OMG I'm almost there!

I haven't posted in over three years.

In that time, I've subdued Lyme disease (note that I didn't say beaten or conquered) and had a hip replacement.

In fact, it's my hip replacement that finally launched me on the path to losing weight.

About 15 months ago I came to grips with the fact that I needed a hip replacement. I tell people that my hip and I had a "come to Jesus" moment (ironic for an atheist but accurate).

Since then I've lost over 30 pounds, maybe 35. I even set a goal at Weight Watchers.

In fact, despite all my struggle, I attribute Weight Watchers for losing the weight. I never stopped going to meetings. I never stopped absorbing the message, even through Points, Points Plus, and now Smart Points.

I'm a Simply Filling girl, although I started as a Core girl. I just can't track, whether it's points, calories, fat, whatever. I exhausted my ability to track anything well before I joined Weight Watchers. Still, I calculate Points for food I'm thinking about purchasing or recipes I'm reading.

The current plan, Smart Points, has an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, and protein. It's the protein that has made a difference for me.

There's another thing that has made a difference.

While subduing Lyme disease, I lost my sense of smell and, therefore, my sense of taste. One of the antibiotics I took did the damage. I stopped the antibiotic, buy it was too late.

Upon realizing that I'd lost my sense of taste, I was depressed and gained weight. But after my come-to-Jesus moment with my hip, I started to pay close attention to what I could taste. Mashed potatoes were totally tasteless, as were pretzels. I could taste strong cheese (thank you Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar cheese!) and really good roast beef.

It also helped that my good friend, Susan, was willing to meet me after work at Panera Bread instead of the mall for our weekly meetings "for coffee." The food court at the mall has horrible food. I could get a bad salad and feel unsatisfied or get something full of fat and feel over stuffed.

So I changed my food habits at home and away.

I'm almost there!

McItaly

After last night's dinner at Olive Garden, I just had to discover what other people call it. That's how I found McItaly.

My friend, Ms. B, had a gift card she could use at any Darden restaurant. The only one anywhere near us was Olive Garden (did you know that Maine is the only state of the lower 48 without a Red Lobster?). Neither one of was excited about going to Olive Garden, but we were game.

We both checked out the menu online before arriving. I was aghast at the sodium content. A dinner portion of Chicken Parmigiana has 3,380 mg of sodium. That's over twice the amount recommended for people with heart problems. It's hard to find a dinner portion of anything with less than 1,500 mg of sodium. The Lighter Italian Fare maxes out at 2,250 mg; to be fair, the dinner portion of Herb-Grilled Salmon has only 360 mg -- all of the other meals are so high, however, that I'm tempted to believe that's a typo.

When we ordered stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer, our server warned us that they "take a little while." That was fine with us; we were in no hurry.

We didn't order our entrées right away but that didn't matter. The moment we ordered our entrées, out came the salad and bread sticks before our appetizer arrived. The appetizer did manage to arrive before the entrées, but not by much. No wonder we were warned that the stuffed mushrooms took a little while. Had we known, we'd have held off ordering our entrées until the appetizer appeared.

And then there were the interruptions. First we gave our drink orders. Then we ordered the appetizer. Then we shooed away the server three times until we finally gave in and ordered entrées. Once our table was filled with plates, we had to re-assure the server that the food tasted fine every time he passed our table. (I don't remember which interruption prompted Ms. B to tell me I had to leave the tip; that meant if she was in charge of the tip there wouldn't be one.) Somewhere during all of this the manager interrupted us to give us her card and tell she wanted us to know her name (because she was expecting complaints?).

Once the server started clearing the table it seemed he couldn't wait to get rid of us. He said he'd bring our bill before asking if we'd like dessert.

So when I came across the nickname "McItaly," I knew my search was over. Know what you want before you arrive or don't approach the counter until you do. Receive your meal all at once. If you want dessert, ask for it when you order. And whatever you do, don't look at the nutrition info. That will really put you off your meal.

Did you know that a dinner portion of Fettuccine Alfredo has 47 grams of saturated fat (74 grams total fat)?

I'm a long-time subscriber to the Nutrition Action Healthletter. It goes without saying that chain restaurants layer fat upon salt upon sugar. But I thought Olive Garden had gotten the memo.

Holy Cow!

Yep, that's what I thought when I saw how long it had been since I last posted. Holy cow, it's been over a year since I last posted!

My weight struggle continues. It's not likely to end anytime soon and it's not likely to result in a blog as powerful as The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, who has retired that blog and continued at Shauna Reid. There was a time when I could have been Shauna Reid, except that my thyroid betrayed me, Lyme disease took over, perimenopause started, and I've been fighting ever since to reduce my weight and regain my health.

Today, however, I read some posts by Single Dad Laughing and I thought Dan Pearce has something to say on a regular basis. I don't. Maybe I should.

In his FAQs, Dan says, in response to the question "Do you think you'll run out of content?": No. I don't think that's possible. The world is spinning too fast for that to happen.

I think about my weight every day. I think about other stuff every day, too. And Dan is right: The world is spinning too fast for that to happen.

Sometimes what I think is unusual. Other times it's pretty mundane. No matter. I've always liked to write. And that's what I intend to do here.

I don't have a lot of followers and I don't care. I used to keep a journal. After many years of writing, I read some of it and I thought most of it was really inane; I fed all of its pages into our wood stove. I hope that I'm now old enough, wise enough, experienced enough . . . Oh, Hell (or should that be "hell," for the atheist that I am) . . . crazy enough to edit myself into something meaningful.

17 Days

You may have heard of the 17 Day Diet. I learned of it from a woman I see at the dog park.

I've been struggling with my weight and with Weight Watchers (although I've been a faithful attendee). I realized that I'd been seriously abusing carbs (duh, this blog is call Carb Queen). So, I invested in a Kindle version of the 17 Day Diet. I haven't read much past the first 17 days, but what I have read was insightful  . . . sort of.

The first phase of the 17 Day Diet is a lot like Weight Watchers' "simply filling" plan (although I still think of it as "Core"). The primary difference is that the first phase of the 17 Day Diet allows no grains. Ah ha! The Carb Queen loves grains!

I haven't completely cut out grains but I've drastically reduced them. Last Saturday I lost weight after gaining for three or four weeks in a row. Tonight I'm feeling like I might actually lose weight again this week.

Hmmm, there might be something to this grain-avoidance approach for a Carb Queen!

Back to Basics

I've just spent a good bit of the afternoon planning my meals for the upcoming work week. I've gained almost 10 pounds since I stopped taking oral antibiotics. Oral antibiotics were fine as a weight loss strategy (ahem) but they didn't do much for my Lyme disease.

I'm now doing three months of IV antibiotics, which are much kinder to my stomach but not to my weight. They're not particularly good for my fatigue, either, because I have to take them every 8 hours, the effect of which is that I get 7 hours or less of sleep. When I was healthy I needed at least 7 1/2 hours.

The good news is that the IV antibiotics are making me feel better. Before starting the IV antibiotics, I'd taken three different oral antibiotics at the same time for a year and when I stopped I knew I still had Lyme disease. So even though my insurance company won't pay for the IV antibiotics because I'm not sick enough to be hospitalized, I'm more than happy to dig deeply to pay for them.

When I first started the IV antibiotics, I couldn't have figured out what to eat every day because I was suffering too much brain fog. I'm still suffering some brain fog but I can push through it.

Tomorrow I'll do my shopping and cook for the week ahead. Fingers crossed.

I'm Astonished

I haven't posted since July of last year!

I noted in my last post that I'd lost 52 pounds. I'm still at about that weight.

I continued to do well until October, when Zaphod & I took a train trip to New Orleans. It was a wonderful trip but it undermined my good habits. And then the holidays attacked. I gained some weight and then I lost it.

And now it's February. In January, I stopped taking the antibiotics that made it possible for me to lose weight as fast as I did. My stomach is now mostly recovered, so I have to learn to keep the weight off.

There's not much news here, really, except that I've been flirting with the possibility of actually tracking what I eat. I'm not sure I can track, even though I know it's a key to success. My latest plan is to see if I can develop discipline in other ways.

If I can become disciplined in other ways (can anyone recommend a good cognitive behavioral therapist?), maybe I can start to track my eating. Until then, I'll continue to dip into The Lyme Diet: Nutritional Strategies for Healing from Lyme Disease (downloaded from Amazon) for any wisdom I can glean.

"You must be getting close."

Music to my ears! That's what Frank said when I weighed in this morning. I've lost 52 pounds but I still have 30+ to go. No, I'm not getting close but I'm making good progress.

I didn't realize I hadn't posted since January. I had an eventful winter and spring. We sent our two dogs to Dog Heaven. My father died. We adopted a sweet but fearful dog. And I continued to suffer nausea and stomach pain courtesy of the antibiotics I've been taking for chronic Lyme disease.

It still doesn't feel like I earned my weight loss. But I'm starting to think maybe I'm actually eating better. I started an injected antibiotic a couple of weeks ago, partly to give my stomach a rest and partly to switch things up. I've continued to lose weight.

Still, I'm currently on a screwy diet in an attempt to see if food sensitivities may be causing some of my fatigue. I don't feel any less tired. But I've been limited in what I can eat so I'm not yet confident that I'll continue to lose weight after these external forces are no longer there.

But, hey, I've lost over 50 pounds!