Thursday, March 31, 2011

Week 3 Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday
Breakfast -Atkins bar, 2 beef sticks
Lunch - Spinach salad with onions, balsamic vinaigrette, guac, tuna salad and two eggs.
Dinner- Ahi poke, Tuna sashimi, and spinach salad with candied walnuts with ceasar dressing
Two glasses of wine.

Thursday
Breakfast - Atkins bar and 2 beef sticks
Lunch - Atkins bar
Snack - Atkins bar
Dinner - one chicken sausage, two spoonfuls of peas and 4  beef sticks

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Week 3, Tuesday

Weighed in this morning at a whopping 178.  Not sure what I did yesterday that was so bad, but got some work to do to get back down to 175.  Damn!

Breakfast -- atkins bar and three beef sticks
Lunch -- spinach salad, onions, quac, and corned beef for protein
Afternoon snack -- 4oz beef jerky from Whole Foods
Dinner -- Atkins bar and 4 beef sticks

Monday, March 28, 2011

Monday morning, start of Week 3!

Last night I weighed in at 176.5 in the evening, which meant that I'm in line for setting a new low.  That was great.  But then I couldn't sleep, and was up on and off til 3am.  It was tough to not eat anything (low carb or not) while I was up late.  I persevered, and weighed in at 175 this morning before Crossfit.  So a good start to the week!

We're out of Atkins bars, beef sticks, and eggs.
I had to resort to slicing my own Hillshire Farms Summer Sausage.  Had a couple ounces of that for breakfast.
I had lunch with a Crossfit friend at our Cafeteria -- Grilled Tuna with summer vegetables, onion relish served on some sort of slaw.  On a bed of rice which I didn't eat.
Afternoon snack -- another couple ounces of summer sausage
Dinner -- My leftover atkins pizza from Romio's, which consists of mozzarrella, pepperoni and a few jalapenos.  Oil base, so no tomato sauce carbies.

I feel fuller than yesterday, so hopefully I won't put on any weight in the morning.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Saturday and Sunday morning!

Saturday I had my normal weekend fare --
Atkins bar and some beef sticks in the morning for breakfast.

Snacked on beef sticks throughout the day, and one string cheese stick.
Dinner was leftover buffalo meatloaf with mayo and some salad with vinaigrette.

Sunday morning I started off with a crossfit workout which culminated in 15 tuck jumps plus 15 situps x9. Then did a bonus Farmer's Walk with Dora, Sherry and Erica. Erica and Sherry carried the reds, and I carried the greens, so I have resolved to carry reds next week!

Upon returning home, I found the kitchen alive with my wife cooking cinnamon rolls (cinnabon recipe) and hot dog pancakes for some friends. Aargh! She has promised to make me hot dog scrambled eggs. The jury is still out, but I will try to resist the carby goodness!

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls, my favorite!  Will...try...to...resist!


The good news is that she also made me some hot dog eggs:


So I was able to make it through breakfast relatively unscathed. I had one fingerful of frosting and once bite of cinnamon roll.  (This was to help spike blood sugar and get all that good protein into my muscles.)

So total breakfast was:
1 atkins bar, 3 beef sticks, roughly 3 scrambled eggs and a jumbo hebrew national hot dog, 1 bite of cinnamon roll, and a finger swipe of frosting from the bowl.  Hopefully the leftovers will go quickly into the compost or my resolve may crumble.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Two weeks in -- really jonesing for a glass of wine

Breakfast and lunch today were normal -- beef sticks and 3/4 atkins bar (my boy had the other quarter) for breakfast, a whole foods salad, supplemented with 4 buffalo wings for lunch.
In the afternoon, I really started jonesing for a glass of wine.  I made it home and am just finishing my afternoon snack of another atkins bar.
we are going out to the Chile Pepper again tonight, and I'm gonna have carne asada, sans beans and rice, plus queso fundido.  Will be tough to skip the wine, but I think I can do it!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Thursday -- almost through week 2

Down to 80 kg this morning (176 lbs).  This was one of my goals, to make the 1/4 bodyweight and 1/2 bodyweight lifts for Level 2 easier to calculate and remember.
Btw, people asked me how I track body fat %.  I use this scale.  It gives you weight and body fat %, and transmits it via wifi to your computer and ipad/iphone. Makes it easy to track progress.

This morning for breakfast: Guess what -- atkins bar and 2 beef sticks (Again).

Lunch was a special treat.  I went to Seastar and had steak salad with hazelnuts.  Yum!

Afternoon snack was 1.2oz of Oberto beef jerky and a Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi.  I don't get to have CFDP or CFDC very often, so I treasure it.  I know it's not good for me, most likely. 

For dinner, my wife is making meatloaf, with organic grass fed beef, and she through in some buffalo wing spice to liven it up.  Looking forward to seeing how it tastes. 

Tonight marks two weeks since I had a drink of alcohol, maybe a little longer.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday is my day off from crossfit, so got to sleep in til 7.  You'd think I would be well rested, but tired all day.  Now I am up late at night, not being able to sleep although I went to bed at 8:30.  I hope the paleo isn't making me tired.

Food log:
Breakfast: 2 beef sticks and an Atkins bar
Lunch: Whole foods salad, with 2 eggs and guac
Afternoon snack: 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar
Dinner: 10 spears of asparagus with salt, and a hunk of carne asada, around 4oz.
Late evening snack: 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar (damn sleeplessness!)

Wednesday
Got up this morning and was back down to 176.6, even though I had the midnight snack.
Tired this afternoon and evening, hoping I'll be able to sleep well tonight.

Breakfast: Atkins bar and two beef sticks.
Lunch: Salad bar down at the other work building Market Fresh.  not nearly as good as Whole Foods.  Threw in some salmon and eggs, rather than usual hard boiled eggs at MF, and no guac!
Dinner: Atkins bar, four beef sticks, and a piece of asada that was left over from last night.

Now gonna try to get to sleep, and hopefully will be down to 176 in the morning (/crossing fingers)

Monday, March 21, 2011

Not a very interesting day, Monday of the second week

Breakfast: Atkins bar and two beef sticks
Lunch: Whole Foods salad, with two eggs for protein
Afternoon snack: Atkins bar and two more beef sticks, maybe 4.
Dinner: 2nd half of last night's Atkins pizza -- ie mozzarella, pepperoni and jalapeno.

I ate earlier than usual tonight, around 6.  That sometimes helps with the weight loss, at least in the short term.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sunday, end of week 1

Started the day with a Crossfit workout, followed by yoga and then 11 unassisted pullups.

When I got home, had 2 beef sticks and a left over chicken sausage.
For lunch, had a slice of cheese and a hebrew national jumbo hotdog

For dinner, atkins pizza -- pepperoni, cheese, and jalapenos on an oil base.  And ceasar salad.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Saturday morning, 1 week in to the Paleo challenge

Last night we went with friends to the Chile Pepper.  They had beer and wine (x3), my wife had a margarita (actually 2), and I had a pitcher of water.
I ordered the Carne Asada hold the beans, rice and gave away the enchilada with mole sauce that came with it.  So I had a slab of spice-rubbed beef.  And for appetizer, I had queso fundido, hold the tortilla.  Yum!


This morning, I got up at 7:30 and weighed in at 176.6 with 42.6lbs of fat.  this is down from 181.7 and 45.3lbs of fast when I weighed in and took my "before" pictures 8 days ago.  So good progress for the first week.
I went to 8am Crossfit class where the workout of the day was 21 KB swings (20kg), 250m row, then slam balls (40lbs) AMRAP in 3 min.  So it took around 1:45 to finish the KB swings and row, so just over a minute of slam balls.  Then the whole thing x3, with six minutes rest in between so your partners could do it.

anyway, pretty complex, but when you lift a 40lb medicine ball above your head and slam it down on the ground 20x in a row, that takes something out of you!
For breakfast, 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar. My wife got some thai chili pepper tuna salad for me.  But I had a few bites and then looked at the ingredients.  There are 18g of sugar in the tin.  I probably had 6 of those grams before I realized. Argh.
Not as bad as donuts though!

Lunch was Hebrew National Jumbo hot dog.
afternoon snack was an atkins bar and two pieces of cheddar cheese.
Dinner was some lettuce salad with vinaigrette, and a chicken sausage from whole foods.  I ended up eating a couple beef sticks after dinner, later in the evening.  boo.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Friday, day 5

Breakfast - my atkins bars showed up, so I had one of those along with two beef sticks.
(went to our organization all hands, and there were tons of donuts there, I avoided them.)
Lunch - salad bar at the main Amazon cafe.  Plus paneer on a stick x2.  Cheese blocks, and red peppers on a skewer.

Afternoon snack -- Atkins bar, and two beef sticks.

Dinner -- Carne Asada, hold the beans and rice, and queso fundido as an appetizer.  Yum!
Also, lentil soup.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Thursday morning -- donut challenge

This morning I ran out of Atkins bars -- but fortunately I had just ordered some from Amazon and they got here tonight.  But I changed my usual breakfast.
Breakfast:
Four beef sticks

Around 10 this morning, I was on my way to a  meeting and I walked past a cubicle with a box of krispy kreme donuts sitting in it.  Oh noooo!  I was able to resist their siren song, but then I got to my meeting, and there was a box of Top Pot Donuts.  Double Oh nooooo!  So I sat at the other end of the table, and was able to resist their lure.  And then I went to another meeting and there was a container of Jelly Bellies!!  Aarrgghhh!
Again, I sat at the other end of the table.  I got through unscathed, and satisfied with my will power, and the power of the leaning challenge.

Lunch:
Spinach salad at the Whole Foods.  Still out of pulled chicken and onions.  But they had guac today.
So I had spinach salad with a few carrots and radishes, some guac, an egg, and a couple chicken wings (although they were definitely not buffalo wings as advertised).

Dinner:
Took my boy to karate tonight straight from work, so I drove up to the house, my wife handed me the boy and a pack of beef sticks, and had that for mid-afternoon snack to get me through karate.  Now we have lamb burgers on the barbie, greek yogurt sauce, lettuce salad with balsamic and feta, and there are grapes on the table.  I had one grape and a bite of brisket with bbq sauce, but other than that stayed low carb.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

It's wednesday, and halfway through the first week.

This morning's weigh in 178.8, with 44 lbs fat.  Good progress for the first half of the week.

Breakfast continued to be 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar.  but I'm out of atkins bars now, so tomorrow it will change.  I did order some more bars from Amazon.
Btw, I do know that Dave says that all bars are terrible for you, but the Atkins bars seem better than most.  Much lower carb especially. 

Lunch
Today the Whole Foods was out of Guac, out of onions and out of pulled chicken!  Very disappointing. I was able to sub in corned beef brisket from the hot meal counter, and that covered both the protein (chicken) and the fat (guac) that I wasn't getting. Also threw in some Jalapenos for some flavor.

Dinner
Just got home from work.  So far, I've had four beef sticks, but there's something that smells like corned beef brisket in the oven, so I think I will have some of that for dinner. 

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Day 2

Down 1 pound since Saturday, day off from crossfit.

Breakfast
2 Beef Sticks
1 Atkins bar

I get both of these home delivered from Amazon using the Subscribe and Save program.  They deliver each month, and I get a 15% discount for having the subscription.

Lunch:
Leftover spinach salad plus a quarter pound of corned beef brisket from whole foods and some asparagus and red peppers.
Yum!

Dinner:
5 beef sticks and an Atkins bar.

After dinner, I went weight lifting with a colleague who used to be a Olympic weight lifter, Sam Maxwell.  I did some dead lifts, squats, and military press.  He told me that (no surprise) my biggest problem is flexibility.  Chest up, butt down, knees out.  

Monday, March 14, 2011

Day 1 of the Leaning Challenge!

Today is Monday, the first day of the Leaning Challenge.
I woke this morning and weighed 181 lb, with about 46lbs of fat.  The fat number jumps around a lot, so hard to know exactly. But I'm gonna try to get under 40 in the next few weeks. 

I started the day at Crossfit - We did Front Squats and then "Crappy Fran" which is three sets of 35kg push presses and then jumping pullups, 21-15-9. 
Then Breakfast:
2 pieces of beef summer sausage http://www.amazon.com/Old-Wisconsin-Sausage-20-Ounce-Packages/dp/B001IZM92I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300128178&sr=8-1
one atkins bar (http://www.amazon.com/Atkins-Advantage-Chocolate-Peanut-Butter/dp/B001GAOHJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300128144&sr=8-1)

Lunch:
Spinach Salad with onions, guacamole, scallions, salsa verde, an egg, some pulled chicken, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Whole Foods salad buffet.  I will refer to this as "Whole Foods Salad" in the future, since I eat this a lot for lunch.

After school snack:
Finished off the beef summer sausage (about 5 slices)
Plus 1 slice of cheddar cheese

Dinner:
Red leaf lettuce salad with turkey bacon and cardini's ceasar dressing. 

Bonus:
Fiber Choice tablets
6 liquid gels of Nature Made Fish Oil
 Everyman's Daily vitamin

That's all for today.  I think I am entering ketosis today or tomorrow...I've been super-good since Friday night, so I expect I should start seeing some results soon.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The leaning challenge starts tomorrow

Starting the Paleo Leaning challenge tomorrow. You have 7 weeks to tighten up your body, lose fat, etc.  They take before and after pictures and then they judge each contestant to see who has made the most improvement.  Everyone puts in $30, and the winner takes the kitty.

I actually think I started yesterday, since I took my before pictures Friday.  I went to the bar Friday afternoon and drank water, and then went to a bday party and drank water there Saturday night.  They had lamb and beef skewers which were completely paleo-compliant, and I had some goat cheese appetizer on celery.  Not quite paleo compliant (dairy not allowed), but was Atkins compliant. 

Today I ate:
Slices of salami/summer sausage
Atkins bars -- low carb, but they have nuts and now they are making them with sugar alcohols. Lots of fiber too.
For Dinner, we had "atkins pizza."  No dough, lots of cheese, pepperoni and jalapenos.