Grill Crazy

My Forman is getting a work out this week.  I do find that i miss salads.....I've even been thinking of trying to grill spinach or romaine, but haven't tried it ....yet.  I'm currently trying to decide if i can grill cauliflower or if i will have to throw it in the oven on a cookie sheet....if i put it on the grill to finish....or if i microwave it to soften it before grilling....will i meet the letter of the law?  I haven't decided what to do yet....any ideas?  This is now a short post, i had a longer one but i didn't realize i wasn't plugged in and it turned itself off.

Did it

I did it.  I've made it thru the 1st week of P6.  I know I have the rest of today to get thru but I'm sliding into home this week.  The big challenge was the meeting.  I took my stuff in a freezer chest and except for one little problem it worked great.  I'd frozen a bunch of water bottles and lined the bottom with those. Then packed my stuff with more chilled water and bags of ice.  I even took my blender.  I had tea and diet coke from the snacks put out and even went to the lunch lectures.....taking my own food with me.  The desserts were on the table and the salads when we sat down. My dh enjoyed having 2 desserts each day and ate my salads....but boy it was hard giving it up yesterday.  I sat and stared at it thinking how could some lettuce hurt but I could hear Allan saying....follow the plan or get out and I passed it over.  The fact that the salad interested me more than the dessert was mentally an interesting thing.  I've always had a sweet tooth and I would have thought that it was looking at those desserts as i tend to try to keep them out of sight at home, but I'm really missing my salads.  I realize that I am so glad I didn't do any kind of surgery as I would not have liked having to limit my raw bulky veggies.  I'm learning to eat the right amounts of cal dense items and enjoying some extra veggies when wanting something to snack on rather than chips or cake.  Thus today is easy......I'm drinking my jugs of fluid and enjoyed eating bk and lunch and catching up some on  the blogs.  I did get to read a little on my phone and tried doing a comment but I don't have it down yet.
Oh yes, the exception...my fudgsicles  didn't stay frozen.
I even walked some laps of the conference area between talks.
.......and I lost 4 pounds this week.

The Traveling P6

3 1/2 days done and the routine changed just a bit today with the lunch change.  I will be leaving later today for a 2 day meeting.  I  made a list of what I needed to take and every time I sit down it grows longer.  Last night I decided I needed the blender for mixing...then I realized I need splenda and sweet and low  and a bowl and a spoon and another measuring cup as i could not find snack packs of cheese....or do i want to measure them and take them that way.......and don't forget to take milk, water, tea bags, mio, crystal light, diet coke and the list goes on.  Now my clothing list is pretty short but I want to add some workout clothes so maybe I can do that.  With books and basketball playoffs staying in the room instead of the usual going out to eat should be fine.  I see myself checking into the hotel tonight with 2-3 freezer chests and one little bag for a 2 day meeting. Oh yes just added paper towels and do I need to take dish washing liquid?

P6 and food porn

P6 is going well and I have decided that the oster blender deserves some of the credit....if i had to drink grainy drinks i might have thrown in the towel.....therefore it is going to my meeting with me.  I have a meeting out of town but in driving distance on Fri and Sat.  I am currently freezing some bottles of water to put int freezer chest, and chilling some more and will packing all my food to take.  I'm a little concerned about the frozen pops but will bag them in Ziploc bags and put those inside bigger bags of ice.  If they melt I can toss the inner bags and if it works i can keep getting ice at the hotel.  I use a Brita for most of my water at home, but do keep some bottled water for when i don't want to worry about bringing the bottle home and figured out that i need to take my water that way to stay on program.  They have cont. bk from which i will get tea and i may skip the lunch lectures and eat in my room...if not I'll bring a bottle of water, buy a diet coke and ask for ice tea...but as the lecture isn't interesting on Fri, probably not worth dealing with,  Sat  i may need to go.  I did my mid-week weigh this morning....nice....will see how it is on Sun.

Now Allan was not a nice man today...he put up pictures of biscuits and gravy and after not even thinking about such crap for months, i suddenly want some from the place on my way to work.  I won't be stopping there but still i didn't need to even want to.  I did find the recipe on line for a healthier version using instabake....a very nice wheat bisquik type mix from Hodgkins Mills or a low carb version using carbulose flour.  I have Christina's low cal cookbook but these aren't in it and i printed them out and at some point later this year I may make them. No they aren't what Al put up but I don't want to eat like that again and these will do just fine.  If anyone reading this likes creamcheese filled poppers...she has a lower cal version that i once made for a superbowl party.  They were a hit even with the non-cal watchers at the party.  What more food porn will we be looking at this week?.....chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy?.......batter fried onion rings with 1/2 pound bacon cheeseburger.........too over the top and it doesn't appeal to me but those i listed sure do.

The Good, the Better, and the Crazy

Today started off crazy. My dh went to take a shower this morning and when he turned on the lights he heard something blow. We have Halogen can lights in there and they do that sometimes,  but they were all on and he thought it was the heat light. I got up and checked and it turned out we couldn't turn off the lights.  Since leaving them on could be a fire hazard, I  said we needed to turn off the breaker........turned them all off, even the main and the lights stayed on.......finally realized all the lights in the addition we added on 24 yrs ago were still on.  So where are those breakers?  Looked a bunch of places and finally looked outside and realized the box by the air conditioner, where the electric and phone enters the house might have them.....but it was stuck shut.  Finally got it open and was able to turn them off.  Got real lucky and the electrician had time to come out this afternoon and fix the switch and also fix a messed up light fixture.

The good....phase 6 went well today, we were crazy busy at work and didn't really have time to eat or drink much....finished pre-bk about 10:30 and bk about 11 and got home for lunch about 1.  I was behind on liquids but felt fine this afternoon and am now on my last 4 cups that will make a total of 21 for today.  2 days down and tried a powdered vitamin mix that mixes with water, that I added some flavoring to and it was much better.  I had to cut down some of my meds due to the cal count of this week but all seems to be good otherwise.

The better....the watermelon tonight was great.  I cut up the whole melon and I could have easily eaten more but I ate my weighed portion and gave my dh some and put the rest away.  Can't wait for more melon days. This was a Texas melon and I bought 2 so I have another for next week.

P 6

I felt the need for a change, so after looking at the plan and talking to my doc,  I am doing P6.  Actually this is the perfect week to start this.  I have a meeting at the end of the week,  so I will be sitting in lectures rather than on my feet at work.  It will be a good time to be eating a limited amount as just sitting there I sometimes find myself eating junk and I won't be this week.  I did my shopping on Sat and bought a blender jar with a whip like ball in it and an Oster smoothie blender(it was a mother's day gift).  Today went pretty well until I tried to do some liquid vitamins......almost lost it!  Tried diluting them with grape drink which helped the taste,  but not my stomach....will visit with my doc tomorrow to see if she has an idea......I'm thinking maybe chewable vits?  I've never done well with vitamins and try to eat a lot of veggies and as I'm sure they aren't there to make me sick will try to figure out how to get my vits without getting sick.  I've had lots of fluids...back to my original liquid level plus today and lots of bathroom trips.
Blender review....it worked well,  added some ice tonight and got a nice  texture to the mix......but there is no way I can drink from the drink lid to the container. If I get a long straw I will be able to use it for drinking, but I had to take the lid off to use it at work this morning....will pour into a lidded cup tomorrow. I put tonight's mix into a mug I had put into the freezer to chill.

Here's to tomorrow.

shopping

I went shopping this week........in my closet and storage boxes. About 3 years ago I took a number of things out of my closet as i kept trying to put them on for work and they would be too small. I also moved some things to the end of the work rack. Now I have other things that are smaller in the back but these were the clothes that I had been wearing and now they didn't fit. It was after my kitty died and I fell off the weight loss wagon and just started to eat junk again and just kept going and gaining.  There were brief periods of loss but they were followed by gains until this past oct when I finally got my head straightened out about my food.  Unfortunately a lot of this weight gain is in my abdomen and less is coming off from there so that even though I now weigh less than I did 5 years ago some things don't fit yet....but lots and lots do. So i now have more pants and tops to wear to work this spring and summer than for the last 3 years. i have also bought a bunch of inexpensive tops at walmart that are a little too tight still so that I will have to work on getting into them in the next month or so. 
Size is a very interesting thing. The clothes that fit vary in size from XL to 3X and from 16 to 24. The shirts that are still too tight from walmart are an 2X and yet many XLs fit in more expensive tops from Saks and Niemans.  In other words I can wear a top in size 16 if I pay $150. but need a 3X if I pay $7.  Once when I generally wore 8's I tried on an outfit that I thought was too old looking from me at a store that I shopped in.....it was also more than I wanted to spend but it fit fine in a 4......at the time I remember thinking that some woman would probably pay extra just so they could say that they wore a 4.  I'll settle for the 7 dollar 3X right now as I plan to be giving it away in a few months, but it's really nice to have more clothes to wear without spending a lot.