Ideal Protein Diet – Mid-Holiday Season Weigh In

Hi all!  Well, I had my weigh-in yesterday (Wednesday 12/22) and though it wasn’t as robust a weight loss as I had hoped for th 2.5 weeks since I’d last weighed, it was still a LOSS.  As on of my good friends said, “3 holiday weight loss pounds are worth at least 6 regular pounds – minimum!” (thanks Hania!) 

At least I don't have to eat all those cookies that the kiddies leave for me like this poor bastard does!

And really, she’s right . . . it’s very hard to stick with a diet while all of the festivities whirl around you.  I did not succumb to sugar or to breads or any of the really bad stuff – I just let myself have nuts and a lot more Carbmaster yogurt than was probably prudent, and when there was a good slab of meat to be had and I had no scale, I ate the whole thing without looking back.  🙂 

But here we are at the end of this year and the cusp of the new.  I have now redoubled my IP efforts and am looking for a good loss this coming Monday.  Since it will be a short week, I am looking for between 2 and 3 pounds to be happy with where I’m going. 

I also got back on my treadmill last night.  It’s been two weeks since I had my toe surgery and I thought that was quite enough time for it to heal.  I was right as I had no problems.  I was only able to do 25 minutes comfortably, but that’s what I’d like – a comfortable ramp back up to doing at least 45 minutes of cardio each day.  That may not be the way the current thinking is going on how much you need or whatever, but I find that when I do that much cardio every day, I feel better and stronger and basically like I can kick some ass in my life.  And that’s what my New Year’s resolution is – to be an ass-kicker whenever and whereever possible – stay strong and healthy and have lots of fun with friends and family.

Goddess bless us….EVERYONE!  And in case this post was too convoluted for you to actually determine how much weight I lost between now and the last weigh in, it was 3 pounds.  I am now up to a 32 pound net loss since October 12.

Happy Holidays, ya’ll!

Ideal Protein Diet – Don’t Eat Panda Express

Yeah.....Don't Eat this Crap

Despite what Panda Express would have you believe about some of their menu items like “mushroom chicken” being “heart healthy” – let me tell you that after two months of having nothing to do with anything that has flour, sugar or filler nastiness in it, this stuff is chock-full of it!  I’m not sure what “it” is precisely, but, like Celine Dione blaring in an elevator, it ain’t right. 

I ordered the “mandarin chicken” which is supposed to be just regular chicken meat all cut up and ready for sauce – it also was nasty and had corn starch all over it.  Even the friggin’ vegetables had corn starch on them, and it looked disgusting in the container.  Like something that shouldn’t EVEN have been there.  So, being as I was in a hurry, I still ate most of it, and definitely regretted it afterward.  I mean I was actually sick from it. 

So, for my trouble, and the pleasure of feeling sick afterward, I had:

435 calories
24 grams of carbs
29 grams of icky fat.  Some of it saturated fat.  😦 

So, live and learn.  Not all short cuts are created equal, and by comparison, the Jack-in-the-Box chicken strips are friggin’ HEALTH FOOD!  

Also, it is a bummer that I could not do my weigh-in today either.  My IP Coach’s grandma died and she is out.  In no way am I upset with her or anything like that, poor girl lost her Gammie….but I would like to have gotten a weight.  I guess I will go and weigh on Wednesday.  I’m going to get a weight there on Wednesday and then I’ll immediately come home and weigh myself and understand in the difference in our scale calibration – write it down and then if she is unavailable in the future, I won’t feel like I can’t weigh myself here.  I just haven’t wanted to get on the scale here at home without knowing what kind of a difference there is in how the scales weigh.  Yes.  I am OCD in this area.  Yes…if I showed to have gained even a pound, I would flip out and take all of you with me!  So we don’t want THAT!  🙂

Ideal Protein Diet – Weigh Day #8

Oscar Wilde's famous quote on temptation really fits for struggling dieters this time of year.

Well, I haven’t gone to get weighed yet, but it IS weigh day.  Sam (my IP coach) wasn’t going to be in last Monday, and I, unfortunately, was in Portland on Wednesday, so we just didn’t connect.  I’d rather keep the weigh day on Monday anyways just for consistency’s sake. 

I don’t really know what to expect.  I don’t believe I have gained any weight since my last weigh in – in fact, I know I must’ve lost at least a couple of pounds because I was able to squeeze into and wear a leather mini skirt (yes….I know…but at least it isn’t RED) to a party this past weekend that I remember trying on the last time I got weighed by Sam.  But still, it’s been tough.  All of the food around during the holidays makes it pretty grim as a dieter.   We had a couple of parties to attend over the course of the weekend.  I did pretty well on the party we went to on Friday.  They had peanuts and vegetable trays that saved me from transgressing too greatly.   But it was a long evening, and I found myself wishing I’d slipped some low-carb yogurt or maybe raw almonds into my purse just to make it a little less painful.  When we got home at somewhere around 2 a.m., I had the husband stop by the Jack-in-the-Box so I could pick up my grilled chicen strips for 250 calories and 5 net carbs.  Now I’m not going to go into too much speculation about where 5 net carbs come from on something that’s supposed to be all white meat chicken, but it ain’t good.  I really have to get away from these processed foods.  In a perfect world, I guess I’d raise and kill my own damn chickens, but my world has been less than perfect since the moment I stepped foot in it, so suffice to say, that ain’t gonna happen! 

Not my holiday spread, but if you take away the chafing dishes, close.

Anyway, it was way to late to be eating, but it had been hard to forego all of the chips, dips, desserts, chocolates and other goodies that were out on the tables for this party, and I felt like I needed to reward myself.  Plus, it was a weird night. 

The next evening we had people over to our house for Yuletide doin’s and there was also food I couldn’t eat.  Not very much of it though because these were our friends and most of them knew to be merciful.  So there weren’t any decadent desserts or anything like that.  Alrighty then…I wrote this post at lunch, then got distracted and am about to shut down my machine for the day.  Have a great day, and I’ll be sure and post the number tonight….whatever it is.

Ideal Protein Diet – Solidarity with a friend

Hello there!  I just got back from a couple of days down in Portland where I was taking some training with a co-worker and dear friend of mine.  We have such a great time when we get together, it always seems like a boondoggle, no matter how important the work I’m doing there or the reason for my going.  This time I was there to take a two-d

It also helps that neither Holly and I are exercising at the moment - though we both intend to get started after the first of the year in some fashion.

ay training on Adobe Captivate to make some e-Learning modules at the office starting at the first of the year.  But I digress.  The point of this post is to tell you how much I appreciate having  friend who is also on a serious weight-loss plan. I mentioned her on one of my very early posts.  She’s on the Medifast diet.  It is very similar to the Ideal Protein plan, except that it allows more carbohydrates and they don’t intend for you to be nor do they want you in a state of ketosis. 

Holly and I were taking this Captivate class together, so it was really nice to get up in the morning and be with someone who could not go to the Starbuck’s and get a pumpkin spice muffin.  It was also nice to try to figure out a similar lunch we could have downtown that would not wreck our respective plans.   We were successful in that endeavor, by the way, but hitting up the QDoba and having a steak taco salad with only the meat, lettuce, pico de gallo and a little hot sauce.  For dinner, we both ate plan food and then headed off to a movie where neither of us could eat popcorn either.  I had to go and get a water from the concession stand and it really wasn’t too hard to resist not getting anything because I knew that if I did pick something up, I’d be taking it back and my friend would be looking at me like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”  The next day, we had plan-food breakfast and stayed put at the training facility and had plan-food lunch.  I say “plan food” – but while hers was actually Medifast plan food, mine was EAS drinks with 17 grams of protein, 2 grams of carbs, and 110 calories plus some raw vegetables from the supermarket.  More and more I’m using those EAS drinks as a substitute for Ideal Protein drinks.  Though I am still drinking my pomegranite drinks laced with collagen.  I don’t know if it’s helping with skin toning, but I’m hoping.  Most of the Ideal Protein plan food is over-priced for what you are getting and can be replaced with other foods of a similar nutritive value.  I figured that out early on.  But the desserts and the foods with collagen in them, I’ve still not found good substitutes for.  Not yet anyway.  But back to solidarity with a dieting friend….

After the class was over, Holly and I went to Outback Steakhouse where we got ourselves a nice lean steak and some grilled shrimp with vegetables on the side and coffee (mostly the coffee was for me since I had to drive back to Seattle and we’d had maybe 10 hours sleep the two nights I’d been staying with her!)  It was a great time, and we both stuck like glue to our diet plans.  She’s looking great.  She lost 17 pounds and is still going strong.  I shared with her the tip about vitamin D, and I think she’s going to start taking those to see if they help.

Well, it’s time for me to get my shower and make my way to the Ideal Protein office to pick up more vitamins.  I do believe those are worth buying and taking as well.  Haven’t replaced those yet either!  Have a great day, and may you all be healthy and happy today.

Ideal Protein Diet Post Russian Napolean Torte….

Though I have had a few "indiscretions" with sugar over the past couple of months, never with sugar that was made JUST FOR ME! So this was special sugar, and I'm sure Marina took all of the calories, carbs and fat out of this before handing it to me.

Well, my friend Marina made the very special and very difficult Russian torte called a Napoleon for my birthday.  It was very, very tasty…like a fusion of a cinnamon roll, a donut and a slice of tiramisu, this stuff is deadly!  Not super sweet like a Western cake with frosting and such, but layers and layers of butter filled dough interspursed with cream and chocolate.  It was lovely.  You can clearly see that I am enjoying it.  Before it was time to cut the cake at 3:00 p.m., I went onto the Internet and tried to figure out what the nutritional information for such a delightful concoction would be.  Here is what I learned:

Russian Napoleon Cake:

Serving size: 108 grams (just shy of 4 ounces)

Calories: 389
Fat: 25.5 grams
Carbs: 34.4

I highly recommend.Oh well!  It was delicious.  As you can plainly see, I was quite taken with it. 

And now, for the “Evil Sweet People” hall of fame, I have Marina.  🙂  Thanks for a great birthday AND cake, Miss Marina.  You made it a lot of fun and very special for me.

My friend Marina now joins my brother-in-law as a goodie-making version of Old Scratch! She got the tail added because her confection was made especially for me. 😉

Birthday….Done!

This dude actually probably looks a little better than I did on my birthday.

Well, my birthday has come and gone for another year….and I’m not going to tell you how many of them have passed.  Suffice to say enough that giving up cake wasn’t a problem.  My actual birthday was December 9, and that was quite the day, let me assure you.  When I got home from work on Wednesday the 8th, I grabbed a Wendy’s Cobb salad for dinner.  With one packet of dressing it’s 570 calories and 9 grams of carbs, so that was acceptable.  Especially since I actually was unable to cook anything due to the fact I had to work on a paper for my mass media class.  There was more work to do on that paper than I thought too because I started working on it at 7:30 in the evening and wound up standing up and declaring it finished at 6:30 a.m. on my birthday.  Went and had a shower and went to work.  Needless to say, with no sleep, I was pretty out of it throughout the whole of my birthday.  (Including during the presentation of that paper later that evening in front of my classmates).  But I managed to get through it.  Because I was awake so long, I reasoned out that it was okay for me to have a few more calories than I normally do, so I had around 1300 that day.  Not something I would want to do on a regular basis, but it’s sleep or extra calories, and I couldn’t afford to make it sleep.   So by the time I got home from school at nearly 10 p.m., I was not only a zombie, but had used up my nutrient allowance and then some! Still…it was my birthday….so I made some popcorn in olive oil and measured out 7 cups and enjoyed that more than I would have enjoyed cake!  Net carbs on that little indiscretion was about 30.  Far more than the daily allowance on IP, but hey….did I mention it was my birthday?  That’s right! 

Better than cake to me....

So last night, on the 10th, my husband took me out for Greek food, which I enjoyed very much.  I didn’t stray too far from the diet to eat it either.  I had a gyro salad, which is basically gyro meat, feta and a salad with Italian-like dressing.  So I had to do a little estimating, but I figured I wasn’t too far afield from my average daily calories when the day was all said and done. 

My friend Marina is still making a cake for my birthday, which she’s bringing into work on Monday morning.  I’m going to eat a piece of it, enjoy it and have no regrets.  Life should be lived without constant apology – and since I have so far to go on this journey, a little way-stop now and then to smell the roses or eat the Russian tiramisu (called a Napoleaon) keeps you from losin’ your frakkin’ mind and giving up entirely.  At least that’s my take on it.

Weigh Day! :)

Wooot! 5.3 pounds. Snoopy dancin' all over the place!

Well, not really sure why I had such a great week, but I had a great week.  I lost 5.3 pounds this week!  I am shocked to say the least.  Sam says I’m her best pupil.  Of course this is nothing by standards like The Biggest Loser, but hey!  There’s no $250,000 prize at the end of my rainbow, and I’m not beating my brains out to do this either so I think it works out to be fair. 

Sam (my Ideal Protein coach) and I talked about the foods I’d been eating – not too much IP food these days.  Mostly just abiding by the IP principles and taking the IP supplements.  It’s a harsh diet that doesn’t allow fruit and doesn’t allow vegetables with high sugar contents either.  But the results are good so far.  I’m up to 29.3 pounds gross weight lost since October 12 – so I gotta be doin’ something right.  Right?  Though some days I’m not sure….

My birthday is coming up later this week and a friend at work is going to make the Russian equivalent of tiramisu for me.  I will absolutely have to eat some.  She’s super sweet to make it for me, so I will enjoy it very much, I’m sure.  I think the husand and I will wind up going out to Cafe Neo for dinner that night – wait….no…I guess not.  School night.  Maybe I’ll ask my friend to hold off on the Russian cake blitz ’til Friday so I can do all the badness in one day.  Yes… I think it will be more a cause for celebration to have the convergence of a Friday, a birthday and good food on Friday when I can actually enjoy it.  When classes for this quarter will be all done at the UW  (with the exception of one make-up day that had to happen due to the football game and the inability to park on campus because of it), but essentially there will be lots ot celebrate.  And there’s lots to celebrate about the weight loss number I pulled tonight.  Not too shabby.  I wonder if the clothes I was wearing last time were heavier…. lol!  Obcess much?

Well, it wasn’t the Vitamin D Afterall

Thought I’d just check in and let everyone who’s reading this thing know that it wasn’t vitamin D that gave me the weird rash on my neck.  I accidentally found out last night when I repeated the damage.  Lemme tell you the story. …

Last month I had to go and see a dermatologist because I wound up having my annual way-to-dry-skin problems.  She prescribed the usual, overpriced stuff called OluxE.  Thank goodness I have insurance.  Anyways, in addition to the Olux E which is the work horse for such problems, the dermatologist prescribed that I buy an over the counter lotion called Amlactin.  I didn’t read about it or even read the back of the bottle.  It was in the skin care section of the drugstore and didn’t need a prescription…it was being prescribed as a moisturizer for my severely dry skin, and it did a great job on my legs and arms, etc…  My neck got a little itchy, so I reached for this stuff and smeared some on my neck before going to work.  I in no way associated it with the severity of the rash because I assumed it was just a moisturizing lotion.  Well….that ain’t true!  Here’s the deal…. Amlactin, as turns out, is in large part composed of lactic acid.  Oh yes.  Lactic acid.  With a pH of 4.5, it’s not what you want to be putting on sensitive, distressed skin – but that’s just what I did last night.  Lemme tell you that this stuff burned like nobody’s business and I had to quicly go and wash it off which didn’t stop it all the way.  The skin on my neck which was already messed up from the last time, sloughed off and another layer and became even more red than before!  Arg! 

WARNING: Not to be used when what you need a really effective moisturizer!!!!

So I just wanted to update and say that it wasn’t vitamin D that did it.  I resumed taking D, so the experiment about whether it aids in fat burning is still on, and I will update this blog on the discoveries of its use.

As for Ideal Protein, I’m still going strong since recovering from the decadence of Thanksgiving.   I’ll check in again at weigh-day with an updated loss.

Miracle Supplement? Or bringer of weird, sunburn like rash…..

Apparently the safest and best way to get your D on is through sunlight - but it's a bit tough to run around naked in the Pacific Northwest....

Well, I was going to post today about the weight loss benefits of Vitamin D as I understood them from reading an article in a women’s magazine.  However, for the past couple of days, which is just a couple of days longer than I have been taking the increased dose of Vitamin D, I have developed a weird rash on my neck and abdomen.  It’s not just dry skin either (for that I have the wonder drug of OluxE which costs my insurance company $400 per 6 ounce can).  No…no…this is something different, and I guess I’m going to have to pay attention to it. 

Vitamin D was a talk subject on NPR this morning as something that is currently trending in the wellness circles.  The article that I read talked about the great benefits of taking mega doses of Vitamin D, up to 10,000 I.U. per day and how it helped to burn off fat in the body – especially in the belly area.  (Yes, it is highly likely that the annoying ad you see in your Gmail account, on your facebook and pretty much anywhere you go is touting the benefits of plenty of Vitamin D).  But there are other supposed benefits such as the reduction of the likelihood of developing an auto immune disorder – too late for me on that one…. and help with other arthritic sorts of conditions.

Anyway, my sunburn-like rash is almost gone since I discontinued taking the large doses just two days ago.  I’m going to wait until it’s totally gone, and then I’ll try again.  If it comes back, I’ll know.  Stay tuned!