Days 11, 12, 13 - Khizer

Alright, another few days of not posting, so I'll do a quick summary of the last few days!

DAY 11

Okay so Thursday morning I made myself an "egg in a basket". Basically cut a whole through a toast, cracked an egg open and cooked it in the middle of the toast. Seasoned it with salt, pepper, and cayenne. I spread some fat free cream cheese on the toast, and on the cut out, I put some sugar free strawberry jam and cream cheese. Quite delicious.

I didn't have enough time for lunch, so I bought a protein bar. Not to be confused with a granola bar, so it was a sort of meal replacement. I had this with a bottle of Vitamin water zero that was fuelled with b5, b6, and b12 vitamins.

I took a trip to the gym and had a consultation with a trainer. We did a nice workout including push ups, squats, ropes, among other basic core workouts. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to purchase a package with them, but I'll discuss that later. 

I ended up walking home and because I lost sense of direction, it took about over an hour of walking to get home when it should've just been 20 minutes. 

I came home and made dinner. Originally intending to make a spinach dish, I ended up making a butter chicken type dish. Basically chopped and sauteed onions, mixed in with tomatoes and chicken, salt, pepper, and cayenne seasoning drizzled over top as well as a cube of cilantro and some lemon. This is when it smelt so much like butter chicken, I decided to continue on with that. I added a few spoons of fat free Greek yogurt to it as well as some miracle rice boiled in chicken broth and it was delicious!! I had this with some green tea. 

I didn't set out for a jog, because, well I had walked so much that day. I did however feel full after my meal, so I walked to Starbucks and got a Venti black coffee to end my night. I think I may have had a granola bar? I don't remember. 

DAY 12


Another day filled with walking. I woke up and had a light breakfast...aka two granola bars. I really need to switch these up with protein bars so as to be more nutritious if I'm going to have meal replacements.

Similarly, for lunch, I also just had a bar, but this was a proper protein bar as a meal replacement. Like yesterday, I had it with vitamin water.

After that, I went downtown Boston and explored and this consisted of lots of walking. When it finally came time to dinner, I was with a friend and we decided to go to a Korean restaurant. With so many tempting choices, I had to try and resist and practice self control. I met halfway and decided to get a large bowl of soup that included egg, and shredded beef. It also did include some rice cake,  vermicelli noodles, and beef boiled dumplings. Although these are more on the carb side, I stuck to eating mostly the broth and the beef. The vermicelli noodles are healthier than regular noodles, and although not the perfect meal I could have, considering everything, it wasn't horrible, especially given the choices I had. I'm neither proud, nor too disappointed. The appetizers were spicy cabbage, bean sprouts, and some exotic vegetable. Not avocado, but I think cucumber? It was more on the healthy side.

I came home and was still hungry later on, so I had some green tea and a granola bar.

No jog today because I was so pooped when I got home after all that walking during the day. I'm not going off the jogging track, I swear.

DAY 13

Okay, today I woke up and started with a protein bar for breakfast, but it was too disgusting and I decided to make a proper breakfast. This was an omelette with tomatoes, spinach, garlic, cilantro, salt, pepper, hot sauce, cayenne pepper, and two eggs with a slice of toast and a glass of green tea

The rest of the day I had no more food, until dinner time which consisted of a reheat of the butter chicken I made on Thursday. I had this with some grapes and cream cheese. I know the Bernstein diet doesn't allow grapes, but I'm trying to rid them out of my fridge without having to throw them away.

Because I didn't have a lunch, I did have a granola bar later on as well with some more green tea.

Today, out of laziness, I didn't go jogging, but the last few days have been a bit long and tiring so tomorrow I'll go back to jogging, I swear.

OVERALL


With the week almost over, I can see my strengths and weaknesses. I think my biggest weakness is the granola bars, even though they are just 90 calories. I think I'm having them though to block cravings of anything else. But, I will try and get some meal replacement bars so to have those if I am craving a granola bar. That way at least its healthier.

Although I didn't go jogging over the last 3 days, 2 of the 3 days had physical activity and/or lots of walking and thus, I still got in some exercise.

I'm at a point though where I feel like breaking. Its ironic its coming at 2 weeks. When I mean breaking, I don't mean to say I want to just go back to my old eating habits, because I'm actually proud of my new diet. Yeah its not perfect to a Bernstein standard, but to a more healthy style, its a lot better than I've ever eaten in almost a year. So yes, I may have a granola bar, but in comparison to before, its much better. On this note, I do give HUGE props to Dahlia who's been doing Bernstein to a tee (unless she's not telling me something haha) and I do think she's doing a great job with that. Anyways, my breaking point is more so my body. I just feel like I'm stuck this way and sometimes it seems like I'm actually getting heavier. Sigh. It sucks.

Anyways, I'm going to continue my healthy eating, and I will get back to jogging tomorrow. I'm not sure if I will buy the sessions at the gym; its just hard to be trusting of people. I spend over 5 months at Goodlife with a personal trainer, and despite getting some results, in those 5 months I didn't get anywhere close to where I should be in 5 months. How do I know that in a month, this gym isn't just trying to scam me for money? I mean, even the trainer at Goodlife seemed good at the beginning. Mind you, one good thing was this trainer did take me through a sample exercise that seemed a bit more promising. Let's see.

Day 10- Dahlia

Day 10- Dahlia

Alright so right off the bat I am going to describe my meals.

Breakfast- Dr B protein shake, 1/2 apple
Lunch- Miracle noodles, chicken breast slices, with hot sauce
Snacks- cantaloupe, apple sauce, 2 pieces of toast with cream cheese
Dinner- Blue Water haddock, asparagus, zucchini cooked with garlic

Today is Thursday, so weight wise/ Bernstein wise I have no reports. Tomorrow is a little different, as usual  I head to Bernstein in the morning but this time they want me to bring an evening urine sample. They want me to do this so that they can check to see if I am burning at night, every morning sample I brought was burning very good, at night however they said most do not burn. I guess we will find out tomorrow if I am or not. Also they received my blood work results back and when it was done it was random and therefore I did not fast. Everything came out as normal minus uric acid and cholesterol. The nurse thinks that this may be because I ate eggs that morning so tomorrow I am going to be getting blood work done again but this time I have to fast before. So hopefully it comes out normal which I think it would as in the past I have never had it high or anything. I am not looking forward to this though because my veins hide and last time it was so painful because they had to use a deep vein! :( *dragon pout*


Other than that I am hoping that tomorrow weigh in will show a loss. It definitely should as I have been sticking to the eating and taking all the vitamins.


On va voir!

xo
D

Day 8, 9, & 10 - Khizer (yes I've slacked)

Alright, yes, I've slacked in posting, and I can't say I was super "busy" because I wasn't, but I guess I was preoccupied with other things that I didn't really get a chance to post. Well, here's a quick summary of the last three days:

DAY 8

So this was the Monday after the first week aka beginning of the second week! Perhaps it wasn't the best start? I tried the Strawberries and Rhubarb mix I got, but it was nasty. I prefer fresh Strawberries thank you very much. I guess this is good for smoothies, but yeah. So I didn't get through that as my breakfast and instead had two Special K 90 calorie granola bars for breakfast. Wasn't the best breakfast I could have, but yeah.

For lunch, I did much better. I had a spinach and tuna salad with a tablespoon of rice vinegar. I had a iced venti 2 splenda green tea with this from Starbucks!

Dinner, I had the remaining chicken and miracle noodle I made the night before. Also, I had some beef jerky as a snack when I got home with that.

Because it was a long day of classes, I didn't go for a jog, but I did do quite a bit of walking to and from school etc. so it wasn't totally bad.

Overall, I don't think I started the week off with a bang, and there's deff room for improvement but in general, it was still wasn't horrible.

DAY 9


I feel like yesterday was a tad better!

I had a hearty breakfast; I made two eggs seasoned with some salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper and hot sauce! With it I had a piece of whole grain toast with a spoon of sugar-free strawberry jam. Yum. I think I made tea with this breakfast too! I can't fully remember though ha. I know I had a cup of tea at some point yesterday!

Because I had such a hearty breakfast, I don't recall actually having a lunch. I went to school though and I bought some more granola bars. Not the same Special K ones, but a similar 90 calorie, extra fibre bar to have for snack. Because I didn't have lunch, I had one of those on my walk home!

I made a fresh dinner yesterday. It was my attempt at a chicken parmesan type meal. I got a chicken breast and cut it in 3 pieces. I dipped it in egg and lemon, and then dipped it in a Matzo Meal breading (Bernstein approved!) and cooked it on the frying pan. I melted some swiss cheese on top of it.

On the side, I made another batch of miracle noodles. I fried onion, garlic, cilantro, tomatoes, and spinach in  pan to which I added the noodles that were boiled in chicken broth. The sauce wasn't as thick as pasta sauce would be, but was still a nice flavour! I added some hot sauce to it. This was my dinner with some green tea!

Breaded chicken!

Added the cheese!

Miracle noodle pasta mix thingy. Whatever you want to call it. 

My dinner!

After my meal, I had to go out for a jog as I was not only energized, but needed to make up for two days. WELLL, not going in two days made a GOOD difference in my performance. I did a 6 minute interval which was AMAZING; I was so proud of myself. I beat my time by a lot, and this motivated me to do my route twice to make up for Monday. Thus, I did a total cardio of 35 minutes; half of it was full on jogging. #proud

I'm not sure if I came home and had a granola bar or not; I don't think so but I might have. #unsure.

Regardless, definitely a MUCH better day.

DAY 10

Ok, we are finally at par! 

Today, I had a more simple breakfast, though not fully to Bernstein standards. I had a whole wheat toast, spread with half jam, and half non-fat cream cheese. I had some grapes left over, and I didn't want to throw them away, so I ate it with that. I know grapes aren't allowed, but I felt bad throwing them away! :(

Lunch, was better. I made myself a tuna salad which consisted of chopped celery and chopped red lettuce, as well as some hot sauce, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste. Although not a fan of Matzoh, I had it with half a piece of Matzoh so I had a bit of a crunch. I had this with the green tea as well as a granola bar. 

Tuna salad, matzoh, and green tea. 

Before dinner, I ate another quick granola bar, and went for a jog. Today, I tried a different interval technique. I did a two minute jog, one minute walk interval and tried to speed up jogging when I could. For some reason, by the end of this I was exhausted. The workout, in total lasted 20 minutes, but I don't know why, despite being yet more effective intervals, I was pooped. Perhaps its because I didn't have a whole lot of food before; my lunch was digested already and the granola bar could only do so much ha. Regardless, I was happy I went for a jog.

Dinner was basically a replica of last nights dinner which was a left over piece of chicken with the miracle noodle pasta I made. I ran out of green tea, and so I made my own iced green tea with the hot tea I had. It was actually very good!

Now, I'm still a bit hungry and as I watch TV, I may snack on beef jerky though I shouldn't. Will update that tomorrow.

I think my worst habit is probably the granola bars, but I feel like they are partially what are helping me stay sane right now in the sense of the diet. They aren't horrible for me, and as a little snack, I do believe its better than just crashing and eating chips or a full on chocolate bar. I'm happy with my jogs, but I still feel like I'm not losing much weight. I'm going to see a personal trainer tomorrow and get an assessment and see where it might go.

Anyways, its 3:00 am! Quite late. Will update tomorrow (well technically later today). 

Day 9-Dahlia

Day 9- Dahlia

Breakfast-Dr B protein shake
Lunch-3.5 oz chicken, 4 oz salad
Snacks- Goji Pop tea (David's tea), unsweetened apple sauce, 1tbsp cream cheese and 3 pieces crispbread
Dinner- 75 g sliced, precooked chicken, 8oz miracle noodles, onion, hot sauce, garlic

So this morning I went to Bernstein again in the morning since Monday was a holiday this week I go tues wed fri. Today however was the first time I saw a fluctuation. Today my weight increased by 0.8lb. I instantly felt sad when I saw that not only did I not lose I gained. I tried to reassure myself that I was just weighed yesterday and that this was bound to happen sometimes and that Friday I will see a loss. However, it was not working. In the room the nurse checks my urine sample and tells me that I am still burning really good and that the burning is a better indicator then weight on the scale. She said if I am burning it means I am eating right and that I am losing. She said the .8 could be water retention etc and not to worry about it. I felt a little better about the burning but still left with a feeling I never had when leaving there before. Normally I leave, send out texts etc. all proud of my accomplishment. Today however I took the walk of shame in silence to the subway, past the cinnabon, and up into my office.

One positive is that it will make me very strict for the next two days as I want to see a difference Friday.

Also at the appointment the results came back for my blood work, my sugar levels were normal which I was happy about because everyone is always like you could be borderline/diabetic etc. However it did show high level of uric acid and cholesterol levels. The nurse thinks that the cholesterol is because I ate eggs that morning when the blood work was done so Friday I am going in fasting and getting blood work re-done in order to confirm the results. Also Friday I will be taking in my first evening urine sample as they said I am burning good in the morning, now they want to see if I am still burning at night. They said most people are negative at night, but they want to check.

In addition, today had another FIRST. I was able to get my first shot in the stomach instead of the butt. I found the pain was the same, maybe a bit less. The only think is it is softer tissue so definitely gets a bruise. So I will keep trying it out and see how it goes etc.

Alright so for the first time I will ATTEMPT photos:

Yay! It arrived!

Low Carb Grocery

Groceries

Miracle Noodles

Miracle Noodles with chicken, onion, hot sauce and 2 piece crispbread

Day 5, 6, 7, 8 - Dahlia

Days 5 to 8 - Dahlia

 This weekend for us Canadians was the Canada day long weekend and therefore I was not able to fully keep up with my blogging needs. I am thus posting a blog for days 5-8.


Day 5
Breakfast- 1/2 portion of eggs with mushrooms and onion and hot sauce, and 1/2 Dr Bernstein protein shake
Lunch-Chicken salad
Snacks-3 slice cheese on 3 pieces of crispbread
Dinner-  salmon salad


Day 6
Breakfast- 2 pieces body wise bread with 1 slice cheese
Lunch-Dr Bernstein protein shake, salad
Snacks-Apple x2 one cut with cinnamon, strawberries//blueberries,
Dinner-Steak and salad

Day 7
Breakfast-eggs on 1 slice bread
Lunch-chicken, salad
Snacks-cantalope, blueberries, apple
Dinner-chicken, grilled zuchinni

Day 8
Breakfast- omelette with mushrooms, onion and hot sauce
Lunch- Chicken, Salad
Snacks-blueberries, apple x2
Dinner-Dr. Bernstein protein shake, 3 slice crispbread with cream cheese


Now for the results, this morning I weighed in and I lost 3.2 lbs. I have thus lost 10.2lbs in the first week. I have therefore beat my 2 week goal of 7-10 lbs. I am therefore setting a new personal goal for my 2 weeks. I was supposed to achieve my first mini goal by July 11,2012. Today is the 3rd and I want to try to lose a total of  15-18  lbs by July 11,2012, as my NEW two week goal. This would be an amazing goal to achieve as the first few weeks you lose very fast but then it slows down, so if i can maximize my weight loss during this time it will make up for the lag in the future.

I also wanted to share some news which is that I was told I can reach my goal weight by the new year of 2013. This is AMAZING for me to hear for a few reasons. One obviously being that this is really exciting and is only 6 or so months away so that is not that long considering how much I need to lose. Second that means I get to start a new me at the start of a new year, fits so perfectly with new years resolutions etc. Thirdly I will be how I want to be just in time for my 2 year anniversary! :) I am so happy!:)
When I achieve this goal I will definitely be booking a February reading week vacation!!!!!


xo
D

Day 7 - Khizer

One week on this diet, and still here!!

Normally it takes a week or two before something gets into a habit, so the fact that I got through a week means I'm probably closer to shifting this from a diet to a lifestyle change.  Hopefully!!

Anyways, today I decided I would start today/ the second week closer to Bernstein so that I can try and get to my goal faster and quicker.

I went for some groceries and bought the following items:

Miracle Noodle - A zero everything rice/pasta alternative approved by many sites, as well as Bernstein. Made of Shitaraki? Not sure if I spelt that right but it is Google-able if more info is needed.

Matzah - A bread alternative.

Matzah meal - A breading for chicken etc I can use according to Bernstein 

Low-Sodium/Fat Chicken Broth

Sugar/Fat free Strawberry Jam 

Two Cans of Light Tuna in Water

A bag of skinless/boneless Chicken Breast

Frozen Chopped Spinach

Frozen Chopped Brocoli 

Frozen Chopped Cauliflower

Frozen Chopped Strawberries and Rhubarb

Frozen cilantro cubes

Garlic Butter Cooking Spray

Eggs - bought yesterday but included in this list

Low Sodium Soy Sauce

Diced tomatoes --> No sodium, or anything added

Special K 90 calorie bars --> bought these yesterday as a random snack

I may have missed something but that's the general idea. Let's start week two!

MEALS

Morning --> I had a glass of water, as well as some green/black tea with strawberries/blueberries mixed with some fat free cream cheese.

Lunch --> I made myself a spinach and red lettuce salad with half a slice of matzoh and a tablespoon of rice vinegar as well as a special k bar and a glass of water.

Snack --> Between lunch and dinner before my jog, I had another special K bar to give me some energy for the jog. 

Dinner -->  This is the part I'm most excited about! I tried out those Miracle Noodles for dinner today and let me just put it this way, THEY ARE AMAZING!!! Especially knowing they have no carbs or calories, is even better! Basically, here's my recipe because I know I'm going to want to make this again. I started by using Garlic Butter spray for cooking (instead of Olive Oil, approved on Bernstein list), and I grilled a full chicken breast until lightly cooked. I sprinkled both sides with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Once no long pink on the outside, I chopped it up and sprayed it with some more of the garlic butter because the pan was getting dry. I added a chopped onion, mushrooms, a squirt of lemon, a little bit of garlic, a cube of cilantro, and a table spoon of low sodium soy sauce to the skillet. I let this cook a little and added the Miracle Noodles to them and let it simmer for a few minutes. Finito! Sooooo delicious. If I wasn't portion controlling, I'd definitely eat the full skillet, but I half is saved for my dinner tomorrow, which I can't wait for now!!

I had this meal with a glass of diet green tea. 

EXERCISE 

Today between lunch and dinner I went for a jog and the results were incredible. First off, I completed my full jogging route in 17 minutes and 45 seconds (normally it takes between 20 and 25 minutes) and second of all, (obviously) most of it was done in larger jogging intervals and less walking intervals. I feel like I did amazing today. I'm going to try and keep this up as I was really happy with my results today and I think my goal by the end of it is to do most of my route as jogging with no walking. However, I'm not sure how beneficial that is, as I've heard that its best to do intervals so that your heart rate is brought up and down and that way you don't reach a plateau where you can't lose anymore and your body is used to it. So perhaps my goal is just to be able to do more and more cardio and keep this up.

I want jogging to become part of my lifestyle where even after these 4 weeks, if I don't go, i feel like I'm missing something. Therefore, I hope to just consistently keep this up!

Day 6 - Khizer (crash)

Yesterday I had a horrible day. As mentioned on the Day 5 post, after a week of good eating and exercising, seeing minimal results made me a bit disappointed. Disappointed to the extent that I wanted to try a similar diet approach to that of Dahlia's. So as mentioned before, I found a clinic in Watertown which was about an hour and fifteen minutes away by walk from my apartment and I decided I would try that as my last option.

So, I went to the clinic and they told me I wasn't qualified because my weight was fine and my bMI was fine as well. A fat content is normally between 8-20 and I was at 20 but that was fine. I was so disappointed. I know the rest of my body is healthy and fine, but having a little belly is horrible for me. A belly doesn't mean "fine", it means there's obviously some fat there. Perhaps there's more fat there and less in other areas and so it evens up my index, but to me what matters most is my belly and that's what I want to rid of by August 1st.

Being denied the clinic, especially after walking for over an hour so excited, was just such a downer that I was angry. I felt like there was no more hope left and that I tried everything. It took me a while to cool down, actually, after getting home and making a quick omelette, I went to bed and didn't wake up till this morning.

Anyways, I'm going to try and see if there's any trainers who can work specifically on my stomach with me and guarantee some results. In the meantime, I've decided to go a bit stricter on my diet and follow the Bernstein a little more by cutting out additional foods and monitoring portions even more. I also got a weight loss supplement that consists of a bunch of vitamins like B6, B12, similar to the injections that Dahlia gets, but lower in dosage to try and help boost the weight loss. Let's see what happens.

Anyways here's what I ate yesterday:


Morning --> I had just one Banana

Lunch / Snack --> I bought a 90-calorie, health-wise Special K bar

Dinner ---> I had another one of those bars, plus I made an omelette with 3 eggs, some spinach, two slices of swiss cheese, onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms, with a slice of the whole grain bread. Was delicious!! I had this with a glass of diet iced green tea.

Yesterday was the first day I didn't go for a jog, HOWEVER, I also walked for over 3.5 hours yesterday. I left the home around 10:45 am to get to the clinic by about 12. After that, I walked from the clinic over to a grocery shop that was about 40 minutes, and then another 45-60 minutes to another grocery shop, and then from there home which was about 40 minutes. So by the time I was home and ate, I was pooped and I don't think my legs could handle it.

I do think however, that I did the same amount of cardio as I would have done with jogging regardless!

Anyways, I'll post later today some new groceries I got as well as my meals for today.