because I felt really crappy. Being sick, I didn't go to the gym and didn't spend as much time and effort on eating well. I didn't do all too bad, but nothing to brag about either.

I can feel myself getting stronger, though and that is good. Stronger in body and mind. I am getting back into my routine life of attempting CR. I still find myself trying to cut corners and justifying a bagel for breakfast, etc, but at least I have chilled out on the beers and pizza and exercise has begun to become something I really enjoy.

More post to come!

2007-08-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Understanding Fat

Hey guys! Thanks for all the great comments yesterday. I appreciate the support and feed back. Now I need to pick your brains about fat!

Here's my plan for the day;

Breakfast:

1/2 toasted bagel with
2 tbsp hummus
sliced tomato
1/2 avocado
Large iced Coffee with milk and sugar

Snack:

1/4 almonds

Lunch:

Toasted whole wheat bagel with
4 slices turkey
2 slices muenster
lettuce
tomato
mustard
banana
1/2 cup dannon light and fit yogurt

Snack:

150 grams carrots
2 tbsp hummus

Dinner:

125 grams boiled chicken breast
1.5 cups steamed cabbage with
1/2 cup asparagus
1/2 cup chopped red pepper

Here's the crunch:

1752 calories
108 grams of protein (only 87% goal)
182 grams of carbs (140% goal)
71 grams lipids (146% goal)

My ratio is 24/40/36

90% vitamins - really low on B12 and Vitamin D

96% minerals - 75% on potassium

I am worried about my macro nutrient ratios. Any advice on this. Is that much fat bad, even though the majority of the fat I am taking in is good fats. I am really low on saturated and cholesterol. Should I worry?

I should also add that I am working out. I know there are a lot of carbs, but I think I need them based on my work out. Today I did one hour on the elliptical machine, burning around 500 calories. I would like to keep up that volume of exercise, but then should I change my calories and macro nutrient targets. Anyone have some sort of height, weight, exercise calculator?

2007-08-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

Why CR? (or my own adaptation of it)

I was reading today on April's blog through some old post and found the TV appearances and watched them, perhaps searching for some inspiration. It's really interesting to me why people question people who would rather eat healthier, shed a few pounds, or train their body and mind to reach for an apple over a candy bar. Why is CR considered a "near starvation" way of life.

It got me thinking about my own personal goals, which I have shared on this blog many times as they change and adapt to my current feelings, issues, etc. For me, living longer has never really been a reason to do CR. I want to be healthier. Eat better. Make wiser decisions.

I have come to the conclusion, that I am definitely an emotional eater and drinker. When upset, physically ill, etc., I comfort myself with rich, savory foods. I convince myself for whatever reason, that I deserve to eat like crap and it won't effect my over all health if I just have one soda. Lies.

It does effect me, in many ways, but mostly in feeding that habit. Making that behavior acceptable.

There are thoughts that I have towards food that I know are bogus and these are the thoughts that I think help make food comforting in times that are tough. For instance; thinking fast food is fast. Associating healthy eating with being more of an effort. I can't think of anything easier than pulling out an apple, washing it off and taking a bite. Easy. Steaming some veggies, easy. Broiling some chicken, easy. And look at the nutritional benefit of eating like that compared to waiting in the line at the drive through, getting pissed off at poor customer service and feeling like crap after eating like crap, weighing myself or looking in the mirror and feeling guilty. My gut getting in the way of running up stairs or walking my dog faster or whatever. Creating a continuous circle of bad eating habits. A trap.

So I think I have to really change the way I thought process food to be successful at living a healthy lifestyle. I want the benefits of being healthy. I want to feel young for a long time. I want to be thin and attractive, active, etc. These are the reasons I monitor my food intake and attempt a CR lifestyle. These benefits can EASILY be accomplished by changing habits.

I guess to wrap things up; following CR, being aware of my intake for me is all about developing new habits. New healthier habits that will take me to another place in life where eating right is not an effort, but a way of life. Second nature.

I haven't posted in a few days, so to bring everyone up to speed; food has been so so for the couple of days. I went to Boston over the weekend to visit my girlfriend Sara. Pabst was able to go, as I had Sara's car and was able to drive, as opposed to taking the bus. Sara is a healthier eater and is beginning to read more about CR, so I have good support. On Saturday we ate very well. Sunday, we made a huge breakfast with her roommate, but remained healthy. We went out of ice cream and of course instead of making the healthy decision of frozen FF yogurt, I got two scoops (not one) of some ridiculous cake batter and cookie dough ice cream. Unfortunately, that just let to hot dogs on the grill for dinner and bit too much wine and beer to follow.

Yesterday and today are good though and I am happily back on track. Just have to figure out how to work the weekends a bit better. Again, good habits.

Today's food;

BREAKFAST:

3 whole eggs scrambled with cheese, topped with salsa
1 Medium Banana

SNACK:

1/4 cup almonds

LUNCH:

Sliced chicken breast and muenster, lettuce, tomato and mustard on whole wheat.
1/2 cup dannon light and fit vanilla yogurt

SNACK:

150 grams carrots, sliced with
2 tbsp of hummus

DINNER:

125 grams broiled chicken breast
1.5 cups sauteed cabbage
something else, not sure

Without the added "not sure" item for dinner my numbers look like this;

1505 calories
109 grams of protein
119 grams of carbs
62 grams of lipids (no doubt high because of whole eggs, i will 1 cup egg whites tomorrow)
92% vitamins
slightly low on folate, very low on D and slightly low on E
90% minerals
slightly low on calcium, iron and magnesium

Calcium chew would help with Vitamin D and Calcium.

2007-08-23T06:32:00.000-07:00

MISS HARE

"Miss Hare" is what the counter person at Bally's called me this morning. Seems like there is some confusion with my new membership. When I joined a few days ago, I explained to the person signing me up, that I was going through a transition; changing my name and pronouns. The rep said, no problem.

Today when I tried to enter the gym, it was a problem. Access denied. I had to explain the whole situation again with the counter person. Apparently he got confused. He said (paraphrasing), "Don't worry, Miss Hare. We understand and will get you a new membership card with the correct name on it." He must have been confused. Perhaps thought I was transitioning from male to female (which is a good sign that I pass as a male). My current card has my name Calyb on it.

Anyways, funny story.

Things food and workout wise have been going good for the week. Last night, I did an online calculation of the number of calories I needed daily to maintain my weight. The computer calculated somewhere around 2500. Yesterday I had a total of 2400 calories and burned 240 at the gym. Calories were high yesterday. I went out after work with a friend and ate pizza and drank a few beers.

Today, there will be no beer. On average, I am drinking it about once a week, so I feel good about that and am not worried about last night at all.

My plan today is for somewhere around 1600 calories, to start. I will no doubt have to add more (probably at dinner) because I burned 360 calories this morning on the treadmill. (I know there is no way for these machines to be 100% accurate, but I like the idea of knowing roughly) I am going back the gym again tonight to have a physical assessment done as well. That should be interesting.

Here is my food outline for the day;

Breakfast:

1 cup scrambled egg whites
2 Morning Star breakfast patties
1 slice American cheese
2 tbsp salsa
iced coffee

Snack:

1/4 cup almonds

Lunch:

Turkey and American on Flax bread
with lettuce, tomato and spicy mustard
Diet Coke

Snack:

150 grams carrots
2 tbsp. hummus
2 oz. mozzarella cheese

Dinner:

I am thinking tuna salad with black beans, tomato, balsamic
Green Salad

Not sure. Going to have to add some thing green to get my vitamins up and I am still low on Vitamin D. Some sun would help, but it's cloudy and rainy here in NYC.

Also want to add; I know it says a lot about diet coke and coffee, but I am also consuming AT LEAST 64 oz. of water per day. AT LEAST! I woke twice last night and had to go to the potty, so I know I am getting plenty of good fluids as well!

So, how's everyone doing with exercise? Any news?

2007-08-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

GOOD AND BAD ADDICTIONS

Getting back into the swing of CR has been difficult over the past three months. Mostly because I really didn't put forth any effort. Short cuts here and there. Not record keeping properly, etc. What I have come to realize is CR for me is an addiction. A good addiction.

Naturally, I am an addictive person. Cigarettes, beer, food, people, etc. It's the way I operate and the only way for me to really maintain a healthy lifestyle is to become addicted to it.

The first addiction for me is the CROM. When I really start tracking what I am eating, it's gets exciting. I find myself getting up while reading a book or conversing with friends via phone to make simple adjustments to my next day's plan. Last minute ideas popping into my head that might help reduce fat, but raise vitamin levels.

I like this addiction.

New addiction I am working on is working out. I joined a gym yesterday and got up (not entirely eager) at 6 am to go and work out. At first I was a bit reluctant, but mid way through I felt almost high and 30 minutes later when I came off the machine, I knew this was going to be a good day.

When I got home from the gym, I fed my dog and took him for a walk. We ended up walking for 20 minutes. Usually in the morning, I am groggy and not into the walk, so I take him to the green spot that is within a few blocks and let him do his business and then right back home. It felt great to have more energy and even better that the extra energy was a benefit for Pabst.

I made breakfast, packed my lunch, drank some coffee and more water and am at work. Full of energy, smiling and excited about the rest of my day!

I think my exercise addiction will come easily and I am excited!

Food wise, things are good. I am maintaining around 1600 calories per day. This morning I burned around 200 at the gym and I may do some weight training tonight. If so, I will have to up my calories a bit.

So, how was every one's morning?

2007-08-17T11:35:00.001-07:00

New Introductions

Things in "food land" have been going good. I have been tracking all week, cut out all beer (only had vodka cocktails one night) and have been able to maintain a 1700-1800 daily calorie average.

I am happy with that, seeing as how far off track I had gotten. Almonds in hand, ready to battle the bulge!

Something else, I have not discussed with fellow bloggers (other than a couple and you know who you are) is my gender identity issue. Actually, it's becoming less of an issue as I allow myself to open up about it and portray my masculine identity to all.

I go by the name Calyb (Caleb) and am using non gender specific pronouns or male pronouns only. If anyone has links to my blog, please correct my name and when speaking to me or addressing me directly, again, I would prefer either non gender specific or male pronouns.

This is a change in my life that may take people time to adjust to and I am open to that. I am also aware that some people may disagree with it and not support me and that is fine. I welcome all into my life.

Thanks for letting me share. Happy blogging!

2007-08-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

ALMONDS

On my trip to Dominican Republic I had many adventures. One that sticks out in my mind the most now is the almond lady.

The second morning of our trip, my Aunt, niece and nephew and I drove out of the city of Puerta Plata on our way to Jarabacoa. We took a windy back road and stopped at various fruit and coffee stands, attempting to talk with the natives. It's customary in a country like DR to stop when you see someone walking and offer them a left. (hitch hikers thumb out, not required). Of course, my aunt wanting us to experience all DR had to offer, insisted that we pick up the next walker we saw. We wound around a few curves and eventually ran across a middle aged woman on her way to Santa Domingo, that graciously accepted our offer through broken English.

We again stopped at a fruit stand, this time picking up tiny bananas that the entire crew shared, including our new passenger. Additionally, we passed around bottles of water, coffee, juice, and my trusty bag of almonds that I packed. As I was planning for an 8 day trip, it was a rather large bag (think full quart). I offered around my almonds, everyone declining, except the little Dominican woman. She again, graciously accepted my offer, not by taking a handful of almonds, but by snatching up the whole bag! It never occurred to me that almonds would be such a delicacy in a place like DR, but I probably handed that woman $40 worth of almonds (in DR), more than she would make in a long and hard days work (way more).

I started a few days ago trying to pick one of my biggest pit falls in trying to ease back into CR. Why was it so difficult. What was I missing and then I remembered almonds. They are actually quite hard to find in my own neighborhood and I used to by them at Trader Joes when I was "practicing" CR. Thinking back on the last time I bought almonds was how my mind traced back to my DR almond story.

I have to get somewhere and buy some almonds! I have tried everything else under the sun to start my day and nothing is working. Not cottage cheese, not egg whites, nothing! I must figure out a way to get over my missing almonds and move on.

Other than almond snatching, life has been great. I took my new girlfriend home to NC to meet the folks and all went well. Of course it would; she is very lovely.

My dog is doing super. He went through a rough patch of allergies (skin allergies, gross!), had his little neutering surgery, and is healing. He also went home with me to NC to meet the folks for the first time. Of course being the great dog that he is, the family adores him!

2007-07-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

LONG TIME, NO POST

At this point, not sure how many readers I will get. Been ages since my last post, but in my vacation time, I have come to realize somethings;

1. Beer = A lot of Calories
2. The more I post, the more I own up to the calories I take in, the better I do.
3. When on CR, I feel the best I have ever felt in my life. Period.

If you are reading this; Thanks. It's keeping me honest.

Here's today's info;

Breakfast:

2 Packs (4 crackers each) cheese on cheese crackers
Diet Coke
Mid morning Banana snack

Lunch:

Ham and Provolone on Oatmeal Bread with lettuce, mustard and pepper
Gala Apple
2 oz. Pretzels

Afternoon Snack: (could have done without!)

Snickers

Dinner:

Salsa Chicken
(basically chicken sauteed with peppers, garlic, fresh salsa, black beans and frozen corn)
1 tbls Sour Cream
1 Flour Tortilla
48 oz. Beer (holy shit!!! calories and carbs!!!)

And for the results;

2231 Calories
86 g Protein (my goal is around 120g)
A WHOPPING 274 g carbs
45 g lipids
63% daily vitamins
88% daily minerals

Okay, so obviously, these numbers sucks and there is much room for improvement. I think the mistake I have been trying to make lately is jumping in full force into CR again. What I think really needs to happen is some strategy's. I need to track for a week again, analyze my patterns, and see what small changes can be made, one at a time to bring about some good change.

I think the first most obvious answer is beer. When I was serious CR before, I either didn't drink at all or when I did drink, I stuck to vodka and soda water. Very low calories with a hell of punch.

Second thing to work on; protein. When I was able to properly balance the right proteins and fats before, I was my most successful. This is a huge key for me. Less fruit and chocolate and more egg whites and almonds.

Now, I must admit. CR and extended life seems very lovely, but I have other motivations. My motivations are a trimmer waste line and feeling great on a daily basis. Not feeling sluggish. Feeling full of life and energy. Forget living until I am 120. Who can plan that far? I can barely keep up with my weekly schedule. Let's get real and be honest about my goals, then we will see about sticking to them.

Thanks for all who read!

2007-05-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

DAY NUMERO UNO

Okay so is this like take 3? Well I was slow to start, but today I really feel prepared to battle.

Here's what I have planned out for myself;

Breakfast (at home - shocker!):

1 cup Kashi Go Lean
1/2 cup Soy Milk

My plan was actually to get up and make a great veggie omelet, but sleep took priority this am.

Snack:

1/4 cup whole almonds
1/8 cup sunflower seeds
4 oz. no fat cottage cheese

Lunch:

215 grams turkey breast sauteed with
100 grams asparagus
tsp olive oil
soy sauce

Snack:

3 cups oil popped pop corn

Dinner:

It's not part of the nutritional data below, but will probably be a repeat of lunch or some baked tilapia that I have in the fridge. Possibly dinner out with friends, sushi, no rice!

Here's the crunch on things:

General (70%)

Calories 1135.1
Protein 91.8
Fat 51.1
Carbs 89.8
Fiber 22.9

*So here you can see that my fat is pretty high, but seems to be a lot of Omega-6. I need to back read some blogs and books and find out what's the best out come for the Omega-6,3 ratios.

Vitamins (73%)

A 64%
Folate 69%
B1 66%
B2 176%
B3 40%
B5 51%
B6 61%
B12 178%
C 49%
D 178%
E 77%
K 182%

*Still the B's that I have a problem with. I hate mushrooms!!! Although, the new girl in my life really likes them and I have eaten a few around her that were not so despicable. So, we shall see!

Minerals (90%)

Calcium 156%
Copper 161%
Iron 62%
Magnesium 109%
Manganese 177%
Phosphorus 170%
Potassium 37%
Selenium 136%
Sodium 180%
Zinc 99%

*Is Iron and Potassium that low something to be concerned about?

Lipids (51%)

Saturated 34%
Omega-3 36%
Omega-6 149%
Cholesterol 33%

As boring as this maybe for some people to read, I believe I have to post this daily. When I was doing this more regularly, I was more honest with myself and able to follow CR a bit more rigidly. You can easily see how the posting helps others. Look at how successful Robin is with her CR routine and look at her blog. She bares all.

Now, I have no shame in admitting that CR has helped me to loose extra pounds that I have packed on over the last couple of years. I really want to strictly adhere to my CR routine because by the end of the summer, I would like to have lost another 15 lbs. My trip home to NC is scheduled for the 2nd weekend in September and that's plenty of healthy time to loose the weight and feel great about it!

Okay all, have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend!

2007-05-16T05:32:00.000-07:00

30 DAY CHALLENGE (TAKE 2)

Okay so my challenge has not going as well as I thought it maybe and I have been searching for reasons and answers as to why I am having such difficulty getting back into the grove of CR. Then I read http://www.crdiary.blogspot.com/ Mary's blog today and things started to make a bit more sense for me.

"This is a big mind shift for me. You have to quit eating just for it's own sake, eating as entertainment - to do CR. You must eat to feel good afterwards. If you do this, you will do good CR and feel really good about yourself as well"

I definitely agree that you should enjoy what you eat and eating with friends and family is just as entertaining as it is nutritionally necessary or fulfilling. However, what Mary says makes a lot of sense. (read the post) She battled with a taco salad, eating more and more of the shell the more often she ate the salad. Tasty, but made her feel really crappy. When she prepared herself and packed a healthy homemade salad for lunch, she not only was completely satisfied with what the ate, but she physically and mentally felt better.

Lately, I have been battling with taco salad too. Well maybe not, but I have been battling with pasta, bagels for breakfast, peanut butter, etc. I am not eating too terribly unhealthy, but I am not paying attention. I am not recording. I am not being attentive to whether or not I am getting adequate nutrition. AND I feel like crap. I am extremely exhausted at work. I am struggling to get out of the bed in the morning. My mind is fuzzy and unfocused.

And why? When I know better, why do I chose to eat the things I know make me feel like this?

"I've eaten too many things for the fun of eating them - even though I didn't feel my best afterwards...."

So true. So very true. For the fun, the comfort, the ease, whatever.

Okay so let's start this 30 day challenge over.

FOR THE NEXT 30 DAYS I WILL:

Record and track all intake using COM
Maintain a calorie level of 1600/day (give or take a couple)
Reduce alcohol intake by 50%
Have only 1 Diet Coke per day
Have only 1 Coffee per day
Take a full 1 hour lunch in the park or at home daily
Morning yoga routine 3 times per week, minimum
Take the stairs. No elevator use in my office (which is broken down 1/2 the time anyways)

Thanks, Mary for posting what you did. I needed to hear your story and excitement this morning!

2007-05-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

30 DAY CHALLENGE

Hey guys! Thanks so much for all your comments yesterday. Definitely got the ball rolling in my mind. I am not able to continue that post as of yet, but stay tuned.

I really wanted to post a challenge to myself here. As you all know, April was vacation month for me and it's been weeks since my return, but I am having a really hard time getting back into the smooth groove of CR and other general things in life. So, I am hoping to put into print some really basic principles to stick to and rely on the encouragement and support of my fellow CR bloggers, to help me regain my focus.

So here it is;

FOR THE NEXT 30 DAYS I WILL:

Record and track all intake using COM
Maintain a calorie level of 1600/day (give or take a couple)
Reduce alcohol intake by 50%
Have only 1 Diet Coke per day
Have only 1 Coffee per day
Take a full 1 hour lunch in the park or at home daily
Morning yoga routine 3 times per week, minimum
Take the stairs. No elevator use in my office (which is broken down 1/2 the time anyways)

So, I have no problem admitting that I have enjoyed my CRON experience, not only for the feeling of it, but also for the physical plus. Since being off the CRON wagon, I have not necessarily gained any weight, as a matter fact, I have continued to loose or stabilized for the most part. However, I do not feel as mentally sharp. My moods swing a bit differently and I have been battling a bit of cold. I really miss the way that I felt when I was practicing CRON (or my version of CRON) strictly.

So there you have it!

In other news; I found a huge bag of frozen artichoke hearts in my freezer. Any idea what I can make with that?

2007-05-09T04:54:00.000-07:00

BLOGGER HELL

I woke up this morning thinking I would share a song with you all. I noticed yesterday that Mary had posted a www.youtube.com video on her site and I thought, brilliant. However, being somewhat technically challenged, I couldn't make it work.

So, here's a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd3dgB_ocQs

This song is great and will certainly get your feet tapping a bit this morning!

Okay so now that music has been shared, what else?

I have been thinking a lot lately about a post I have been wanting to write. I just have not taken the time to do the proper research and writing. So, I have another idea. Why not throw out a simple statement and see how the peanut gallery reacts. Maybe this will motivate me a bit.

So I read this;

"Sitting down to dinner is a trap, not something to enjoy."

-Julia Child circa 1989

How does that statement make you feel?

2007-05-03T04:38:00.000-07:00

DIRTY LAUNDRY

Yes, I have tons and yes I need to take care of it.

However, this post is not really about dirty laundry, but missing laundry. You see.....

I drop my laundry at the corner wash house and pay per pound to have it washed, dried and neatly folded each week. I have been going to the same place since I moved into this new apartment in September. I really liked these people, until....

My favorite pair of jeans is missing AND my favorite T shirt, too!!!

These were the jeans that I blogged about earlier, finally being able to fit into them again and loving them!! I have worn these jeans nearly everyday since late January. Okay, not everyday, because that would just be gross, but you get my drift.

I am beginning to question my loyalty. After all there are wash houses on every corner in this town!

So the last week and half without my jeans has been kind of rough. I have had to really search through and dig through my closet to find the perfect fit. No such luck. However this morning....

I dug out an old pair of jeans that I like to refer to as "the bone crusher". These jeans are so f ing tight. So tight that the few times I did wear them, I had to give up breathing, sitting, eating, anything that would cause pain.

Well this morning I pulled them out and thought, let's just see.

THE JEANS FREAKIN FIT!

So I know I am doing something right as far as loosing the extra pounds I packed on. Now I really need to get focused on tracking through COM better and focusing on the ON.

In other news, I read that Miss M will be leaving us. I love reading your post and will be sorry to see you leave.

Seems like everyone is slowing down a bit on the blogs here. I read a lot about how people feel like it interferes with their life and I remember feeling that way one time before when I was really allowing blogger to interfere with my work. For me, I just had to learn how put aside a certain amount of time per day for blogger and stick with it. My schedule for the last month has been a little sticky with vacation and this new romantic interest, but I will get back into posting and reading more often. I heart my blogger (CR) friends! So to all those that are holding back or disappearing completely, please keep in touch. Email or a comment from time to time!

2007-04-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

VACATION FROM MY VACATION

Not really, but it would have been nice. Someone told me once that you actually need 3 times the length of your vacation to really enjoy it. My vacation was 10 days and the saying is right. I prepped hard for a good 10 days prior to my vacation (stressful), I actually vacationed for 10 days, and I have been in a state of recovery ever since (more than 10 days!).

I have not completely bounced back into CR at the moment. I haven't even really had a good shopping trip to restock. I came home to a few CR staples; egg whites, almonds, yogurt. Now, most of those have run out and the other holes have not been filed either. I made a mad dash to the store one evening, but it was the store in my neighborhood that is packed full of processed, frozen trash and sugary sodas. I think I did pretty good though. I bought whole wheat bread, some canned tuna and white beans, sliced low fat deli turkey and a few pieces of fruit.

Last week I ate mostly sandwiches at lunch in the park with a piece of fruit and low cal egg white salad for breakfast. Dinner was usually a stir fry or simple soup. I know that my caloric intake has been decently low, but I have not been up to par on the ON part of things. I am not worried. At least I can see a change in my poor eating habits. I just need to some time to properly plan and get back on track.

The good news to this all;

I have been out of sorts and at home at lot less because I have met someone. I actually met her in March at a bar when out on the town with my friends that were visiting from NC. We chatted it up quite a bit and then met up again last weekend when I got back from my trip. That weekend was fabulous and so was the past. She lives in DC, so it's harder for us to see each other more often. The distance certainly sucks, but I know is healthy for me in the long term. I am sure you all have heard the lesbian joke....

"What do lesbian bring on a first date?"

A U HAUL!!!!

HA!

So life is good! Just gotta get the dog and the CR up to speed.

Okay enough posting. More later, going to read what everyone else is up to!

2007-04-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

CR TROUBLE IN THE DR

Hey gang! Thanks for all your well wishes while I was away and yes, the vacation was a total blast. Pics to come soon!!

Highlights:

White water rafting, but first getting a bee sting in my butt on the trip up the mountain. Cool mountain water was a great fix for that one!

Waterfall jumping. Not one, but 7!!! Hilariously lost my shorts on the way up. Good times!

The most beautiful, sandy beaches I have ever seen. Really, they were amazing. One of the one's we visited was just voted one of the top 10 in the Caribbean and is still very natural and untouched. The bad news, a South African resort company has purchased all of it. I feel very blessed to have seen that beach before the destruction.

Almost no other American tourist! Most people that were visiting were French or Italian. Friendly folks! We were really there just after peak tourist season, so on most days, we had our lovely guides to ourselves and were not bombarded with huge crowds. It was as if we had the whole place to ourselves (well, plus the natives!).

FRESH FISH!! As in caught and cooked right on the beach.

The last 5 days that we were there, we stayed in a great little beach front cabana with a "full" (but small) kitchen. I could have done a bit better with CR, but really it just got totally thrown out of the window. I did cook breakfast everyday and it was fairly healthy. Typically scrambled eggs, fruit, and papas (potatoes). Lunch was typically sandwiches (great little Italian deli in the area) and dinner some sort of fish or pasta.

I didn't keep track of anything and the worst part of it all; beverages. Bottled water was not always available and you can not drink the tap water, because it's just filtered ocean water and still way too salty. Diet soda, forget about it. Many days I had anything from juice, to Pepsi or even a pino colado.

Oh well, it's vacation, right?!?! Now trying to get back on track.

Things have gone pretty well since my return. Actually, things have been great! Not necessarily relating to CR, but in general. My boss and I have been getting along very well at work (awesome!), I had a date (freaking amazing woman!) , met a new friend, my dog is looking great and healthy, etc. etc. Now, I just need to get some rest and get focused.

So fill me in. How's everyone doing? I have been trying to catch up on all that I missed on your blogs, but dang that's a lot of reading.

2007-04-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

RESURFACING, BUT NOT FOR LONG

No (but thanks for asking) I have not left for my vacation as of yet. I actually leave tomorrow bright and early and will return the following Thursday. HELLS YES, I am excited!!

Wrapping up the week and getting prepared for this trip have proven to be a bit time consuming, not to say that my mother's last minute visit had anything to do with that (HA!). Pabst is all good to go. He fortunately gets to go back home for a visit with his bio mommy and seems to be quite excited about that.

Good news. Since my digital camera got stolen, I have been a bit in the dumps and obviously a bit less colorful. My mom has loaned me her's, so get ready for beachy cool pics.

I agree with Deb. CR bloggie traffic seems to be a bit low. So give us a shout, ya'll! What's everyone been up to lately?? Anyone fallen off the CR wagon (slightly beginning to raise my own hand)?? Boyfriends? Husbands? School? Work? Tell it!

Yo Emily!!!! If you are out there, give us a sign. March 20th? That was like eons ago. Miss you and hope you are well!

Hazel, your once a week plan makes perfect sense. Blogger addiction is serious. As a matter of fact, I am thinking of starting a support group. No doubt, I will get addicted to the support as well. Sheesh!

For all the others; Deb, Christina, April, and other daily bloggers - Thanks so much for keeping the fire burning! I look forward to reading many more post.

Okay guys! Have a wonderful week and keep warm!

PS: April.....you need a vacation.....sure you don't want to hop in my suitcase?

2007-03-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

GRATITUDE

There are SO many things to be grateful for. I could make a list a mile long, but here I will post my CR gratitude.

I am grateful for:

Egg Whites
Almonds
Veggie Proteins
CR bloggers (you know who you are!)
Cron O Meter
Skinny Jeans that finally fit!

Okay so you get the idea. I am just feeling a profound sense of gratitude and learning that positive energy attracts positive energy. Keeping my spirits up and reflecting the negative keep me on a good CR track. Nothing worse that eating pizza because your boss pissed you off and you just felt crappy and "aw fuck it" all over.

Have a great weekend!!!

2007-03-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

IN NEED OF A DR. PHIL MOMENT

Thanks so much to the "Divine Miss M" for writing and sharing her very personal feelings yesterday. http://divine-miss-m.blogspot.com/ Please, everyone should read this post. I really NEEDED to read this post myself.

I wanted desperately to post yesterday and just SCREAM about how much I absolutely hated my job, but most importantly my boss. My boss and I are at times very close, like pals, actually even flat mates (we live in the same building, different apartments). We are with each other SO much during the day and night that sometimes I think we are married. It's odd. Every meal we have together, morning coffee, we say good night to each other, the only exception, I guess would be sex. (obviously joking!)

To sort of tie this into Miss M's post, here's a sample of what she wrote;

"When my partner does something that irritates me, which happens a lot because our personalities are pretty much orthogonal to each other, I try to 1. think through what just happened, maybe have a little whinge about it if I'm in a space where that can be done without goading him or getting myself into a negative spiral (i.e. online), 2. decide if I can deal with it now or not, then 3. put it aside if I can't. What's the negative spiral? That's the place where I keep going over things in my head endlessly without anything changing. I try to set a time limit so I don't do that. Why? Because I've learned there's very little in life we have actual control over, especially when it comes to other people. I've carried around a lot of anger/guilt until the penny dropped... I can't change the past. I can't change someone else's actions or thoughts. I can only change myself and it's going to be hard enough work doing that."

My boss has been irritating me a lot lately. His attitude, his priorities, his choices, his seemingly paranoid ways. I am just absolutely irritated with him all the time lately and I think that all these things he does or is effects me in some way.

I have been doing great with CR lately. Absolutely great, especially after my relaxing weekend at home. Well yesterday was one of those annoying as hell boss days. My food intake was right on the mark. I had packed a beautiful lunch, but did I eat it? HELL NO. I was harboring a lot of anger and resentment for him yesterday, went out to grab a diet Mt. Dew and grabbed a slice of greasy pizza with it. Now the pizza grabbing in my mind became his fault too. If he didn't stress me out so much, I could cope and eat right.

Ridiculous? Well it took me reading Miss M's post to realize how ridiculous I was being. I have to be able to separate his life from mine a bit better. I have to realize the mistakes he makes in business, his personal life, etc. are his and not mine. Although they may frustrate me, it honestly does impact my life either way. I guess if he chose to run the company to the ground, I would be without a job, but I am sure I would bounce back quickly or have plenty of fair warning and be able to move on, no sweat.

I need to be able to let things go. That is something too I am working on with my AA sponsor. I am at the very early stages of sobriety and have yet to really work the 12 steps, but I am eager to do so. I am ready to fill my "tool box", too.

Yesterday didn't end so bad on the eating front. Even with my pizza, I ended my day around 1600 calories, which I probably needed, however a bit more nutrition wouldn't have hurt! The two prior days I was around 1300 and April tells me based on my height and current weight, I need 1600 to stay healthy. I have lost a bit of weight again, bringing my yearly total to 21 lbs. I have so much to be thankful for.

Thanks so much to Miss M and to the other supportive CRON bloggers.

2007-03-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

COM CRASH

So I kinda procrastinated on doing the most recent COM update. Sometimes my laptop wireless connection is slow, I leave COM open 24/7 and just didn't think it was all too important.

Well COM let me know just how important it was by giving me some silly error message and wiping out all my data!!!

Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone suggest a back up system of some sort?

The good news, the oreo's have disappeared from my COM data base forever, but so has all the other good bits too.

Starting over!

2007-03-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

CILANTRO AND MORE CILANTRO

I am so jealous of the girls that were able to go meet with April this weekend. Although close, there was just no way I could make it and ended up having a much needed relaxing weekend.
Good thing, as this last week at work before my departure to the Dominican Republic is going to be crazy busy.

Saturday, Pabst and I slept in until about 10 am!! This is absolutely unheard of for me, but oops I did it again on Sunday too. We went out for a nice long walk and got home around 1 pm. After that, our day was filled (or mine rather) with some good old scrubbing. I had not had a chance to really scrub down the apartment since my friend's had come up to visit the weekend before, so it was really needed. I guess I was in "spring" cleaning mode, because I did everything, down to the windows and even scrubbed the floors and base boards by hand. I love Murphy's Oil Soap!!

Then I had to run errands, go to the bank, etc and ended my day with a 7 pm AA meeting at the gay and lesbian center.

I crashed with popcorn when I got home. Not a 100% nutritious snack, but filling and not too bad on the calories, especially home popped, no butter added.

Today was CR prep day after our usual long morning walk. I do SO much better when I have taken time on Sunday to plan, prepare, and cook for the following week. Here are some of the highlights;

Roasted Veggies
Gazpacho (thanks Em)
Green Cakes (thanks April)
Crust less Pumpkin Pie
Broiled Turkey Burgers
Broiled Turkey Breast
Egg White Salad

Just about everything had cilantro added. It was on sale and beautiful and I love the flavor! Waste not want not. I am also going to make a bok choi, cabbage, and collard soup when I get home tonight. These are all made with 2-4 servings and will last through the week without worry of spoiling. Some is frozen and some in the fridge.

I am proud of what I did today. I have even sort of planned things out in the COM, too. So I really do not even have to think. Just look it up, pack it, and go!

Well I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. I can't wait to read everyone else's post about the CR girls weekend. THANKS again for the support!

2007-03-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

TIRED, TIRED, TIRED

That's my theme for the last week. I am just plain old tired!!! I attribute the lethargic feeling to eating pretty crappy. I have easily been able to maintain a calorie level below 1600-1700 calories per day, but I am a wee bit (or miles) away from the "ON".

Here's the break down of crappy foods:

Sugar in my coffee
Milk in my coffee
1 slice of pizza
peanut butter and jelly on a pita
Cheese nips

Now I didn't go over board with anything and I know this is vast improvement from where I used to be, but still I would like to live life without these distractions. I guess what is also SO frustrating is that I know I have the will power to resist these things and they are not a necessity. I just have been on a pity party path, thinking I need or deserve these items because I am stressed or tired or frustrated.

Things at work have been loosening up a bit. Mostly because I have been speaking my mind a bit. My boss and I got into an argument about a project that he has been expecting me to finish. I have been waiting on a bit of direction from him. Actually our last agreement was that after his vacation we would meet and discuss the expectations of the project and then I would finish it. I think in his haste he forgot that discussion and just assumed the project would be finished. When I pointed this out, things were okay and we got to work on our discussion. I would never do this before. I would just be pissed off, harboring ill feelings. So I am glad to see a change taking place and it certainly lightens the burden a bit.

I am also feeling a bit better about my recovery. My sponsor and I have come to terms a bit better on our expectations of each other and communication is becoming slowly easier for me. I am forcing myself to really rely on the program and not just be a fly on the wall at meetings.

With a bit of needed rest this weekend and time to focus on preparing some simple dishes that can be used throughout the week, I am hopeful that next week will be a bit easier at fighting off those pity cravings. It's one day at a time for me.

2007-03-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

THE EGG WHITES ARE BACK!!!

I have no idea why, but I really like to ask people for advice and find ways to defy them. April has told me time and time again, that in her opinion an egg white breakfast has been the foundation to her good healthy CR daily routine. I did the whole egg white thing for the first month I was doing CR and then slowly just stopped having breakfast all together.

However, now I am noticing that not having a solid CR breakfast and going into the evening at a lower calorie level is leading to those nightly sugar cravings as well. When I was in my egg white routine, I hardly ever wanted anything to eat at night. Now, I always want something, so I end up having a late dinner and an even later snack.

I work late hours and stay out of the house even later at my AA meetings. I would like from now on to have an early breakfast, high in protein, good fats and a decent calorie punch, a good lunch and healthy snacks during day and maybe skip dinner all together. It just doesn't make sense to me to have dinner at 9 pm. I can probably fit all my calories in by time I leave my office at 7 pm. Just requires more packing and preparing, but I am used to that now.

Another thing:

VEGGIES!!

I have been anti veg for the last week or so. I really have a hard time cooking them and liking them. I am out of salad mode, unless it is made at a restaurant. What is that all about? The one time I cook veggies and actually like them is when I make soup and now that it's starting to get warmer, I am less likely to be fond of eating soup.

Recipes anyone?

2007-03-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

BLOGGER CONFESSIONS

Why do we blog? Why do we share our stories of success and "failure"? Maybe the Catholics were on to something with that whole confessional thing. I dunno. Not into organized religion myself, but I do find that the more I admit to myself and to others my rights and wrongs, the clearer the path to success becomes. It's easier to recognize where I have failed and how I can fix or repair the situation.

I could write a book of confessions from this past weekend. I had friends in town visiting from NC and things got crazy. We had a freakin blast, which I desperately needed and although typically I would harbor regrets for some of my actions, I have none.

So obviously when you have friends in town, you eat out. So, we ate out and I honestly didn't pay attention to what I was eating. It was so weird because my friends were here, but my boss/dispatch manager was out of town, so I was having to maintain my regular duties as well as run the whole company. Time was just all out of whack. When we ate, it was so random. I have been on such a really strict schedule and routine of eating (okay aside from some of those early sober oreo nights). I ate things like a burger, some fries, some nachos (disgusting), I had sugar in my coffee, a pop tart. A lot of weird food.

However, I did get my exercise. This weekend, I transformed into.....

THE DANCING QUEEN!!!!

Yeah, that's me, the Dancing Queen.

I have not been out dancing in SO long. I used to dance all the time, but my last relationship was with a woman that didn't and honestly, really couldn't dance and after our breakup, I really haven't been out much in a "dancing" scene.

Not only the dancing, but we did a good bit of walking. Really not as much walking as I am used to. We traveled around by train and car quite a bit because the sidewalks were so bad and it was SO cold.

So pop tart or not, at least I burned a few extra calories.

----------------

Confession # 101

I drank this weekend. Nothing too terrible and I do not even really feel guilty about falling off the wagon, but I did drink and I did loose my 32 day count.

I feel really mixed about this. I didn't get too crazy, didn't do any drugs, didn't spend my rent money on buying the whole bar shots, but I did drink. I felt like I had a lot of control this weekend, but my past tells me this will not last. I know how I am. I know that I am "allergic" to alcohol and even though this weekend was successful, it won't last.

But, GOD I HAD FUN!!!!

2007-03-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

COMING UP ON 30 SOMETHING.....

I read Emily's blog today and suddenly realized I am no longer in my early 20's. Saying I am in my early 20's is no longer a legitimate excuse for not having my life exactly in order, still playing video games, and not being settled or grounded or whatever those stupid standards of "grown up" are that I have invented in my mind.

It's sad to say good bye to my early 20's and the crutch of the early 20's excuses. However, it is time to start realizing that I am not always going to be in my 20's and that the older I get the more time will fly by on me. So many anxieties and thoughts come to mind. I am excited to grow a bit older, but dread loosing my youthfulness. I look forward to the future, but fear my life is meaningless or not "put together" as it should be. The idea of being young and having lots of time ahead of us is pleasant in so many ways, but scary at the same time. I am not THAT young anymore and as I said earlier, time is getting harder to hold on to. The pace of our busy lives speeds the hands of the clock and next thing you know you are 30 or 40 or maybe even 50.

I remember thinking that 30 was so far away, but now 30 is only 3 1/2 years away. 3 1/2 years used to seem like a life time when you were counting the days until you graduated, but when you are looking back at how over night you became 26, 3 1/2 years seems like a flash.

You know when I am 30, my nephew will be 5 years old. What will he have to say of his aunt at 5 years old? Will he know me when he is 5? No, will he really know me? Will I ever learn to take the time out of my life to make time to spend with him? Or how bout my then 3 year old niece?

Will I finally own a home at 30? Will I be living in Brooklyn at 30? Will I still be with this company when I am 30? Well, God only knows what will become of me over the next 3 1/2 years. I have to live in the day and do the best I can for myself each day.

How does this relate to CR? Well, I am not really 100% sure, but I do know this; at the age of 30, I hope to be a CR practitioner. I hope that over the course of the next 3 1/2 years, I will continue on my CR journey, learning more of the scientific data, becoming more comfortable with my CR diet, exercising, supplementing, etc. I hope that CR has become my life and not so much a practice. I want CR to be just as natural as Friday pizza night used to be in my life.

You know when I go to AA meetings, I am always greeted by a group of like minded alcoholics that have their (pardon my french) shit together. But what does it mean to say that you have your shit together? I mean, I have a good job, a great apartment, friends, a loving family, and the best darn dog in all of Brooklyn. Just as I am writing this post, I am realizing that all the things I thought had to be in place by time I was 30, kinda are. That's a great feeling.

Why is it that I want more? Why is that I can not recognize and appreciate how great my life is? I guess honestly I know that between the lines lies some issues I know I need to work on, but I have to remember that life is an on going learning process. I am not going to wake up one day 30 and life be perfect.

Okay enough useless rambling....

2007-03-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

RETRACTION

Okay, so yesterday I said I would join in on the 90 day challenge with Robin and Jake to "get in shape". I think I have to retract that statement.

After a lot of thought last night, pros and cons listed out, reading comments from other readers, etc. I came to the conclusion that it's just simply impossible. My daily routine, no matter what I do will not allow for a structured routine exercise program as of yet.

For instance, yesterday I left my house at 7 am, walked to work, worked all day until about 6:15 and then went to my nightly AA meeting. After I left my meeting, I walked back to work to pick up the pooch, and headed home. When I finally got home it was 8:30 pm. Then had to feed the dog, walk him again, feed myself, plan for today's food, make time for a phone call, do some reading and pass out.

My days are long enough right now. My days are filled with physical activity too. I used an online calculator to try and determine just how much exercise I am getting. Based on my current weight, the pace and time of my walks, I am burning somewhere around 175-200 calories each time I walk. That's not half bad. Not bad at all. Here are my list of walks per day:

To work is about 20 minutes or 1.3 miles

Lunch with the pooch. 30 minutes, I have no idea how far.

Pre meeting walk with pooch. Again 30 minutes, I have no idea how far.

To and from a meeting (doesn't really count because it's only a matter of a few blocks)

Home again is about 20 minutes or 1.3 miles.

I am probably averaging about 4-4.5 miles per day.

Now, I know that does nothing for toning up my arms or abs, but I have my weekends to focus on that if I choose, or I can choose to be lazy. My biggest fear of not getting enough needed rest and relaxation is burning out. My alcohol recovery has to be my number one in life right now and I believe the added stress and pressure of an exercise routine is just too much. Call it a cop out if you like, but I know my priorities.

One thing I am going to add to my monthly routine is my old cycling club. They have 2-3 organized rides per month that usually include a dinner or breakfast. I am doing this mostly for some fun social events. Not drinking and being around my beer buddy's has caused me to become a bit antisocial. These events will provide me with some great exercise and some good friends.

Okay enough rambling. To all a good day!

2007-03-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

90 DAYS

Okay why does everything that is good for revolve around 90 days? 90 meetings in 90 days, good for sobriety. 90 days of exercising, good for the beach body beautiful contest. HA!

So, I decided to take Jake up on the 90 day challenge, and Robin too! I asked Robin where to sign up and she said, duh, just post it on your blog.

Here, I go. Jake, I accept your challenge!!!

Okay here is my plan:

Mornings before work: 30 minute walk/run with Pabst

After work: 30 minute walk/run with Pabst

3 days a week: 30 minute yoga

4 days a week: Choice between 30 Pilate's or 30 minute abs

Okay so I am cheating a bit. The walk/run thing with the dog I already do, but sometimes no run and sometimes short walks. So my promise is to do a full 30 minutes and to step up the run part little by little each week. Carry a stop watch with me and document the progress.

The yoga and Pilate's is a video I have, or I can opt to go to one of the classes at the YMCA. The ab thing is something I learned from a personal trainer a while ago and it's still in my memory. Oh boy I will be sore!! Can't wait!!

2007-03-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

MONDAY

So another weekend under the belt. Weekend was good. I did a lot of sleeping and resting, as well as some cooking and planning. I didn't step foot into my office, take a single work related phone call, nor did I check my work email.

I have been averaging around 1450 calories per day for the last week or so and it seems to be paying off. I have been able to easily shake off any sugar cravings and have allowed myself treats when I can.

Being more grounded in my caloric intake, I can focus a bit more on the nutritional side of things as well. I am finding easy ways to up my calcium and Vitamin D and K intake and am now just struggling a bit with B vitamins. Everything else seems to fall into play nicely now.

Apples. I have been hooked on apples this weekend. It all started when I read this website talking about easy ways to reduce your daily caloric intake. This guys example was that there was no way in heck you could eat 2000 calories of apples per day, but could easily consume that many calories through a bag of chips or some chocolate. So, I bought some beautiful gala apples at the market over the weekend and snacked on them with babybel FF cheese. Delicious and decadent. The apples are perfect. Huge and firm. Tart, but sweet. Juicy and did I say DELICIOUS?!! Apples and cheese will be my snack for today too. I am getting that mouth watering excitement now just thinking about it!

Everything is as follows:

Breakfast: 16 oz black coffee
1/4 cup almonds
1/8 cup sunflower seeds

Snack: 4 oz. FF cottage cheese
96 grams celery
98 grams baby carrots

Lunch: Turkey Chili (YUM)
1 tablespoon FF sour cream
1 dannon light and fit

Snack: Gala Apple
2 pieces of babybel FF cheese

That brings me up just below 1000. I will have a coffee at my evening meeting and follow that with some bok choy and turkey stir fry for dinner. Followed by either yogurt or cereal snack, time permitting.

Okay gang, well good luck to everyone on yet another new week.

2007-03-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

SUCCESS AND SUPPORT

How big of a role does support play in being successful? Are you any more likely to obtain something or succeed at a goal if you go it alone or with a group of like minded individuals?

In my personal opinion and with no scientific evidence or proof, I think we are much more likely to succeed at virtually anything we set our minds to when we rely on the help and support of others that either believe in what we are doing or are also attempting the same task.

I have grown up bull headed, falsely independent, and stubborn. I have never liked to rely on the support and advice of others. Admitting the need for help and support was a sure sign of weakness.

I am learning through my current CRON experience and through my AA readings (can't say meetings because I am still a bit stubborn and haven't been) that accepting support, help, faith, what have you is very important. Finding a strength in something that is greater than yourself to carry you through the pitfalls and down days really makes the difference between success and something a little less than success.

These daily blogs that people read, write and comment on are a major part of my recovery as an alcoholic and as a someone that has led a less than healthy lifestyle. I rely on this blog to fess up about my poor habits and to receive support on how to pick myself back up. I rely on readers. I rely on the other blogs writers. I rely on the comments. A bit abnormal to some people that do not struggle with the same things, I will admit. But it works for me.

Thank you all to the other CRON bloggers that are out their sharing your experiences from day to day, whether it be a WaWa egg white crisis or office gak foods staring you down. I can relate and learn from your experiences the tools necessary to make CRON successful for me.

It's the beginning of a small (but weird) online family. No matter what the crisis, your CRON blogger friends can step in, leave a comment, maybe a :) on your blog and all is right with the world. Fertility, exercise, boyfriend and girlfriend problems, work issues, etc., etc., etc. The list goes on and on.

I'm in awe at much some of you care about your fellow bloggers. It's special and a bit sappy (or maybe that's just me!).

2007-03-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

ONE DONUT OR TWO?

So things in CR land are going just dandy. I have been eating very well this week and still I am shrinking. Work has been crazy busy as usual and for some reason, I have not made an AA meeting at all this week, again. Not sure what's up with that and I will go tonight. At least I am not pounding PBR's though.

Okay I have been thinking for the last couple of days about idle snacking or binging while reading Emily's and other CR blogger's post. It can be some what intimidating to read the CRON blogger's diaries at time. I think we all strive for perfection, but something we forget is that CR does not require absolute perfection to be successful. CR has loop wholes. CR allows cheating. CR is great!

Obviously we strive to have optimal nutrition daily and to rid ourselves of junky treats, sugary sodas, and heavy refined carbohydrates. However, if we must at some point (or mentally must), then we do it and move on. CR does not provide us with a strict list of guideline, do's and don't, and no no's. We are able to cater our CR lifestyle to our personal preferences. Just look at the variety of diets throughout the blogs. Some eat fruit, some don't. Some have bread, some don't. Some have cereal, some don't. And some of us even think sardines are tasty, most do not.

Another great loop whole in CR is the ability to average or find a mean. So you have a junky day. You log it in. You do a 30 day summary and you know, it doesn't look at that bad. Or if it does, you restrict a bit more for a few days, do another summary, and you can see how easy it was to turn that negative gak day into a month of success.

CR is forgiving. CR is a life style, not a fad diet. Fad diets fail. CR is successful. CR is a positive life change.

Today at work we had a 6 am meeting and training with you labor staff. My boss went to Dunkin Donuts and picked up a vat of coffee and 1000 donuts for all. At first, I thought I would shy away from the donuts and not have one. But I really wanted one. So, I had one. Just one. Now, I am not ashamed or embarrassed anymore to log this into my COM or to fess up about it on my blog. Because I have made a positive life change that allows me to be who I am and have flexibility in my life.

The old Carolyn would have had 3 donuts. That's something to be proud of. The old Carolyn would be miserable and mad at herself and would continue the day with junk as a form of the "aw fuck it" (thanks Chris) attitude. The new Carolyn has the tools necessary to balance that one donut into her daily routine and NOT feel guilty or cheated.

I am proud of the changes I see taking shape in myself. I have a lot to be thankful for! I am loving the idea that this change will continue. One day I will completely resist the donut. One day I will crave asparagus as much as I crave Oreo's. One day at a time I am making positive changes in my life that will last a life time.

Emily, you are doing great and have a lot to be thankful for. You are SO smart and seem like such a kind and caring person. CRON will come for all of us in time. Please, if you are starting CRON or have been at this a long time, try to see the good in everyday, even if that day included a donut.

2007-03-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

CR PLAN

Isn't it funny how with CR there is always a "plan"? I like the plan. The more I plan, the better I feel and the greater my chances of success. However, sometimes life doesn't allow time for planning. Or well that's what I like to tell myself. I read April's post about stress and taking care of her self. What a great post. If you haven't read it, get your butt over there now! My post will not be nearly as enlightening or interesting, and you can always come back and finish mine later!

So I started thinking about the things I can do in my life to reduce stress and be more in tune with my body's needs. Here's a short list:

Define barriers at work - I need to adopt a schedule and stick with it. This 7 days a week, 13 + hours a day crap is for the birds.
Attend an AA meeting at least 5 days a week.
Gym 3 days a week.
1 Hour each evening planning my meals/vitamins for the following day
1 Hour a day for reading
6-8 hours of sleep per night.

Some of these things may sound trivial and just stupid, but I am not doing them or I am attempting to squeeze them into my busy work schedule and it's just not satisfying, but just more stress.

Work is a real problem. I think there is this child inside of me that is a struggling people pleaser that just can't draw the line between right and wrong with my time and work. I have been begging my boss to meet with me about my work expectations, goals, schedule, etc. I think if I just had a better since of where I stood with my job and my expectations as an employee I could relax and not necessarily feel like I need to be a slave to my job to keep my job. Understand what I am saying?

So, I feel like if I can balance my job a bit then I will definitely have more time to do the things that help the spiritual and emotional me. Like making my meetings. I haven't made a meeting since last Monday. That is HORRIBLE. Thankfully I have not drank or abused, but I am feeling "dry" inside.

Last night despite the fact that I didn't get home from work until after 8:30 pm (went in at 6:30am), I forced myself to take a few minutes and 1st (of course) do a bit of house cleaning (a clean house is like zen to me), then I spent a good bit of time entering in my COM info for the day. I decided I would cook dinner (9 pm!) and have the left overs for lunch today. I spent quite a bit of time playing with COM and the "What to Eat" link on Robin's page planning today's eats and I am very satisfied with my plan. Again, having a plan = success for me!

I stayed up too late, so I only got 5 hours of sleep last night, but I feel fine and ready for another long day. I have to make it a point to get the right amount of sleep per night from now on though.

My gym plan is going to be three days a week. My gym is pretty far away. I have to walk 3 miles round trip to go, which is not that bad distance wise, it's just again the time issue. I am going to try for the next couple of weeks just going on Weds night which is the one night that I usually do not go to an AA meeting and to spend good time on both Saturday and Sunday there. If that goes well and it seems possible, I may start trying to go early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

You know I do not have to be at work at the butt crack of dawn. I really do not have to be here until 9 am. I just like to come in a couple of hours early to finish all my paper work and take care of extra stuff (like blogging). Going to the gym in the morning is very feasible.

Okay so this is a really long winded post with nothing all too interesting in it, but my blog is my diary and it will be good to look back at this post later to see if I really attempted or succeeded at making some of these time management changes. Thanks for reading!

2007-03-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY RECAP

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Well I got up early and headed into the office to send my crews out for the day. What a complete disaster. I swear my boss is SO unorganized and the men he hires are so bottom of the barrel, it's no wonder he is stressed and over worked all the time. I mean sometimes there is value in spending a penny more up front. Okay well that's a different blog.

After finally getting the guys out on the road, I headed to the new YMCA in my area. I am transferring my membership FINALLY! I havent lived in the old hood since July and I certainly wasn't commuting for the sake of the Y, more like paying unnecessary membership fees. Yesterday I spent 25 minutes on the bike in fat burner mode. The did the rounds on all the weight machines. Not feeling 100% confident about what I am doing, but I got a book and I am using that plus the help of a good friend to figure out what I need to be doing. I am excited!

It also helps that it is a 3 mile round trip walk to and from the gym. That provides me with a great warm up and cool down. I walk like a monkey running away from fire, so I know I am definitely burning a bit more calories. I wanted to do the research on that this weekend, but just didn't.

When I finally got home on Sunday after the gym, I crashed. Well not right away but eventually. I had all these hopes of doing some good reading for my AA group and for CR, but I just really felt like hell. I do not think I have quite gotten over the flu bug that I had. I still have a bit of a cough and congestion and I think even a bit of a fever yesterday, but I didn't check to be absolutely sure.

Here is how food went. Pretty good up until the end, but still within my 1600 calorie budget.

After gym breakfast/lunch (I think they call this brunch!): 1.5 cups Kashi Go Lean with 1/2 cup vanilla soy milk. (too tired to cook an egg!)

Late Lunch: Pita with turkey, romaine, tomato, FF cheddar, mustard and a large gala apple

Dinner: Egg white omelet with some pieces of left over steak, peppers and onions, and FF cheese

So what's missing? almonds, yogurt, flax, calcium chews, veggies. Not a great CR day. And to top it off; I had a slice of red velvet cake with cream cheese icing for desert! Not too small a piece either, so I put it in as two large slices on the COM to compensate.

Totals:

1339 calories
80 grams protein
177 grams carbs
45 grams lipids

Vitamins and minerals were obviously low for the day. Really not good because with being sick or fighting off the rest of this cold/flu, I feel I should be doing everything possible to get those extra B's and other vitamins. I just do not have the energy to fix stuff.

However, today is another day and I have good plans. With almonds, yogurt, calcium chews, and flax in hand I go into another day, ready to battle!

2007-03-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

I LOVE BEAUTIFUL WEATHER!

Today was an absolutely wonderful day to be in Brooklyn! Pabst and I had a blast. We started our day by going into the office. Then around 11 am, his foster father called to announce that Pabst' presence was requested at the vet's office for his booster shot. So we all piled into JT's car and headed over. Me and Pabst, Matt and CJ (dog), and JT and Mayb (dog). It was our first reunion since the litter had been slit up and we had a really great time.

CJ and Mayb took a bit longer with the vet because they had to do a full check up. So Pabst proved his chick magnet skills why we waited. He was the star of the office and the side walk out front. Everyone loved him and doted all over him with love and praises. I was a very very proud mommy today.

When we were finished up, the group separated and Pabst and I took a stroll to Fort Green park to visit with my sponsor and her daughter. The park was full of kids playing ball, adults playing ball, the old guys sitting and sharing gossip. It was great. The air was fresh, their was a great little breeze and was sunny and bright enough that I finally got to dig out my shades again.

We got home and I dashed out for a hair cut and some grocery shopping. Pabst was SO wiped out when I opened his kennel door, he just looked at me with that "you gotta be kidding me" tired look.

Food went well today. I didnt eat breakfast, but packed some almonds (which I still have not eaten) and grabbed a low cal wrap at Subway at about 2 pm. For dinner I had another low cal wrap with turkey, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard (homemade) and some of my salmon chili I made the other night. A little fishy but not bad.

So the almonds will be a night time snack with some yogurt. Pretty low cal day, but yesterday and the day before were a bit high, so the last three days average out to 1450 cals per day. Still a little on the low side.

I am feeling very comfortable with the whole no alcohol thing now. I am not having many physical cravings for that or for the sweet substitute, so I think this week I am going to start buckling down on CRON. I want to really work towards not going over 1600 calories any day this week and to also be sure that I am getting the correct amount of vitamins and minerals.

So I have some planning ahead of me, but otherwise what in the hell else am I going to do. You know the one major down side to not drinking; being home ALOT! I am able to easily fill my days with things to do; work, walking with Pabst, visiting day time friends, shopping, laundry, etc. But nights are hard. I should probably be going to more meetings, but I am really pooped, but have this inner dork in me telling me I am a dork and should be out with friends. My friends are all drinkers though. Heavy drinkers. At dinner, bars, home, everywhere and I just do not want to be around it right now. Not until I am ready.

So for tonight; I cleaned the apartment AGAIN, blogged AGAIN, will shower AGAIN, read AGAIN, walk the dog AGAIN, and sleep AGAIN. Any ideas?

2007-03-02T06:29:00.000-08:00

"TELL ME...WHY ARE YOU DISAPPEARING?"

That's what my boss said to me this morning, in his cute little broken English voice when we were having our little morning pow wow. I was proud! He finally is able to notice I have lost a bit of weight. Me too! My clothes had been fitting a bit better and better all the time, but the mere 10 lbs I lost on the scales didn't seem like much a few weeks ago. Especially considering I weighed a good 200 lbs.

Well this morning after his comment, I decided to take a look at the scales again and low and behold an additional 8 lbs had fallen off for a total of 18 lbs since Jan 1!

I don't think that 18 lbs over the last couple of months is too dramatic because of my size. If I was much thinner, I would be concerned obviously.

I am actually quite surprised, because I have had quite a few ad lib days. Just imagine if I had not screwed up all those times, or maybe the way too look at is; my body needed me to screw up in an obscure way. Like maybe I was trying to restrict too much and I need to up my calories to maintain healthy weight loss.

So somethings must be evaluated.

In other news;

I am feeling much better today. Thank you all for your "get well" wishes. You know it has been a while since I have been really sick. My boss will confirm for you that I have called in sick many times before, but I will tell you, that was mostly from being hung over. I can certainly say that I am glad not to be hung over, but I am not too sure I would trade in being sick like I was the last couple of days for that.

I am still a bit weak. I ate well yesterday or should I say I ate. Not necessarily nutritionally well, but I certainly had my fill. Last night I made a quick salmon chili. The recipe from the post a couple of days ago and I will have that for lunch. Almonds and yogurt for snack and we shall see what happens for dinner.

Thanks, again for the "Get wells!" Hope everyone is having a great Friday!

2007-03-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

IN RESPONSE...

Al left this comment on my blog yesterday;

"As I mentioned recently, seems that lots of CRON bloggers have been sick the last few months. I know that goes against the CR mantra of everyone feeling great on CR but it's true. If you read back the last couple of months on the blogs you'll see that almost everyone is sick at one time or another.I'm not saying there's a causal relationship -- but it sure makes you wonder."

Al thanks so much for posting your "Get wells". I appreciate every one's comments and today, yes I am feeling much better, though I think I am staying out of the office one more day, just to be absolutely certain I am okay.

I think Al may be on to something and on the other hand, maybe not.

Let's break it down.

First off I am VERY new to CRON and actually do not follow it so strictly. I hardly ever get 100% of all my RDA's and my calories are not so restricted for longevity, more for just weight loss. I plan to restrict a lot more once I drop some weight and learn quite a bit more.

Also I have practically destroyed my body and immune system over the course of the last couple of years. Similarly to Emily by not eating for days at a time, over exercising, and then binging. But unlike Emily, I also chose to use drugs and alcohol to help me not eat.

In other words, I wouldn't really say that I am a CRON practitioner 100% and the damage I have done to my body otherwise is going to take time to rebuild, so getting the flu is not saying that CRON is a failure and does not help to protect your immune system.

Robin had a small stomach bug, but she's got kids. Amy got strep; again she has kids. April had some sort of sickness that was very short lived. Emily had a stomach thing, but she did just fly half way across the planet and was probably stressed and exposed to many things.

Also, please do not forget; it's the season to get sick! This is when it happens and the science behind CRON never said you will never get sick. It's just a proven fact that people who practice, get sick less often and have stronger immune systems in general.

2007-02-28T05:44:00.000-08:00

SICK!!!

You know I don't know who started spreading this bug, but when I find him/her, I am going to do some major butt kicking!

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling really crappy, but went into work as usual. As the day progressed, it got worse and worse. Stinging cough, sore throat, runny nose, sneezing, and I didn't check, but quite sure a fever off and on.

Finally I was able to leave the office around 7 pm and head home, but my work was not done. Still had puppy chores, had to run to the pharmacy and pick up a "knock me out" cough syrup and was still waiting for a work call to come in as we had a crew up in CT until the late hours.

I didn't really eat much either. First off, I had no appetite and secondly nothing I ate was sticking in my stomach! So my calories were a low 550 when I got home. When I ran to the pharmacy I picked up a carton of orange juice and just about drank the whole thing before going to bed. Minus the 3 servings I gave my roommate, because he TOO has this darn bug!

So ended up yesterday around 1100-1200, but 60% of that was just juice. Still NOT hungry this morning, still SICK, but still at work! I swear I am leaving today at noon!

So what do we do when we are sick? Not having enough calories just makes me feel more weak, but I'll be damned if I am the least bit hungry or want my stomach churning all day. Just drinking water is enough to get my stomach rocking and rolling today!

I know the best answer is sleep and hopefully I will be able to leave early today with little trouble.

2007-02-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

CANNED SALMON!!!

Okay so like a week or so or maybe even a month ago there was some blog discussion about how great canned salmon can be. So of course I went out and bought like 8 cans and haven't even touched them. After I started eating sardine pitas for lunch, I thought maybe salmon would be also a good pita sandwich. But, honestly, I wanted something more.....

So, I have done some research and here is what I have come up with;

Salmon Frittata

.25 cups chopped green peppers
.25 cups chopped onion
1 tsp of minced garlic
14.75 ounces canned salmon
1 cup egg whites
1 whole egg
1/4 cup FF ricotta
LOTS OF HOT SAUCE
1/3 cup shredded FF cheddar cheese

Okay so you know how to do this. Mix all ingredients aside from the cheddar cheese and put into a sprayed casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees until firm and remember to added the shredded on top just a few minutes before being done.

4 servings;

251 calories
34 grams protein
9 grams carbs
7 grams lipids
27% vitamins (mostly b's)
23% minerals (selenium through the roof)

Salmon Chili

14.75 ounces of salmon
1 cup chopped onion
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 small hot pepper diced
1 cup frozen corn
15 ounces washed and drained canned black beans
15 ounces canned diced tomatoes
14 ounces chicken broth
spices dried - cumin, chili powder, coriander, salt and pepper

Now I like to saute my peppers, garlic and onions a bit first, add the dry seasoning so they toast up a bit, then broth, corn, beans, salmon, tomatoes and just stew. Delicious!

6 servings

190 calories
19 grams protein
15 grams carbs
5 grams lipids
23 % vit
25% minerals

So just some ideas...I have not actually made them, but I will soon and I will post pics of food and smiley full faces!

2007-02-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

MORALITY AND FOOD

And now an excerpt from April's earlier post:

"I've written extensively about how I find it most counterproductive to think of food in moral terms. Foods either make us healthier or they don't. They either fit into our lifestyle or they don't. They either taste good to us or they don't. There's only one way to find out: do the research and/or give it a try. I am not doing CR to prove that I am a good or moral person, and if I were, I think that would be downright silly because my ability to eat this or that proves nothing about my character. I wish that all this talk of food as morality would just go away. It sets people up for ridiculous guilt, which in turn sets them up for more binging, followed by more fasting or purging, followed by my eventual entry on that topic.
Ditto on the "idea of junk food." CR is not about how we feel about food. Most of us find that we feel better about food post-CR than pre, but whether we like "junk" or not, we can still do CR and improve our health, hopefully even lengthen our lives. Lower calories, more nutrition, that's all. "

Now, I know that April would prefer that we just go on and drop this subject, but I wanted to make a bit of a personal confession. I find confessions help me to confront my fears, gain inspiring feed back from others, and just get over it.

Now my personal moral issue and guilt behind food does not necessary revolve around the other subjects I read people blogging about; environmental, animal rights, etc.. I am not at that point YET, but as I have posted before, my dream is to one day become a cool hippie Brooklyn hipster, thrift store clothes, incense and all.

My issues revolve around my eating habits, weight and general appearance. I used to think when I was much heavier that people would watch me eat and think or say, "Gosh, doesn't that pig know that she's not going to do any better in life by eating that Big Mac?"

I can remember from early, early childhood always being a bit heavier than my sister. She was two years older than me, but we wore the same size clothes. Chrystal was always the popular, more social sister too and I always related that directly to her being thinner and prettier than I am. This I know I did not completely manifest in my own mind, at least not the actually being heavier part. I remember being told by older, much thinner cousins at an early age that I needed to start watching my diet and overall food intake. Being counseled on nutrition at early age, but all that information going totally over my head. For Pete's sake, I was like 7. I couldn't control what my mother bought at the store, is what I thought at the moment, but looking back on it, I could certain control what was being shoved into my mouth.

So, I have always been aware that nutrition and proper exercise were lacking in my life and have always had a tremendous amount of guilt and self hate about it all.

Until.....

Now!

Even when I started loosing weight 4 years ago, I still was very self conscious and constantly felt guilty about what I ate on a regular basis.

With the help of CRON (or the beginning stages, learning of it) I am learning to not associate my food intake with my emotions or morals. The learning process that I am going through is helping me to grow spiritually and emotionally as well nutritionally. (if that makes sense)

AGAIN: LOWER CALORIES, MORE NUTRITION, THAT'S ALL!

Thanks, April for that post. It brought up a lot of thoughts for me all day and has left me with an overall feeling of inner strength and excitement about further honing my CRON lifestyle.

Now in other news;

I want to be a marathon runner. Just kidding. No marathons for me today, however I would like to start attempting to learn how to run properly. April asked me earlier if Pabst and I could be running partners and my first thought was "HELL NO!". The poor kid can't get out from right underneath my feet to save his life. But, tonight I took him for a run, walk after work. We would walk a block, run a block, walk a block, run a block, etc...

He actually did quite well and now he's passed out like a baby and NOT chewing on my work shoes. So, two birds, one stone.

Night all!

2007-02-26T06:28:00.000-08:00

THE OC AND THE D

Two part post here, but both pretty well related.

This weekend was full of obsessions. Some healthy some, some not so healthy.

Let's start with the OCD side of things. I had been thinking all week last week that I would scrub my apartment from top to bottom this weekend and I did, (here's the OCD part) TWICE!

I started on Saturday morning by moving all the furniture in my bedroom to the middle of the floor and scrubbing the floor, base board, and base board heater. Then I dusted and scrubbed everything else, including sanitizing my mattress. The finished up by vacuuming and mopping the hard wood floors. I was able to do all this by 9:30 am and then headed out with Pabst to my office. I stayed there until about 1 pm, did my dog food and grocery shopping and headed on home.

When I got home, I cooked, cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom and eventually crashed around 7 pm with Pabst in arms, book in hand, and a nice green tea.

Well when attempting to fall asleep on Saturday night, I got the notion that I had just not cleaned properly. That tomorrow would be another day of scrubbing. Again, I woke up early, but this time headed straight into work and spent the morning there. I headed home around 1 pm and spent the rest of the afternoon again scrubbing the base boards and this time doing the entire apartment over on my hands and knees, no mop! I also cleaned and organized my desk, reorganized my kitchen cabinets (border line "Sleeping with the Enemy") and proceeded to start to organize my closet.

What in the hell is wrong with me? I think this whole not drinking thing is leaving me with too much spare time and no friends that are interested in doing something outside of a bar.

Obsession Part 2: I found on www.myspace.com/fox that you can watch the Fox network TV shows. Well yesterday after cleaning fit number 2 I discovered the OC (Orange County). Talk about stupid dramatic TV, but after one episode I was hooked. Would Ryan ever give Taylor a shot at true love? Would Kirsten find out about Julies hooker business? I watched 8, count them 8 back to back episodes and finally after being totally OC overloaded at midnight, went to bed!

So, I guess we just trade in one addiction for another!

2007-02-23T11:13:00.000-08:00

LAMB'S LETTUCE 101

(AKA) MACHE

Anti-stress, anti-fatigue and chock full of vitamins, Lamb's Lettuce doesn't lack spirit!

A cure for the effects of winter

Tired, run down, listless… it's no coincidence that our energy is low in winter. Winter is a difficult season for the body. It's more vulnerable, and our immune defences tend to weaken. The best remedy is vitamin C, a true guardian of our immune system. Did you know that 150 g of Lamb's Lettuce (one basket, or about 5 oz.) contains 95% of our recommended daily intake of vitamin C? Lamb's Lettuce brings along all the vitamins and minerals we need to recharge our batteries. What more could you want?

Natural anti-fatigue properties

Specialists say that in winter we tend to suffer from a lack of B group vitamins, particularly vitamin B9, which has anti-enemic properties and combats fatigue - even more so than vitamin C which is the defender of our immune system. Found on the market from October until March, Lamb's Lettuce is one of the rare green winter vegetables. Beneath its chlorophyll, these little leaves contain large amounts of an orange pigment called beta-carotene, a natural anti-oxidant that combats cell aging. It's even better when combined with vitamin C, as is the case with Lamb's Lettuce. Together these two vitamins help us stay in top form throughout the winter.

Okay so I didn't write that, nor did I take the pics, but check it out. I just stumbled across it and personally I do not know a lot about it, other than it has aroused my craving for salad lately!

If anyone has any additional info you would like to share..by all means, comment!

2007-02-23T06:08:00.000-08:00

FRIDAY...THANK GOD!

Hey, but I work all weekend, so Friday is like any other. Really I am on call with my job like 7 days a week and I am here on weekends, but not necessarily all day and it's quite a bit more relaxed.

So here's the plan for today's munchies;

Breakfast: Egg White Salad

Snacks: A Large Orange, Dannon Light and Fit, 2 Pickles, and of course my handy dandy almonds

Lunch: 3 cups mache (lambs lettuce)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup FF ricotta
1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
404 Salsa Chicken

Salsa Chicken: This recipe I got a from a friend that is a die hard Atkins follower (I keep trying to convert her, but she wont listen). Basically you take like 2 lbs of chicken strips (frozen) and throw into a crock pot or stove top stew pot and cover with 5 cups of any salsa. I added 1/4 cup baby corn and you just stew it until the meet just falls apart. It's pretty tasty and that is a huge serving (404 grams) that packs a good amount of protein and too shabby on calories. After all, it is just chicken.

Here is how my numbers check out thus far for the day.

General (66%)
Energy 1047.3

65% Protein 86.1 g
69% Fat 37.0 g
74% Carbs 95.6 g
74% Fiber 18.0 g
72% Water 1148.1 g

Vitamins (89%)
Vitamin A 14607.2 IU 626%
Folate 162.3 mcg 41%
B1 (Thiamine) 0.9 mg 86%
B2 (Riboflavin) 1.5 mg 140%
B3 (Niacin) 25.7 mg 184%
B5 (Pantothenic Acid) 4.1 mg 82%
B6 (Pyridoxine) 2.4 mg 182%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin) 1.3 mcg 55%
Vitamin C 176.6 mg 235%
Vitamin D 200.0 IU 100%
Vitamin E 18.3 mg 122%
Vitamin K 158.5 mcg 176%

Minerals (91%)
Calcium 1390.6 mg 139%
Copper 1.6 mg 174%
Iron 11.0 mg 61%
Magnesium 324.9 mg 105%
Manganese 2.3 mg 130%
Phosphorus 991.2 mg 142%
Potassium 3355.2 mg 71%
Selenium 80.3 mcg 146%
Sodium 5310.9 mg 354%
Zinc 6.4 mg 80%

Lipids (67%)
Saturated 4.9 g 24%
Omega-3 0.5 g 45%
Omega-6 10.8 g 98%
Cholesterol 309.3 g 103%

Sodium and Cholesterol are a bit high which really bothers me and that will be something I will have to work on next week, but for now I am happy with my results and planning for the day. Yesterday was not too shabby either, but by the end of the day I was at 1700. My goal is to stay under 1600. It's a progression and is going to take me a bit of time and adjusting before I can maintain at or below 1600. No pressure!

2007-02-22T05:20:00.000-08:00

29 MINUTES!!

Okay so this morning was Pabst's first walk to work. The walk is just about 1 1/4 mile. Not too far and usually takes me about 14 minutes, that includes stopping for coffee at the bodega. Well this morning, with no coffee break, the walk took 29 minutes!! His legs are still short, so a slower pace was necessary. This extra bit of exercise is great for him. He needs the release. He is passed out and a lot easier to handle at the office and I am sure at home as well. Loosing 1/2 hour sleep to get up in time to walk to work with him; priceless!

I stopped by the pet store on the way home last night to pick up a few supplies for the pup. I spotted some treats that are "new" to the dog market and picked up the one that had the promise to freshen breath. (Christina can probably relate to the puppy breath syndrome). When I got home, pabst ate and had a bath and I cleaned and went about my normal routine. Finally, I gave him one of these breath freshening chicken jerky strips. We were playing and I realized that these things actually work! Never has any other product worked for him. So, I read the label.

Do you realize this little guy eats better than me? Probably better than all of us here. He is eating "Wellness" as his normal food (dry of course). This stuff is great. The first 5 ingredients are dehydrated chicken, celery, corn, etc...No artifical nothing! These breath treats are made from cage free, organic, something or another chickens and have no added chemicals, salt, byproducts, etc.. The ingredent list is like 7 things, most of which are natural herbs and the chicken itself.

Amazing....

Meanwhile, I am still stuck on egg whites for breakfast. I wish there were another alternative for something just as high in protein, low in calories and low in fat. I racked my brain all night trying to come up with something different. I may try high protein smoothy over the weekend and see how that works!

Lunch same old sardine sandwich, little bowl of soup and a grapefruit. Snacks; almonds and yogurt. I guess I have developed a "quotation" diet. I like the routine. Then I can have a bit of variety at dinner.

Tonight; Tilapia!!

2007-02-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

JELLY BEAN UPDATE:

Those little bastard ass jelly beans won, but the didnt totally beat me down. I ate the equivalent to about 350 calories. I was just sort of picking out the flavors I preferred and didnt really measure, so I had to measure what was left to get those numbers.

All in all, still not a bad day yesterday. I topped out at 1835 calories. I do not have the nutritional crunch because it's on my laptop and I didnt bring it to work. I guess I could have waited to post, but wanted to go ahead (first because I am bored at work) to answer the comments from my last post.

Cat Lady and Deb are right by saying that sugar cravings are normal when quitting drinking. I feel like I am not trying too push myself to far with too many restrictions too fast, but at the same time I do not want to adopt the "aw fuck it" attitude and use my not drinking as a crutch. I am really not being hard on myself about my caloric intake, just observing, being aware and making changes here and there that will fulfill my cravings and provide me with decent nutrition and a calorie level that will maintain, maybe loose, but certainly NOT gain any weight.

The old me would be downing cokes, mountain dews, eating pizza, ice cream and just saying "aw fuck it" (thanks to chris for the saying). The new me wants not only to heal myself spiritually and emotionally, but also physically through maintaining a decent diet and exercise routine.

When things calm down a bit, I will start really diving into CR!

By the way; sardine sandwich is a hit! I actually love them too now. My boss was starving earlier and asked if I had something for him to snack on. I offered up half the sandwich, thinking he would say "HELL NO!", but he ate and LOVED it too!

2007-02-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

CABINET NAZI'S

What in the world possessed me to purchase Starburst Jelly Beans? Was it the smell of spring and Easter just around the corner? Hell NO! They call it a sugar craving!

So, like, I was doing really awesome today at work. You wanna know why? Because I ate all the chocolate the day before and after digestion, it's hard for it to continue to call my name. Today I went to work loaded with a great CR plan and followed it to a T. Went to my 7 o clock meeting. Had some coffee. Came home, cleaned the dog kennel and all my room mates dishes (again?) and proceeded to make a great little dinner; egg whites, some chicken breast, and the black bean and corn mixture.

Finally around 10 pm I was able to nestle down for some rest and watch a bit of tube. Well the freak Starburst Jelly Beans started calling my name like the devil in the kitchen cabinet. And of course, I checked the label, measured some out and went about my business. Apparently 1/4 cup was not enough for these cabinet trolls, because they kept right on calling back for more and then a bit more again!

I give up! I have cleaned out my cabinet of all junk. No more Oreo's, jelly beans, Raisinettes, but I had to keep the Peanut Butter as it doesn't belong to me, but my dog.

So, I am cleaned out. That's it. Donated, trashed, just freakin gone! If they don't live in your cabinets, they can't talk to you.

THE END

2007-02-20T05:36:00.000-08:00

HOW IT WORKS

Many of us exclaimed, "What and order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us (except MR..hehehe) has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not CR saints. The point is, we are willing to grow along with CR. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim CR progress rather than CR perfection.

2007-02-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

MANY THANKS!

Thanks so much for the support from EVERYONE! Next to the pics of the new pup, I dont think I have ever received so many comments (because you know, that's what blogging is all about; comments)

No, really I appreciate the support and you have no idea how relieving it is to have this information out there. Aside from you all; I finally called up all my drinking buddies today and confessed to them as well. Your support gave me strength and I appreciate it! I have had a thousand phone calls a day from the "crew" begging for a night out on the town, so this should help.

Okay so now the results of today's cravings:

Breakfast, Lunch and almond snacks went all as planned. But somewhere around 3 pm, I started craving (and in no particular order) egg salad, mustard, and toasted rye bread. So, I just had them all. Then I found a chocolate candy bar in my desk and proceeded to eat that. On the way to my meeting tonight, I stopped at CT Muffin and grabbed a mocha (1/2 sugar and skim milk of course). So here's what it all comes out to;

Calories 2005
Protein 88 grams
Carbs 238 grams (holy shit!)
Lipids 86 grams (holy shit, again!)
84% Vitamins
90% Minerals

So micro/macro nutrients don't look all too bad, but it's obvious from the amount of carbs I ingested why I had such horrible sugar cravings.

So lessons learned. Here is my plan for tomorrow. Now, it probably sounds like ALOT of food (well it does to me), but I am arming and surrounding myself with great nutrient, low cal foods just in case these weird cravings start consuming me.

Breakfast:

1 cup egg white omelet with onions, diced organic chicken sausage and 1 teaspoon flax

Snacks:

1/4 cup Almonds
Grapefruit
2 Calcium Chews

Lunch (this one is for Al):

1 cup organic tomato soup
1 sardine pita sandwich with green peppers, humus, onion, deli mustard, arugula

Snack:

100 grams baby carrots
1/4 cup almonds
1 cup Dannon Light and Fit

Okay here is the breakdown;

Calories 1340
Protein 83 grams
Carbs 101 grams
Lipids 74 grams (still pretty high, but all the right fats and I believe it will help to curb cravings)

79% vitamins
86% mineral
Okay so that is a ton of food, but still leaves me 260 calories to F*&$ up with or for dinner. My meetings usually get me home around 8-8:30 pm, so dinner is not usually in the picture. If anything, maybe another omelet, but this time with some veggies!

Good news is; even though there are still Oreo's in the house, I have no craving for them tonight! Which I am stoked about. In other news, I have started a morning yoga routine and at night my plan is to get back into an ab routine that I used to do. About 15 minutes, but I will probably have to work up to that. Aside from the extra effort in exercise at home, my meetings are also providing me with an extra work out. You see, my pup goes with me to work. We walk there, he in my shoulder bag (he's putting on weight now, so it's like a ton of bricks!). When I finish with work, I have to dash home, feed him and head right back and walk further than my office to get to a meeting, then of course there is the walk home as well. So, although I am consuming more calories, I know that some of that has to do with the extra exercise wearing at my body. My body is just requiring more and that is okay, so long as it is not cheese dip and Oreo's.

Okay, I would say this post is long enough.

THANKS AGAIN!!

2007-02-19T04:59:00.000-08:00

RECOVERY

So not much posting lately. However, yesterday I did quite a bit of CR blog reading and thinking. There seemed to be a lot of confessions and sorrows of gak binges. I too had been thinking of making my great confession. After all being honest about what and who we are is the best way to make the sacrifice of change to better our lives.

I really enjoyed what Chris (cronology..link to the right) had to say about never giving up and realizing that each attempt, whether failed or not, brings us one step closer to our goals. There is a lot of wisdom to be learned from his post yesterday. In fact that "keep coming back" mantra is used in many 12 step programs. Basically, no matter what if you "keep coming back", eventually it will stick!

Well my confession is not just of eating gak and being lazy with my CR. I have a bit deeper confession to make. If I am not honest about this with you, I risk the chance of not being honest with myself, which could be detrimental to my recovery.

Ladies and Gentlemen;

My name is Carolyn and I am an alcoholic/addict.

I have battled with this for sometime. Thinking if I changed other aspects of my life; diet, exercise, geographical location, careers, etc...I could manage better and would not have to be in "recovery" to live a "normal" life. Well, I have attempted just about anything to continue to drink and use and this is no longer working. So, again, I have entered into the rooms of recovery and today have 8 days completely clean.

Now, what does this have to do with you or CR? Well quite a bit actually! The lack of alcohol and other substances in my body lead to horrible sugar cravings, lack of sleep, and several other physical side effects. I figure for me to be honest about the eight oreo's I ate last night, I had to begin by telling you why. I want to be able to honestly complete my COM for the day and post like everyone else, without the guilt and fear of someone not understanding where I am coming from and why. I have not been posting because I fear that I can not be honest.

This step of eradicating these harmful substances from my body will only encourage (in the long run) a healthier way of life and I am stoked about that! But...we live one day at a time.

So, just for today;

Breakfast:

1 cup Smart Start Cereal
1 cup Fiber One
1 cup Vanilla Soy Milk

Snack:

Almonds

Lunch: (thanks to every one's black bean suggestions!)

Grilled Chicken with
black beans and corn
fresh salsa
a tsp of FF sour cream

Snack:

2 Calcium Chews

Dinner:

Undecided, but probably something with chicken and veggies.

So my current CR state is to pay attention to what I am eating, but not to freak out about macro/micro nutrients and calorie totals. I making the basic changes, like not drinking high calorie drinks, eating lean meats, cutting out refined carbs, ect. I will enter all the info into the COM, but not really stress about it all. I know I will continue to stay healthy and loose a bit of weight, if I just pay attention!

Thanks for reading!

2007-02-16T08:13:00.000-08:00

I LOVE ALMONDS!!!

Best snack in the world! I swear!

Okay so nutritionally they have a lot of great pluses and minuses, but it's a great alternative to say....Oreo's.

Last night I had a sugar craving to die for and I stole some of room mates oreo's, ran to my room and gobbled them down.

Guilty, not really! Just prepared to fight off the cravings today a bit better. I have armed myself with ALMONDS!

They are a great tasting snack and usually the extra fat and protein really helps me to not eat a bunch a junk when I am not even hungry.

Also on the menu today;

veggie soup for lunch
snack of yogurt
calcium chews
dinner?

Well it's Friday and I have a coffee date with a friend and then a meeting, so I dunno...

But I was thinking last night as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling that maybe some black bean soup would be good. Or just black beans with salsa and some yogurt. Any ideas?

I think it is Haesal that eats sardine sandwiches.....was thinking of trying that for next week. Anyone have an opinion or tried it themselves?

2007-02-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

FINISHED POUTING?

Okay I think I am over the pouting stage for today and feeling a bit more on track and positive about things as a whole. Thanks so much for all your kind words of support and understanding.

I have to say though I had quite the blow out with snacks yesterday. I decided that it was my party and I could cry if I want to. On my way to a meeting last night, I stopped by CT Muffin with the intention to grab a cup of coffee. Instead I decided I deserved a white chocolate mocha; full fat, full calories, full sugar...the works.

Funny how our bodies change. Even though I spent the previous 3 or 4 days not eating all that healthy, I still was low on the calorie/sugar side. Early on into my meeting I got the strangest head ache. I even started seeing stars. It wasn't just that I order a "regular", full strength mocha, but I also ordered the largest size possible and drank it in about 3 minutes! I know it wasnt the caffeine, because I drink coffee like a feen all day. It had to be the sugar. I actually thought for a second I was going to pass out. I had to read this huge thing in front of the group at the meeting and could feel myself shaking.

Needless to say; no sugar for me today! I think I have learned my sugar lesson.

Today I didnt have a great breakfast, but not all too bad either;

Turkey and Egg White on Toast
Diet Mt. Dew
16 oz Black Coffee

Lunch I had:

Quorn (yes I finally tried it) Stir fried with cauliflower and asparagus

Now I am eating my usual 1/4 cup of almonds and having a diet coke.

You know Quorn is super filling. I could not finish what I had fixed. Had it been the same amount of Chicken, I probably would have gobbled it down, no problem. And you know, it taste pretty good! I actually think tons better than tofu or maybe I am just not a good tofu chef!

Even though I know how important it can be, I am taking it easy with the COM. My plan is to get back into the habit of using it tomorrow. I know that I do not want to give up on my nutritional goals, but there are some other issues in life weighing on me that I do not want to compromise by obsessing or focusing on my nutrition too much.

So I think what I will do is concentrate on eating well in the same old routine CR kind of way and I will enter my data into the COM, but not necessarily have a calorie goal. Does that make sense?

You know I have surfed around on every one's blog today and you guys all seem to have great recipes. It's interesting to see how people fit different things into their diet. Robin; loved your post about going to Whole Foods and how happy your home was fully nutritionally stocked. The permanent changes and satisfaction you have found through CRON are something to admire and look forward to. Beautiful writing as well!

Okay gang! HAPPY SAPPY DAY TO ALL!

2007-02-13T06:07:00.000-08:00

LONG TIME, NO BLOG!

So it's been a while since I have posted and I feel at a loss for words. I haven't been at home making up cool little recipes to share. I haven't been entering my daily intake into the COM, so I have no averages or numbers to share either.

So what does a CR girl gone wild talk about?

Well, there's not much to say other than I have fallen off the CR wagon (and many others) over the course of the last few days. The last day I entered into my COM was Saturday.

Do I feel guilty for not being a good little CR girl?

Um...well, not really. I know that feeling guilty will only keep me away CR. This is the longest time I have spent ad lib or better yet, just plain gakky (spelling?).

My diet since Saturday has consisted of; nothing on Sunday. Monday a rice and beans lunch from a local Jamaican restaurant and a regular Mountain Dew (gasp!). This morning (Tuesday) I have had black coffee and an egg and cheese sandwich.

So, not really horrible in the sense of bags of chips and chocolates, but not great by any means and certainly NOT nutritional.

The worst part and the part I should feel most guilty about is my last shopping trip. I bought some wonderful produce and a ton of avocados that I am sure are just simply going to go to waste. I hate wasting money and good produce. Makes me feel ungrateful or just plain wasteful and irresponsible.

So obviously the next step is just getting back on track with things. Whether back on track means continuing to attempt a CR lifestyle or adapting my new found nutritional education into something less strict, but good and healthy for me personally.

The effects of CR on my life and health have all been positive and great and I am not 100% willing to let that go. However, is that strict lifestyle too much for me to handle? Would it not be better to go about this a bit slower? Take my time and ease into it?

That's all TBD and will surely keep you all posted!

2007-02-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

REGAINING MY BALANCE

Okay so today is Weds. Day 5 with Mr. Pabst and he is adjusting and doing fine. So is mommy. I feel like I am getting back on track with my CR and my life as a whole is coming into balance again.

It's not that I fret or obsess too much about it as a whole, but CR is working for me in obtaining my weight goals and I want to stay on top of that. Something I havent told you all;

I'M GOING TO THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FOR VACA ON EASTER!!!

I am so super stoked about going and I want to look and feel good about going to the beach!

So onward;

I have sort of come up with a new plan. Since I am having trouble in the mornings the most, I am from now on going to "skip" breakfast. I had already started doing this pre-Pabst because of just not being hungry. What I did was come to work, have my coffee and around 10:30 am, down my almonds. I think it is decent nutritionally and it really matches my natural hunger craving quite well. Then have a sensible lunch that is prepared the night previously and dinner at home. Possibly a yogurt and nut or seed snack and definitely my calcium chews mid day.

I think this is going to work well for me. I am just going to have to spend at least an hour a night planning the lunch and dinner meals well to make sure I am getting adequate nutrition.

Here is how today looks;

Morning:

2 16 oz black, no sugar coffees
1/3 cup almonds (a little larger than normal, but I waited too late and was famished)

Lunch:

One slice Turkey Meatloaf
Steamed Cabbage
Small Baked Sweet Potato (no salt)
12 oz. can diet coke

Dinner:

1 large serving of Chicken, White Bean, and Tomato Soup (428 calories)

So the totals look like this:

1086 Calories
87 g protein
102 g carbs
40 g fats

88% Vitamins
Slightly low on the B's and folate, so research to follow on how I can up that with dinner.

95% Mineral
Slight low on iron and potassium

So, looking up in the world of CR. I am feeling better about the whole thing.

EXCEPT;

Pabst is driving me crazy at work trying to knock the phone off my desk!!! Just kidding. He is just being playful and sweet!! More pics to come soon!

2007-02-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

HELLO WORLD!!!

Hey there! Sorry it took me so long to get picks of Pabst up, but here ya go! You know some days I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. I had a bit of trouble figuring this whole picture thing out.

So here he is. In my little shoulder bag. He rides in here as we walk to work wrapped up in like 18,000 blankets because NY is FREEZING!!

He is really adjusting to everything quite well. I left him at home yesterday because I had meetings and a hair appointment and because it was just darn cold. I was worried all day that my neighbors would be waiting for me when I got home to kill me and the dog. I thought he would bark and howl in his kennel all day, but he did fine. He didnt poop everywhere and step in it. He just slept, chewed his toys, stayed quiet....Hell, he didnt even make a peep when I came in. He just looked at me.

I am constantly stressed about the puppy. I am so worried that something I do is going to scar him for life. This is the first animal I have ever had on the city. I was raised on a farm with tons of animals; chickens, cows, horses, dogs, cats. But the city is a scary thing. I just want to be a good mother and for my dog to be well behaved in public and around other dogs.

So, as far as CR is concerned, I have fallen down on the job a bit. I am not eating too terribly bad, but I have not been keeping track. I am not taking the time to enter all the info into the COM and I know that my nutrition is lacking. I know because I do not feel great. I am sluggish and can not seem to get enough sleep.

For example. I worked all freakin day yesterday and like April was subject to a cold office. COLD OFFICE. I work in an old warehouse in the Navy Yard area of Brooklyn. There is NO insulation and NO main heat source. I leave to walk home from work in the freezing cold and nearly die before I make it there. It's a decent walk. When I get home, I have kennel to clean, dog to feed, and have to spend at least 30 minutes on the floor playing. While I am fixing dinner, I am still playing with him; working on sitting and not jumping. Just talking to him in the baby doggy voice about my day. Finally, at 9:30 I get to eat dinner and had plans to develope Pabst's myspace page, but just couldn't keep my eyes open. So, alas, we headed for bed; he in his kennel and me in my bed.

I have to say, at least I am lucky to have a GREAT pup. He is already partially potty trained and he has no problems going into a kennel. He sleeps great through the night and is overall just a dream.

I just need to get my nutrition back on track so that I feel more energized each day and can deal with the little bit of added extra stress.

Okay blog world; thanks for letting me bitch!

2007-02-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!

Okay so Sunday is my day to plan for the week. Today I decided to make a few meals for the upcoming week that would bring a little variety to my life and make my daily eating a little less work, as the new pup is requiring quite a bit of my time.

I made two dished today and will share the recipes;

Tatta (this is my version of what Christina already made)

15 oz. part skim ricotta (no FF available)
2 oz. Parmesan cheese
2 whole eggs
1 cup egg whites
29 grams chopped fresh spinach
30 grams chopped fresh red pepper
55 grams chopped white onion
30 grams chopped mushrooms

The recipe I will split into 4 servings (large) and here is the break down;

235 calories
23 g protein
8 g carbs
11 g fat

Same basic vitamin and mineral info as Christina's. Over all just under 30% of each category. It's in the oven now and I can't wait!

TURKEY MEATLOAF

1.3 grams white/dark mix ground turkey
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green peppers
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
30 g Kavli Hearty Thick Crackers crushed
1 whole egg
salt and pepper

Here's the simplified breakdown;

4 servings
291 calories
29 g protein
7 g carb
15 g fat

16% vitamins
23% minerals

These are two recipes I have been dying to try, but have just been procrastinating on. I am going to gobble down that tatta for lunch just as soon as it comes out of the oven. I will probably put a couple of tablespoons of salsa on top as well.

Pabst (the new pup) is doing good. We were up and down quite a bit last night, but overall it went fairly well. He is adjusting fine. I even left him today for my trip to the grocery and he was fine.

I am headed out shortly for some Super Bowl action. I actually turned down going to the original party that I was planning for something a bit more low key with just a couple of friends and some simple home cooking and wine. Pabst will also be attending as the couple I will be with are his aunt and uncle. Have a great Sunday everyone!!

2007-02-03T07:07:00.000-08:00

AD LIB?

Okay so this week overall was not a great CR week. In my previous post I gave the run down of my weekly events. These events have proven to be quite a challenge for me and my CR lifestyle. I didn't do BAD, but this week was not great by any means either. I am sure my caloric intake was low, but not nearly as nutritious as it should be and I can feel it. Basically, I feel a little fuzzy brained, unfocused and exhausted. I also just feel kinda down. Not necessarily because I feel like a CR failure, but just down. Work is stressful right now, school is stressing me out, taxes, money, etc....

I do feel bad that I didnt enter all the info into the COM. I really wanted to do that, so I could have a good 30 day summary. I have to back track like 2 days, and that's not easy. You always forget something. So, do what you can and move on!

The silver lining to everything is I get my pup (Pabst) today. He is going to the vet for shots with his foster father this afternoon and after that, he is coming home to moma! I am so stoked. This whole month I have been gearing up for him. I even got rid of two peices of furniture to make room for his over sized kennel! He will be a good addition in my life and I welcome the responsibility. I look forward to spending time with him at home, on walks around the hood, etc. I am going to enroll him in the community PUPS program where he will be able to mingle with other K-9's and help raise money to clean up the parks and make them more pet friendly. Not to mention the attention from all the neighborhood women that he will help create!

So, aside from the SuperBowl bash tomorrow, I am almost clear of my stressful social obligations. Please let me just say, they are not stressful because of finger foods, but the booze. Something I need to try and elliminate a bit out of my life, CR or not.

Tonight at home I am going to be testing a couple of new recipes for this weeks consumption. Let's see; all goes well and I will post some recipes!

2007-01-31T16:02:00.000-08:00

OH BLOGGER!

So, how was every one's CR Weds? I had off of work today to deal with my school BS. I actually ended up staying home most of the day and working from home. No rest for the workers!

I had a decent CR day. Nothing really overly nutritious. I did stay under my 1600 calorie mark, but was not doing any planned eating. More like snacking. I even had pop corn and a small glass of sprite. So again, nothing really nutritious about today, but at least I didnt eat like 1 million calories.

Thawing out some chicken breast now that I will broil for tomorrows lunch. I am thinking salad with avocado, chicken, salsa, maybe some roasted corn. I havent started crunching any numbers as of yet, but I will let the CR world know tomorrow how everything turns out. Breakfast, the obvious usual; egg whites, salsa, almonds, etc...

So something to look forward to; Emily (her blog link is to the left) is coming into town. Can't wait to meet another CR buddy face to face. We have plans for the 8th.

Other happenings to come;

Friends Apartment Fire benefit Thursday night @ Maggie Browns (cool little neighborhood cafe and bar)

Pabst (my new pup) is coming home for the first time Saturday night!

Next Saturday my BFF's birthday bash. We are having at a local bar where a good friend bar tends. I am "catering". I will probably do some homemade hummus, veggies and fruit trays, and probably wings (for the boys).

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!! (and may I say, I hate football!) At my friend Dre's place. I will be cooking and he will mixing the cocktails.

I have some serious CR challenges ahead of me. I like that I get to be the cook though, because I can plan my CR lifestyle around the fun and no one will notice a thing!

So what's everyone doing for the SUPERBOWL? Any sports fans out there?

2007-01-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

END OF THE DAY

Okay so this is how my day has ended;

Breakfast: I ate most of my egg whites, the whole tortilla, the cheese, and salsa and flax oil

Snack: Almonds and yeah I ate em all

Lunch: I ate half my salad and all the chicken that was on the salad

Snack: 1/2 mega muffin and two calcium chews

I drank about 2 16 oz coffees (give or take the last couple cold ounces) I drink it completely free of any additives (ie; sugar and cream, etc..)

I also drank about 64 oz of bottled polland spring water

Skipped my other yogurt snack and I am not planning on dinner!

That's it. I have no real appetite for dinner. I actually came home and fixed something, but I am saving that for lunch tomorrow.

So my totals look like this;

Calories 937
protein 72
carb 64
fat 52 (the only accomplished goal!)
vitamins 86%
minerals 88%

Still low on basically the same vitamins and minerals from the previous post.

So what do I have to do? I think I need to start using brewer's yeast. I have talked about it many times before and have thus far just simply procrastinated. Maybe also start using more flax and olive oil, but isnt that just going to raise my fats? Okay I have to work on this not hungry thing. I think still it probably has a lot to do with the whole period (yuk) thing, but usually my curbed appetite doesnt last this long.

Any ideas are graciously welcomed.

Tomorrow's lunch is a bit more exciting, so maybe that will cause me to eat a bit more. Still egg whites on the table for breakfast. Almond, yogurt, and mega muffin snacks. Lunch will be this great stir fry I made tonight of chicken breast, asparagus, cauliflower, brocolli, soy nuts, a bit of oil and soy sauce. Smells like a dream!

2007-01-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

THE CRUNCH

Okay today was like this;

Egg White and Veggie Burritos, Black Coffee, Bottled Water c/o my favorite new Clinton Hill coffee shop.....Cafe Martino's.

Snack: 1/4 cup whole almonds

Dinner: Fabulous homemade jalapeno crab cake topped with salsa
1 whole sweet potato peel and all
225 grams steamed broccoli topped with flax oil

Dessert: 1 cup dannon light and fit

Crunch:

Calories 1209 81% (Aprils making go up to 1600 because apparently I am Amazon height)
Protein: 112 grams 90%
Carbs: 114 grams 88%
Fat: 46 grams 94%

Vitamins: 84% low on B1, Folate, B5, Vitamin D and K

Minerals: 92% low on Calcium, Iron and Potassium

So today is not a great day. I totally skipped lunch. I was out until that time and then came home, put away groceries and started painting. Next thing I knew it was 4 pm and I needed to pickup my laundry. That's when I downed the almonds. Now I am finishing dinner as I type.

I also decided to plan for tomorrow. Here's the run down:

Breakfast:

1 cup egg whites with mixed peppers, 2 tablespoons of salsa, 1 teaspoon of flax, 1 slice cheddar veggie fake cheese, and 1 flax tortilla from trader joes
1/4 cup almonds

Snack:

Yogurt with blueberries and 1/2 cup fiber one

Lunch:

HUGE kale and spinach salad with carrots, broiled chicken breast, flax oil and salsa!

Snack:

Mega Muffin with Mustard
2 Viactiv Calcium Chews

At this point I will be stuffed. Actually when I plan to eat a mega muffin in the after noon I usually have to force myself to do it. I dont feel uncomfortably full like I used to when it was pizza and soda, but full to the brim. I usually have a hard time fixing and wanting dinner. You know 1600 calories is hard. Where do you add the right things that are also going to give you the nutritional punch you are looking for. That I am still working on. For instance adding the tortilla in the morning. I used to not have it, but it helps me up my total daily calories by almost 140 cal.

Okay so Emily posted today about over estimating. I have been doing that too it seems. I just got in my food scale and 85 grams of kale is a lot of freaking KALE!! Same with my almonds. I used to just measure 1/4 cup, but when you go by grams, a 1/4 cup is less than 35 grams really. I was nervous at first and wanted to succeed, so I estimated way high on a lot of stuff, especially restaurant stuff (I will continue to do that). The food scale is great, but at the same time, I have no idea what I am going to do about just not being hungry. I can probably attribute the last few days of that to the whole period thing.

I am sure that no sooner than I type this my appetite will begin to explode and I will be craving some horrible or will not pack my lunch correctly and will end up ordering something not so great from some not so great restaurant. But honestly, if I can just stay away from the bars, CR has proven to be quite easy for me. Staying out of bars and locked up in my apartment, not easy! I have to maintain my social life, but find a way to not go over board and to still make good eating and drinking decisions.

Okay have a great Sunday night all....I am off to FINALLY watch .....Little Miss Sunshine!

2007-01-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

CRS SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER!

Okay so I do not think you can use the term fever to describe the CRS meeting last night, but it was fun. I guess depending on your definition of fun. Although, I was by far the youngest, coolest member present, I had fun. Please if anyone at the meeting reads the coolest part and gets offended, don't. I just have a really sarcastic sense of humor.

The meeting was great, really. I think some were expecting a bit larger crowd, but I believe the number of people was perfect, given the location and the fact that it was a simple discussion and not a formatted meeting. Mostly people talked about their personal CR challenges (blood pressure, supplements, etc....) and received feed back from the other's on how to over come these challenges. There was also some talk about fundraising and up coming projects, but nothing specific and no definite plans were made on how this particular group could participate.

I would love to see a bit larger crowd and something a bit more organized. Maybe as the group grows we can pick particular topics and have speakers and then open discussion. In my past I have belonged to several groups that were better organized like this and it helped to grow and strengthen the group.

I look forward to working with the "key" people that are currently organizing.

With that said; the weekend has gone well.

Yesterday (Saturday) I got up and did a small bit of cleaning and then headed to Chinatown to the infamous Pearl Paint to pickup my two HUGE pieces of unstretched canvas for my art projects. I took them to my warehouse and primed them. While I was there, did a bit of work and then headed home to prepare myself for the meeting. (Prepare means change from wholy paint jeans to slacks)

Went to the meeting

Came home and crashed!

You know I havent had an appetite at all for the last two days. I was feeling achy and started to think that maybe I was getting a bug, because my stomach was all queasy. Yesterday I had a simple soup for lunch and that was it. Until I got home, found some chocolate cake my roomie had and took a couple of bites. Then I realized what was going on because I NEVER crave chocolate! I think most of the girls have caught on by now.

Low and behold; this morning I was paid a visit from the period fairy! Jeesh! So that explains it. Still do not have much of an appetite, but I forced myself to down a black coffee and egg white burrito from my favorite cafe. Egg whites, veggies, and salsa. I pick it out of the wrap. Save those calories for later.

Now that the fairy has come, the loss of appetite will pass and all will go back to normal shortly. I headed out for some Trader Joe shopping now. Going to try some quorn! I know I said that before, but this time I am telling the truth.

Until later....

2007-01-26T05:37:00.000-08:00

SHUCKS!

So no trip to DC this weekend. Everyone bailed on me (after I already paid for the freakin hotel!). I thought about still going, but honestly it is cold as shit and I would love to go the CR meeting here in NYC on Saturday night. When I said yes to going to DC, I didnt even notice that I would then be missing the CR meetings, so maybe it's karma. Maybe some god or power is telling me I need to go to the CR meeting. There are all kinds of things to protest and I am sure I will have no trouble finding another rally somewhere closer to attend that will not interfere with my very first CR meeting!

So now the weekend plans look like this:

Friday night; crash! Not going out considering my late night on Weds. When I got home last night I had to clean up a bit and prepare for today's meals. I crashed about 10 pm, but could have slept a lot longer. Friday night is catch up night!

Saturday; get up EARLY! I have a trip I need to make to the library, need to visit my puppy (He's still with his mom. I will get him full time next week :)) Laundry. Need to work in my office at least 2 or 3 hours. CR meeting. Maybe a cocktail with the boyz after.

Sunday; Art! I have two pieces that have been lingering in the back of mind to create. I am not a real artist (in the trained since) but I like to dabble around with large pieces of canvas, big brushes and crazy paint and newspaper cut outs. Hey, it fills the walls of my apartment! You guys will appreciate them when I am famous! I also have a HUGE collection of punk record label stickers I would like to mount. I picked up this men at work sign (DOT) off the side of the road the other day and I think that will make a perfect backing for the stickers. (My landlord also appreciates me keeping the stickers off his fridge)

So there's the weekend wrap up. What is everyone else gonna be doing this weekend? Who if anyone that blogs is going to the CR meeting?

2007-01-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL JUSTICE, NOT WAR!!!

Okay so this is NOT a political post. Just want to you all this weekend I am hopin down to DC for the Peace Rally. Meeting up with my mom and aunt. They are driving up from NC. I am totally stoked about going.

First big rally in DC for me. Staying right in Dupont Circle. Making posters tonight at home!! I am packing tonight so I can leave straight from work. I am a bit proud of myself (I am such a bragger). I am also packing some awesome CR treats. Every day stuff, almonds (pre measured and bagged up separately), yogurt, and mega muffins. I am just really excited that I am taking the time to really change my habits.

The one habit that has not changed; bars. Went out last night for a "hot second" or what I thought was going to be short and got convinced to go for "lesbo night" at another local bar. Had a blast, didn't get too crazy, but got home WAY late. WAY late. So work is a bit of a drag today. I ran out the door this morning without my usual fixin's of egg whites and soup, but my food intake is fine and I will have a great homemade dinner when I get home.

Short post.

2007-01-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

HELP?!?!

Okay here is my plan for tomorrow....Obviously posting because I want some feed back. I know I am getting the hang of this, but feedback is awesome. After all that is why we blog, right??

Meal Plan:

Breakfast:

1 cup egg whites with roasted corn and green pea mixture I made. Teaspoon of flax oil. Tablespoon of salsa.

Snacks (through out the day in no order):

1/4 cup of almonds
Dannon Light and Fit yogurt (plain)
Mega Muffin

Lunch: Faithful Cabbage Soup

Dinner: Turkey cutlets with cooked spinach (flax oil) and boiled green peas

Here's the nutritional crunch:

calories: 1519 (Aprils up suggestion)
fat: 36%
protein: 32%
carbs: 31%

Okay so low on carbs, but from what I understand not a bad thing, but maybe high in fat? Here is the fat break down;

Omega 3: 708%
Omega 6: 73%
Saturated: 40%
Cholesterol: 46%

So the fat is high, but it's the good fat, right? or no?

Here is the vitamins and mineral in general:

Vitamins: 99%
Minerals: 98%

Forgot to add earlier that I am adding 2 calcium chews per day. That is the only "supplement".

So not too bad, but here are the details;

B12 is low at 83%
Iron 91%
Potassium 86%

Everything else is high, but not too high (not in the red!)

What is close to being in the RED is Sodium, Vitamin A and Vitamin K.

So can anyone sum this up for. I see where I am lacking and have played with this quite a bit trying to get things to even out. I do not think I am that far off, but would love to know if anyone here sees anything to get worried about or any easy "fix it's".

Thanks so much again for everyone's support!!!

2007-01-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

QUORN?

Nope! Didn't stop tonight and pick it up. I was in a mad rush to get home and listen to old Georgie's "state of the union". I am super stoked about going tomorrow and pick some up.

So I had a bit of a "chat" with April today about my CR goals. She thinks I need to be shooting for 1600 calories per day as opposed to my 1200, because of my height. She is right, I know. Also I know my numbers are not 100% because I have not been weighing everything, but measuring in cups and ounces. I know I am surpassing my 1200 calorie quota already.

As sad as it maybe that I will soon have to weigh and up to 1600 a day, I will. When you start CR and you are a bit heavy, and like Chris (cronology) says, waiting for that slender, beautiful body to merge, it's easy to set your calorie goals too low. For a minute you think, fuck longevity, I wanna be skinny and I wanna be skinny NOW!

But that is not why we do CR, is it? I honestly would love to loose the weight and regain confidence and self esteem. However, I know that to truly do that, a lifetime of healthy living is needed. Otherwise, why not just start a cocaine addiction or some stupid fad diet pill?

I have impressed myself with what I have learned and it shows. People around me that were very skeptical of this whole "restriction" word, now are very supportive of me. They see my cheeks slimming, my moods stabilize, my mind focus, and most important, my dedication. My coworkers are impressed that I show up daily to work with my complete breakfast, lunch and snacks packed, planned out and most importantly, that I do not deviate.

CR is great! In so many ways. It's so early for me, but I am so excited (singing from the mountain top, excited) about the future. I can not wait to go home in April to visit my family and to have them notice the difference in me as well. I can't wait to start school and know that my mind is sharp and focused. I can't wait! I can't wait! I can't wait!

But I will........

Until then, good night CR cronies!

2007-01-23T06:31:00.000-08:00

REBUTTAL

Okay why does it make more sense to freely eat processed foods (gak), heavy creams, delicately fatty desserts, etc and have to exercise like a work horse to maintain "optimal weight", then it does to follow a CR diet? It just seems easier to be well informed about the foods you eat (not obsessive as some proclaim CR is). Makes more sense to go back to nature and adopt the eating habbits of our ancestors. Makes more sense to relax with a glass of wine (knowing it's only 150 calories and easily fits into your CR's day) then it does to sweat your but off for hours upon hours per week on the treadmill.

Now, I do not down exercise at all. I love walking, biking, swimming, yoga, etc. But I find that most people's alternative to CR is exercise. We are a society that is obsessed with gym memberships, exercise machines and videos, and McDonalds. Make sense?

To each their own!

"I am one stomach virus away from my goal weight."

-Emily (The Devil Wears Prada)

2007-01-23T05:24:00.000-08:00

I FOUND QUORN!!!!

Okay so last night on the way to an art show, I stopped by the little local health food store to search for calcium chew, which they didn't carry. I walked around a bit, browsing and found in the freezer section QUORN! I have looked everywhere for this stuff (okay not really that hard, but on various shopping sprees) and have not spotted it anywhere.

I didn't pick it up last night, I just thought it would be weird walking around the Pratt gallery with my bag full of QUORN. So tonight on my walk home, I will stop by and pick some up. A little nervous about eating fungus, but hey why not?

So the art show last night was great. My friend Brian's art is awesome. He had laptop's set up to showcase his video work and had some great 60"x60" screen print paintings. I am haggling with him now to get a piece for my apartment. (You know I need to figure out to post pictures so I can share stuff with you guys!)

So today is a pretty basic day;

Egg Whites with TJ Salsa and Flax Oil

Almond and Yogurt Snack

Mega Muffin

Cabbage Soup

Same old stuff. However boring it may sound to other readers, I am getting really used to it. I am not craving other foods so much. I think I can eat egg whites for breakfast for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. There are so many ways to cook an egg, so many veggies that can be added and GOD know's I LOVE SALSA!!! I bought some flax seed wraps from Trader Joes, so I think for dinner I will have yet another egg white omelet with salsa, but I will eat it like a burrito for variety.

One craving I did have, but easily shrugged off was orange juice. I have a little cough, not major, but thought a good dose of vitamin C would help. My mind immediately started focusing in on orange juice. I love the pulp, the sweetness, that great orangy flavor. When I got to the store this morning and starting reading lables, I realized it just was NOT worth it. I got a black coffee instead and reminded myself my diet is already pretty high in vitamin C.

I want to find out more about fresh sqeezed. I think one of those stainless steel old fashioned sqeezers would be a great addition to my kitchen decor, for one and maybe the fresh sqeezed would be substancially lower in calories. Research time. The other juice I would like to know more about, but there seems to be little around is wheat grass shots. I used to do it all the time when I was having some digestion problems. Anyone have any info; I am all ears!

2007-01-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY'S PLAN FOR MONDAY

Okay so I have been working on my cron-o-meter trying to plan my week, but mostly Monday. I am really happy with my results. I was able to really up my protein without going over board on calories. My original goal was very ZONE like. 30/40/30 and it's getting much easier for me to find that balance. My vitamins and minerals are looking great as well. Still not 100%, but damn close from just basic foods. Here what tomorrow will look like;

1050 calories (saving room for a midnight snack attack or whatever else may come up)

99 grams protein (HELL YEAH)
98 grams of carbs
36 grams of fat (could be a bit higher, so that snack attack will probably be almonds)

98% of daily vitamins
95% of daily minerals

Here is what I plan to eat;

Breakfast

Egg Whites with chopped green onions and TJ salsa

Snack:

Yogurt

Lunch:

homemade cabbage soup

spinach, turkey, egg white salad with sunflower seeds and salsa

Snack:

Mega Muffin (savory)

Calcium Chew some where in the day

Okay so dinner is not listed. I am finding that I rarely have an appetite for dinner. I try to get the majority of my calories over and done with early. I have heard this has great results as far as lasting through the day, cutting down on unnecessary snacking, etc...and like I said, I rarely have the appetite. Plus I work long, late hours, so the pre planned healthy large breakfast, lunch, and snacks seem to make sense. I do not think saving 300-400 calories for a large dinner at 8-9 pm are necessary.

Now, with this plan, I can work comfortably, come home have either a low calorie snack or a glass of wine, or both :), do my blogging or reading and head to bed.

The thing that is really bothering me, is not being at 100% with my vitamins. What I am obviously lacking on is calcium and vitamin D. Now I just read today that Salmon is very high in D. I like that low calorie, high protein option for maximizing D. I will try to add salmon into my weekly diet now, maybe like 2 times per week, unless someone knows of any health risk associated with this.

If you have any other ideas on increasing calcium and vitamin D, I am all ears. The other low vitamin is B 12. I need to still research all of these quite a bit, but I am sure I will find a solution. I really do not want to supplement! If I can fix these couple of things, I feel I will be doing great. Right now all my other vitamins are off the charts just from food.

Other than that I am very pleased with my weekend. I got a lot accomplished in my apartment. I watched a good movie. Did quite a bit of walking. Listened to some great music and now tonight I am going to relax with a green tea and Frontline (PBS). Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

2007-01-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

CHERRY POPPIN!

So I went to the infamous Trader Joe's today for the first time (hence the title). It was a great experience. I really love the store and I think I will continue to go. Maybe once a week, but never again on a Saturday morning. I bet all of Manhattan was in that place!

I got some pretty basic stuff;

pasturized crab meat
almonds
sunflower seeds
jalopeno's
green onions
frozen chicken breast
frozen organic corn
and a few other things, I now can't remember

The prices were awesome. Especially the crab meat ($8.99). The cheapest I have ever bought that was $14.00. So, overall I was pretty pleased.

Now one thing that bothered me about the store was some of the packaging. I don't think that the veggies should all be pre packed in little plastic containers and bags. It's just over packaging. Most of these items in other stores would just be loose. I have no idea what their reasons are for doing it that way and there may be a completely reasonable, environmentally friendly answer. I'll find out!

My Saturday has been great, with the trip to TJ's just being icing on the cake. I woke up early and dropped my laundry. Then I came home, had some coffee and did some basic straightening and cleaning. Then off to TJ's. When I got home, I put all my groceries away and started builing my new shelves. Can you believe it....I finished them?!?!? AND they look great! I have had these shelves purchased, painted and waiting for like 2 months. I am stoked to finally have them up. I also assembled my new dog crate, did some sticker decorating, and did some deep cleaning.

Now here's the sad part of the day; Just now I went out to buy some diet cranberry juice. I figured I deserved a cocktail to celebrate my hard work. I went to 3 different stores within 3 or 4 blocks of here searching for the cranberry juice. NO LUCK!! I live in a prodominately poor hispanic neighborhood in Brooklyn. All I could find was the super sugar drinks. I began looking around the stores a bit more and noticed that they did not carry any bottled water in the coolers that was larger than the standard 1/2 liter. All the ready to drink, chilled beverages were super packed, full flavored. There was one store that didnt even carry diet pepsi or coke in the cold case. AMAZING!! And it's not just drinks. These stores had limited produce, if any, but their candy and snack isles were HUGE!!! The frozen pizza and other gak goods were in abundence. No wander people feel like they have no choice or just do not know any better.

I usually do not shop in my neighborhood anyways. There is a great store by my office and I usually stop there on my way home. I will continue not to shop in this neighborhood, too. I wrote about this a few days ago in relation to the NY transfat band. I do believe the band is credible and should be in effect, however, the more I look around the more I realize MORE MUST be done! NY has to find a way to offer good wholesome food in every neighborhood, regardless of race or economical structure.

2007-01-19T05:27:00.000-08:00

TGIF

So thank goodness it is Friday. Even with the holiday (which I didnt take off) this has really felt like a very long week for me. But you know, my week has not been typical either, so that may be why it has felt a bit drug out.

On a normal week (pre CR) I would go out at least 3-4 nights a week with friends. Dinner, drinks at the bar, chatting, playing poker, whatever. This week I have been a bit of a home body and have spent most nights reading, setting up shelving unit in the apartment, blah.

Until....last night. I have to say CR brings on a lot of changes I would not have necessarily expected or was prepared for. I left my office around 6:30 pm and headed down to the local "spot" to have a drink with a friend. I met up with the guy that I adopting my dog from, bought some cool punk stickers from a DJ and had two drinks. I went to leave and my guy friends beg for one last round. So, I suckered in and stayed.

Well, that one last round really did me in. Now, I am the girl that normally drinks the boys under the table and holds their heads while they puke. Having 3 drinks is child's play. Last night, things were different. WAY DIFFERENT.

After drink number 3, I slipped out. On the way home stopped and picked up some dinner. Not the best CR dinner (hot and sour soup..ssshhhh don't tell!). I hopped a cab home and knew I was wasted. WASTED! Like I havent been in a long time. I ate my soup. Stumbled around the house a bit trying to tiddy up and prepare for the next day and crawled into bed.

The bed was spinning! I was getting sick! What the heck?!?!

I remember reading a while back an early blog of April's were she noticed she had become quite the light weight, too. I guess that's me now. The good news; way cheaper bar tabs!

I guess it's a good thing I tossed up my dinner last night, seeing as how it was by far NOT the perfect CR meal. Today, my stomach is still feeling a bit crazy, so I am taking it easy. Just water this morning and cereal for breakfast (when I feel like I can eat again).

2007-01-18T06:03:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S FORECAST

Okay so it's cold. A bit warmer than yesterday, but still cold. Yesterday I pulled out the dreaded long johns. Obviously have not worn these in the last year (and it was within the last year that I had gained my weight) so I was extremely apprehensive about wearing them again. I knew these dang long johns were going to be tight and restricting and would totally ruin my new found glory in my "skinny jeans".

However, when I slipped them on, they fit great, pants over top and all. I know not better than last year, but I started to think maybe. I was really pleased. Over all please with how everything is going in my CR life now.

Since everyone else is posting CR success numbers, I thought I would add mine as well.

January 1st weight: 210 lbs

January 10th weight: 206 lbs

January 17th weight: 202 lbs

Too fast? Maybe. But I know that when you start restricting your calories, you can loose a good 2-5 lbs quickly and safely just from the gluclose that your liver (?) stores. Okay I don't know that for a fact, but that is what I have heard around the CR world.

So, I feel like I am doing this safely. I actually have to sometimes force myself to eat what I have planned out for the day. I never feel light headed or hungry really. Okay maybe sometimes hungry, but like what a lot of other CR people claim; the good hungry. Right before a meal. Normal hungry. The hunger most American's do not experience from day to day. I love not feeling bloated and completely stuffed beyond stuffed after every meal. Remember those days when you ate pizza or pasta or mounds of potatoes, breads, cakes, cookies? Remember how we could stuff ourselves with them and feel absolutely full by the end and then those things would just continue to grow in our belly's. Remember that miserable feeling? I am so thankful not to feel that any longer.

Oh now I am sure there are days to come where that will happen again. However, at least I am learning the techniques that steer me away from that and into a happier, healthier lifestyle.

I used to walk to and from work sometimes. Since starting CR, I have forced myself to do it daily. Cold wind, WALK. Raining, WALK! Tired, WALK! Whatever the environment is around me, no matter how I feel I make myself WALK! Now, my dreaded measly 1 mile walk has become child's play. Nothing more than a quick stroll to and fro. I need more now. So my goal this week is to avoid the elevator. I am on the fifth floor of a warehouse and will no longer use the elevator to get to my office. Let's see if stair climbing gets any easier after a week or two. Also going to try some yoga!

Okay so here is how today looks;

Breakfast: Egg Whites with FF cheddar and salsa

Snack: Mega Muffin

Lunch: Spinach Salad with broccoli, peppers, red onion, carrots, and Low Calorie French Dressing. (I probably should have made my own, but pinched for time)

Small serving of my cabbage soup

Snack: Dannon Light and Fit Reduced Calorie Yogurt

Dinner: ???? Salad or Egg White Omelet Probably

Now here's the crunch:

Calories: 837.2
Protein: 70.8
Fat: 25.6
Carbs: 88.2
Fiber: 21.5

Vitamins: 93%
Minerals: 80%
Lipids: 36%

(Not listing them all...This post is long enough already)

I have adjusted my DRI's RDA's, whatever the right term is and I am having a much better time meeting my requirements, but I have also incorporated more green leafy veggies, so between the two changes, I am feel much more confident about what I am doing.

Based on my goals, I still need to get my protein up. Fat and Carbs are doing okay, so I guess that means for freakin EGG WHITES. I have finally research brewer's yeast enough to know that it is a great source of protein. I am just nervous about how to use it. In what foods, puffs or flakes, blah, blah. So, any advice out there? I am all ears!

2007-01-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

BLOGGER ARG!!!

Okay so I had some blogger trouble last night. For all those that glanced at the same post 100 times, sorry. All should be fixed at the moment.

You know I have something that I would like to BITCH about. Doing nutritional research is NOT all that easy. I am usually known amoung my circle of co-workers and friends as the internet reasearch guru, but with nutrition, food, supplements, diet related stuff, it's just not easy.

My personal opinion is because our markets are absolutely saturated with diet gimicks and crap. When you just google a topic, no doubt 90% of what you pull up is going to be a sale item; books, recipes, supplements, just plain fad CRAP!

No wonder we as American's are so dumb when it comes to the basics of nutrition. Good, reliable information is hard to find. Who knows if what you are reading is a reliable source or just some fad diet crap.

I have to stick to books that come recommended. Okay, Library Saturday 9:00 AM SHARP!

2007-01-16T17:33:00.007-08:00

BEST CR SOUP I EVER MADE

So tonight I made a great little soup. The unfortunate part being the batch made 4 servings, so looks like I will be eating for a while. The good thing I have found is that freshly made soup usually survives a couple of days with no problem.

Here ya go:

453 grams of cabbage fresh
225 grams extra lean pork tenderloin
1/2 cup each of red onion and mixed peppers fresh
1 cup of frozen peas
3 cloves chopped fresh garlic
900 grams of Organic Reduced Sodium Veggie Broth
1 Cup Water
1/2 Whole Food Roasted Veggie Reduced Sodium Pasta Sauce

First I sauteed the onions, garlic and peppers in a olive oil pam type stuff
then added the broth, cabbage, peas, water, and chopped raw pork

Let it all stew around for about 30 minutes on a good medium high (gas) heat.

Here's the crunch. Now if anyone has any ideas on how to up the micronutrients in this, please advise....

206 Calories
15.5 grams protein
8 grams fat
18 grams carbs
6 grams fiber
6.7 sugar

Vitamin A 29%
Folate 9%
B1 67%
B2 16%
B3 23%
B5 14%
B6 43%
B12 13%
C 7%
E 2%
K 65% (my proudest moment!)
Calcium 9%
Copper 6%
Iron 7%
Magnesium 8%
Manganese 4%
Phosphorus 22%
Potassium 13%
Selenium 10%
Sodium 6%
Zinc 5%

Saturated Fat 20% (I guess the biggest problem, probably because of pork.)
Omega 3 7%
Omega 6 5%
Cholesterol 13%

Okay, so I am pretty happy with how this turned out numbers wise. My complaint yesterday was Vitamin K, so I know that cabbage and other leafy greens are the way to go and will continue to have one huge serving of those daily.

This soup is delicious and VERY easy to make!

Does anyone know what the effects of cooking veggies does to the vitamins? Isnt that why vegans are vegans? I am kinda clueless, but will continue to research.

Have a great one everybody!

2007-01-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

HELP!?!?!?!

Okay I am really confused with the RDA and DRI requirements. I just do not know what is appropriate. Seems like everything I read gives a different recommendation. What are the other CR gals in the group using.

I customized my CROM to max out most of the RDA, so oblique I am not hitting them with just food as of yet. I am sure, come someday soon I will figure that out. I am hitting right at 70% of that. If I add my daily multivitamin mix, then I am at some points more than 800%. Is this safe? I know the goal is not to rely on the good old multivitamin and to get the most nutrition from food as possible, but it's hard.

I have cut out frozen foods and prepackaged for the most park. I use a bit of salsa on my egg whites, some lo-cal unflavored yogurt and I guess you could call the mega muffin pre packaged. Other than that, fresh meats, egg whites, shrimp and other fish, cabbage, peppers, onions, broccoli, blah, blah...all fresh and I have cut out all most all fruit.

I don't know if maybe I have set my targets too high. Is that possible? Or am I just not eating and cooking correctly? If anyone has any recommendations, even just a link, that would be awesome.

THANKS CR FAMILY!!!

2007-01-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

TRANS FAT FAD DIET?

Okay so I think most of us know to stay away from anything containing transfat. We know the risk;

Science shows that consumption of trans fat raises low-density lipoprotein or bad cholesterol level which increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Right now more than 12.5 million American have CHD (AIDS tops out at merely 1 million) and more than 50,000 American's die each year from CHD. CHD is the leading cause of death in the United States.

So why so much fuss about banning trans fat? "laws like the New York cities trans fat ban illustrate policymakers' predilection for governing by trends" - Washington Post

Can and will the goverment ban bread in support of an Atkin's style diet for the masses? Will bread become contraband?

Over board on the example? At first glance, that is precisely what I thought as well. However, if you read the editorial in more detail, writer, Paul Howard of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress starts to make a lot of sense.

It is not that he is 100% against the ban. He know's that trans fat effect health and is not denying that, only stating that they (trans fats) only do it at the outside margins. The real battle with health and nutrition in a city such as NYC, is education and availability. The city is simply sending a dangerous message; one that will grab headlines, but in the long run will not change anyone's behavior. What if people start order french fries more often as a healthy alternative because now they are no longer fried in trans fat?

Some solutions he puts forth;

Increase physical activity in our schools.

To help poor urban communities gain access to healthier more affordable food.

I agree a lot with what he is saying, however, I am not totally 100% opposed to the ban of trans fat. Education is the key. The scale is SO massive, though. Maybe the ban is a form of education. How better to educate a city of millions, then through free press?

Like to if you guys have any reactions to this. Here is the link to the original article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011201675.html

2007-01-15T18:48:00.000-08:00

LOOK MOM, I DID IT!

So I think I am beginning to understand things A LOT better now. Thanks, Mary so much for the excel spread sheet. It has really helped me to design my own CR.

I am not sure if my targets make sense, so please comment if you have anything you would like to add or warn me of doing before I die.

Okay here goes the targets:

1200 total calories per day
125 grams of protein per day (this is somewhere between MR's and the Zone recommendations)
35 grams of fat
96 grams of carbohydrates

It's a 42%, 32%, 26% ratio basically

Most of my mircronutrient goals are coming directly from Walford's recommendations.

I designed a sudo "quotation diet" that helps me to meet these levels. It's a bit tricky for me at the moment and it's going to take a bit more tweaking to get it all right. Without supplements and from food only, I am hitting my vitamin and mineral targets right at 80%. Vitamin K is real problem, though. When I get a bit more organized and familiar with the daily diet, I will be able to add in more green leafy veggies for that.

I am interested to know if my protein, carb, fat mix seems right or if I am looking at this complete wrong. I hear a lot of debate about protein, but MR seems to be fine with it, given his daily recommendation at 190 for my current weight, height, etc...(based on Mary's database, so if something has changed or if I am misquoting, I apologize and please advise) I am going with a lower amount of 125 as a start. Then of course regroup in a bit and see how it is working for me personally.

I am excited about my studying tonight. By no means am I an expert, but I feel in control a bit better. I have also decided to do my complete menu for the following day at night. I know it will need a bit of tweaking at the end of the day, but the early prep is good for me. I like order! If I wait until the next day to finish up my planning, I know I am just setting myself up for some disasters.

Take today for an example. I was running behind this morning, so I just packed Fiber One and Soy Milk for breakfast, a simple organic tomato soup for lunch and at 2 pm was feeling all sorts of weird, because I had nowhere near a normal amount of protein in me at that time. For me to stay on top of this, I will have to organize myself better!

When I hear other people's meal plans you can easily tell that they are looking at a much bigger picture. How certain foods make you feel during the course of the day can play a huge part in whether you can stick with this or not. It's really not hard and it is very fulfilling IF you eat correctly. I am going to shy away as much as possible from any frozen or prepared foods. I don't think that they will kill you any faster than GAK, but it's much easier to reach your nutritional goals without them.

I am really excited about my new found knowledge. I am far aware from the end result, but it makes me happy to finally be able to really understand the COM and if anyone has ANY feed back, I graciously welcome it.

2007-01-14T20:26:00.000-08:00

EAT THAT FROG

You heard me, EAT THAT FROG! I hear that frogs can be very nutrious actually. Simmered in some butter, sprinkled with brewer's yeast and chopped almonds. YUM!

Okay, not actually. EAT THAT FROG is the name of a book that I have been reading off and on. (Written by Brian Tracy) Cute little book full of inspiration and motivation. 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time is the books claim to fame. Often when feeling behind, I will pick up the book and read a couple of chapters and it helps me to organize the task (or Frog to be eaten) in front of me. Getting ready to read a few chapters now.

In my previous post I do not believe I quite got the point across that I was trying to. It's not that my envy is for those CR practioners that are involved and have steady home lives, it's mostly that I am disappointed in myself for not treating my apartment as a true home. I do envy the ability that people have to stay home and be comfortable. I moved into this new apartment back in early September and have just today begun to organize my books and hang pictures. The place is really feeling cozy now. My desk is organized and ready for action! Until today I have treated my apartment as a passage way between the days of the week. Just a place to "crash".

Today, the place is beautiful and cozy and I am quite proud of my accomplishments. Now I can start to make my list of FROGS to be eaten. Now I can enjoy time at my desk or in my chair reading and studying, posting better blogs, making great dinners, etc.... I just need to relax a bit and understand that life is a work in progress and Rome wasnt built in a day. Life isnt perfect, but life can be great!

I never got around to making my homemade soup today. I actually got called into my office and that took up a good chunk of my afternoon. However, I did pack a beautiful CR lunch for tomorrow.

One FROG I would really like to eat this week would be my COM. Seems like there is quite a bit of tweaking to be done there. I have read how other people have really customized theirs and I have just been operating it with it "as is". I am excited about doing that and if anyone has any advice on projections or how to determine this from that, whatever, please let me know!

2007-01-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

THANK YOU CHICAGO CYCLIST

I can not say enough about the Chicago Cyclist (Cronology) blog. If you haven't checked it out, please do. There is a link to left.

Today's (or maybe it was Saturday's) post was exactly what I needed to read. When I do my daily log on and read what everyone has written, I am generally frustrated at the weekend post. My weekends are so different from most of the other CR people I read. I am not a "homebody" or in a relationship, so I spend most of my weekends out on the town, which inevitably leads to a bar or cocktails at a friends apartment.

I envy the people that are in relationships and stay home and cook delicious meals, read, watch TV or whatever else it is they do on their weekends. I just do not have the discipline. Seems like every Sunday I spend my day in a state of shame, desperately planning how the next week is going to be better and how next weekend, that's not going to happen.

This weekend was not actually all too bad. I stayed home and actually went to bed early on Friday. My cousin had a party at her mansion of a house on Saturday and went up to CT for that. It was fun, but I had quite a bit of wine and beer too. The worst part of it all was not the booze, but how my mind convinces me after the drinks I need a good solid meal. A non CR meal.

So obviously there is a pattern of improvement beginning. I have a lot to be thankful for this weekend. I finally got the rest of my furniture delivered and have begun "puppy proofing" the place. I have finally begun to hang my paintings and pictures. I guess I have procrastinated creating an environment that is comfortable. I believe that staying home and relaxing, practicing good CR is going to be a bit easier now. Not to mention the puppy responsibility will keep me in. I am really looking forward to that responsibility.

Like Chris (cronology) I have no data to share. No way was I going to try and figure out exactly how much wine I drank and then have to look at the numbers on my COM. No way. So we start from today. So far I have had lunch. A great soup that is now becoming one of my favorites and SO simple to make. I will have to post a recipe for it soon. I need to tweak it a bit. Maybe start adding brewers yeast or something to up the nutrition.

Ah, brewers yeast....that's why I am so pissed at myself. I was going to do some awesome CR research this weekend and start using tools like the yeast to make my nutritional info soar! Well the day is still young, so I will spend sometime today doing some research, cooking a soup and listen to some great jazz!

2007-01-12T11:04:00.000-08:00

THE CHEESE DISEASE

So today is Friday. The whole office is having pizza for lunch. So, I decided, why not? I had no previous calories. It's been overall a good week. I crunched the nutritional data into the COM and said, okay this is doable. One last good bye to gak food. One last savory bite of greezy cheese and tomato sauce. Heck, I will even eat a decent size salad first and that will help.

Well I started eating my one slice. At first I thought, this is yummy! Then the texture of the cheese and the taste started to seem a bit foreign to me. I started thinking that I didnt like pizza anymore. Needless to say, I finished my slice.

But now I feel like gak!

Let me give you a bit of history. I am a cheese fein. I love cheese. I eat cheese on everything, even ice cream (okay not ice cream, but it sounded convincing, right?). For years, not a meal has gone by that I have not had cheese in some form with it.

Until, CR. I havent had cheese in 2 weeks. I didnt really even think about not having it. I just ruled it out when I saw how many calories are in cheese. I didnt miss the cheese and god knows I will never miss it, now.

Thank you CR!

I have read time and time again that CR people do not miss the gak they once consumed. That CR people just don't crave it. Now I know why. When you try these things again, your body does not like it! As a matter of fact, I would say our body rejects these things. Our body's want good wholesome foods. Our body's crave good wholesome foods. FOR GOOD SAKE, GIVE YOUR BODY WHAT IT WANTS!!

In the mean time, I will just continue to feel miserable about my pizza gak attack!

2007-01-11T05:29:00.000-08:00

BITE THE BULLET

Man, I have been reading some really awesome blogs. People that really have their CR shit together and now I am feeling a bit of pressure, as I should. I have been watching what I am eating, calculating this and that, but I have not really been trying to maximize the amount of nutrition I am getting. I haven't been using my flax oil as much and haven't even begun to incorporate things like brewers yeast, etc...Into my daily diet. I feel sort of like a CR flunky.

But, I am still very new to this and a wee bit uneducated. I have some serious studying to do this weekend. Istanbulwitchy has posted several times about the down side to newbie's entering into the CR world and using too much canned and frozen meals to keep their calorie intake low and that being a bad thing. At first, I just thought, well that is a growing pain into CR. Now I know she is right. You can read some of the "older" CR followers and see their daily meal and nutritional post. There is a vast difference. I envy the "older" crew, but I am giving myself time to patiently learn the material as well and pat myself on the back for at least maintaining a low calorie diet in the hopes of gaining the nutritional information necessary to truly be CR.

Skinny Bitch; you really seem to have a handle on things. I am going to read a bit more through your blog especially this weekend for book and website references that may help me.

So, yesterday was not a great CR day for. I topped out at about 1400 calories. My original goal when I started was to maintain between 1200-1400 calories daily, but I had actually been eating around 1200 or just under. So, even though 1400 seems like a ton now to me, I know it is a substantial improvement from my pizza and Pepsi days!

Got some good news last night; new member of the family!!! I have been on a rescue waiting list for sometime now for a dog. Well this past weekend I found out about a litter than had been rescued and asked to adopt. Last night, I was approved!! So this Saturday I am going to pick my new baby! I am hoping for the runt! I love the runt! Any good name ideas?

Okay so life will become a bit more complicated with work, school, CR, and now puppy, but I am up for the challenge. Actually when I think about all these things in life, it's as if one by one all the things I have ever wanted in life, I am getting. It's been a wait, but it's always worth it!

Thanks again, CR groupies/support team! Happy Thursday to you all out there!

2007-01-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

TUESDAY

Okay so today was a good day. I felt great all day!! This whole CR thing is really easy and the support from all the blogs and comments really helps me stay motivated. Without the posting I would probably be tempted to have that soda or candy or burger and not too feel guilty, because hey! no one would ever know but me. I like this system. Although I know if I strayed away a bit, it's not as if I would be banished.

I think again it was Frontline PBS that I was watching that did a piece on the American Fad Diet. I remember the whole thing focusing in on groups like Weight Watchers because of the whole "family" support thing. The diets that offered closely linked support groups seemed to be the most productive of them all.

Every day I am beginning to look less and less at the weight issue. I know I am really early into this, but I can feel myself changing everyday. I am surely not talking physically, but emotionally. I seem really focused at work and at completing my task. I find myself getting through the day much easier, not feeling as tired as early. As a matter of fact, I am staying up much later as well. I usually go to bed around 10 pm at the max. Well everyday this week (okay; it's only Tuesday) I have stayed up to at least midnight, no problem and I have woke up each morning at my usual 6:30 am with no problem. Actually a bit more energetic and easy to rise as each day passes. I remember April commenting on this while battling some negative attention about how eating fewer calories would compromise your ability to function. April, you were right....as always!

Okay so today I ate like this;

Egg white, Turkey, and onion omelet for breakfast

Broiled Chicken Breast with Stir fried Mixed Veggies for lunch

Mega Muffin Snack

Small lean Steak and Asparagus Stir Fry for dinner (this was delicious!!!!)

Here is a summary of my numbers for the day;

Calories 1184
Protein 132.3
Fat 47.8
Carbs 66.4
Fiber 22.0

Vitamins 90%
Minerals 90%
Lipids 45%

(Not including supplements)

So I am really interested in knowing what some of the old cronies think of my numbers. I am really confused about the % of daily value. Do you guys have a recommendation for this. I heard 70 grams of protein per day for women (that info came a little too late as I was already prepared to add more because I thought I was deficient based on the %'s). I would love anyone's feed back.

Work and my other environmental work is preventing me from doing any extra reading these days. I will buckle down this weekend and try and specifically research and read a few particular things, but I welcome and would appreciate anyone's advice.

Good luck to everyone out there. Hope to hear from you guys soon!

2007-01-09T05:28:00.000-08:00

OKAY THE REAL MONDAY NUMBERS.....

First let me say "thanks" to all the people that commented on my Sunday Blue's post. I appreciate your support and don't worry, like now, I usually bounce back quite fast!

Okay so here is how yesterday ended;

Energy 1132.1 94%
Protein 88.9 63%
Fat 21.1 33%
Carbs 149.2 66%
Fiber 45.1 119%
Water 512.0 14% (u know I am not adding each glass of water I drink per day,
should I? 14% look LOW!)

Vitamin A 21651.3 722%
Folate 198.0 50%
B1 0.4 35%
B2 0.4 32%
B3 10.2 64%
B5 1.9 37%
B6 0.8 58%
B12 0.2 6%
Vitamin C 116.0 129%
Vitamin D 0.0 0%
Vitamin E 3.2 21%
Vitamin K 132.1 110%

Calcium 410.4 41%
Copper 0.4 45%
Iron 15.1 189%
Magnesium 88.7 22%
Manganese 1.4 62%
Phosphorus 338.7 48%
Potassium 1130.6 24%
Selenium 42 76%
Sodium 3932.8 262%
Zinc 2.0 18%

Saturated Fat 2.6 13%
Omega 3 0.4 23%
Omega 6 1.9 11%
Cholesterol 96.5 32%

Thanks God I took my supplements yesterday (not included in the numbers shown above) Okay so what do I learn from these numbers? That packing your lunch is 100% important. I know that I can forget it sometimes, but I should really strive to do it daily. These numbers look kinda like crap to me. A typical "newbie" approach to CR; high in sodium, lacking the essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

I have read people's blogs that list several books that will help me to better understand and read these numbers. I see the obvious, but with a helpful book, I can learn how to balance my food and vitamin and mineral intake. I have been procrastinating on that and have been focus meerly on keeping my calorie intake under 1200 daily. Which oddly enough is very easy and fullfilling. So, promise to self....not let a Monday creep up again, be unprepared and go to the local "healthy" spot for some prepackaged soup for lunch.

Dinner was great though. I had a package of three chicken breast, approximately 6 oz each. I weighed them individually for daily nutritional info, but on average 6 oz. I broiled them after I dashed them with a bit of black pepper and my favorite hot sauce. Then I sauteed some mixed veggies...and yes they were frozen. (On the agenda for the day....grocery shopping!)

Okay there is a topic I would like to bring up; aging. After all that is what CR is all about right? Well last night on my laptop (because I dont own a tv) I watched a special on Frontline (a PBS program) about aging.

"Living Old" is it's title and here is a link.....http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/livingold/view/

Okay so basically it is about the aging epodemic. Pointing out that within the next 25 years, more than 20% of the population will be 85+ and will either be bid ridden at home or in a nursing home. These people will need special geriatric care, in the increasing numbers that our health care system will not be able to manage, unless drastic changes are made now.

So here is where it get's CR related (and yes I am asking for help here);

These people that are ill were obviously not followers of CR. Since we do not fulling understand or know the human effects of CR, how will we as CR practitioners help or hurt this issue in the future.

I imagine we would be of some help. We should live longer and be apart of this 85+ population, but I feel that we will not contribute to the same bed ridden illnesses this broadcast speaks of. I imagine us being retired and having the free time to help nurse and take care of our elderly friends.

I guess my question is; has anyone thought of the quality of life if we do get to go beyond our normal life span. I am sure you have. Let me know your thoughts!

2007-01-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

MONDAY NUMBERS:

Energy 519.8
Protein 32.2
Fat 9.0
Carbs 72.7
Fiber 12.3
Water 109.00

There's the basics. My vitamins are really down. I havent had my daily mega muffin, so that is my snack while I fix a late dinner. This day has gone by SO fast, that I would usually have had it by now, but havent even thought about it. That may be also because my hunger cravings are basically non existant now. YEE HAW!!

Some of my minerals are looking good though. Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, Selenium. I am out the door in just a sec. I was going to try and post my totals for the day, but really need to do a fridge hunt (and a weekly grocery list) before I can be absolutely sure how the night is going to end.

You know I am really starting to believe that CR can really be for me. The first time I took a stab at this back before Thanksgiving, I just knew I was going to not be 100% during the holiday's. Guess I set myself up. But, the last week has proven great, with the normal ups and downs of daily life. I feel confident that at least I can over come the biggest FEAR of any critic; starving.

2007-01-07T16:59:00.000-08:00

BYE BYE SUNDAY BLUES

Well regarless of how I feel, it is time to say good bye to the blues. Actually I ended up having a great day.

I just got over feeling that way and knew if I didnt force myself to, it would just be too distructive.

So....on to the upper west side I went. Walked through beautiful central park on a surprisingly beautiful day. Although I was not a lone, the walk made me feel great and that given the grey moments in the new future, I could easily come to the park alone and feel great!

After a walk through the "rambles" (basically a part of the park with not set path...just winding little foot paths that are easy to get lost in) my friend Isac and I headed to the Metropolitan Musuem of Art. We were a bit rushed as they were getting close to closing when we got there, but we were able to catch our favorite exihibits. Very peaceful experience. Just me a crowd of strangers and Jackson Pollock! (well his art anyways)

After that, a great walk all the way down the east side of the city. Not all the way, but darn close. Hopped a train back to the big BK. Got off on the wrong stop (on purpose) and enjoyed a nice long walk home.

Home now and a bit exhausted. My usual pattern of getting a bit drunk is to eat horribly the next day. Today I didnt. Actually didnt eat much, but what I ate was nutritious. My stomach has to heal a bit. Tomorrow I have planned a great little egg white and red pepper breakfast, my usual lunch of a healthy bowl of tomato soup and mega muffin (my multivitamin) and for dinner, probably a nice little tilapia and some roasted asparagus.

Skinnybitch (sorry only name I know to call you) wrote some nice stuff. Please see her comment on my Sunday Blues. Thanks so much for bringing some good up lifting words to my bleak blog. I appreciate it. 100% of what you said makes absolute sense. It's not something that I didnt already know, but always helps when people make you confront it.

2007-01-07T06:52:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY BLUES

Allow me to give you a bit more information about myself. I don't usually read people's blogs and get a real personal since of who they are, but I am going to elaborate quite a bit about me here. Sorry if it's not CR related or doesn't follow the protocol for CR related blogs.

I am 26 years old. I live in Brooklyn, but I am from NC. I have been in Brooklyn for the past 3 years, maybe a bit more. I first moved to NY to conquer the world. I thought I needed a change. I thought I would expose myself to greater lesbian community here. Maybe work a few odd restaurant jobs and then go crawling home broke and start my real adult life back in NC with my close group of family and friends.

It didn't quite work out that way (most of which I am happy for...Some not so much). I met a woman within being here a week and feel in love. Being with her became my top priority. I did whatever it took to maintain a life here in NY. Life was great, but still lacking. I actually hated a lot about our relationship. Actually, most everything. Other than the physical attraction that I had to her and how the relationship enabled me to stay in NY, there wasn't much else.

I hated that she was closeted, that she was self centered, lazy, a pot head...I could go on and on. So, I got depressed. I gained some weight. I started to become hateful to her. Hateful to the point that when I realized how much I was hurting her, I ended everything, took a flight home and left. Left her, left my job, left my clothes, just left.

This all happened back in July of 2006. Thankfully, I was able to recoup my job. My company needs me. I was not able to recoup all my stuff from her home, so I had to just leave it. I have yet to recoup my confidence, self esteem, or a lot of other positive emotional things. All I knew of NY, I knew through her. All the friend I had, I had through her. They are all obviously not part of my life anymore.

I have started to make some new friends. Unfortunately, the best way I have found to meet people is in bars. And for the most part the friends I meet are 1. Men 2. Alcoholics 3. Unmotivated

So this all brings us up to date and the current status is this:

I am lonely. I am really enjoying my work and school, but I am just down right lonely. The women I meet, I am not interested in. I would like to be friends, but that's not good enough. The men I meet in bars that want to be friends, only would like to do so in a bar. I am sick of bars. I want to go to museums, the botanical gardens, and so forth.

Like always, Friday after work, I head to the local bar with friends. One things leads to the other and the next thing you know, it is 7 am on Saturday. Three guys are at my apartment. We are all smashed, talking philosophy. I crawl into bed around 9 am and sleep all day on Saturday. Wake up on Sunday and feel like shit. Absolute shit. Look at my cell phone and apparently called my ex sometime Saturday morning, drunk and god only knows what I said to her. Do I miss her; NO. I am just lonely. I just miss the interaction. I miss having that someone close all the time to do things with. If I saw her today, I would probably be absolutely aggravated with her within 2 secs. So, no it's not her. It's just being lonely and I have to remind myself of that or I will just obsess on her and think that I am some sort of looser for screwing the relationship up from the beginning.

So here's the CR part. How can I concentrate on something so structured and detailed? My life in so many other ways is such a wreck. I want it to be more structured. God knows it is with work and school. God knows I could ruin work and school acting like some 21 year old college frat boy.

It doesn't happen often, but it does. Otherwise, what does a young lesbian professional lonely CR practitioner do on a Friday night? Any suggestions?

2007-01-05T05:38:00.000-08:00

So yesterday wasnt a bad CR day , but not a great one. I ate around my calorie range, but I am pretty sure the day as a whole was not THAT nutrious. However, I did supplement. I keep reading that even though supplements are good, it's best to get your vitamins and minerals from food. Makes perfect sense.

I left my office around 6:30 and at that point was at about 1000 calories. Didnt really leave much room for a great dinner, but honestly I was stuffed. I made a great tofu chili when I got home around 7:30, but just wasnt hungry at the time, so I packed it away for today's lunch. It is like 270 calories per serving, so a hearty lunch and today I will minus the snacks because I have already had a pretty hearty breakfast.

I have been low on protein, so I am trying to cut some of the fruit, veggie, yogurt snacks and have meals that are more balanced all the way around. Of course I will have my daily mega muffin. Those mega muffins are supplements, just way tastier and filling! YUM!

I woke up feeling stiff today. Probably not diet related, but a horrible stomach flu has been going around my office. I am praying that I do not get it! I hate being sick. So, I beefed up my Vitamin C today and have sanitized my key board, phone, desk, etc....FLU BUG, BE GONE!!

This weekend...skiing? I have no idea what is on my agenda, but I actually feel a relaxing weekend at home sounds more like it. I have been dying to go skiing, but just havent had the time. This weekend is open, but geesh with the holiday's and all that, maybe it should wait. I have some reading to catch up on. Some cleaning to catch up on. Some sleep to catch up on....maybe even a movie! Okay, decision made: Staying in Brooklyn!

2007-01-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

SKINNY JEANS

So just before Xmas I tried to put on a pair of jeans that I swing in and out of. Meaning....most days they do not fit and periodically they do. They used to be one of my favorite pairs. Of course on that day they didnt fit. I mean I felt like there were miles between the button and the button hole. You can imagine how fatty fat butt I felt

Well this morning because of a lack of clean laundry, I tried putting them on again. Let's just see what happens. I knew I was just setting myself up for some bad vibes again (especially after my bar binge last night).

As I stepped into them, I could almost feel myself start to sweat with anxiety about whether they were going to make it. Absolute fear that I just might have to go to work naked or in dirty jeans! (YAK!)

GUESS WHAT?!?! Those stupid jeans fit!!!! Thank God. Already feeling a bit hung over, the last thing I needed was added fat stress.

I remember reading in someone's CR blog that the first few days of CR could make you a couple of pounds lighter. Something about some organ that stored something like 2 lbs of fat or fluid that would go away quickly by restricting your calorie intake. So I guess it is true.

Hey something else;

I am awaiting some test results. Just before I left NC to come back home after Christmas, I went to my old doc and had some blood drawn. I guess I need to call them, because I should have heard from them by now.

I want to post that info, as well as my height, weight, width...blah, blah in a chart form and try to do another test in a few months. If anyone has any thoughts on how often you should test your blood, let me know.

Until next time.....

2007-01-04T06:13:00.000-08:00

Okay so yesterday was not that bad of a CR day. That was until I went out to a business meeting at a local bar. Only a 26 year old with too much resposibility would be careless enough to take employees out to a bar to sign contracts. Enough said!

The day really didnt go that bad. Up until the time of my meeting my numbers for the day were looking quite good. I was around 900 total calories and had had a mega muffin, so my vitamins and minerals were looking good and most everything was balanced. A little light on the protein, so on the way to the meeting I stopped and grabbed an egg white omelet with onion.

At the bar, post meeting, I pounded quite a few Vodka's. I looked up the nutritional info online before I left. I drink it straight over rocks, so didnt have to worry bout mixers. I read around 69 calories per ounce. My bartender friend was pouring me only an ounce at the time, but I bet I had around 5 or 6. HEY! I was there for hours!

So I know I went over my 1200-1400 calorie a day goal, but overall I know the day was still a winner. At least I didnt do my usual pizza and beer routine.

So, I see some people posting their 2007 goals on their blogs. I think I will do the same. Actually I had them all written out already. I am reading a book titled, "Eat That Frog". Basically it helps you to draw an outline of your goals and see what the biggest "frog" or obstacle you have in life is and how to over come it, step by step. Okay, call me dorky. It wouldnt be the first time. I enjoyed the book and I also enjoyed going through the step by step process of writing my goals out. It's a great exercise and I am going to continue to do this periodically.

So the long awaited list:

Drop 30 lbs.
Fully quit smoking
To work towards clear skin
Make 100K
Complete 15 credits at school
Maintain a GPA of 3.8
Increase my sales team by 50%
Follow my business plan accurately and efficiently

So, some pretty dorky stuff, but my goals are important to me. It's important to me to concentrate on bettering my overall health and life and to stop destroying myself emotionally and physically. I am excited about the new year. I am excited about my new CR lifestyle and my new CR cronies.

2007-01-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Okay so three days into this thing and I feel great. I feel an extra skip in my walk, a splash of extra confidence, etc....

Here is what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast: 8 oz. Low Fat Cottage Cheese
100 grams of carrots
100 grams of celery

Lunch: Mega Muffin with mustard
227 grams of Pacific foods Organic Creamy Tomato Soup

Late afternoon Snack: Mega Muffin with mustard

Dinner: 120 grams pan seared Tilopia
55 grams of smoked turkey breast

I have to say dinner was a total wash! I attempted to cook a stif fry with tofu and really royally screwed that up. Then I made the tilopia and was going to have that over greens, but my greens had gone bad, so I just had the fish. And then the couple slices of deli turkey breast. Low in calories, but not a lot of nutrition. Thank god for the earlier Mega Muffins

Dessert: Low cal yogurt
banana

Here is what my nutrition for the day looked like:

General (65%)
Calories: 1220.2 102%
Protein: 109.4 77%
Fat: 27.5 44%
Carbs: 149.4 66%
Fiber: 32.6 86%
Water: 631.1 17%

Vitamins (78%)
Vitamin A: 19016.4 634%
Folate: 236.2 59%
B1: 2.0 166%
B2: .6 43%
B3: 29.6 168%
B5: 13.1 262%
B6: 2.6 201%
B12: 4.0 166%
Vitamin C: 94.4 105%
Vitamin D: 29.6 15%
Vitamin E: 12.4 83%
Vitamin K: 39.9 33%

Mineral (94%)
Calcium: 790.2 79%
Copper: 1.5 162%
Iron: 9.6 120%
Magnesium: 522.6 131%
Phosphorus: 1519.6 217%
Potassium: 3151.0 67%
Selenium 141.4 257%
Sodium 2337.2 156%
Zinc 10.4 95%

Lipids (38%)
Saturated: 7.2 36%
Omega 3: 0.8 48%
Omega 6: 6.2 36%
Cholesterol: 99.6 33%

So from the uneducated point of view, I think this looks decent. I really hope to find someone who can help me understand this data a bit more.

Anyone want to leave feed back.....the floor is yours!

2006-12-31T08:52:00.000-08:00

Okay so the New Year is not quite here, but is slipping on up quickly. Today is New Year’s eve and what’s the plan? I have no idea. Originally I thought my boss and some friends and I would all go skiing, but the boss is in a bad mood and I am sure not participating. So, hanging out in Clinton Hill for the day seems to be the plan.

Right now visiting a new little café have a great cup of Joe. CR friendly of course. Black, no sugar, no cream. Actually, with CR they recommend no caffeine, but I have not cut that out as of yet…and have no plans to do so as of yet.

My appetite is way down. Yesterday for breakfast I had a small amount of almonds and a vitamin water. So should have been just over 300 calories. Then at like 2 pm, after walking half way around Brooklyn and starving, I downed a hot dog in like 2 seconds. I have no idea how many calories, but I did only take mustard on it, so I am sure that saved some. Then for dinner, some organic roasted red pepper soup, a couple of Kashi cheese crackers and a glass of water….would have done wine, but the store had a horrible selection. I have to find a place in the hood to buy good wine. The whole appetite being down probably can be attributed to my period starting. This is what usually happens.

Well yesterday I went to Associates to get the groceries for the week. I spent $90.00 which is a bit more than I usually would spend, but I got some good stuff and have planned out some meals. My thought is that I will probably have enough for breakfast and dinners for two weeks and most lunches. I may have to pickup a fresh apple, banana, or head of lettuce periodically, but I have got the staples.

It’s getting colder, so I bought a bit of that organic broth to make simple CR soups with for dinners. Also, they offer some good pre made soups that seem healthy enough for a person on the go. Sure beats going to White Castle or some Chinese restaurant when in a pinch for time.

Also I am planning on not going to my favorite bar nightly the way I have been in the past couple of weeks. I usually have a few beers and vodka’s after work. Not only calorie costly, but also to my pocket book. Cutting this out will help to justify such a extravagant expenses at the grocery.

Something else I bought that I am excited about trying is tofu. I remember trying it once several years ago and just not being happy with the out come. This time around I have CR recipes to go by and of course my little health conscious friend, Sarah has been more than happy to lend a few pointers. Cross your fingers!! I will post how things turn out.

One last issue….software. I have been using the free version on the CRON meter, but everything I read is telling me that there are several other versions of soft ware available that are not only more user friendly (because everyone knows that the CRON meter is NOT) but more stable and have a lot more info. I don’t know that I necessarily want to spend the money or whether I can spend the money. It is not THAT much, but hey $60 is $60.