Healthy Fast Food?

So is anyone else the least bit concerned about Taco Bell's "Drive Thru Diet"?  This bothers me on more levels than I can understand.  For me, "diet" and "fast food" just don't mix.  You have no idea how it is being prepared; and by this I mean what kind of oil, is it fried, etc...not to mention the concerns over the actual hands that prepare it or any other "bodies" that might be living in the establishment, such as mice or bugs.  I only say this as I used to work in a fast food establishment and we had mice every winter. 

The other big concern with me is going through a drive thru often means eating in a car, often while driving, which means you are not focused on your eating, which could cause you to overeat or not realize you are full.

What is very amusing to me is how the commercial says "Results aren't typical".  Really?  They are referring to their spokesperson for this new "diet" who lost 54 pounds in two years by replacing her usual fast food lunch with Taco Bell's diet menu.......AND exercising and cutting her caloric intake from 1750 to 1250.  My personal guess is that the exercise and calorie cutting had more to do with a 54 pound weight loss than Taco Bell.

What also disturbs me is this quote in one article I was reading today:  "The reality is most Americans are on-the-go and will eat foods purchased through a drive-thru an average of 10 times a month," said Ruth Carey, the Blazers' nutritionist, whose role in the push is to offer consumers tips for healthier choices while eating at quick-service restaurants.

Really?  Ten times a month?  Even at 315 pounds, that would have been very excessive for me.  If people are eating fast food that often, it is no wonder we have an obesity epidemic here in this country.  The stuff is just not healthy for you; often even the meals they advertise as "healthy".  Watch the documentary "Super Size Me" to get just an idea of how unhealthy the stuff really is.  Don't let them fool you and they will try.  As people become more health conscience, the fast food industry is being forced to try to fool you into still eating their food because they are relying on your money. 

Meal planning is key and not being on the go when hungry will help keep you away from these places.  Personally, I would not go for the Taco Bell diet.  Do your own shopping and preparing and you are way more in control of what goes in your mouth.

I nearly made the mistake today as I went to Kmart.  Actually, Kmart was the last place I went in a quest to find sweat pants because it is bloody cold here on the East coast and all my workout pants are capris or shorts and Brrrr!  I tried the second hand shops and found two pair that fit me in the waist; one was ugly and other though marked as women's, either had to be mens or made for a giant woman as they were so freaking long.  So by the time I hit Kmart, I was starving.  Did find sweats for $5 a pair and got the last two pair in my size, both in the same color (I really expected shopping to be easier by going from a 3x to an XL, but noooo.  There was an abundance of 2x and 3x and two lousy pair of xl with no option of different colors.  Anyway, Kmart also has my both beloved and dreaded orange slices; not the fruit but the chewy orange sugary goodness....but I resisted and managed to walk by them by reminding myself there was a healthy lunch waiting for me at home.

Do the challenges never end?

Kickboxing tonight and then the new season of The Biggest Loser!

Bread, Chocolate and Narrow Roads

My eating is sucking big wumpus (or however the Indians would have spelled that).  Breakfast?  Bring on the
English bread, baby!  And put some of that creamy UK butter on it as well!  Dinner tonight?  Cheese sandwich.  Craving something?  Nothing like a bite of Cadburys.

Ugh.

I did about a mile walk today however, which is the small bit of good news.  I know, I know, everyone will say "Hey, you're on vacation!  Enjoy!  But I'm on vacation for a really long time!  A week?  Okay, fair enough.  I can eat as I'd like for a week and fix it quickly enough upon arriving back home.  Three weeks is going to take serious fixing and unless Jack is going to be my personal kickbutt instructor seven days a week for a month, I could be in deep dodo.  Yet, dammit, it all tastes so good over here!  I guess I should be thankful Maryland does not have the goodies that England does.  But that doesn't help me now.  What would help me now would be some control for myself, which has been a terrible issue, but getting out of my comfort zone of home makes things complicated from an eating perspective.

I have been good on some occasions; bypassing something I'd like to eat or better yet, taking a bite of something and discovering that I no longer like it; that it is too rich or too sweet for me now where before that would not have been an issue.  But with two weeks left, I need to be better.  Help me, C&P girls...I need a good kick in the rear end! 

Today was low key.  A little exploring mostly.  Tomorrow most likely we will either go to London or Windsor.  There is a possibility of Tube strike in London, so we are waiting to see where that goes if anywhere (Tubes are the underground transportation system, like our subway or metro) as if they strike it could be a mess in the city.

This is a two lane road, believe it or not that is so typical of English roads:





This one is self explanatory

New Goals on Healthy Dose Friday

So after a brief though still ongoing email conversation with my WLS extraordinaire friend, Celia (I think all my WLS friends are awesome but Celia is like 10+ years out of surgery and doing great, so she is my long-term hero), I know what I have really known all along.

I can stop counting calories.  I need to reduce the carbs.  They are my weakness and I know I am eating too many of them.  They may be not be cookies, cakes and pies, but bread, cereal and pretzels can do close to the same about of damage in hindering my scale to MOVE! 

I have been researching low carb foods this morning and ran across a myth list on about.com.  Sure enough I had always bought into some of these myths about low carbing, such as:

2. Low-Carb Diets Discourage Eating Vegetables and Fruits

Because vegetables and fruits are mainly carbohydrate, people believe that they are not allowed on low-carb diets.

Fact: The opposite is true �- non-starchy vegetables are usually at the bottom of the low carb pyramids meaning they are the �staff of life� of the diet (replacing grains in that role) and people who follow a low-carb way of eating almost always eat more vegetables than the general population. For the most part, vegetables and fruits ARE the carbs eaten when following a low-carb way of eating.

This was the one that had worried me the most because especially in the summer months, I adore fruit.  I need to be careful of the tropical stuff though, like my daily banana, as it is higher in carbs.  That's okay though as I love berries and melon the most.

I'm not a huge fan of veggies, though I do prefer many of them raw with some kind of dip or dressing.  So I'm searching for low carb veggie dip and did find this suggestion:

The dry ranch mix has no carbs or less than one? Mix that with sour cream and cream cheese. Yumm!!!

I would use the low fat cream cheese and I always use Breakstones Fat Free sour cream as well.  Salad Spritzer may also be an option but I have to check the carb count on it.  Also read about mixing balsamic vinegar with italian herbs.

This would solve my need to crunch that tends to happen about mid afternoon.  I also need to replace my morning cereal with something else as 1) I'm getting tired of it and 2) because though it contains 10 grams of protein, it is still high in carbs and 3) I dumped off it this morning for some reason.  So, I'm finding recipes for low carb, high fiber muffins and the like, so I can work on changing things up. 

See, here's the thing.  What I'm doing isn't working anymore.  I can tolerate more foods now and I can tolerate slightly larger amounts now.  So, I need to make what I'm eating count.  High proteins, high nutrients.  This isn't really rocket science when I think about it.  It's just going back to the good food groups.  I may find that this doesn't work either (though I think it will.  Celia has preached the carbs to me since before my surgery), and if that is case I'll need to change things up again.  The biggest mistake would be to keep on doing what I am doing knowing I am only maintaining my weight and I'm not happy with that.  My scale number is not yet what I want it to be (I swear when that scale goes to 199, you will hear me yell no matter where you live!) but I am intent on getting there.  I didn't go through surgery to not be satisified where I am.  I'm happy here.  I feel healthy and can do all sorts of stuff I couldn't do before.  But I have a number in my head I want to see and I am hell-bent on doing what I need to do to get there.

You can do it too.

Working on getting back in the swing of things

I am still not keeping normal hours...either that or I am becoming one of those old people who get up at five am every morning...and let's hope it isn't that! 

Today wound up hectic with playing catch-up at work, then finding out that Aaron is flunking English for lack of doing a book report to amount to anything.  I worked at putting my house back in order a bit after work but still have a ways to go.

I also have no idea how it happened that I lost a pound in England.  I'm convinced the scale is mistaken because it doesn't seem possible.  Because I ate the likes of:

Cheese
Bread
Butter
chocolate (not gobs of it, but a mini bar of Cadburys a day)
fish and chips (only a few of the "chips" and I didn't eat the fried batter)
Lamb kabob
Duck
Too much wine on two occasions

Now granted, my pouch is not big, so I couldn't eat a lot of any of this, but still....I ate terrible things!  I did do some walking, but again, not tons of it, so how on earth could I have lost a pound?  So odd.  I was totally prepared for a gain.

Milk?  WLS surgery people, how much milk do you all drink?  I have calcium concerns.  Yes, I take my supplements, but I still worry about the one thing they can't test for.  I haven't been drinking any milk other than in my cereal, but now am trying to get a glass or two in a day of 1% milk.  What do you girls do?

I'm still struggling a bit with mum's passing, which I know is normal.  I was cleaning out my jewelry box today and I found a note from her she had given me with a necklace once that had belonged to her mother.  She said she knew her mother would have wanted me to have it as much as she wanted me to have it and she thanked me for making The Brit so happy.  It was a bittersweet moment for me as I had forgotten all about the note, but I had kept it as I'm sentimental that way.

I still have this weird rash.  It is on my arms and legs and tops of my feet.  Really weird.  I'm giving it another day or so before calling a doctor.

Aunt Flo, No Mo'

As a pre-op, the time of the month where Aunt Flo paid her visit were always my worst food times.  Fast forward to being a post-op and you will find that is still the case.  And I hate it.

Could not eat dinner last night.  Why?  Because I ate a freaking chocolate covered carmel and had a session of dumping syndrome from it, so there was no eating dinner for me lest I make it worse and I was already feeling lousy enough.  So once I felt better, I had some animal crackers and freaking cheez its and then had an apple and peanut butter ala Trader Joes with none of the bad stuff in it.  Better than the crackers but sheesh!  Of course, Flo already  has me feeling bloated, so I'm having one of those days where I'm thinking "OMG, I am on my way back to 315 pounds again!  Make it stop!"  And no, I haven't gained anything thankfully.

It is so hard to reconcille what I ate before to what I eat now.  Now, a handful of crackers makes me feel guilty,but should it?  Is it really that bad?  Is it going to make me gain weight when I've been exercising?  Probably not.  At least, I don't think so. 

My biggest problem is television time in the afternoon.  Why?  Because if I get all my chores done, I have a new fetish of adoring The Dog Whisperer and I have taped aka DVR'd a bunch of them (I am such an animal freak and this guy amazes me).  When I'm watching television, I want to nibble.  I want to nibble something that is going to last awhile.  So what should I chose?  Right now it is the dreaded animal crackers and Cheez Its but surely there is a better solution.  It's head hunger, I'm sure of it, left over from years of smoking while watching television.  Then when I quit doing that, it became snacking while watching television.  So what do I replace it with now? 

I'm also having issues with jellybeans.  The church is trying to kill me really.  Not only have I had to avoid chocolate eggs in the narthex for weeks now, but now there are jellybeans in the vicinity!  Ugh!  It's all ugly badness. Christmas candy did not bother me at all.  Easter crap?  Whole 'nother story.  And you know why it is?  Because jellybeans are a nibble food; feasibly a food I could nibble while watching Cesar Millan that would last awhile.  It's a vicious cycle.

So what do you snack on?  What is your nibble food?

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