Days 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15

The rest of the carb limiting went fine. I stopped posting because I couldn't deal with posting such boring material. I like to come to my blog and read it and laugh. I am so funny and cute. Ah, not those posts. super boring.
There were some close calls, like deep fat fried cheese curds, cheese and bacon covered french fries, and a hangover day where I went to the grocery store with a hangover. well, honestly, I was still drunk. Shopping while hungry gets a lot of press, but believe me, you don't make good choices when hungover/drunk either.

I noticed some patterns. Excellent for avoiding bad situations:
1) breading on deep fat fried things - my number 1 culprit of carbs. I though that my biggest problem was sweets. I don't crave salty things. I do love me some cookies/donuts/pastries, but you can really avoid them. You just stay away from bakeries and that entire section of the grocery store. But, for some reason breading sneaks in on me regularly. I debread some on my plate, but the breading is so delicious... it breaks me down.
Lesson here: If I want to be good to myself, deep fried things are a bigger enemy than sweets. Particularly because I usually feel bad after eating sweets, but don't feel bad after mozzarella sticks.
2) I have to count and keep track all day. Going with a gut feel is no good. All the things with 1 and 2 carbs, seem so inconsequential, but there you are at 3pm, you are feeling great about your day, but like 10 of your day's carbs are gone! -
Lesson here: I lie to myself. having to write everything down kept me honest.
3) I found my daily carb posting necessary, but felt that you, my audience, must be getting bored. I just didn't have enough carb funniness. not my fault. carbs (or the lack of them) just aren't common comedic material.
Lesson here: perhaps I will start a completely separate blog or just email someone, or do the Stickk.com thing to keep me honest and
4) I lost 5 pounds over the 15 days. This is pretty good since my physical activity was pretty much: trotting through airports, two dog training sessions and one Irish dance class. not triathalon training, that is for sure.
Lesson here: I should keep doing this.
5) I don't seem to want to eat carbs when I can and I do when I can't - for instance, I allowed myself to eat whatever carbs I wanted on day 12 since I knew I was doing a special dinner thing that night. Turns out, I didn't even want anything bad all morning. I happened to be full. However, right now (yes, I am still doing it) I just spent 10 minutes thinking about a Mrs. Field's cookie with a mountain of frosting on it. If I walked over there, I wouldn't even get it.
Lesson here: have allocated carb freedom time each week. This will allow me to eat things that are driving me nuts, or at least tell myself the rest of the week that I will have it during the off time, but I likely won't even eat it then.

Overall, it was a success. In addition to proving to myself that I can do it, I lost some weight and got myself back into the swing of it. I always notice a marked improvement in energy/attitude when I stay far away from sugar and white flour, and this time is no different.

Day 6 Monday - 14 carbs

Breakfast – 5, Lunch – 0, Dinner – 9

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· I am on another trip and I couldn’t get my favorite room service dish: calamari. Because of the breading. Sigh.

Interesting things for you to know:

Nothing today

Day Summary:

Traveling is hard. You have to plan ahead, otherwise some ill advised airport food will sneak up on you.

Day 5 - Just didn't eat that much - 17 carbs

Breakfast – 2, Lunch – 0, Dinner – 15

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· None, I was great!

Interesting things for you to know:

1) Prunes have a lot of carbs. Dried fruit in general does. Why was I eating prunes? Perhaps I was trialing some TopChef style meals. What I learned – Braising is good. Prunes and Bourbon over lamb is just okay.

Day Summary:

Those prunes put me higher than I would have liked. But, you will notice I made it successfully to day 5 and feeling fine!

Day 4 Saturday- close! - 19 carbs

Breakfast –2 , Lunch – 17, Dinner – 0

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· Bockfest at Capital Brewery. I had about 5 oz of the Blonde Dopplebock beer. It wasn’t that great, but I still would have liked to drink it all. Plus more beer. Lots more beer. Thanks to Ding88 for finishing most of my beer.

· Cheeseburger in Paradise – Ding88 and my post Bockfest lunch destination. I would have liked to have fries, breading on deep fried pickles, and the hamburger bun. Oh, and ketchup.

Interesting things for you to know:

1) Ketchup has lots of high fructose corn syrup. Beware.

Day Summary:

I skipped dinner to make this count. My rumbley-tummy wasn’t too much trouble.

Day 3 Friday - carbs: 18

breakfast: 3, lunch: 0, dinner: 15
I ate dinner at Samba, the new Brazilian style steakhouse in Madison. It was fun. Most of these carbs came from wine. a very delicious muscat.
different than a muscrat.
which would have been 0 carbs.

Day 2- thursday - carb count 19

Breakfast – 2

Lunch – 4

Dinner – 13

Missed Carb Opportunities:

Midwest Airlines warm chocolate chip cookie, R’s delicious caramelized onions with my dinner

Interesting things for you to know:

Willy St coop doesn’t have a good meat selection. I wanted steak, but had to settle for chicken/turkey sausages. Which were delicious, but not steak. I realize it is probably obvious that Willy St Coop wouldn’t have a wide meat selection.

Day Summary:

Good day. I was riding high on my low breakfast and lunch counts, and then dinner got a bit high for me… close to the wire, but I think I was generous with my counting, so I am sure I was under.

Carb Counter

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/index.html

A challenge for myself

I want to be harder on myself than others. I want to improve over time. I try to spot my own personality flaws and work on them. Sometimes I spot them, but can't help myself.
A good example:
I am competative. It drives me like nothing else. I create competitions where there are none.
I try to be the best dressed person in all of Dayton, OH.
When invited to a party I am secretly trying to have the best gift, the most eaten dish, and the funniest stories.
I am ashamed to admit that I like beating people. Even in charity events.
I try to hide it, but am probably very transparent in my need to compete. I have seen several instances where people didn't invite me to participate in something, likely because I am going to make it into a competition. I understand.
The reason I bring this up -my friend 11 Frogs was doing something very nice for herself - trying to be a vegan for two weeks, and a vegetarian for Lent. This is nice and good and she has done a pretty good job laying bare her progress and small set backs on her blog.
I hate myself. But I want to try something similar to see if I can do better than her. Egads man, what is wrong with me? 11Frogs, this isn't about you and I am sorry. You have done an admirable job. I have some internal defect that forces me to do this.
Why would I even put this on this blog? Perhaps I hoped to absolve some guilt by publically declaring that I am a jerk. But mostly I have to have someone to judge my success, it is part of the competativeness. I couldn't just do this secretly because no one would acknowledge my success. I can't just tell R and have him judge me. I have realized that he has virtually no competativeness and will often tell me whatever I want to hear.
Also, I think that a blow by blow account will be funny.
I am not going vegan because I like having animals work for me. It pleases me. If I could get those damn dogs to carry the groceries up the stairs, believe me....
I am going to stay below 20 carbohydrates per day from today through March 6. That is 15 days. I have something on March 2 and I would like to eat and drink freely, so I will take off from 6pm to midnight.
If you think this will be easy, you are silly. take a look at everything you eat - a typical slice of bread 15 carbs - one can of Coke - like 32 carbs - worst of all, beer - my favorite beer, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is 12 carbs.

To keep me honest I will tell you all the carbs I eat each day and all of the delicious things I missed during the day.