food, ever so not interesting but at least not tasteless

Ok So i have praised this diet for having food I like. The problem... food i LOVE isn't really on the diet. Pizza ... french fries .. bread in general. So I'm changing things a little and now that I have completed over a week of the transition phase and can actually have a few carbs again I am going to relax the diet one or two nights a week (depending on schedule) and have a sane amount of whatever I want and correct the following day. The good news is that I know from past experiences that if I binge on carbs I will feel like absolute hell within just a half hour to an hour. Not really pleasant and a great way to curb eating a whole plate of cheese fries or a pizza.

Food eaten... I'm starting to see a pattern here .. hamburgers seem to be a staple when I goto my parents because I think my mom doesn't really understand what a carb is. I've explained it multiple times and all she hears is "hamburger by itself is safe." I'm seriously starting to wonder if she just fears learning something new or doesn't listen when people talk. I know things slip a little when you get older but she's only 60.. not that old and I have seen other signs of oddness in her memory over the past few months. For instance she was telling me how one of my uncles used the money gotten from some antiques to buy a couple of trucks, but I happen to know he did not have those items until close to 10 years after those trucks were bought. Her sense of time is completely slipping... and I thought I was the one doing chemical experiments on my own brain for a few years...

Well, I should think about actually working for awhile so this is short and not all that interesting .. sorry...

Food summary: eggs, bacon, coffee, hamburger patty, hamburger patty, salad, hamburger patty, shrimp appetizer, steak & steamed broccoli, wedge salad, almonds .... (in no real order aside from the steak was Sunday afternoon between lunch time and dinner time).

Had the steak (ribeye) at Outback in southern Nashua, NH. The flavor was pretty good but they overcooked it and considering I had asked for medium to medium rare and got medium well to well ... it wasn't just a small amount of overcooking. I didn't send it back because I didn't want to be there for another 20 minutes on top of the already long meal (long is fine, but eating alone sometimes gets WAY boring at a restaurant).

posts reducing in frequency

This diet has made my food choices far less interesting and much easier to stay "on diet" so I haven't been posting as much. But just in case anyone cares, I have been sticking to the diet pretty well. A couple small slip ups but nothing terrible, mostly just a little sugar in coffee or a couple croutons on a salad. The good news is that the diet is starting to work a little, no lost weight that i can tell, that will actually take quite a bit of time as i don't have or want a scale that can weight me. I am starting to increase energy levels though and getting out of bed, though still not pleasant, is easy. Never had a physical hard time of it, but I had been just dreading it and been way tired every morning. The past few nights I haven't felt like sleeping till about 1am and been awake by 8am and unable to get back to sleep. So all immediate signs are good and I expect I will fall off the wagon on this diet soon enough but will not stay that way long, this over weight thing is getting way old. I'll never be fit but being able to sit comfortable in my own damn Jeep would be nice.

Diet Dr. Pepper

One of the few bright spots on this diet is that I can have (within reason) any meats that i want. I can eat most green vegetables and don't have to worry to terribly much about most cheese (well not American .. that's loaded with sugar). It only takes a few days to start craving sweet (I'll not even mention bread and potatoes because that is likely to be the breaking point sooner or later). For the dessert fix there is Sugar free jello, add a little bit of whipped cream and that is very satisfying most of the time, but it's not really that sweet. The last time i did this diet low carb dieting was all the rage and I could find tons of chocolate alternatives that tasted mostly right. Those options have dried up as the fad has died. So I'm stuck with this terribly craving for something really sweet .... the solution is found is a very strange place. Diet Dr. Pepper If you haven't had anything sweet in a few days and this is all that is around it absolutely tastes like liquid pleasure, though with a slightly unpleasant after taste. Luckily you get used to that fairly fast.

Meals yesterday
Breakfast: coffee
Lunch: Salad (with lots of chicken and bacon bits, real bacon bits so good)
Snack: Diet Dr Pepper
Dinner: Boston Market, turkey, creamed spinach (few carbs) and green beans
Snack: almonds, strawberry jello

healthy.. REALLY

Today was a good day on my diet, I still wanted some starches but I managed to avoid it.

Breakfast: Eggs and bacon
Lunch: 2 cheeseburgers minus buns at mcdonalds
Dinner: salad (see pic)



Salad: lettuce, 2 eggs, broccoli, celery with cream cheese, italian dressing. A few carbs in the dressing and cream cheese but no more than 5 or so. This is a really good meal for me .. though I'd like to add a few pieces of chicken breast or even some salmon.

midsummer and a snack

It's midsummer so umm happy midsummer!

Breakfast: Coffee
Lunch: salad (greens, eggs, chicken w/vinegar and oil)
Snack: Almonds, coffee
Dinner: Chicken and some broccoli
Snack: See below!


Low carb eating can be so strange. This is by far NOT a great snack but it doesn't break my diet.


Pepperoni (thick slices) and provolone cheese

a new start ... goodbye carbs for awhile

Well ... eating healthier since i started the blog has actually been happening most of the time. But I need to lose some weight because I just feel like crap all the time. The only diet that has ever worked for me was Atkins (a slight variant that allows a little bit of good carbs). I came home slightly early from work last night and went through the apartment and bagged up everything that I will need to get rid of to avoid carbs. I also stopped and bought some food... this is a more expensive way to eat but hopefully, like before, I can some weight and start feeling better and then get more exercise. So I won't detail yesterday's food as it is slightly contradictory...

Got up this morning and made 3 fried eggs and had 2 slices of ham. I am already wanting some bread or potatos but I gotta get through this first week before any of that is even an option.

visitors and Italian food

Tuesday was a slow day for getting anything accomplished. We had visitors in the office and a few meetings and lunch out at Bertucci's. Was a productive day business relationship wise but not so productive on the normal workload. Well worth it though as meeting people face to face is extremely important. Hard to get companies to cough up the cash to do it so we take advantage of every opportunity. Ended up at work early and leaving a bit late but not terribly so in either direction, with a long lunch in the middle.

Breakfast: coffee and danish
Lunch: Bertucci's Chicken Parm w/Penne
Dinner: Chips & ranch dip, banana, coffee

greasy skin and more chicken and dumplings

Tried out my chicken N dumplings recipe again. It was good but not quite as chicken flavored as before which is odd because i started with raw chicken and braised it for an hour and a half before making the recipe. It's good and I suspect that by tomorrow when i reheat it it will be great. Just struck me as odd that since I started from scratch this time I ended up with less flavor. As you will see I also added carrots.



Chicken N Dumplings

I took the rubbery skin off the chicken thighs and laid it out on a baking sheet and salted it a little and then broiled it for a few minutes. You can see the results below. Not very healthy but extremely tasty.



Broiled Chicken Skin



Breakfast: Coffee
Lunch: Chicken Panang Curry
Dinner: Chicken N Dumplings, coffee, and some chicken skin

bleargh...

Spent the weekend with my folks for Father's Day and to help my dad clean out his truck. The damage on it doesn't look real bad on the surface but there was some twisting of the frame. So we spent some time taking off personal additions (lights siren and the like)

As far as food goes.. pasta, beans, chicken .... burgers at Mcdonalds (ugh)... coffee, more coffee, some more coffee.... wasn't a foodie weekend for sure.

out of work early

Left work a bit early today so I could spend some time helping my dad find a new truck. He recently totaled his (see a post below) and is needing something to drive. Didn't find anything today but we eliminated some places!

Breakfast: Peanut Butter Toast (Corinne's fault! though its been days since we discussed)
Lunch: BK cheese burger , fries and Diet Coke (i HATE diet coke, rather have water...)
Dinner: Baked Beans

no breakfast? heh

Well today was uneventful. Work happened nothing good nothign bad, though we did have a release party that I went to for a few minutes.

Breakfast: nada
Lunch: spaghetti and Meatballs
Snack: coffee and rice crispy treat
Snack #2: cheese and crackers and a couple cookies (release party)
Dinner: Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and Dumplings

Worked from home today and decided that I needed to make lunch rather than go out. I had leftover chicken from Boston Market and at Corinne's suggestion I decided to try and make Chicken and Dumplings. I'd like to report a complete success :) tasted great and was fairly easy to do.




Chicken N Dumplings

Chicken:
1/2 chicken roasted and shredded (at least remove the bones)
1 carton free range chicken broth (4 cups i think)
salt/pepper/chili powder/garlic/Italian seasonings

Dumplings:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup ice cold water (plus some.. this is a hard one to get exact measurment)
salt


Mix all the chicken ingredients and start to simmer. I'd let it cook for about 30 minutes to get the flavors to mix nicely. Mix the dumpling ingredients in a bowl or on the counter and bring it together so that you can kneed it fairly easily (you will need to add extra water slowly so as to not get it to wet). Flour the counter and roll out the dumplings until they are about 1/4 inch thick. cut the dumplings about an inch wide and 2 inches long, or however you want them.
Drop them into the broth and let them cook for 20 minutes or so at a low boil. I then thickened the broth with a little corn starch. This dumpling recipe won't thicken the broth much.


Breakfast: banana, a pb&j sandwich, coffee
Lunch: Chicken and Dumplings
Dinner: Chef Boyardee Ravioli

deadlines, italian sandwich and chicken!

Today was the absolute deadline for a product we are working on releasing the next version of. I got involved in a very simple defect that should have been handled months ago but somehow got dropped. Simple stuff until some anal retentive gatekeeper decided to do his job now instead of 7 months ago when it was originally submitted. I can understand people upholding their standards but 2 minutes before a deadline is not the time for that when you had an opportunity to do it 7 months earlier. I doubt he agrees with me but I am fairly sure that he won't be challenging me in a contest of wills again anytime soon. I make a somewhat blunt impression on people who piss me off.


Breakfast: banana, croissant

Snack: coffee and pound cake

Lunch: Extreme Italian Sandwich

Dinner: rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, corn


Right before bed my niece called me and my dad totaled his truck last night on his way to a fire call (he's a volunteer fireman). Apparently there was a pretty bad storm going on and a lightning strike at a bad time blinded him. I wasn't there so I dunno, but the end result is a dead truck and a slightly beat up dad. ugh...

pulled pork, a steak and rutabaga fries?!

Breakfast:
some pound cake and a milky way chocochino at work.

Lunch:
pulled pork with slaw sandwich
cup of veggie soup

Snack:
pear

Dinner:
flat iron steak
mac&cheese


So I tried to make some rutabaga fries tonight on the theory that it works with sweet potatoes so it should for rutabaga. more experimentation is needed because my oil was at first to hot and they started to blacken before they were cooked all the way through and then when they started cooking slow enough it was still turning way dark before they were finished. Think if i try it again I will either try thick kettle style chips or perhaps shoestring size french fries to get more surface area compared to middle. The good news is i liked the flavor of the cooked one or two I tries but the burned parts overwhelmed the middles ... more work on this recipe.

bay scallops!! and bacon..... so much for healthy

Bacon and Scallop Tortellini

1/2 lb bay scallops
1/4 lb bacon (cut into bite sized pieces
4oz three cheese tortellini (whatever flavor you like really)
1/2 lb snap peas (originally i was gonna use asparagus but the peas looked good)
1/2 container alfredo sauce from deli case (you know the cheating stuff, same place ya get the "fresh pasta")
1/2 tsp chopped parsley
1 small onion rough chopped
salt&pepper


Boil the pasta until it's a couple minutes from done and toss in the peas. Once the water starts to boil again drain the pasta and leave in strainer with a cover over it loosely. It will finish cooking as you do the rest of this recipe. You could have started the Bacon cooking in a pan during the pasta cooking if you wanted a head start. Once the bacon is starting to get good and brown drain off most of the fat and add the onions and cook until bacon is crispy and onions have started to soften. Toss in the scallops and season with salt and pepper (don't be shy with the pepper, and fresh cracked is best). Once the scallops are done (should just be a few minutes, they cook fast and you do NOT want to overcook them) remove the proteins to a plate with a paper towel allow to drain while you finish the pasta. Dump the pasta into teh hot pan that is still slightly greasy and saute a minute or two to get the rest of the water off. Spoon in the alfredo sauce (I said half a package but it really just needs enough to coat the pasta and peas) and saute until everything is warmed up and coated. Finish with the parsley and some more black pepper.

Serve the bacon and scallop mixture over the pasta. You could even top with parm. cheese if you wanted, I just didn't have any and it already looked unhealthy enough. Tasty though.

steak!

Well the internet connection in't much better today .. for awhile it seemed ok and then someone int eh area must have found a new porn site to copy locally because it started the same crap again. Very annoying....

Decided I wanted steak so I went to Longhorn Steakhouse in Nashua NH for lunch.
I won't say it's the best steak I have ever had but it was a pleasant surprise. Though it does kinda make me laugh that the place was styles after a Texas steakhouse and I am in NH eating at it when I own a house in TX.... :P

Breakfast: Banana

Lunch: (pics below)
Texas Tonions (onion peels, with a chipotle ranch dipping sauce)
house salad w/chipotle ranch
12 oz ribeye and steamed veggies

Dinner:
Chef Boyardee spagh&meatballs



Texas Tonions - lame name, but very tasty


12oz Ribeye (i cut a piece off before taking the picture)

feeling better but crappy internet connection

Well my back is MOSTLY better, not 100% but i can get around without pain now unless i sit int eh same position for to long then it's stiff. This is good because back pain sucks .. seriously. Now on to my next frustration. Great timing too...

Last night around 8pm my network connection (through Comcast) started totally sucking. I would get bouts of packet loss bordering on a complete connection loss and then it would work fine for a few minutes and then latency would spike back up to something like 3000 ms. This obviously completely ruins my ability to play WoW and this weekend being right before a big deadline at work I have to work this weekend. I am considered a contractor at the office I am in right now so going into the office is technically not an option over the weekend. (I am working at a business partner's site) So every time I try and do anything work related it starts off fine then fails a few minutes into file transfer's. My work has me downloading creating and uploading files that are anywhere from 5 megs in size to 40megs in size. I've seen this happen to me before when i had to do a lot of work from home and I wonder if Comcast has some traffic watchign software and penalizes their high bandwidth users in some way... hard to say but I can say this ... Comcast completely sucks at keeping their network stable, they also don't want to talk about it. I called them and was told that there wasn't a problem because they could ping and reset my cable modem without problem. I even explained to the moron on the phone that the problem took some time to happen (like 2 or 3 minutes usually) and was told that i could just reset my router and modem when i saw the problem. Yessir that works... and I'd also love to have to turn my car off on the highway and wait 30 seconds before starting every 1/2 mile.... morons. This was business account technical support too, the online chat people can't talk to you if you have a business account. So I guess I am forces to head into the office and hope my badge opens the door. Just how I wanted to spend my weekend. I'd wish ruin on Comcast over their ineptness but I need them to pull their heads out and get the network working so I can play and work from the apartment. BAH!!!!!

Food yesterday:
Breakfast: banana and chai tea Latte
Lunch: Chef Boyardee
Snack: banana
Dinner: Tater Tots

healing up...

Seems that I manage to get to this far easier in teh morning than the evening...

Food yesterday
Breakfast:
banana
Sausage egg cheese croissant

Lunch:
Patty melt & fries and a few spoons of disgusting chicken&rice soup...

Snack: pear

Dinner:
Spaghetti&meatballs
Banana

Was able to get out of bed fairly easily this morning which is good, back is healing up but it was still hard to sleep. I did go to bed way early last night and read for quite awhile. So even though I was awake for 20 minutes out of every hour to hour and a half I still got quite a bit of sleep, which probably helps the healing process.

back ... better? sort of

Ok, so getting out of bed didn't involve any screaming but it was still very difficult. I must have really done something to my back yesterday. It's better today but still.. i wouldn't want to have to go to work as a laborer today. Driving in to work was bad enough. At least it's quite a lot better than yesterday right after i did it and even in the evening when i got out of bed after sleeping to try and relax some. It seems that the pain sorta goes away if i stay in the same position for awhile (most positions) but then when it's time to move it's really stiff and painful for awhile. Walking doesn't really hurt much but carrying groceries in one hand while unlocking the door hurts. Wish I had thought to take advil before coming into the building at work today, now the thought of walking down the stairs to get the advil is worse than the pain of not having it.

Yesterday's food was completely uninteresting ... and there were no formal meals, just a snack here and there when i felt like i could eat. The back pain makes me a little sick if i move just right.

Over the day I had: Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & meatballs, Hot fries, 3 bananas, 2 black & white cookies and 3 chicken fingers leftover from the previous nights Chinese takeout.

tuesday food.. and Wednesday mornign back pain

Ok first off , I went to bed last night without writing a post, so here is what I had to eat yesterday

Breakfast:
sausage egg and cheese croissant

Lunch:
turkey meatloaf with mashed potatoes and broccoli

Snack:
Pear and york peppermint patty

Dinner:
Chinese takeout, pork fried rice, chicken fingers, egg roll, crab rangoon

Now the unpleasant bit. I got up late this morning, which is ok I had planned to work from the apartment anyhow. Went to the living room to plug in my laptop and when i did, something in my back tightened up and caused me to practically scream in pain and sit down , which wasn't any relief at all. SO far I haven't found a reliably comfortable position, though a hot shower and some advil have managed to dull it enough that I can sit here and work.

ouch ouch ouch ouch..... stupid back .. getting old (and being fat) really sucks .. can't even open the cover on a laptop. pathetic...

oh well time to actually get some work done .. slowly.

helps to publish post before turning off laptop....

This was originally written on Monday (6/2/08) but I closed my laptop forgetting I hadn't clicked publish yet. So umm oops...

Long day at work, a lot of little things to do and frustrations every step of the way. not going to go into any details here as this is a public forum but I will just say that some people need to really spend time learning their areas of expertise before claiming to be experts.

Played WoW for a couple of hours tonight and managed to get to exalted reputation with Ogrimmar (did i spell that right? I never seem to) which means, I can now buy a different color swift mount wolf. Love the white frostwolf but somehow it just doesn't seem like a rogue's mount.


Breakfast: Nothing

Snack: rice crispy treat

Lunch:
chicken and artichoke Fricassee
veggie rice soup

Snack: apple and milky way (this is what i get for skipping breakfast ....)

Dinner:
steamed hot dogs & tortilla chips

Skipping breakfast is bad, not only did I feel like crap all day but all I wanted to do was snack snack snack. Mostly managed to avoid it but I still managed to eat more than I would have liked to.

It's only june?!??!

I am still in the Boston area working and it's getting old. I love the area but Michelle and my dogs not being here is completely ruining it. I do enjoy seeing my family and I love the climate, but it's all somehow lame without someone to share it with. Looking forward to my next trip home which appears to be July at this point. Ugh! ... did I mention that I am sick of being this far from the home we have built outside Austin? If you hadn't guessed, I am homesick.

Went with my mom and dad to Vermont to see some family and my grandparents graves. My aunt Barbara wasn't doing well and I hope she feels much better soon so we can go back and spend more than 20 minutes with her. My aunt Linda seemed to be holding up ok but her husband seemed to be feeling under the weather some. I guess this is what happens when you get old. I haven't mentioned but my dad is the "baby" of the family and he turned 70 this year. We will go spend some more time with them before i leave for Austin this fall.

Bought an Out of State NH fishing license this weekend. $53.. ouch ... but 7 days was 33 or 35 and i figure i might want to go later in the summer too. So now I have to go fishing at least a few more times to make it even remotely worth it :) I did stop at a small lake on the way back to MA but it was really windy and I didn't manage to catch anything worth even taking a picture of, but the wind did keep the insects to a minimum. Not a loss really, was really nice out.

Normally I would write up menus for what I have been eating but it's been a couple days and I'm slipping. So the highlights...

Junk food .. junk food ... (Subway and Quiznos, better than McDonalds and Burger King, but still not healthy .. especially the way I have subs made). Some steamed hot dogs and chips ... still not doing the healthy thing apparently. Poached eggs and toast today for breakfast today. The actual highlight was a Lobster Roll(thanks Corinne!!!! I couldn't get these outa my head all damn weekend!) at D'Angelos on the way back to MA. Was actually VERY good .. but $15 for a sandwich is usually more than I can justify.