Tuesday, March 23
Quick before I go, FYI there are 3 fairly widespread low-carb candy bars out there now that are sweetened with erythritol and inulin, not *makes finger cross and hisses* maltitol or lactitol, and won't give you Montezuma's Revenge.Z-Carb bars, available in 7-11 and Duane Reade and other fine retailers, are the best of the lot. They're the least waxy and have zero carbs. Their dark chocolate and dark chocolate with soy crisps varieties are the best I've found so far.
Next down are the Hershey's 1-carb bars. A bit more waxy but not terrible, and they come in an almond variety which isn't half bad.
At Last! bars are well named for the purposes of this post. They're made by Carbolite/Carborite, whose maltitol bars were pretty okay other than the turista factor, but these aren't too hot. Waxier than most, and the peanut butter one is kind of a joke. There's a teeny micron-thin pallid layer of what purports to be peanut butter but lacks both peanuttiness and butteryness.
None of them will kill you, and they'll all hit the spot if you're jonesing for a candy bar. Of course they're all a lousy substitute for getting your carbs from vegetables like you should, and you should take note if they give you cravings for sugar or stall your weight loss, and adjust your consumption accordingly. Like to not eating them.
binki 4:13 PM
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Saturday, March 20
CarbSmart (or is it CarbsMart?) has the Keto soy shakes, including the strawberry flavor, and even a banana flavor which I personally won't try, but it's good to know it's out there.
binki 10:20 AM |
Netrition is pissing me off with their censorship policy on the Low Carb Friends boards. A la carb has similar prices, and I think I'll order from them from now on. I know Cappuccino Connection has better prices for DaVinci stuff, and I'm willing to shop around a bit to find the stuff I'd normally get at Netrition. Their prices aren't the best, by a long shot, and they can blame that on the high price of Splenda if they want but the fact is, other places have the same products for sale for lower prices. If their prices were the lowest, they'd have nothing to fear. Netrition could be a pioneer and start the trend away from price gouging, but they don't seem to be interested in that, so fuck 'em. That's one formerly loyal customer they lost. binki 10:05 AM |
Friday, March 19
Not much to report here. Weight loss continues apace, so I haven't made any lifestyle changes to speak of. I do have a new working theory about calorie intake. Assuming ketosis levels of carbs, which of course is different for everybody, but assuming your sticks are consistently pink, I believe that if you use these calculators to figure your basal and active metabolic rates, if you consume calories between those two numbers you will lose weight.Again, this is assuming your daily carbs are low enough to keep you in ketosis. That's important. But the point is, your BMR is what it takes to keep you alive if you're basically comatose. I believe that lowering your calories to below your BMR will cause you to go into starvation mode, and I think this is the mistake a lot of people make. I see people on the boards who are eating 1200 calories a day and not losing, and I really think that's why. It's tough to convince people that they might need to eat more to lose weight, of course, after a lifetime of low-calorie, low-fat programming.
In any case, the BMR is your slugabed calorie use, and your AMR, if you're honest, is what you use to walk around of a day. That's the number of calories you burn in an average day of activity, be that marathon running or web surfing. So go a bit under that with your intake and hey presto, you're burning body fat instead. It's working for me, and of course I think everybody should do exactly what I do, so there you are.
Run your own numbers. They'll be surprisingly high, and that's the cool part of this. NB: they don't have to add up to a whole 24 hours. There's no place to put in the hours you spend sleeping, so just put in the hours (in minutes) that you spend awake and doing anything at all. I think it assumes that you're sleeping and consuming at your BMR during any time you don't account for. So I grossly underestimated my daily activity, figuring 12 hours in front of the computer (720 minutes in the lowest column, Very Light) and one hour of Light activity per day, and my AMR still comes out well over 2600 calories. So I eat 2000+ luxurious calories a day, lose weight steadily, and am clammishly happy with the whole situation.
binki 9:37 AM
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Friday, March 12
Ok, the Gus just pissed me off. You'd think someone married to a strict vegetarian would think before dissing somebody else's eating habits, especially in such an ignorant way. It's so clear he hasn't read a single factual word about it. Puh-leeze. Guess I'll just go drown my sorrows in another big steamin' mug of bacon grease.binki 4:57 PM |
I just heard about this book project and got the submission guidelines. I thought as a diet blogger I'd be a shoo-in but now that I've seen the proposed chapter listings I'm not so sure. None of the topics really grab me. I'm all about research and recipes and results, and the book seems to be more about what it's like to be a fat chick. Fat chicks rule, don't get me wrong, but I just don't have much to say about being one. I never even thought I was one, until I read a post where someone referred to me as "chubby and round" on a bulletin board. If I need jeans with a 40 waist I just buy them, who cares what the number is? I wasn't fat as a kid, I've never had sex with a fat woman—well, I guess I've had sex as a fat woman, but I don't want to write about that—and I haven't had any insurmountable obstacles in my dieting adventures.I'll think about it a bit more, but she wants one to three pages, and I don't know if I have that much to say about any of the topics given.
That, and she keeps using the word "overweight." I hate that. I know it's supposed to be a gentle adjective but I find it insulting. Fat is fat, overweight is a value judgement and fuck that.
binki 9:38 AM
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Thursday, March 11
I made a new batch of the flaxseed muffins from a few days ago. I am completely addicted to these things, and I really urge you to try making them. One trip to the healthfood store and you'll find flaxseed meal, Zone protein powder, and unsweetened coconut, and that'll be enough for several batches.Really, try them! They're so so good for you, so yummy, so easy to make, and they smell like absolute heaven when they bake. And just 2 carbs apiece. I'm in love.
binki 8:33 PM
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Having poked around the site a bit, I've added CountCarbs to the BDP blogroll for a while. There's a lot of good common sense stuff here, and she seems to know whence she speaks.
binki 7:47 PM |
Basal Metabolism Rate calculator. READ the article that's linked at the bottom of the page. I think they're right.
binki 7:41 PM |
I saw a candy bar today but, oddly, I can't find any mention of it at Hershey's sugar free site. It was an almost-normal-sized bar, but said all over it 1 GRAM of sugar. Here's a press release with pictures. It's totally different from their colon-wringing Maltitol-sweetened sugar-free miniatures or little Reese's cups; this was sweetened with inulin and erythrytol, the same combination that's in the delightful Z-carb bars and which makes them the best; they taste great and don't give you that Tijuana feeling. If the staff at Rite Aid hadn't been such morons I'd be reporting on the taste of the new Hershey's ones right now, but that's the way the erythritol crumbles. Maybe tomorrow.binki 4:23 PM |
Wednesday, March 10
Lame. I ordered some stuff from Nature's Flavors last month and never heard back from them. I called just now and they said that most of the stuff in my order would be going out by the end of this week. Take your time, guys, no need to let me know any of this information or when it'll be arriving or anything, two weeks later... yeesh. You get so spoiled by the instant confirmations at other sites.
binki 8:14 PM |
I've worn out my rowing machine. It's almost 20 years old, and I think I paid a hundred bucks for it back then, so I guess I got my money's worth. It's pretty much unusable now; you have to stop every four or five minutes to tighten a bolt which shouldn't be loosening in the first place. It's just plain shot. The question now is, do I get a replacement which I can afford, or do I get the really good one I want?binki 4:32 PM |
Mite=10 lbs, Emma=10.6 lbs, Delancey=13 lbs and Spencer=15.6 lbs. Loving the new scale! binki 2:22 PM |
Tuesday, March 9
Here is a good site for the numbers-oriented. It gives you a way to calculate how much protein, fat, carbs, and calories your body needs to function. You start out figuring out how many calories it takes to keep your body alive and maintaining at your current weight, then from that you get numbers like how many carbs your brain needs to function and how much protein your body needs to keep itself in good repair. It seems complicated but if you go a step at a time it's very valuable information, especially if you're using some kind of nutrition calculator like Diet Sleuth, or an online calculator like Fitday. They will both tote up your daily percentages and stuff for you, and you can see right away where you're on target and where you need to batten things down a little bit.I'm all about doing this scientifically. I know it works, obviously, and now I'm trying to optimize the whole process. Everything I learn about it is one more thing I can improve. I'd like to do this whole losing phase as efficiently as possible so I can get to the maintenance phase and back off on the keeping track a bit. Much as I like punching in every bite every day, it'll get old.
I do look forward to when I'm just weighing in every week or two to make sure I'm not creeping up again. I'll stay on a low-carb way of eating forever, of course, since it feels great and works so well, but I don't want to have to lose a bunch of weight again after I raise my carbs to where I'm no longer in ketosis full time. Once I'm at goal, my plan will be to do something about it whenever I'm up 5 pounds or so and it sticks around long enough that I know it's not water weight. 5 pounds is easy to deal with, 50 not so much, and it'll only get more difficult as I get older.
binki 4:36 PM
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My new scale came in today. I like it. I can hop on and off it a few times in a row and get the same reading, and it has the nice "weight only" feature so strangers will be able to use it without getting a degree in programming the thing. I of course also like it since it gave me the lowest weight I've seen since I was in my 20's, but this is partially since this is the first time I've weighed myself nekkid since then. It showed me a nice new second digit for the first time, though, and that lets me into the 30 pounds club. Yay me.Not sure yet how I feel about the body fat percentage function. I programmed B's and my statistics into it, and will spend the next few days getting an idea of how it changes over the day. I've read you should weigh yourself first thing in the morning (after peeing, of course, though you KNOW I'm going to do before and after to see how much that weighs) and do your body fat percentage in the evening when you're theoretically fully hydrated. We'll see. I hear the body fat calculations are way off from what you get in a real test in a tank of water and stuff, so I'm not going to sweat its accuracy. As long as it's consistent, and I can keep track of trends, I don't mind if it's not strictly true.
binki 3:12 PM
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Monday, March 8
Well, now I've gone and done it. When I ordered the pedometer, I also ordered a bathroom scale. If you thought I was obsessive about this Atkins thing before, watch out.binki 12:07 PM |
Saturday, March 6
Dear Whole World,It's fine if you're not on Atkins. Really, I don't care. You don't have to explain why. The only reason you can give that's at all useful to me is to tell me you're not doing it because a lot of other people are. If its "bandwagon" status comprises your whole reason for not doing it, I'll know you're a complete fuckwit and not waste my time with you in the future. Other than that, I don't care how much you love bread or how you could never eat all those eggs or you couldn't live without spaghetti or pizza or whatever. It's not for everybody, we all know that, can we drop it?
binki 11:56 AM
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New products! I ordered Flax-O-Meal's Butter Pecan flavor accidentally and almost sent it back, but I'm glad I didn't. It tastes like the "honey nut" version of regular cereals. It's sweet and nutty and yummy. Thumbs up.I also got the Toasted Marshmallow flavor DaVinci. Sweeeeeet. It tastes just like you think it would. I haven't had it in hot chocolate yet, but it's inevitable and I know it'll rock the bells.
I made a new batch of FFCC and I think they're greatly improved, but it's not there yet. One more round before I post the recipe.
I also made some flaxmeal muffins which require a few specialty ingredients but if you have flaxseed meal, unsweetened coconut shreds, and whey protein isolate (I used the vanilla Zone Perfect powder) lying around the house, they are delicious, really really good for you, and dead easy to make.
LC Flax Seed Muffins
Mix together:
6 T melted butter
3 large eggs
1/4 c heavy cream
2 t Vanilla
(I melted the butter in a Pyrex measuring cup in front of the stove vent, then mixed the other ingredients in.)
In another bowl combine dry ingredients:
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 c flax seed meal
1/2 c Splenda
1/2 c whey protein isolate (I used vanilla Zone Perfect powder)
1/2 c unsweetened coconut
Mix wet & dry mixtures together. Divvy into muffin tins.
Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.
Makes 12 muffins with 2 carbs each.
binki 11:34 AM
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Friday, March 5
Check this out if you want to know what your "ideal weight" should be for your size. It's clearly a huge approximation; most of the tables don't account for frame size or anything, but I like that they give you a range of sources for "ideal" weight. It's also kind of cool- if I put in different weights the "People's Choice" number changes, despite my height staying the same. It's almost always under what the current weight is, though. No, wait. If I set my weight to the lower end of the "Medical Recommendation" for my height, it thinks I should gain a few.Anyhoo, there's a BMI calculator. According to that, I'm almost there. I started out with a BMI of almost 30 and now it's down to 25.4. Theoretically once I get to 25 I'm at that wonderful place where there's a lower risk for heart disease. I'll keep going, though, I think, probably to the low 20s.
binki 3:11 PM
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Low Carb Friends has emerged as the front-runner in my quest to fill the void left by the demise of the Talking Low Carb boards. There are a lot of Invisible Cloud Being references and breeederish usernames and avatars but it's still not as puerile as many of the others.The biggest drawback of the site is, it's sponsored by Netrition and they're really obnoxious about censoring references to competitors. So you'll see a post like "I found this for $5.00 at Netrition and $3.00 at removed." My well-documented love for Netrition took a big hit because of this. I mean, it's their board and they can do what they like, but it's damn annoying. If they took the high road and left the posts I bet the Netrition defenders would come out of the woodwork and defend them. I know I order stuff from them even though I might be able to get it cheaper elsewhere; convenience goes a long way. If I just want a bottle or two of DaVinci I'll add it to my Netrition order rather than placing a separate order at Cappuccino Connection. It's interesting to see how much they gouge, though. Would that they'd just lower their inflated prices and be open and competitive instead of resorting to lame censorship to try to trick people into patronizing them. I find that offensive.
binki 11:58 AM
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Things are going well. I thought I was on a bit of a plateau but I seem to have lost a few anyway. It's amazing how motivating that is; it's stupid easy to not eat chips or bread before dinner when you know you're making progress. I'm probably going to get mercury poisoning from all the salmon but what can I say, I do love the stuff. Last night's had a whipped avocado sauce, and tonight it was a creamy champagne sauce. A little garlicky spinach on the side, and you've got a dish that can't be beat. AND I'm under 20 Gs for the day, including the last of the FFCC. I'll be back in the Foomart Test Kitchens tomorrow, either perfecting my little FFCC cakelets or making the new FFPPCC as suggested by B. Life's good.binki 12:11 AM |
Diet stuff (specifically low-carb, Atkins-type stuff) will be on this weblog from now on, so as not to clutter the regular blog with its boringness. As I learn about new low-carb stuff I'll post it to this blog, so check in from time to time if you care to. If you got here directly from a search result and want to read about anything other than low-carb living, here's how you get to the rest of my site!
If this weblog isn't showing up in a frame with a big red blob in the corner, go to foomart.com to see it in its natural habitat.
If you want to send me email, just send it to anybody at foomart dot com.
Useful links:
Atkins All the Way boards
Active Low Carber boards
Low Carb Transformation boards
Low Carb Eating boards
First Step Tracker
USDA nutritional info
Glycemic Index
Liquid Splenda!
Honeyville Grain
CountCarbs.com
A La Carb
Atkins
The skinny people want what the fat people's got...