A new discovery

I have never really been a potato chip eater so I haven't missed eating them on this new diet. But, I used to love eating fried chicken and other battered food that was fried. It is almost cruel how eating a low carb diet can be...here is a diet where the oil is not the enemy, but the breading on the outside! Well, in searching for new ways to prepare my old favorites, I stumbled across a suggestions...pork rinds. I have never eaten pork rinds before, honestly, they sounded pretty nasty...deep friend pork skins? No thank you. But I saw some folks using them as a breading by grinding them up, so I thought I would give it a whirl...and you know what. It's not so bad. Is it just like the real thing? No, it never will be...I made some Eggplant Parmesan last night...will eggplant breaded in ground up pork rinds, deep fried in olive oil taste the same as real breaded eggplant deep fried in corn oil? Nope, but it was so darn close, I don't even miss the other stuff. So far, I feel like I have been pretty successful with cutting the carbs. I have shed 10 lbs with just a change in the diet...I certainly don't starve myself, I just keep my carb intake to around 50g a day. I am planning on adding in some exercise soon and hopefully I will continue to feel good!

The very most important thing to remember...

...when on a diet is to always, ALWAYS keep healthy food in the house at all times! Do not allow the fridge and cupboards to go bare! Last night, I had the option of frozen steak or an apple for dinner. What choices! I didn't even have any veggies around. So what did I start to do? Scavenge for unhealthy crap. And because of the Mr.'s job, we have on hand some quick, 90 second microwave meals that were calling my name. Loaded with salt, sugars, and carbs.
I was able to resist...I had one big ole steak for dinner, and I didn't really enjoy it. Tonight, I am going to the grocery store to stock up on some options to keep the temptations from creeping back up!

Yeah...I'm terrible at this

No lie, I am terrible at blogging, this is apparent by the major gap in entries. Oh well, what can I say. Update on Mission: Cutting the Carbs. Week One...went pretty good. It was tough when my co-workers decided that this would be the week that we would all go out to lunch, and of course we would all go out to pizza...so not low-carb friendly. Also, week one was the first win of my firms softball team, so it was the week we all went out to celebrate with beer and pizza...again, not low-carb friendly. But aside from those two happenings, I did pretty well. Week two is another story. I was out of town at a conference for school. The conference kind of dictated my life, including what I ate. Often times, lunch that was provided (and there was no way of not eating what was provided) was a box lunch of a sandwich, chips, an apple, and soda. I did my best by eating one slice of bread, skipping the chips, and snagging an extra apple when someone else didn't want theirs. But, if I am totally honest, part of this conference was also about networking, and a lot of the networking happened over happy hour...which meant that I had a beer 4 of the 7 nights I was there...yikes! If it's any consolation to myself, I stuck to Coors light instead of my usually Hefewisen...that has gotta be something...right!
Week three I was back on track! I have done pretty well. I have had one day where my boss took some of us out for beers and apps to celebrate a big win, but other than that one beer and couple onion rings, I have stuck to my diet. Despite the times I have faltered, I am encouraged by my results. So far, I have lost 5 pounds! That may not sound so great, especially since I am now starting Week 4...but since I basically had a week where I said "F*** it" right in the middle...5lbs seems pretty fair.

So what am I eating today? For breakfast, I had egg muffins. Over the weekend, I did a lot of cooking so I would have lots of food ready to heat and eat. These egg muffins had egg, sausage, cheese, and green bell peppers. I had two, which is equivalent to about two eggs. For lunch, I am having a BBQ'd chicken leg and some Mockafoni and Cheese . For dinner tonight, I am going to try to re-create a dish my friend had a restaurant in LA with Asparagus, Bacon and an Egg and maybe have a steak or something.

I also wanted to share a yummy find I cooked last night! I was craving pizza. Pizza is one of my very favorite foods, I can never have enough pizza, when I was looking into this low-carb lifestyle, pizza was one of the first things I thought about, so I looked up different low-carb versions, and I was pleased to find quite a lot of different varieties. Last night, I was craving pizza like crazy, so it was the night to try my hand at some low carb pizza. I went with a cauliflower crust because from all my reading, that has been, across the board, the most "real" pizza crust. I went with this recipe, and the taste was great. I don't think it was cauliflower-y at all...and after all, for me at least, the crust has always been a way to get the yummy toppings to my mouth. My only complaint is that the crust got soggy as the pizza say. When it came hot out of the oven, my god it was perfect! When I put the leftovers away, the crust was quite soggy. So next time, I think I will do more of what this recipe did. The major difference is that the second recipe drains the moisture out of the cauliflower, which I think will help with the soggy issue.

As a pizza lover, this is a GODSEND! It was so yummy! Is it exactly like it's carb loaded counterpart? No, but will it add inches to my ass? I sure hope not!
Picture time!