Day 3

Well, this is not getting any easier! Yesterday my husband came home from work and starting eating girl scout cookies right in front of me as I was cooking dinner. He left the open box right next to the stove and went into the next room. Normally I would have popped a few in my mouth and hid the evidence. But this time, I knew that it would be cheating not only on the diet, but the challenge and this blog. So I jammed the cookies back into the the box and put it away in the pantry..go me! And then I finished cooking....

I made the most delicious crust-less quiche! I got the recipe from a French Country Cooking cook book I took out from the library. Basically, I sauteed bacon, onions, ham, mushrooms and tomatoes. Then in another bowl, I mixed 3 eggs, 1 yolk and 2 cups of cream. The filling came out a bit too much, so next time maybe just 1.5 cups of cream. I placed the bacon mixture in a dish, covered it with grated Swiss cheese and poured the cream mixture over everything. I baked it for 35 minutes and let it sit for 25 minutes afterwards. Presto! It was amazing! I even ate some for breakfast today and it gave me an idea...I should do mini quiches and have them as a quick breakfast option. I am not that big on eggs, but the cream really hid the "eggy" taste and texture. I thought it would taste like an omelet, but it was very different. My husband loved it!

I also asked my friends on an Atkins forum about cooking with wine. I got mixed reviews. Some said absolutely no, but another person said, that it may be okay because cooking can burn off the alcohol. Here's my take...I know alcohol is not allowed on induction, but I have done this diet sooo many times and if I can make interesting food with wine and still lose .4lbs (like I did this morning) then I am happy. I would rather eat Beef Bourguignon with wine and lose a smaller amount than force down another boring salad or bunless burger! So, I may not be following the induction 100%, but these small allowances might just keep me on the diet this time. We'll see. Maybe I will stop losing and I will have to deal with that, but for now, I am not overly concerned with getting into ketosis.

I also sat down and planned my meals for the upcoming week. It gave me something to look forward to. As I stated in an earlier post, my husband is from France and so I decided to use a lot of French recipes to help me along with this diet. This food reminds him of when he was young, so it is fun for both of us. (I will never be able to deny my emotional attachment to food!!). Some of my recipes for this week will come from the book I talking about earlier:

http://www.amazon.com/Look-Cook-French-Country-Cooking/dp/156458867X

I am trying not to make this all about cooking, but food is probably the best part of this diet!

I am so happy to see some followers, so please feel free to share ideas! We can do this together!

Day 2

I didn't want to do it, but I woke up this morning and weighed myself. I was curious to see how my first day went. Yes, it's probably water weight, but who really cares, right? A loss is a loss! So I am down 1.8lbs! Very very good for the first day back. I won't go into detail about the meal plan for yesterday, but I will say that I made Bacon Chicken Roulade with a red wine reduction for dinner and it was great. My husband loved it too. At first I thought it would be time consuming, but it wasn't that bad.

Here is the recipe I used:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_bacon_roulades/

Instead of the white wine, I used a Chianti. I used to be completely hard core when it came to counting carbs, but then I realized that it wouldn't be the end of the world if you used a little bit of wine with dinner. I think 4oz has about 2 grams. The recipe also called for 1 TBSP of flour. That was a tough one, so I used just a sprinkle. My sauce came up a little thin, so maybe I might have to use the full tablespoon next time.

Anyway, pretty good for a first day back in Atkins land and I am happy to report no headache this time. Usually I get this horrible headache on the first day. I am looking forward to cooking my next meal. But first I need to figure out what it will be!

41 days to go!

Week One: Day 1

Weight: 205lbs (eek!)
Body Fat: 41.3
Muscle: 47.1
Waist: 42

Okay, so today we start. I weighed myself and took my measurements. Awhile ago I purchased a Biggest Loser scale that tells me all of those nifty facts (except waist measurement). I also like it because it weighs you in .2lb increments. Even a loss of .2 can motivate you!

My send away meal yesterday? I only chose to eat poorly for dinner and we went to Pei Wei Asian Diner. I had mongolian beef (my favorite), brown rice, and girl scout cookies for dessert. I love those cookies. My husband just bought 8 boxes from his boss and now I have to find a way to hide them in pantry! The meal was great and loaded with carbs!

My goal of this blog is to keep myself motivated and responsible. I am not going to detail the exact meals I eat each day, but if something cool comes up food wise, I will be sure to report it. The biggest question is, how am I going to make this time different than the others? Here's my answer: I recently realized that a lot of fabulous, gourmet food is low in carbs. My husband is French and there are so many possibilities. What, with all that butter and cream they use! So, I figured, if I have to do this, why not make it interesting and try new things. So I will do my best to make food creative rather than eat salads all the time. However, I travel like a crazy person for my job, so that may pose a problem when on the road. In those cases, I will have to turn to the usual suspects, burgers without buns, salads, etc. But when I am home, watch out! I told my husband to mind his waist during this experiment. Maybe he will join me!

The Atkins Challenge: Why am I doing this?

I decided that I am going to challenge myself. I have started and stopped the Atkins diet too many times to count. But, here's the deal. I turn 30 in exactly 6 weeks. I am having a huge party with old friends that I haven't seen in awhile. The truth is that I have gained a TON of weight and am really embarrassed to see them all. See, about 2 years ago I lost about 85lbs, went to my high school reunion and looked fabulous. I started with a calorie counting program and then finished with Atkins. But, I couldn't keep the weight off. Rather quickly, I gained about 35-30lbs. I hovered there for a bit and then gained another 20lbs. Then came the holidays and whamo, another 10lbs. So depressing! My mom always told me to get my weight in check by the time I was 30 because of metabolism or something. So I always had this deadline, but I was so young, it didn't matter. Now it does. So here I am, about to engage in an Atkins Challenge. To stick with the diet for at least 6 weeks, in good times and bad. Starting this blog will commit me to the challenge. I am hoping it will have the same affect that Julie Powell's blog had on her...a sense of determination to see it to the end. Except, hers was a year and mine is only 6 weeks. For those of you don't know, Julie Powell wrote the Julie/Julia project and it is now a great movie.

Wish me luck!