Tuesday

Here's yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• A bottle of water on the way to work
• beef jerky (got hungry mid-day; it has soy sauce/wheat in it)
• gruyere cheese (rather a lot)
• sirloin burger patties with TJs green salsa on them
• tomato and cucumber salad with homemade (nasty, unfortunately) italian salad dressing
• ice tea
• chocolate cherries
• walnuts

I think that's it.  I was at 142.8 this morning, which is probably statistically identical to yesterday.  I'm IFing this morning, just 'cause - Lee had to get up and out of the house early, so I told him he could skip cooking breakfast if he wanted, and he did.  Don't know if it will last all day or not - I'm a bit peckish at the moment.  If it gets out of hand, I'll probably have more jerky, since it should, theoretically, be somewhat better for me than trail mix.

Lee mentioned yesterday that he feels like he's lost weight but is not strong.  I'm fine with going to the gym, if he wants to do that, but I would prefer not to be put in the role of making sure he goes (by always being the one to remember that we agreed to do it - that's usually how it works).  But I'll probably end up doing it anyway.  Not tonight - he's going to the golf course to do greens maintenance or something.

I need to find a recipe for italian salad dressing that tastes like Kraft Zesty Italian, but without the soybean oil and other nastiness.  I love tomatoes and cucumbers marinated that way - and don't much care for cucumbers any other way.  The stuff I made for last night was red wine vinegar and EVOO (2 oil to 1 vinegar) with a spice mix intended for green goddess dressing.  Not good - not enough vinegar flavor, to start with, and the spices were bland.  If I find something that works, I will post it - and I'll probably throw the rest of that stuff away.

Monday

Wow - two days away from home, eating in restaurants, and I lost 2.4 pounds!  Nice!  Here's what we ate yesterday, as I recall it:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• sliced tomatoes
• tea with cream
• sliced cheddar cheese
• smoked sliced turkey with mustard BBQ sauce
• iced tea
• cole slaw
• raspberries and blueberries with whipped cream (just a bit of sugar and vanilla in it)
• walnuts
• gruyere

Saturday was similar, although I did have lunch on Saturday:

• bacon
• sausage
• strawberries
• cottage cheese
• tea with cream
• wendy's double cheese, no bun (note to self - must explicitly request a fork for this)
• NY Strip steak
• steamed veggies
• salad with blue cheese dressing
• creme brulee

And Friday, I made it through the Harry Potter movie with no popcorn.  Lee bought some milk chocolate covered almonds and I had a few of those, but nothing else.  I was vastly helped in this not eating by the woman in the row in front of us, who had a belly hanging over her jeans that shook much more than a "bowlful of jelly" - it appeared to be filled with a slightly viscous fluid - a bit thicker than water, but not much.  Really disgusting to look at.

We are thinking (early days yet) of doing the Whole 30 program.  For me, it would mean eating at home for nearly all meals, cooking more middle-tier ingredients (like mayo), and swearing off the dairy.  That last thing would be the absolute hardest for me, since I eat cheese so much, and use heavy cream to swap for most of my former-carb calories.  The reason I'm thinking it might help is for Lee - he still suffers from a bad set of allergies and sinus issues, and they are NOT going away with our Archevore/Paleo eating approach.  So if we were to eliminate all inflammatory foods for a month, I'm hoping he could see some improvement in those areas - as well as breaking his plateau a bit.  It's still in the thinking stages yet - I would want to test out some dairy alternatives and he's going to have to get his head around avoiding sweeteners of all sorts for a month - if we get to a solid plan for it and actually do it, I'll definitely report out. 

The garden is starting to produce - and how!  We've picked 3 huge bunches of raspberries - each about twice what comes in those little plastic boxes at the grocery store.  A few blueberries - a good start there, anyway.  And the tomatoes took off while we were gone - we have one ripe one in the kitchen, and lots to follow.  I think I should actually be able to freeze some fresh tomato sauce this year.  And make pickles - 4 cucumbers picked so far, and more to come.  They seem very happy.

Friday

Met a friend for lunch yesterday (a rather rare thing for me, eating lunch) and we went to a summer event here - the gathering of all the mobile lunch trucks in a main park downtown.  I found a paleo truck, more or less: they had grassfed beef burgers and explicitly offered them in a lettuce wrap (fortunately, served in a cardboard thingie with a fork and knife).  O G Burgers, they're called.  It was very tasty, especially after I added sharp cheddar and bacon.

Here's the day's food, listed:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• Perrier
  
• turkey sausage (Lee was hungry yesterday)
• grassfed burger with cheese and bacon
• water
• cheese snack
• chocolate cherries
• cashews
• Qdoba naked burrito, no beans, with shredded beef, sour cream, cheese, salsa, and guacamole

The burrito did have rice, and I ate every scrap of it.  No weight-related bad effects from the rice so far - I'm at 145.0 today.  Had some complex leg cramps last night, though - first in my toes, which I attribute to wearing some toe-constricting shoes and walking a bit yesterday.  As the toes were settling down, my left leg cramped up on the outside of the calf in a jumpy sort of way (I was asleep when this began, I believe), ultimately forcing me to stomp it out.  It didn't hurt, but it was bending my foot in a way no foot should go.  I'm assuming either potassium depletion, dehydration, or both.  Although I know I had water both at lunch and right after it, because it was hot out at lunch - and a Perrier on the drive in to work as well. Took an extra potassium this morning and will drink more water today; one or the other should settle it, I hope.  Because we're headed to Cheyenne tonight, and I KNOW there won't be any grocery stores carrying coconut water up there, so it has to settle down.

We are getting gallons of raspberries right now - the bushes have been loaded.  Also a few blueberries, which is very cool since our soil pH doesn't really support them.  I figure I'll have to do something next year to re-acidify the soil - maybe do a heavy mulch with pine straw or something.  Anyway, we ate some of the raspberries and gave more to my parents.  They're very good.

Headed to Cheyenne for the weekend - not Frontier Days, that's not for a week; Lee has a golf tournament.  I think we'll eat okay - probably hit up several steakhouses.  And do a movie - must see the last Harry Potter.  Undoubtedly with some popcorn, though I will limit it to a small one - I've learned.

Thursday

I am rapidly bidding a fond (not!) farewell to the water - 145.8 this morning.  Lee was down another 2 pounds, so returning to sane eating habits is doing both of us much good.  Here is yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• tea with cream
• pork tenderloin
• green beans with bacon
• iced tea
• chocolate almonds and cherries
• cheese snacks
• walnuts
• more tea with cream

I think that's it, anyway.  We did the pork on the grill, with a spice rub I picked up on vacation - lots of cracked pepper in it (also, unfortunately, turbinado sugar and wheat gluten, according to the ingredients - didn't read them when I bought it).  It was quite tasty.

There are rumors floating around right now that someone is suggesting that obese children be removed from their parents and placed in protective custody somewhere.  I can't help thinking that the foster families will promptly feed them according to government guidelines and be baffled that they are not losing any weight; probably much as their actual parents were.  Notwithstanding the horrible dietary consequences of all this, I am utterly opposed to it - the government should mind its own damn business.  This is yet another one of those days that I wonder just when I fell into the rabbit hole; things are very catty-wampus all over, and there appears to be no likelihood of it getting better.

At least we have our health.  For now, anyway.

Wednesday

Lost nearly 2 pounds of water yesterday - my ankles are more ankle-shaped than they were the whole trip home, but still a bit puffy, so I don't think I'm done yet.  147.0 today.  Lee says he's down 2.2 pounds.  Yesterday's eating:

• Scrambled Eggs
• Bacon
• Tea with cream
• Cheese snacks and sliced cheddar
• Chocolate cherries and almonds (a few)
• Walnuts
• A few cashews
• Braised short ribs with wine sauce (good recipe from the Food Network, adapted for crock pot)
• Berries and cream

I had a lot of energy throughout the day - spent a good chunk of it weeding a garden bed that had been clean when we left, and covered with 3-foot weeds when we returned (lotsa rain while we were gone, apparently).  And today - back to the grind.

Back from Vacation

All in all, I do think we tried to eat well - and mostly succeeded.  But 10 days on the road, eating restaurant food, is murder no matter what.  Lee thinks he drank more beer during this past weekend than he had the entire previous year - I was probably right there with him, although I didn't have as much as he did - but then, I'm not a huge beer fan.  We also ate seafood more often than normal for us - since we were right there with it and it was fresh.  I find that I rather like Red Snapper - and I had some scallops as well that were very good.  Things I can eat here, I think, a bit more frequently.

But there was also the night we arrived and had dinner with a friend at his restaurant - a pizza joint.  Total Fail.  Not much one could do, really.  We ate bread.  And it tasted pretty good.  But man!  The next morning we were both stiff and sore and felt awful - inflammation, I think.  That, and walking around the Naval Academy and the city of Annapolis, probably, with legs more used to sitting than standing.  A whole lotta fish, and the stiffness went away pretty quickly.

We did a lot of meat-based meals, bunless burgers, and the like.  As I said - we ate pretty well.  But Lee says he's up 6 pounds.  And me?  I'm up about 6 - 148.8 this morning (Ugh!!!).  I think some of it is water - I got badly sunburned on Saturday morning and have been really swollen up as a result.  Which reminds me - coconut oil may work for an overcast couple of mid-day hours in Cheyenne, but the sunny day in Virginia Beach totally killed it.  I'm sure I got a lot of Vitamin D, but not in the right way - and I'm still paying.

Cheese and salami in the cooler worked pretty well - except when we had to put the cooler in the car and park it for a few hours - it didn't run during those times.  We brought way too much salami and had to toss it, which was a bummer.  I can say that we avoided buying food from truck stops this trip - and that is a very good thing.  Walnuts were good - and we did hit Trader Joes (anywhere there is one, we go) and got some more dark-chocolate-what-have-yous - probably ate more of those than we should have.

So, back to eating normally again.  Braised short ribs in the crock pot this morning, and I mean to pull a pork tenderloin from the freezer to thaw overnight for tomorrow.

Friday

Very likely no updates next week, since we'll be on the road (yeah!!!).  Here is yesterday's eating:

• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• turkey sausage
• tea with cream
• carnitas street tacos with guacamole (I ate 2 corn tortillas as a part of this)
• a Starbucks "dark chocolate" bar - no idea what all was in it
• Bunless Cheesesteak
• cottage cheese
• the odd french fry
• probably a chocolate or two

We were packing and getting organized last night so things were crazy.  I'm at 143.2 this morning; delayed reaction to the sugar and fries and ice cream, I would tend to guess.  My plan for the next week is to keep the desserts down and stick to the norm (for us) and see how it goes - I think we'll be fine.  The cheese and salami are being packed, and we also have walnuts and some of our dark chocolate nuts and berries, so we can avoid those truck stop food-buying issues.