SockTart

Been awhile since I posted.  Things have been…busy?  Hectic?  Stressful?  It’s hard to describe.

On the one hand, we’re trying to get financing and a house…on the other, trying to take care of the place we’re in.  We’re on separate schedules, and trying to fit in time for each other where we can.  We’ve both gained a craptastic amount of weight, and are trying to get back on the wagon.  June 1st is my new start date, and he’s said he’ll be joining me this time.  I’ve picked up a Dana Carpender book (15 minute meals), and there’s a couple of Sheila Pike-Pereyra’s books around here…so I’m trying to keep some recipes in mind for not only dinners, but also lunches.

On the knitting front, I got a very plain pair of socks done in April (forgot to post ‘em to the SAM5 knitalong…oops), and finished Sock1 of my Hedgerows, my cotton Jaywalkers, and my Eleanors.  Bear in mind…that’s only sock 1 of each.  Yeah…I’ve been having some serious discontent with my knitting lately. My Noro scarf is on the back burner.

So…that’s about it.  Maybe there will be more later.  Still debating on that…

I slipped.  Really badly.  I meant to get back on plan, get my life in order…and what happens?  Well, my kitchen is a mess, the clean laundry is still waiting to be put away, the dirty laundry is piling up, and my weight has ballooned.  Significantly.

I’d meant to follow strict Low Carb for 2 weeks before my birthday, right?  That didn’t work so well.  Then, right after my birthday, when I was trying to get everything back in order…my parents gave me my birthday gift.  A baked cheesecake.  A FULL baked cheesecake.  While I love the fact that Mum remembered…it was exactly the wrong trigger.  Cue another week of poor eating habits.

Combine that with Warcrack…I’d planned on making a nice, LC chicken stirfry on Saturday afternoon before Raid.  Um…yeah.  Couldn’t get that done in between two heroic instances and THEN the raid. Also disturbing is my tendency to snack on chocolate candies during raids.  Yet another bad habit to kill.

So this week I have to get this crap figured out and fixed.  I’ve made a stab in the right direction by ordering an Atkins-induction-friendly cookbook online, and it should hopefully arrive soon.

Other than that…I can still make my stir-fry for dinner, and hopefully I can get some planning done on a week’s worth of groceries, lunches and dinners.  This needs to get done, ASAP.  I feel like crap, and it’s pretty obvious why.  In the past month, I’ve felt queasy, and my headaches have been recurring.   I’ve also gained a LOT of weight back, really quickly.  The good news is that weight gained quickly should also go away fairly quickly, with little damage.  It still doesn’t make me feel good, though.

So yeah.  Sad panda.  Gotta get this under control.

In happier news, my Noro striped scarf is looking pretty.  Pictures to come once it’s done.  Yes…a scarf.  Sometimes a girl needs a break from socks…

I will be recommitting to my chosen way of eating (and weight loss) on Sunday, 27-Jan-08.  Back to low-carbing instead of dicking around with various methods, trying to find the best one.  I think I’ve figured out what works.

Only currently foreseeable deviation will be 1 day in February when I will be having sushi and cheesecake.  Baked cheesecake.  The jury is still out as to what kind of baked cheesecake it will be, but it will be cheesecake, and it will be baked.

Sock #1 of the Baudelaires are almost done.  For some reason, even though I have the pattern pretty much memorized, actually doing the work is kicking my arse.  Of course, I probably would be done with Sock #1 if it weren’t for the fact that we’ve been frantically cleaning the house.

Some of the folks who read this might be wondering…is this a day-to-day blog, a knitting blog, a diet blog, or what?!  The answer is…a bit of all of the above.  I’ve tried to keep things separate…and it’s a pain in the keister.  Basically, whatever goes through my brain will eventually make it here in some way, shape or form.  I kinda like that.  Makes things more organic.

(more…)

- The house is getting cleaned.  A surface clean done by next weekend, and a deep clean as we go forwards.  Goodwill is gonna love me.

- The weight…is going DOWN.  Bye bye sugar.  My tastebuds will miss you, but my thighs will not.  Sorry, GI Diet, but grains and I really don’t agree.  I love them and they hate me.  Hello low-carb once more (Low-Carb treats me much better,  anyhow.  Particularly at this time of year when my headaches go crazy).

- Socks will be knit.  Many socks will be knit.  I will be going crazy, so there will be much in the way of sock knitting.

- One more toon will be going to 70.  Eventually.  That’s the one thing I’m willing to relax on a bit.  It’s not crucial.

So, I’ve spent the majority of the past week enjoying a semi-low-glycemic diet.  And my body is rebelling.  Weight up, weight down, back up, and….holding…holding….back up!

Gah.

Not only that, but I’m headachey.  Migraines are normal for me during the weather shifts of January, but this is just annoying.  My knees are good one day, bad the next, and it’s also starting to annoy me.

I think that while I won’t restrict Robin to giving up whole grains and skim milk, I’ll be heading back to controlling my carbohydrates.   He can choose to eat however he feels is healthy.  I think that while I’m enjoying oatmeal (not the instant kind, either), I may have to make the sacrifice for my mental and physical well-being.  Maybe in the maintenance phases.

Well, looks like I’m getting better.  I’m mainly reduced to a scratchy throat & a cough.  Slurpees and ice-cream seem to help.  We’re having some soup for an early dinner, so that should help too.

I’ve been re-reading my book all about the GI Diet (that’s GI as in Glycemic Index, not GI Joe).  We’re thinking about giving it a try.  Robin’s Mum and my Sis-in-Law have both had good results with it, so it’s worth a shot.  The main goal?  Try to eat sensibly, and stick with it.  I know that Atkins works for me, but it’s so hard to fall off the wagon.  That’s not idle complaining, either….we really do enjoy eating lower-carbohydrate, and have done so for the majority of the past year.  It’s just that once in a while, you have to give yourself leeway for sushi.

So we’ll see how it goes.  I’m actually kinda glad to be exploring a slightly wider palate.

Have been eating clean for the past few days.  Weight has fluctuated down 5 pounds.  Happy camper?  Oh yeah.  Hoping that I hit my 10 pounds down for the month fairly soon.  We’ll see if it goes down farther by End of Month.  There’s still half a month to go!

Cast on the Secret of the Stole shawl last night.  Yay for knowing how to knit two things at once on the same set of needles with one skein/ball of yarn!  I rock :)   I will attempt not to pat my own back for far too long, as I know that the last laceweight project I attempted wound up taking flight across the living room.  I hate charts.  I sincerely thank whoever is responsible that they are providing written instructions on this KAL.

Dinner tonight?  Chicken Caesar Salad.

I spent a good part of my morning sniffing toner.  All very innocently, of course.  Had to file away 7 months worth of paperwork.  Feeling a little woozy and headachey.  Time for a bath, methinks.   Otherwise, have been feeling really good lately!  Headachiness is only from toner, and not from migraine triggers hidden in bready/sugary products.  Yay!

Would like to get the Elfines done this weekend.  I have some Koigu and some Lime & Violet  and some C*eye*ber Fiber that are calling my name (I’m a-gonna haveta make some very very hard decisions as to which I want to work with next, lemmetellyou.  Really).

After looking over the GI Diet meal plan….good lord, that’s a LOT of cooking! I started making a shopping list & had half a page written before I realized…we can’t afford all these special foods!

We’re going to incorporate *some* of the lower GI elements into our dinners for my Other Half, though. He only has about 40 lbs to lose, and I’d rather he not rocket down the way he did 3 years ago when we last “dieted” together. He’ll be getting some grains and extra dairy in order to slow his progress just slightly. Otherwise…I’m staying on Atkins & trying to keep it tasty. We’ll see how the next couple of weeks go.

So.  Fatass week has ended.  And partially as a result of the sugary mayhem, Robin and I have decided to get back to eating healthier.  Part of our problem is that weekends can be a hectic time for us, and we have a tendency to eat out.  Grab a burger at the mall, or go to dinner with friends, etc.  That’s going to get cut out.

Robin’s Mum tried to get us to start the G.I. Diet last year when she and Robin’s Dad started it.  It was recommended by his Cardiologist, I think.  At any rate, I heard a lot of clucking about the amount of Fat in Atkins, and how GI was so much better, and how MiL lost an insane amount of weight (apparently dropped back to her high-school weight naturally).  It’s taken a year, but I bought the book and I’m willing to give it a try.  I’m just scared shitless of the damn diet, that’s all.  Shitless.

Why?  Well…after finding that by eating fat I was losing some weight and my knees weren’t hurting…it seems very contradictory to give that up for FAT FREE EVERYTHING.  Fat Free yogurt.  Low Fat Milk.  Low fat cheeses (very sparingly, too, and only for taste…cry!).  Sure, you add in some grains and nuts and actually eat the damned yogurt…but…but….*whine*.

Oh, and apparently even though research is now showing that coconut oil is good for you, tropical oils are supposed to be VERY BAD SATURATED FATS, and should be AVOIDED at all costs!

How the hell am I supposed to keep my head screwed on?

I’ve decided that I’ll try the GI thing for a couple of weeks.  If I’m not feeling any better or dropping any more weight, I’ll be going back to Atkins & dumping those grains for my fats.  You notice it’s not just a matter of just losing the weight…it’s the “feeling any better” thing that comes first.