July's progress.

The end of July is here and a new month starts tomorrow. I don't really feel like I've lost much weight over this past month, but I've made progress nonetheless.

My weigh in today showed me at 213.5. That is 1.5 lbs lost since last Sunday. For the month's progress I've lost 5.5 lbs. On my bust I lost .5 inches, waist -1, hips -1, -1 off each thigh, and -1 off each arm. I didn't lose much weight, but I feel like my measurements were good.

I am hoping to lose more weight in August than I did in July. I do believe that the Splenda was a problem for me, as I was over-indulging a bit. One packet of Splenda is listed as no calories and less than one carb. I do not believe that though. The ingredients are Dextrose, Maltodextrin, and Sucralose. How can it be less than one carb (let alone zero calories) if the very fist ingredient is Dextrose? I have no idea why I didn't check the ingredients before, but I really wish I would have. The whole point of a low carb diet is to limit blood sugar, control insulin levels, and burn fat for fuel instead of simple carbs. The first ingredient is exactly what I've been trying to avoid, the evil glucose.

Because of the issue with Splenda, I need to find a different sweetener to use. I suppose if I was really good I just wouldn't use sweetener at all any more, but I'm not sure I could handle that, lol I've been doing some research on Stevia. I have avoided it to date because of hearing that it causes sterility, especially in men and unborn baby boys. My research hasn't been very reassuring, besides I have found articles stating for a man to achieve the same results as the lab rats tested, he would need to eat at least 3 pounds of it per day. There seems to be a lot of debate over it, so we need to weigh the risks and benefits against other sweeteners.

Speaking of sweeteners, I came across something rather shocking that I was completely unaware of. I've been reading about aspartame and the host of negative effects it has on many people. Aspartame is very widely used in sugar-free processed food and diet pop. There was a while where I was having muscle twitches and couldn't figure out why. At the time I was drinking 2-4 cans of diet pop each day. I started having problems with my eye lid twitching. It happened off and on lasting part of a day or a few days, the worst case lasted up to a week. As time went on it was happening more often, only my check started to twitch too. After a few months I was having problems with my thumb, index finger, and middle finger on my right hand twitching. At that point I was getting pretty concerned, but we had no money to go to the doctor. I guess it was a good thing that we ran out of money for extras, because that meant we had to stop buying pop. It didn't take more than a week and all my twitching had stopped and has yet to happen again. I can have diet pop on my diet, but have been severely limiting it because the book "Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It" by Gary Taubes suggested to stay away from it because it can alter the ph level of your body and slow weight loss. I was shocked to read that headache, twitching, and blindness are all reported dangers of eating foods that contain aspartame. At least now I know what was making me sick and can avoid it.

There really isn't much to report on with my hair, skin, or nails besides to say that several of my nails broke last week for aparently no reason. My nails are thicker, stronger, and harder, so I was perplexed as to why they broke. Anyway, that is all I have to comment on at the moment.

Here's to another week of weight loss!!

July 24th weigh in.

Well, progress has been made! I didn't get my goal of 2 lbs lost this week, but 1.5 is darn close. I now weigh 215 lbs, which is 4 lbs lost so far this month. I am losing much slower than I did the first month, but I have had a couple set backs so that's understandable. I was getting into drinking sweetened blended coffee drinks too much, especially after I discovered local stores carry the Hershey's sugar free chocolate syrup. I am not drinking those anymore because we ran out of coffee and syrup. I am making slushies with regular Kool-aid packets and packet Splenda (a shallow teaspoon makes a good full 12 oz slushy). I am trying to have two or less each day, since I think overdoing the Splenda was a bit of an issue before.

I haven't lost much weight these past couple weeks, however I think I am seeing a difference in the way I look. My neck looks a little slimmer and my stomach is not protruding as much. I am excited to measure myself at the end of the month (next Sunday!) and hopefully see a reduction in size on the tape measure.

Besides my weigh in, there really isn't much to comment on as nothing else has changed. Here's hoping that I lose more this week!

July 17th weigh in.

Ack! Another Sunday already! This past week went be very quickly for me, which is strange considering I was oftly hormonal and suffered from some weird mood swings. I sort of lost weight, though who knows how much. Remember last week that my scale was going all funky on me? Well, I counted the lowest weight it gave me even though I knew it was not accurate. 215.5 last week, and the most consistent number I got this time was 216.5. So while it appears that I gained 1 pound from last week I am confident that I lost some and last weeks' number was just wrong (I already figured that, like I stated previously). I am at 3 lbs lost for the month so far, and while 1.5 lbs lost each week is below my goal of 2 lbs, it is still close enough for me. My scale is still not giving accurate readings, I actually got 209.5 several times, but I was pretty sure that I didn't lose that much weight during the week!

I'm not really sure how I feel about my weight loss so far. I know I lost a lot last month, and I am making good steady progress. For some reason though, I have this weird feeling that I am not losing fast enough or working hard enough on losing weight. It is so weird to know in my head that I am doing good, yet on an emotional level feel like I am failing. It is frustrating to say the least! I know that it doesn't help that I've seen a rather noticeable change in my husband's body shape (particularly his gut). He has lost weight much more quickly than me, and for some reason I feel some weird sense of shame and disgust that I am heavier than he is. I know that men in general lose weight faster than women, but for some reason it still really bothers me. I catch him cheating a lot too. He eats more cheese than he by rights should, he drinks way too much coffee, uses too many condiments, doesn't drink enough water and occasionally will eat something very starchy, yet he still loses weight faster than me. It feels so unfair! lol I am happy for him, but envious too.

I am not seeing a difference in the mirror and am really longing to look thinner. I do want to be healthier, but not feeling attractive is really damaging on my self esteem. My husband doesn't really give compliments or notice how I look very often, and when he does it is more lewd than flattering. I pretty much have to go based on what I see and how I feel. I still feel pretty darn fat, even if it is better than it used to be, and I still think I look pretty darn fat, even though I have lost over 30 lbs since November. My jeans fit pretty much the same as they have been for a few weeks now, and I haven't noticed any other clothing fitting better either. That is a bit discouraging, because I am impatient in wanting to lose weight.

A big reason why I want to lose weight is so I can starting thinking about having another baby. I had serious complications with my first baby, and the second baby was in pretty serious condition for 6 hours after birth. I think if I was much healthier, then the pregnancy and baby would both stand a much better chance of going smoothly/being healthier. I have two little girls, and I would really like to try for a baby boy. I always wanted two of each gender, though I would be plenty happy with one little boy. I would be happy if I had another little girl honestly, but the hope would be for a boy this next time. Family is very important to me, and before getting married my husband and I agreed that we would aim for 4 kids (originally he wanted 3 and I wanted 6, so we compromised). Emergency cesarean may have complicated my having 4 babies, but I still want to try for a 3rd. I have to get my health in order first, so it does frustrate me enormously when I feel like I am not losing weight quickly enough.

I have been taking the GNC Hair, Skin, and Nails pills faithfully for two weeks now. I do believe I'm seeing a difference in my nails already. I wasn't expecting to see any results for another week at least, so this is exciting! A nail broke last night, and a bit disappointed about it I went about clipping my nails. My nails are usually pretty weak, they peal, split and are soft. I was surprised when it was difficult to clip through my finger nails! All my nails were harder, especially my thumb nails. My right thumb nail was down right a pain in the butt to get clipped, I have never encountered that problem before! I am very happy that the pills are making a difference in my nails, and am excited to see what they do for my hair eventually. My husband is taking the pills too, but hasn't made any comments to me if he has noticed a difference (not that he would).

I deep conditioned my hair with coconut oil for the second time. Even though I used less oil and left it in for 40 minutes instead of 60 it still wouldn't rinse out with warm water as claimed. I had to use a bit of shampoo to get most of the oil out, and even then is has a bit of a greasy feel to it in spots. Next time I will use even less oil. I do think it works wells, but I just need to find the perfect amount to use for my hair type and length.

A not so fun side effect of low-carb living can be bowel issues. Both my husband and myself have been having problems with constipation this past week. Constipation is usually thought to be because the person isn't getting enough fiber, but seeing as how starches aren't allowed, you can't really have lots of fiber on a low-carb diet/lifestyle. You would have to eat way more vegetables than are allowed to get the fiber content as well. After a bit of research on the internet I found that the issue is not enough fat and/or water in the diet, NOT a lack of fiber. I never really thought about it before, but that makes a lot of sense. Fat in the diet coats the intestine and works as a lubricant, and when you are dehydrated your body sucks all the moisture it can out of your food, leaving you with pebble poop.

Thinking about how fiber causes you to have loose stool, made me realize that it honestly doesn't seem like a great idea. Fiber is not digestible, so it goes straight through your body causing your stool to pass more quickly. Why would you purposefully eat something that your body has no use for (like cereal that looks like little hay bales, lol)? At least with the fat and the water you know that your body actually uses it. Sugar alcohols can also act like a laxative much like fiber does. They are metabolized like alcohol (yup, in the liver) and so have little to no effect on your blood glucose, but they go straight through you and can cause diarrhea. Sugar alcohol can cause horrible stomach cramping and diarrhea if you eat too much of it, especially if you are sensitive to it. I don't think it makes a very good laxative because of the stomach pain, gas, and bloating that can come with it. I try to avoid sugar alcohols in general, but some of those Atkins bars are pretty darn tasty for a once-in-a-while treat :D The coconut ones are pretty much like Mounds candy bars and are my favorite of the ones I've tried so far (they are expensive though at more than $6 for a box of 5 bars).

Here's hoping for a better week! :)

July 10th weigh in.

Today is the day to record my weight-loss, oh, if only I knew! I weighed myself multiple times this morning, and I have no clue what my weight is! The first weight was 223, then 215.5, then 219.5. The problem is I tried repeatedly and got each of these numbers 3 to 4 times each! There is one thing for certain though, my scale is a piece of crud :(

Of course I am frustrated now. How do I decide which one is accurate? Did I gain 4 lbs, lose 3.5, or stay the same? I don't think I gained 4 lbs, or at least if I did, I sure don't feel like it. I felt like I've lost something, but I'm not sure I lost 3.5 lbs. I either stayed the same or lost up to 3.5 lbs. My goal loss is 2 lbs each week, so I could just count that. Ah heck, I'll just cheat and take advantage of the scale. I'll mark down 3.5 lbs lost, and see if it effects next week's lbs lost.

Besides the scale going haywire, there really isn't much to remark on. My hair is a little shinier because of the coconut oil, but there is no dramatic change. My nails are still about the same as before, though I did have one breakage this past week. My skin is still the same, though I've had no new breakouts. Hopefully within the next week or two my Biotin pills will start making a difference.

Beef, Bacon, and Pepper Skillet Dinner Recipe.

I made something this week that tasted really good, so heck, why not post it on my blog!

This Beef, Bacon, and Pepper skillet diner is easy to make, has few ingredients but has a nice sweet and salty flavor with yummy bacon, and best of all, it's low-carb!

Ingredients:

3 large bell peppers, chopped or sliced as prefered
4 green onions, chopped
1 lb ground beef, fully cooked
6 strips of bacon
1/4 cup soy sauce, adjust to preference
Ground pepper to taste

In a large skillet cook the bacon until crispy, then set aside on a plate or paper towel to cool. Add the peppers to the hot bacon grease in the skillet, and stirring frequently, cook at medium or medium-low heat until starting to become tender. Add the Soy Sauce, then stir in the beef. Turn heat down to low and continue to cook until beef has soaked up most of the liquids in the skillet. Add the green onions then crumple or chop the bacon and add it. Add ground pepper as desired, and let the dish simmer for a couple minutes to cook the green onion and for the juices to really marry together well.

Entire dish is approximately 23 carbs, with a generous 1/4 of that being a large bowl-full and only 5.75 carbs.


When I made this I used a cast-iron skillet which is well seasoned and used primarily for cooking breakfast meats (like bacon, lol). My beef was actually left over burger patties (80% lean) from the previous day that I chopped up. Any color of bell pepper works just as well as any other, but the red, orange, and yellow looked very pretty and colorful! I am trying to use more salt in cooking because my husband keeps forgetting to drink broth, adding the soy sauce sounds weird and I wouldn't have added it otherwise, but it made the flavor really pop and complemented the bacon and peppers very well. I used about 1/4 of a cup, but it is always a good idea to start low, then add more if needed.

My husband loved this dish, as did my oldest daughter and myself. The only one who didn't like it is my 4 year old, but she turns her nose up at nearly everything that isn't a chicken nugget or pizza, so that doesn't mean much, lol This is definitely something I'll be making again soon :)

Coconut oil update.

I had this strange idea that using coconut oil to deep condition my hair would work out well...not sure why I held that odd belief, but whatever. I used it like I stated, and let it set for pretty exact to 60 minutes. I rinsed my hair for several minutes, towel dried and let it air dry. I am not kidding, it looked (and felt, eww) like I had took a dip in an oil spill. My hair was very greasy feeling. I washed my hair with shampoo, no conditioner, and let it air dry again. My hair was less oily, but still pretty darn oily. That was the extent of my trying yesterday and I honestly was just sick of washing my hair.

Today I washed my hair without the use of conditioner again, and my hair is finally relatively free of greasy looking strands. I am thinking that I should have used less coconut oil, and probably left it in less than the recommend 60 minutes. I didn't not expect it to be so difficult to get out of my hair.

The big question is did it make a difference? Sure, somewhat. My hair looks shinier, feels softer, and weirdly enough has more volume, but it did nothing for the fly-aways and friz once I got the excess greasiness gone. Is the benefit worth the effort? Not if it is this difficult to rinse out every time. I will try again in a week or so, and try using less and leaving it in for 40 minutes instead of 60.

Speaking of hair frizz, is there any product that takes the frizz and fly-aways down to where they belong? I have fought with my fine hair for years now. I have tried lots of different "tamer" and anti-frizz serums, shampoos and conditioners, and mayo and raw egg (which did help, but was a bit beyond my threshold for grossness) but the only thing that really helps is to use a flat iron, and even that is short lived. I avoid using hot tools in general, so I will continue to experiment with products. I am really hoping that taking the Biotin will help here in a couple weeks (I have taken it faithfully thus far).

A bit of an update about my diet and weight this week. Something fruity is going on with my weight. The scale (yes I've been weighing myself when I know I should wait until Sunday) says I am 2.5 lbs heavier yesterday, and 2 lbs heavier today. What the heck! I am pretty sure it isn't water weight or bloating, as that just doesn't seem to be an issue when eating low-carb. I haven't eaten anything weird really, so I'm guessing it is the fake sugar.

Between my husband and myself, we drank two 2 Liter bottles of Diet Pepsi the first part of this week. I use my magic bullet blender to turn half a carton (little paper can?) of chocolate Atkins shake, a bit of cream, water, instant coffee, and DaVinci Sugar free syrup to make a blended mocha drink. I have two of those a day instead of drinking any hot coffee and use them as snacks or part of breakfast (along with eggs and sometimes bacon). There was the ice cream experiment that didn't go so great, that used a lot of cream (GOOD FAT!!) and rather large amounts splenda/sugar free syrup. I don't think it was the large-ish amount of cream, since eating a whole crust-less cheesecake (2 packages of cream cheese) didn't effect my weight loss in the past (yes, you read that right, I ate a whole cheesecake by myself. It's not so bad though because I made it, it was very low carb, and I was still struggling to get over my carb cravings, so I was oftly weak at the time, lol).

I don't expect to lose any weight this Sunday because of this. If I am lucky I will be at the same weight I was last weigh-in. I am still working on cutting back my splenda usage. I only had one blended drink today, and used less syrup than usual. We are out of cream right now, so it won't be hard cutting back on that just in case that did have some effect on me.

Rewards, and an oily head.

Rewards first, then I'll explain the oily-head bit ;)

Since I now weigh under 220 lbs, I got myself a reward. I decided against getting a beauty product and instead bought Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories" for my Kindle. I really enjoyed reading the sample and loathed not having the spare money to purchase it previously. So excited that I was finally able to get it! I am about 50 pages into it so far and am loving it. I'll admit sometimes I have to read a paragraph twice to make sure I understand it, but really once you get past the medical terminology it isn't so difficult to read or understand.

I said rewards not reward, and perhaps the second item is more of a gift and not truly a reward, but it was something I had wanted as a reward. When shopping, my husband called to ask if there was anything I wanted. I wanted a box of Breyers low-carb ice cream bars, but they were sold out :( So instead he bought a bottle of Sally Hansen Insti-Dri for me. That was nice of him, and it allowed me to finally do my severely past-due manicure. Of course I will be in need of a new bottle of white if I plan on doing any french tips, lol I am always out of something!

A note on the ice cream; digging around on the internet lead me to discover such a thing as ice cream with ZERO carbs! (though it is a good idea to count sugar substitutes as 1 gram per serving, though I don't) Now I would have to make it myself, but basically you just use heavy cream, Splenda (or DaVinci no sugar flavored Syrups, which are awesome! Sam's Club has them for under $5 a bottle!) and some sort of flavoring (unless of course you use flavored syrup). Cocoa can be added to make chocolate, sugar free preserves, nuts, fruit, pretty much anything you want. I don't have an ice cream maker, so decided to try the "Ziploc method" which sounds easy, but I didn't get mine to turn out solid enough. Ziploc method is this: put the ingredients in a sandwich Ziploc bag, then put that bag into a gallon sized bag and fill it with ice. After shaking said bag for 5 or so minutes you should have ice cream. Mine tasted really great, but was more of a cross between soft serve and a milk shake. I had plenty of ice and did everything supposedly correctly, but it still didn't turn out quite right. I would really like to invest in an ice cream maker now though!

I will explain the oily head thing now. I am out of Mane 'N Tale conditioner, and while the Aussie Sydney Smooth is okay, it just doesn't compare. I was trying to think of something I could use instead, and thought of that jar of coconut oil sitting in my pantry. Now I really love coconut oil and the flavor it gives to vegetables when cooked in the cast iron, but I just haven't been using it much lately. It is warm enough that the contents of the jar are mostly melted, and we've had it awhile so I figured I may as well try it on my hair! There are directions on the jar for using it this way, so I just followed those. After shampooing and rinsing your hair you are supposed to towel dry until slightly damp. Work the coconut oil in your hands to melt it (mine was already melted, so I skipped this step) then work in into your hair. You are supposed to cover with a plastic shower cap and leave it set for an hour. I've got about 30 minutes left until I rinse it out. Hopefully this helps some, and if not it wasn't like a wasted anything trying it out. I will update when my hair is all done and dry.

June's Progress.

Today is weigh-in day. The scale says I am 219 lbs, that is a 3 pound loss since last Sunday! My goal is 2 lbs per week, so I am very very happy with a loss of 3. That makes 15 lbs lost in the Month of June, and 29 lbs lost since I was at my heaviest of 248 lbs. I know that I've been losing weight along the way, but it is still shocking to me that I've lost 15 lbs in just one month. I don't expect my loss to be so great every month, but this is certainly a nice kick off to a renewed effort at losing weight.

I did not measure myself before getting back on the low-carb wagon, but I did manage to find some measurements from the month of March. I weighed 229 lbs then and since taking those measurements I've lost 1" from my bust, 2" from my waist, 2" off my hips, and 1" off each thigh. I know those were taken a while ago, but it is sufficient for now. I haven't tried on a size 12 jean yet, as I don't want to severely depress myself, lol My 14's are fitting much better, and are getting looser, but I don't want to push it and start wearing a smaller pant size unless it honestly does fit. Getting into a smaller size is exhilarating, but I want to be comfortable too!

I purchased the hair, skin, and nails pills. I paid just under $20.00 for 240 pills at Sam's club, but at GNC's website they want the same amount for only 60 pills, lol I love shopping at Sam's Club sometimes! They are twice-a-day, so I took my first one with breakfast this morning. We'll see after a few weeks if there is a noticeable difference in any of the 3 areas the pills are made to improve. I expect to see the most improvement in my nails and hair, and would be very surprised if I saw an improvement in my skin. My husband is taking these pills too, hopefully they help his hair issues some as well.

That's all for now. I might post when I pick out my reward for getting under 220 lbs.