The Sugar Bandit

I'm kind of discouraged today, as I slog through my stall. But I know I'm staying at below 20 carbs so it will catch up on the scales eventually.

I have been fascinated by a story in our LOCAL PAPER today about the Sugar Bandit. Now, if this is not the power of sugar, I don't know what is. Some yahoo broke into a Danny & Clyde's (sort of convenience/grocery/gas place) overnight and was arrested fleeing the scene laden with doughnuts and danishes. Asked why he broke into the store, his response was simple: "I wanted some pastries."

Now, we could go on a while about whether convenience store doughnuts and danishes could ever in this world or any other be considered real "pastries," but the bottom line is the same. The man was driven by the evil forces of Sugar to commit a felonious act.

I think someone should send the poor slob a copy of the Atkins book. Deliver it to his jail cell--just don't hide a file or a Little Debbie Swiss Roll inside.

Forget Diets--Bring on the Airbrush

Was anyone besides me (and, allegedly Katie Couric) really irritated by the story circulating today? ("Today," get it?) Anyway, apparently, the new CBS News anchor appears in the September issue of a magazine distributed to about 400,000 CBS affiliates and on American Airlines flights but she appeared a little chunky in the official photo so the magazine decided to trim off 20 or 30 pounds.

Now, I use Photoshop software and I know how easy that is to do. But good grief, folks, can we give it a rest on the Anorexic Ideal already?

I've decided I don't really need to lose a zillion pounds. I'll just doctor all the photos of myself and stay inside, live a virtual life, and no one will know the difference. Well, until I keel over from a heart attack and the firemen have to break out a wall of my house in order to extricate my huge self. THEN the photos won't be doctored.

Oh well. Still in my alternating-week stall. I lose lots of weight on odd-numbered weeks and stall on evens. This is week four, and I am hanging in there.

To Whoosh or Not to Whoosh-- the Low Carb Ride

One of the most frustrating (or exhilarating) things about low carb eating is the "whoosh" phenomenon--frustrating or exhilarating depending on which part of the cycle you're currently on. I seem to be on a weekly cycle. I'm in week four and losing nothing. Week one: 9.5 pounds; week two, nothing; week three, 8 pounds; week four....well, you get the picture. I have to resist the temptation to rely too much on what the scale says and remember that it will all even out in the long run. Still, it's a tough thing for an impatient person like me.

Lunch continues to be my biggest challenge, meal-wise. This week, I'm eating an amazingly easy Chicken Chili made from a Dana Carpender crockpot recipe. Throw boneless chicken in the crockpot, dump a 16-ounce jar of salsa on it (I chose Chipotle pepper blend), a tablespoon of chili powder and a crushed chicken bouillon cube. Cook it for 8 hours on low or 4 on high and, voila, really delicious lunch for a week! Of course the "dollop of Daisy" sour cream on top doesn't hurt : )

Farewell to Katrina, and her Unwanted Pounds

GOAL: 80 LBS. between Aug. 16, 2006, and March 28, 2007
STATUS: 17.8 lost; 62.2 to go

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the hellish nightmare that Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failures began in New Orleans, and I have a separate Life in Post-Apocalyptic New Orleans blog so I won't talk much about that here except in terms of diet. Anyone interested in that blog should go here and take a look.

Anyway, my Katrina experience in a nutshell was: a week in a hotel in Shreveport, La., with an 80-year-old mom and two freaked-out dogs watching my life fall apart on national TV; a traumatic drive during power outages and gas shortages to Alabama to seek refuge with a friend in Montgomery, Ala.; a two-month evacuation during which I did not know if my home survived and part of which was unsure about my job; coming home to find my beloved city in ruins beyond what even the TV coverage could convey. I had about $40,000 worth of wind damage to my house, thankfully mostly covered by insurance. My garage was flooded and everything in it ruined, not covered by insurance but who cares, really, in the big scheme of things. About 70% of my repairs have been completed and I have applied for federal grant money to fix the rotting garage. The "hurry up and wait" for life to return to normal continues and is likely to continue for a long, long time.

During the two-month evacuation, I learned a lot about myself and food. Before Katrina, I had leisurely been following the South Beach Diet off and on, and had lost about 40 pounds and gained back about 20 over the course of a year. The first week of Katrina, when I was literally in shock, I had no appetite. I was nauseous and couldn't even think about eating, as witnessed by my willingness to eat at Luby's Cafeteria multiple times without protest.

Once I got to my friend's house in comfortable and safe surroundings, with WAY too much time on my hands and all the financial and life uncertainties swirling around me, I began to eat. And eat. Hunger had nothing to do with it. Pre-K (local-speak for before the hurricane), I would have sworn I was not really a stress eater. I was wrong. I CRAVED chocolate. I am normally not a big chocolate fan--I like it with other things mixed in. But, suddenly, I was glued to the sofa watching CNN 24/7 eating Hershey's chocolate kisses--bags and bag of them--and Snicker's bars. And Publix Key Lime Pie. And on and on and on. If it had sugar, I wanted it.

The upshot of all this was a two-month evacuation and 22 pounds. And today, the day before the first anniversary of the time all of our lives here changed so drastically, I can finally announce that my Katrina weight is gone. It's time to move on.

Starting Again

I started this blog a few weeks ago, found it got "infiltrated" by hostile forces and now am trying to start it again. Welcome to my Low Carb Blog!

I'm a middle-aged (egads) woman living in America's Fattest City--that would be New Orleans, where we not only have our regular bad eating habits to contend with these days, but also our "stress eating" from coping with the lingering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

I was inspired to begin low-carbing (again) about a month ago after lurking on Jimmy Moore's Living La Vida Low Carb blog for a long time, then finding the Kimkins site. If anyone doesn't know about these, let me know. I'll link to them as soon as I figure out how to do that!

Anyway, I have lost 14 pounds in the last three weeks doing "Suzikins," which is basically Atkins Induction. I'm not counting net carbs, but only total carbs because I found, in my last stab at this, that I would abuse the "net carb" rule and stuff myself with high-fiber foods that caused problems, i swear you don't want to hear the details, that I won't go into here.

I'm also trying to avoid most of the low-carb foods, the exception being the Chocoperfection bars, which I eat in small quantities (one square of a five-square bar) as a snack.

Anyway, I hope to post daily now that I'm back up and running. My goal is to lose another 66 pounds before a big conference I have scheduled for the end of March 2007. FitDay tells me that's 2.3 pounds per week. I can do this!!