I am now in my 8th month of Atkins and things are back on track for me. I haven't updated since the holidays for a reason. I got derailed by all the trips, gatherings and food. I have not gone off plan for weeks at a time, just a day or two here and there and then right back on. The good news is I came out of December 4 pounds heavier. Believe it or not, that is good news. The bad news, I came out of December 4 pounds heavier and didn't lose anything from November to February. So I wasted 3 months of the calendar on riotous living. What can I say? I'm human. The really good news is I am back on plan. The holiday weight is gone and, I am down to 316 pounds as of this morning! I have now lost 51 pounds since I started this journey and that's precisely what it is, a journey. I feel smaller, more energetic and healthier everyday.
One thing that may be a side benefit of all this as well. Over the past several months my family has had no less than 4 major sicknesses rampage through our home and I haven't caught one of them. The flu hit my family so hard during Christmas that every single person had it except for me. That is such a change from the past. I have always been the one to get sick first in my home and when I get it, boy do I get it. I have tried to be extra careful around the sick kids for sure, but I think there is more to it than that. I think cutting out all processed carbs from my diet has strengthened my immune system. I don't have any data to back this up, just my experience over the last three months.
I have been trying a new strategy of late that I think is going to really help me achieve my goals. I cooked up a huge batch of my favorite meal, portioned it out into freezer bags and froze it so I would have easy meals on hand for those days when I don't feel like making anything. I did this on Saturday with Italian chicken, a wonderful recipe with slow cooked chicken breasts, italian seasoning, salt, pepper and garlic powder slow cooked for about 4 hours. Then I shred the chicken and add a healthy amount of cream cheese and let it melt and simmer together on low heat for another hour. I then spread this over shredded, steamed zucchini and it is delicious. In fact, it is my favorite meal. I put a whole bag of frozen chicken in on Saturday and now have 11 bags of individual helpings to eat in the coming weeks. Tonight, I make zucchini lasagna and I'm talking a large pan of it. Then I'll freeze individual helpings and I'll have that as an option as well. The other two ideas I had are meatloaf with crushed pork rinds substituting for bread filling and also shredded roast taco meat I can use for lettuce wrap tacos, low carb tortilla tacos and deep-fried flautas. Once I have all four of these in my freezer I can still make other meals but I'll always have these easy options in the freezer for when I'm tired or in a rush. If I think of any other good freezer options I'll share it here soon. Speaking of recipes. My wife made me a wonderful Lemon bar recipe on Saturday. She used macadamia nuts crushed, with almond flour and splenda as the crust, cream cheese with splenda and lemon juice as the filling and then almond flour with lemon juice for a crumble on top. For having no recipe I really loved these.
I began a new regime two weeks ago I am pretty excited about. I participated in a weight loss study 6 or 7 years ago for a drug that combined 2 approved drugs already on the market and had great success the year I was in the study. No side effects and lost 55 pounds. I was told to eat normal, no extreme dieting either. So that drug is now approved and I was finally able to get a Dr. who would give me a subscription for it. It is called Qsymia. I began it 2 weeks ago and have already lost 6 pounds since. I don't have any side effects either, which I love. Hopefully this will give my system that extra boost it needs to start moving a little faster down this road. I'm not sure if I'll still hit my 100 pounds lost by June mark as I am just half way there with only 4 months left, but I will get as close as I can. If I lose 75 pounds this year I will still call it a huge success as that will mean I am under 300 pounds for the first time this decade.
