Friday, January 20, 2012

I really miss eating for dysfunctional reasons, ladies you know what I mean

Because right about now I am having a high stress moment.  I question where my life is going, or rather, lack thereof, and why it feels like that myth of that dude who keeps trying to roll the boulder up the hill and it rolls back down again and oh man, I wish,,,,I had, some chocolate.

Salty, pungent, sweet, doughy goodness of procrastination eating.  Take away my stress, oh you gooey, carby, mess.

Ladies, you know what I am saying.  What's your flavor of the month?  For me, it would be sushi with dark chocolate, finished off with a lemon cake with chocolate frosting, and further finished off with some spicy pretzels.  One of my friends only wants to eat barbeque potato chips.

Let me just say it.  Donuts.  With. Coffee.  Not even in my non-dieting days do I permit myself this extremely sinful delight.  But the other day, walking out of the subway near Herald Square, and you New Yorkers know the one I'm talking about, the one with the scary dark corner where Voldemort-after-too-much-acid often hangs out, growling at all passers-by while they pretend they don't notice him, and God knows what is on those stairs.  Radioactive rat shit with plague virus dripping on the concrete. 

But that night, along with all the usual reasons I am reminded to remove my shoes at the door when I come home, were the flourescent glowing colors of frosting.  Someone had dropped an entire box of dunkin donuts, and they had cascaded down the subway stairs, creating a horrifying rainbow display, each step a different flavor and style. 

It was food porn, New York style.  Jelly filled, cream filled, chocolate frosted.  Disgusting and fascinating and tempting, I hated myself for the urges I had to pick them up and bite into them, as I gazed at the lovely sugary circles, sadly sitting on the filth.  The most difficult to pass by was the bright pink one near the top of the stairs, with rainbow sprinkles.  It just looked so pretty, this sad rejected piece of toxic carb temporary bliss.

I guess whoever dropped them, correctly realized that the five second rule does not apply in the toxic sewers that are subway steps.  And I had to admit they were probably right.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

artificial sweeteners are just starting to taste so gross

I used to be a five-spoons-o'-sugar in my cupa coffee every day kinda gal.  I had a particularly boring job, and the more boring the job got, the greater my caffeine/sugar combo addiction became, until I think I just because so immune to the effects that it became more of a pain to drink all that coffee and then have to pee, all day long, as it still wasn't keeping me awake anyway.

And then, someone made a radical suggestion.  Coffee without sugar.  BLECH!  I thought, until I cut it down, little by little, and voila.  I LOVED coffee with no sugar.  It tasted great, even better than before!  I think that the taste of sugar in our culture is so predominant, that we don't even know what real food is supposed to taste like without it.  Now, the taste of sweetened coffee makes me want to puke.

So, for my diet, I am alternating meat week, with "shake week."  Where I drink three protein shakes a day, and only eat one actual meal.  I faithfully followed the prescribed recipe for this shake, which includes whey protein powder, some kind of freaky amino acid, cream, and a packet of artificial sweetner.  It tasted okay, until one day I realized that I had forgotten to add the packet....and the shake tasted fine.

Thinking it must be generally healthier, I started omitting the sweetener packet.  But today I followed the recipe for "chai tea" fake shake stuff, and I didn't realize the chai tea in a box comes pre-sweetened.  Drinking this stuff, all I could taste was that sickening "sweet" taste which actually doesn't really taste sweet if you really focus on it, but more of a gross, happy elf-on-crack, singing carols in a screetchy voice kind of sweet. 

Being stuck at the car dealership, waiting for the mechanics to "work hard on correctly installing" some crap as they charged me by the hour, I really had to choice but to drink it, cause it was either that or Taco Bell.  Oh man that sounds good all right, but I still have to loose about 20 pounds.  I drank it down, hating every sip more than the last, and now I feel like I want to puke.  I think now I"ll just make my own damn chai tea, unsweetened.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Does veganism cause brain fog????

I am starting to believe it is true.  The brain is composed of fat, and needs fats and oils in order to function well.  Since my hubby's diet doesn't even allow him to eat nuts or olive oil, or any oil of any kind, I am really getting freaked out at his increased spaciness.

In fact, his spaciness recently caused us to spend an unnecessarily large sum of money, at a local car dealership, where they waited until after lunch time, and then had him sign a bunch of papers as he grew increasingly starving and faint.  This cost us an extra $600 in bogus fees, but I suppose it could have been worse.

But still, this is really out of character for him, and especially since at home we went over all the fees that we would agree to pay, and those we would not.

Word to the wise.  If you're going to in and negotiate buying a car, bring yourself some substantial lunch, like a grass fed hamburger with avocado!

Monday, January 9, 2012

what a low carb way to party

So, my hubby and I had reason to celebrate a successful business transaction.....yeah that sounds so cool, doesn't it?  What I really mean is that we spent a whole lot of money that we don't have with a loan that's going to cost us even more, and yet somehow we are happy because we feel like we didn't get too screwed over.  That's the American way, isn't it.

Yeah it was time to party, but then the pathetic sadness began.  Because in my non-diet days, I would have partied down with some rocking sushi rolls, dark chocolate, and some good beer or wine.  Plus, there may have been fried appetizers....and cake!  Or at least some frozen yogurt.

"I guess we can go to the Japanese restaurant"..we meekly agreed.  The only thing I could think to order was a plate of sashimi, and the only thing hubby could order was PLAIN BROWN RICE AND STEAMED VEGGIES which is just SAD!!!!  And no booze.   Noooo booooze.  Nada saki.

The first quarter tasted okay, the second quarter was bearable, but then my body protested....."no more raw crap fish"  it was saying.  So I had to stop eating, dreading a night of stomach pain.  Hubby ate his pathetic peasant plate and looked sad as he pushed the big sliced moon shaped vegetables around in various arrangements.

It's just not quite the same.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Meat week

It's week five of my low carb diet.  the past two weeks, I only had 3 protein shakes a day, and just one solid meal.  This week, all of a sudden, for metabolic reasons, I am supposed to eat 3 meat meals with a side of veggies (totalling now more than 10 carbs), and then if I am hungry, I can snack on.......more meat, or fish, or eggs.

This, according to the book "The 6 Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle" is supposed to rev up my metabolism, and yet at the same time, to not store any of those excess calories because of the very low amount of carbs I will be taking in.

I'm often left wondering--what the hell can I eat???

I am a foodie snob, plus I try to be as conscientious as I can about animal welfare, and still be a carnivore, which means that I shop at the mother of all grocery stores---Whole Foods, aka Whole Paycheck.  I admit I am lazy.  I've met people who buy cow shares, who take field trips to farms so they can see for themselves how the animals are raised etc.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to do all those things, and maybe someday I will.....when I have time, but in the meantime, I still spend outrageous amounts at the common haven for those seeding a quick fix to a very profound fundamental question.

To make matters worse, besides the face that Whole Foods clearly pushes their vegetarian agenda in your face, is that they have this bizarre new numbers rating system, from 1 to 4, where I guess 4 means the animals were played harp music, and 1 means they were sort of not given as much poison crap to eat as most factory farmed meat.  The problem is, most of the meat has no number at all, then then the rest are labeles as 1, and then there's a very few primo meats that are labeled as 4.

So of course, me being me I pick the 4 meat and rethink whether or not I really need to pay the mortgage this month because well, it's meat week, and I needed to make four awesome meatloafs!  And make the I did  You should have seen my cats salivating.  4 meatloafs.  2 lbs ground beef, grassfed from Skillman farms, 2 lbs ground pork, outrageously $s but had that #4 rating, and 2 lbs of ground lamb, which had no number, but neither did any other lamb.  Too bad they don't patronize Bobolink farms, which is awesome and local.

Now my 4 greasy, meaty, delicious loafs are steaming hot and ready to eat.  Yum.  Oh, and I picked up some canned chickpease and potatoes for my hubby.  So sad.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

We are on opposite diets

So, my husband and I have each decided that we would like to loose afew pounds.  Well, more like 10 or 20 to be more correct.  I am a big fan of the low carb approach, which works by lowers your insulin levels among alot of other cool chemical/hormonal things, to make you loose a ton.  My idiot husband however, has taken the exact opposite approach, and has decided to eat...almost nothing, aka "vegan."  Not only vegan, but no oils, nuts, etc.  Just whole grains, boiled potatoes, basically everything I can't eat.

I THINK HE"S CRAZY!
But.....

I have to say, that our food bill has completely turned around since we both shopped for our respective diets. 
There used to be a late night food raid, and nothing lasted more than a day or two.  Now, I can keep breaded chicken for the kids in the fridge for a week.

It's going on three weeks now, and we've both lost about the same amount of weight, seven pounds or so.

But......I've noticed some changes in hubbies behavior, notably more irritable, short tempered.  Could it be the diet? 

I think it may be a good idea to have a place here to write down what does down each day and keep track, so here we go!