Day 19-20 and shellfish are now good for us

Last night's dinner: clams with garlic and onions.
Good taste, bad breath!

Thursday's weight: 213.2 lbs
Friday's weight: 212.0 lbs
Goal: 190 lbs

Several days of actual progress with no backsliding.  My wife has been experiencing the same too.

Without much fanfare, we are now on the second Cycle of the 17 day diet.  What does this mean?  On the good side, we get to eat shellfish, not of the fried variety of course.  On the "sounds good but not really too exciting side", we get to eat some starchy vegetables and legumes,  like potatoes, sans all the things that make said starchy vegetables and legumes tasty, like butter.  We can have fat-free sour cream though.  Oh, and only before 2PM.  Yeah, it's like Gremlins.

We are also allowed to have amaranth and quinoa now, as well as breadfruit.  I think I'll pop right over to Market Basket and pick some quinoa up.

That's on odd days.  On even days it's the Cycle 1 foods.  This will be a pain to keep up with.

The exercise part of the diet is still hard to achieve with our schedules.  We're hoping to get in another snowshoeing adventure today, and I'm planning one with some friends tomorrow as well.  Keeping up the energy level for this is hard, but maybe my plain, pre-2PM potato and some grilled quinoa (is that what you do with quinoa?  maybe quinoa kebabs instead?)  will help.

Day 17-18

Tuesday's weight: 214.2 lbs
Wednesday's weight: 214.0 lbs
Goal: 190 lbs

Mostly back on track after our Saturday of feasting.  We were snowed in today and got up rather late, hence the lack of a lunch below.

Breakfast today:
Green tea
"Smoothie" with strawberries and blueberries

We've found that using the frozen packages of fruit gives the smoothies a texture a little more like an actual smoothie.  Or rather that our taste buds are numbed to the point of not noticing that it doesn't have the usual tasty bits like sugar and milk.

Dinner:
Green tea
Whole chicken, baked with yet another spice mix

We ate the skin.  So there diet.  And the dark meat.

Heck, we might even simmer the whole thing and use the stock to make soup.  At this point, we're finding which little departures from the diet as written can work for us.  In truth, I can't stand the notion of letting so much food go to waste on a bird, just because it has a bit of fat (also known as "taste") to it.

We'll be moving on to the second Cycle soon, and some of these little diet breakers might be becoming legal anyway.  Our plan is to read up on it tomorrow and move into it for the weekend.  We've added a couple days to Cycle 1 because of Saturday.

Unshaven and totally out of fashion,
that's how I like it.

Being snowed in did have some benefits though, as we got a chance to explore the woods behind our own back yard on snowshoes today.  The best part of which is having an excuse to lounge around the house in long underwear afterward.

Sorry, no pictures of that available.

Day 15-16

Sunday's weight: 216.2 lbs
Monday's weight: ???? (I had two eggs, an orange and my morning hot water with lemon down before I realized I hadn't weighed in, so I skipped it today)
Goal: 190 lbs

Tomorrow will be the test to see if I've successfully gotten back on the bandwagon after our Saturday diet holiday.

Today's meals...

Breakfast:
2 hard boiled eggs
Orange

Lunch:
Salad with chicken thigh (really living on the edge with the dark meat)

Dinner:
"Taco" salad (same as before, taco seasoned turkey and greens, minus the tortilla)

Plus green tea, green tea, everywhere.


Keeping up with the water intake was difficult Sunday and I think I've been paying for it today in the form of a day long headache.  That's my diagnosis in any event.  It could possibly have more to do with going back to a job I dislike after a relaxing weekend ("dislike" in this case meaning "would rather have swine flu").

No food pictures today.  I did take a few pictures of the cat, but she's a tad modest and requested I not post them online.

Today's 17 Day Diet madness comes from the second Cycle.  Our good Doctor gives us some great advice on how to spice up bland vegetables.

2. Broth.  Use low-sodium, low-fat chicken and beef broth to sauté meats and cook flavorful rice without adding oil.

Sadly, what this means when translated from doctor-speak, is "water".  Why, you ask?  That's quite a good question.  Here, let's have a little one problem quiz to test your food knowledge.

There is a reason broth tastes nummy.  Actually, two reasons.  What are they?

a) The Emancipation Proclamation
b) salt
c) fat
d) Mt. Etna

If you answered b and c, congratulations!  You're a broth expert!

Day 13-14

A fresh batch of chex mix I made up for my wife's
friend this morning.  I resisted the urge to eat
even a single one.  That fact did not please
me in the least.

Friday's weight: 215.4 lbs (just as predicted)
Saturday's weight: 214.8 lbs
Goal: 190 lbs

This weight roller coaster is getting annoying, though I need to keep repeating that it's the long term trend that matters, and not whether I'm retaining a pound of water day to day.

Speaking of weight, we decided to take a diet vacation Saturday.  Not that we abandoned the whole shebang altogether, but I was getting together for a rare all morning/afternoon get-together with some friends, and my wife was visiting a friend of her's in the North End of Boston.  For those who don't know what the North End of Boston is, allow me to summarize in a picture:

 A few allowances simply had to be made.

By and large, we were fairly good though.  She had a few treats, but a salad for lunch.  I settled on a waffle in the morning (went light on the syrup, though it took a Herculean effort to resist seconds) and some chili at lunch.  I expect we will pay for this on our next weigh-in, but both having lost somewhere around 10 lbs, we figured a small diet holiday wouldn't be too terrible.

I'm still making my way through the book itself.  We'll be moving on to the second 17 day cycle soon and I'll need to see what extra scraps we're allowed to ingest, though we're thinking about extending the first to 18 days to make up for our Saturday lapse.

Today's quote comes from the second chapter of the book, where Dr Hunky is telling us how we're not allowed to have pineapple and bananas, because they have too much sugar and will turn us into walking cans of Crisco.

On the first two Cycles of the 17 Day Diet, you'll stick to berries, apples, oranges and grapefruit, which are lower in sugar.  By eating like this, a fruit tooth will replace the sweet one that rules your mouth.

I will be making a dentist appointment very shortly, because it seems my fruit teeth have been late coming in.  Maybe they're impacted.

Day 11-12, over the hump

Tonight's dinner: flounder with "Mediterranean Rub"
and green beans.  And the ubiquitous green tea.

Yesterday's weight: 217.2 lbs
Today's weight: 214.6 lbs
Goal: 190 lbs

My prediction for tomorrow's weight: 215.4 lbs

Whatever the reason, it seems like my body feels like taking a step back for every two forward.  Fine with me, either way it's coming out to about a pound a day and we're halfway through the first "cycle".

Now if I were a bit braver, I'd have taken one of those "before" pictures of myself with my shirt off and in as unflattering a pose as possible, two days worth of stubble, etc, like they do on TV to make it seem like a huge dramatic change when you see the "after" picture.  But since I lack the guts to actually post something like that of myself, this is a moot point.

Breakfast today:
2 hard boiled eggs
Grapes
Green damn tea

Lunch:
Leftover flamenco salad (a Spanish recipe that both met the 17 day diet requirements and was tasty, a quite shocking thing indeed)
Green tea

Dinner:
Yet another white fish with various things added to make it more tasty and interesting than yet another boring piece of white fish
Green beans
Green tea

We cheated a tad with the beans tonight and added a little lemon juice.  I think there's a point in every diet where you decide to cheat a little here and there.  It's probably also the same point at which people often go off these miserable things.  So far though, this is the one we've been able to stay on the longest, so I suspect having the occasional raisin after 2 PM won't break our resolve (fruits after 2 are a no-no on the 17 day diet, I think something along the lines of feeding Gizmo after midnight happens).

Day 9-10

Weight Sunday: 216.8 lbs
Weight today: 216.0 lbs
Goal: 190 lbs

My apologies to my vast audience of eager readers for the lack of a post yesterday.  It was a busy day and I'm back on track now.

Today's breakfast:
Blueberry "smoothie" - low fat yogurt and frozen blueberries

Lunch:
Romaine and tuna, sans oil & vineger thanks to my forgetfulness

Dinner:
Mixed vegetable & chicken stir fry

Not a bad day food-wise, though dinner was made tastier by cheating a little bit and applying a liberal dose of soy sauce.

I think we're finally over the initial hump of this thing and sticking to it's getting a bit easier.  We've both lost 10 lbs or more and the pace seems to be steady.

The one thing I am really craving and missing though is bread.  Even just a slice of toast in the morning would brighten this diet up.

My wife's been doing some reading ahead to cycle 2 of the diet and it seems there are a few more things to which to look forward.  Bread, naturally, is not one of them.  But it seems beef has now become OK to eat and a handful of other things that contain something I think I once recall as being 'taste'.

Hopefully upon reading it myself, I will have some more witty insights, but for now we're doing well without much new to report.

Day 8

Current weight: 219.4 lbs
Goal: 190 lbs.

This is one of those days that make me hate regimented diets.  After around 4 hours of snowshoeing through the woods of Maine, I come home to find that I have gained a full pound.  The logical part of me knows that it's probably because I ate and drank not too long before, whereas I'm usually on an empty stomach after work when I weigh and wearing different clothes.  The gut feel part, however, thinks he's ready to find out if this book would make 17 days of kindling.

Lesson learned: weigh-ins will now be first thing in the morning, straight out of bed with no food in me and no clothing variables.

Today's food report:

Breakfast
Blueberry smoothie-ish drink (frozen blueberries + low fat yogurt)

Lunch
Leftover chicken vegetable soup (not surprisingly this tastes a lot better after hiking through the snow all afternoon)

Dinner
Sashimi (raw fish)
Edamame (steamed legumes similar to pea pods, I think these were actually a no-no on Cycle 1)
Chicken negimaki (scallions wrapped in chicken, both quite legal, though it had a light smattering of teriyaki, another Cycle 1 no-no)

We caved.  Dinner was out for Japanese tonight.  With the two exceptions above, we did manage to stay on-diet.  Oh, and we ate a fortune cookie too.  Nya-nya, take that Dr. McHunky.

This is chocolate turtle cheesecake.
Three bites are very satisfying, and all you really
want in the first place...right?

No dessert though, we at least stayed on track that far.  Just in case we ever were tempted, though, I checked out what the 17 Day Diet has to say on the subject.  Here we go:

"...you can practice my 'three-bite rule' with desserts...If you truly want chocolate turtle cheesecake, go ahead and have it, but limit yourself to a taste.  Take three bites and set it aside for a few minutes.  You're less likely to come back to ti.  You might even discover that those few bites of a great dessert can be very satisfying, and might be all you really wanted in the first place."

 I'll go ahead and let that one stand on its own merits.