Good Friday - Roll Call

[Scooterjam]

Good Morning my fellow STACer's,

Well it's good Friday. I usually take this 3 days off, but my boss is on vacation in Washington DC and I'm holding the fort down. I've got 2 gigs tomorrow, don't know what I was thinking. I shall survive, and take Easter Sunday to mellow out, spend time at home, and think about the past year. For those of you who don't know me, I started this wonderful journey the day after Easter a year ago. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Couple things, our good buddy Knipper97 said yesterday, 'Isnt making Food such a big factor for entertainment and holidays part of our problem? It is for me. I didnt get fat turning down fried food and baklava?' Well, I suppose to a point, that is correct, but we have family's, we have 'traditions', my 24 year old son just asked us 'why the heck are you coloring eggs'.

simple. 'Tradition'. Add a physical event in. Becky (dreamsof145) stated that they are going to play volleyball, because she likes to add some type of physical activity into the day. Granted, we all won't have the weather to do that, but you can try to come up with something.

I love to do it (celebrate holidays). Maybe it's the kid in me, who knows. We enjoy it. And just because you're living this way of life doesn't mean you have to give up your holidays. That's just plain silly. You find substitutions, you still have to be with family, there's still going to be dishes you can not have, or do not want to have, simply because you've learned to eat better and have 'planned' on how to survive a distasterous taste, by not doing giving in to that specific tempation. So instead of that honey glazed ham, that everybody else is eating, buy a nicer cut of meat, steak for yourself and grill it. Believe me, everyone at the table is going to be envious of my plate....haha I can hear it now! A nice New York Strip steak cooked medium rare, topped with blue cheese, faux potato salad, side salad with homemade dressing, 3 fresh spears of Asparagus, a slice of SF Pumpkin Cheesecake with homemade whipped cream on top, and a big old club soda with a splash of SF Red Raspberry syrup, fresh veggies (my new best friend Jicama) and veggie dip. I 'plan' on making it a great day, spent with family, and not being hungry for all the carb infested junk they will all be eating! Life is to short as it is to not 'Celebrate' my dear Knipper97 but you are still correct, YOU do what works for YOU! (Scooter offers hand to shake........ smile!)

So, in the spirit of todays 'pot luck' I have brought my own Scooter's Indiana Faux Potato Salad. Dig in it's good........

Scooter's Indiana Faux Potato Salad

Small 4 inch head of cauliflowerets,
3 hard boiled eggs - chopped
1 Medium to large Dill pickle - chopped
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 cup celery
1/4 cup green onions
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup mayo
1 tablespoon of mustard

Boil the caulifower, just till fork tender (6 minutes max). Mix it all together and eat it warm, or cold. It's really best the second day, so make it Saturday for Sunday Dinner. Makes at least 6 servings, 2.58 net carbs. (I entered everything into fitday, subtracted the dietary fiber and divided by 6)

When the weather was warmer a few weeks ago, I made this with burgers on the grill. My family saw me eating and said, 'hey....I thought you couldn't have potato's................as they were eating it too......' I just smiled and said, yup. You are correct. They couldn't even tell the difference till I told them. See Knipper.....you can still celebrate, you just have to plan my good friend.

Everybody have a wonderful weekend, I will try to check in this weekend, going to be a busy one. Have a beautiful day, I'll just leave this potato salad over here (over ice) to it stays nice. Dig in! See you at lunch time!

By the way: Does anyone else have favorite movies that they watch with their family's every Easter. Tops: Ten Commandments, Jesus Christ Superstar (of course, I'm a rocker, how could I not....duh!!!) and Ben Hur!

Bon Apetite - Happy Happy Easter to you all!! Be careful this weekend and be good to yourselves!!

[QSECOFR]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Good morning to all
Hope y'all have a good weekend in all senses of the word

QSECOFR
327/310/199 37.66

[Outback Jess]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Good morning Scooter! Your salad looks yummy! Sounds like you've got some very busy days coming up..
I'll try to pop in and start the STAC thread of the day....something I use to love to do...see if I can get the creative inspirational juices going again in my life!
Just think, you are closing in on 1 year. I love that, I look for that in the people's siggy or top bar stuff, I think that is to be valued over weightloss...Longevity, lifestyle, when you go for that, little bumps in the road really end up being meaningless, like your bump where you were gone for a while, but look you are back and thriving, and moving towards all your weightloss goals and maintaining a lifestyle that you can live with and feel great on!
THAT'S WHAT I WANT...and I am cruising towards Aug1 because I believe in longevity!

[huggija]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Good morning all! Great post Scooter, as always. I agree with you...because we live this WOL, there's no reason to feel that we're 'missing something' on holidays. We can celebrate with our families and eat the way we KNOW we need and want to. Like I said yesterday...it's just a MEAL...so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Food sustains us, it doesn't MAKE us.

I had a real breakthrough this week. Over the last several months, I had become a 'sneak' eater. If I stopped to fill up with gas on the way home, I would get a chocolate chip muffin or some other junk food and make sure the wrapper was gone by the time I got home. If my husband was out of town, I'd go on a junk food fest; pizza, popcorn or whatever else bad I could get. AS IF MY BODY DIDN'T KNOW because there was no witness!!! Last night, my husband was gone and I wasn't even tempted. I baked a chicken breast and had red pepper rings with a smidgeon of cream cheese and LOTS of water. I felt so good about that...I feel I turned a corner on the sneak eating which tells me I'm (at least) approaching 'the zone'. Has anyone else had this problem? It really amazes me...just can't figure it out. I know better, but yet I felt powerless. So glad that I don't feel that way any more!

For my potluck, I'd bring an appetizer:

Cheddar & swiss cut into bunny shapes (with a cookie cutter) with celery sticks and red pepper rings.

Hope everyone has a great ATKINS Easter! Don't be tempted by those god-awful chocolate bunnies or peeps. It's POISON!

[MorningGlory]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Happy Friday~~Have a great Easter weekend~

[speedyturtle]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Hoppin in to say Good Morning just about rdy to get to work.

[ValidRouge]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Scooter, that salad sounds delish. In fact, I think I'm going to make that as my dish this year. It's usually a BIG hit.

I'm here, on plan, on induction, losing weight, feeling great!

[heatherm422]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Good morning everyone! Off to work on this Good Friday; hope everyone has a great day!!

[Sheepie]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Good morning all.
I feel almost the opposite about food. But I think it's okay to feel differently. I don't think that it's just a meal, just for sustenance. Rather than take away its importance, I've increased it. Few things are as important as sustenance! We are more careful with our shopping and our choices and we are much more thoughtful about what we eat. I feel that our bodies and what we eat are too important to treat like garbage. I also think that "breaking bread" (or steak) with someone is a type of communion, in a more spiritual than religious way. Sharing a meal with someone feeds us on a different level. Why denigrate such a meaningful experience with "carb infested" sustenance? (love that term!) Sharing a meal with someone is still important and I think that our new lifestyle should enhance it, not take away from it!

I think I'll bring the steak to the potluck. We love Buffalo wings, so we marinate our steak in hot sauce and chopped garlic overnight in a plastic bag. Then grill it. We like to serve it topped with Gorgonzola, but any blue cheese or feta will do. If there are leftovers, it makes a great steak salad.

[badweiser]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Great post scooter, and the salad sounds great! Happy Easter to all!!!


greg

[WarOnTypeII]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

IN - A tad disconcerted about being able to lift weights any time soon, but eager to try.


This diet seems to be working BUT I think my 273 last week was a false reading. Mostly water and all ? I'm still 273 this morning. But perhaps it's actual fat loss occuring. Not sure, but not worried, I know staying true to the program will work.


Good Luck all and Happy [Your Deal Here]

[julirama723]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Great post scooter!

Hugg--oh yes, I was a total "closet" eater. I would eat snacks and throw the wrappers away so no one would notice. I would drive through McD's, eat a meal, and dump the trash, even going so far as to spray air freshener or body spray in my car so no one would smell the food! I've done a complete reversal of my ways. I no longer binge secretly. I eat healthily!

I'm having a great day! I just took my measurements for the 4th of July challenge, and this running thing is really paying off! I've lost 7.75 inches in ONE WEEK and have stayed at 194. According to www.fittogether.net I've exchanged 2.57 pounds of fat for 2.57 pounds of MUSCLE!! Yeah baby!

Today I'm going to the gym, going to do some strength training (and no running, gotta give the legs a break, I'm at 18 miles for the week already!) and later my boyfriend and I are going shopping for Easter preparations. I have the day off, so as Scooter says, "life is good"!!!

Have a great day, STACers!

[QSECOFR]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Hey Hugg,

Yea, I did the whole stealth snack thing, exactly as you describe. That was one of the steps in my descent from sanity to carb madness.

First it's the holiday meal. The little voice in the back of your head is a little bit wary, but eh, it'll be ok. It'll take a couple of days to straighten back up from the carb blast, but it'll be worth it.
Oh, it's just for this one meal.

Then it's the leftovers. The little voice in your head is cool with the leftover turkey, but it's really giving you the evil eye about the dressing and gravy.
Well, it'd be such a shame to throw this away.

Then it's the Ho-Hos when you stop in to buy a lottery ticket. The little voice in the back of your head doesn't really say anything, but it is starting to do this little nervous giggle.
The holiday binge didn't hurt that much, and I'll just get this one to sort of wean myself back off it again.

Then it's just stopping in to buy the Ho-Hos and Suzi-Qs and King Dons and all the rest. Now the little voice in the back of your head is heard from. "What are you doing? You know you're going to feel like crap if you do this."
I know I haven't weighed in a few days, but I don't feel like I'm getting any heavier. Besides, you're supposed to increase your carbs a little bit.

Then it's the drive-up at McD's, or even better, yea, that's it!! WHITE CASTLE!!!!
(For those of you who don't know from White Castle, I'm not even going to try to describe it. Let's say it's gastronomically unique and leave it at that)
By this time your scale is covered with dust if you even know where it still is, the excuses have been reduced to only a token protest, and you've gotten quite adept at ignoring the screaming sounds coming from that one little corner of your brain that's still somewhat sane.

Then it's the serious binge when the SO is out of town. We're talking carbs by the kilo here. Pizza (homemade of course and on a whole wheat crust so it's healthy) for lunch, pasta for dinner, all of it liberally laced with some really good ice cream. The little voice just giggles and farts and drools and sucks on it's fingers. It's long since gone from the realms of sanity. It's nothing but a tiny piece of pure insanity at this point, driven mad by your actions.
I wonder why my knee keeps popping all the time?

Thoughts that somethings is wrong start to set in when you have to buy larger pants again because all the smaller ones that you bought to celebrate the loss of weight are no longer wearable (unless you're masochistic).
Gee, if I'm having to buy bigger pants I probably ought to lose a little weight. Better cut back in what I'm eating.

Suddenly, the only thing you're cutting out of your diet is that occasional Ho-Ho or King Don and somehow the madness has increased to where to actually feel good about yourself for skipping one lousy Nutty-Buddy.


And then you finally stop and look at yourself nekkid in the mirror. Not a casual glance, but actually stop and look. When the waves of revulsion and nausea pass, you go and dig the scale out from under all the junk you piled on it in the garage, where you put it after somehow rationalizing that you no longer needed it. You step on the scale, but somehow in all the shuffle and clutter it must have gotten broken, since there's quite obviously no way you weigh THAT much. Oh well, it was a cheap scale anyway.

You manage to put off buying another scale for a couple of weeks. You notice that you're constantly gassy and that you have to ease the ol' belt out another two notches. Uh-oh, no more holes left in the belt. All this gas is causing a lot of bloating (never thinking that you're in the last hole on your belt because you've been sucking up enough calories and carbs to feed a small third world nation for a week).

You finally stop and get a new scale, step confidently up on it, and are crushed by the realization that "Yes lardbottom, you really and truly DO weigh that much". The scale in the garage wasn't wrong. It was dirty, but it wasn't broken.

That's right, all that work you put in on the diet IS GONE, LARDBOTTOM.

And then the light comes on- "you did this once from a worse place than you are now. You know what to do, you know how to do it."

Rummage through the closet and by Toutatis, you still have all four supplements left. In one of those moments of midnight clarity, you go through your kitchen like a scourge, driving all the evil carbs before you. Partially eaten packages of whatever? Oh well, it's not going to get eaten now. Into the garbage with it. Unopened packages? You briefly debate giving it away until it dawns on you how hypocritical that would be. "Oh, here, I think this crap is death in box and I refuse to eat it. Want it?". You might give it to your ex, but not anybody else. Into the trash.

After the carb purging rampage, you fix a nice grilled chicken salad with just a bit of homemade vinaigrette that tastes heavenly. This salad hitting your innards is like the rain hitting the desert.

And then you're back. Back to eating sensibly, back to feeling better. The little voice in your head is not saying anything, just looking at you with that wry look that says it all.

"It's about time"

QSECOFR
327/310/199

[lisadallasr]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Hi everyone, just checkin in. Today is a good day, and a breath of fresh air for me, i did not do to good yesterday with food choices but was paying the price last night, and woke up today with just picking myself up where i left off and move on, i did not plan very well yesterday and it got the best of me, with being at an amusement park all day and thinking i will just eat when i get home, was just plain stupid to be honest, and i was so dehydrated last night, i felt awful, so i know i have retained some water because my body did not get much yesterday so we are letting go of it today thank god, i felt so bloated when i woke up this morning. As for my excercise yesterday i decided to work out on Saturday to make up for yesterday, yes i walked through the park yesterday but it was not a breaking sweat kind of walk so im not counting it towards my 6wk challenge. Well i hope you all have a good Friday and i will check in later!!!!

[huggija]

Re: Good Friday - Roll Call

Holy Twinkies, qsecofr! You described the process to a 'T'. Great post...my guess is others will recognize it in themselves too. I used to think that I was the only one with the problem (well, ok, not the ONLY one, but figured it was rare). Which of course, just made it worse by my conscience saying 'what kind of a loser are you anyway?' 'Since you're already fat, why not have whatever you want?' That kind of stinkin' thinkin' is what got me here, but with everyone's support and my determination, I'M GONNA BE SUCCESSFUL!

You made my day. Thanks!

Hope you have a great Easter.