Day 5/6.

Day 5...was okay. Not horrible but close to it.  

I've been hanging out with my family late while they're in town (hence my lack of Day 5 update). Of course, whenever people gather the American thing to do is eat. Food everywhere. Pizza and cookies and delicious things. Of course. No further comment, other than what I ate instead:

Day 5 dinner instead of warm, cheesy, delicious pizza:
I found a three grain bread with hardly any other ingredients aside from whole grains from the health section. I can't even say it tasted like plastic, I just don't know how to describe it. You really wouldn't think it'd be that bad at first.
So, dinner was:
Toasted nastiness (3 grain bread)
Classic Hummus spread on top
Sliced tomatoes with a little pepper (Jon, what is UP with you not having any SALT in your house!!??)
THE END…of dinner.

Hello out there:
I'd like to give a shout out to all my readers. Ghostly and visible alike.
Thank you to my one follower, a faithful man and dear brother.
Thank you to my one, recent commenter. A dear, asian companion. (Yes, you should be my asian sidekick for the upcoming sky-diving adventure. Because it will happen. I'm not encouraging you to continue procrastinating, but thanks for reading.)

On another note, I can't remember how to edit this html to make my sentences indent. It's very annoying. And what is up with the varying font!? As a designer, this ruins my post.
C'est la vie. No time for this today.

My goals this weekend:
I'm going to make home made wheat bread. Hold me to it (or at least by Monday night?). Along with finishing some illustrations that must be done by Wednesday and hanging out with my family who came for a visit. Accomplishable you think?
Do the cats love to claw at my butt while I'm sitting at the table for breakfast?


I think yes.

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Saturday morning goodness:
Oh. my. gosh.
I've just made the best eggs ever.

Ingredients this morning:
Season all, seasoned salt
butter
salt
pepper
diced onions
diced green peppers
cherry tomatoes cut in half
turkey breast deli meat (>1 gram of sugar)
sharp cheddar cheese
sour cream
ice cold water
cats

So it's actually better to sauté the peppers, onions and tomatoes first in a little butter and spices. I threw the turkey in last for a few minutes and then just dumped the beaten eggs into the pan. I've found out that it's best to put the cheese in right before the eggs are finished scrambling. *giggles* I just find that to be an interesting image. Eggs scrambling. Tee hee...
Next time I think that I would get a better result, both in taste and appearance if I scrambled the eggs in a separate pan and then threw the other sautéed ingredients in at the last minute with the cheese. Otherwise, it starts turning into too much of a mushed together dish.

I don't even know why I got sour cream. I mean…it's been sitting in my fridge for 5 days now and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it!
So…I've tried it with eggs. It was quite good. Just a little dollop of sour cream beside the eggs to mix in or dip or whatever you'd like. Quite tasty, and since for some insane reason sour cream is on the "pro-fats" side of this diet (while skim milk and cottage cheese is with the carbs!?), I can mix with eggs and cheese.



Sounds from the kitchen:
"You touch ma' food you dead cat!"



No, Mom. I'm not encouraging the cat to eat off of my plate- she's doing it on her own, free will.



It's such a pretty day outside. I only hope the temperature is as appealing. I'd like to go for a jog.

Cheers to Saturday!

Day 4.

Update...not happening.

Not at 3:01 AM. Plus, that should give you an idea of my success level with discipline today.

Err...yesterday.

Here's to 3 hrs of sleep and a shot of skim milk.

Quote of the night...

"Your gender is regrettable"

-Brandon Lay

Day 3.

Well it's day 3 and I'm wondering more and more why they don't call diets "torture exercises". It's just not right.

Listening to:
"Stronger" - Hillsong Live

Current Physical Condition:
Tired, full and unexercised.
Tired due to my extremely late night and feeling quite nasty due to lack of exercise.

Current Mental Condition:
Dazed again. Did I tell you about day 1 yet? Oh let me….

(Day 1 recap)
Horrible headache coming home from work, my stomach felt funny for the second half of the day. "It can NOT be the lack of sugar from my diet!" I told Sarah as I sat on the kitchen counter eating my sugarless dinner. "And it can't be lack of caffeine, I go days without drinking coffee and I'm fine!" (As I proceeded to slump to the floor and lie flat on my back due to an oncoming light headed spell.)
But you see, what I didn't realize was that those bagels in the morning, bread on sandwiches, juice, white pasta, etc. ALL had enormous amounts of sugar and if it didn't, my body was breaking it down as sugar.
Sarah pointed this out to me as I jumped up in surprise. "Seriously!?" I said. "Oh my gosh! It CAN'T be!! *gasp* I think I'm having a sugar withdrawal!" I said as I fell to the floor with another flash of a headache and dizzy spell.

Oh dear.

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Day 3 STATUS UPDATE:
1. Timeliness: Fail. Due to the slush outside this morning.
2. Sticking with the diet plan: Check.
3. Learning to cook: Temporarily on hold (ate the same thing I had for lunch)
4. Becoming disciplined: I suppose. We'll see about bed time.

No entertaining images tonight. Just me drinking skim milk. Enjoy.



Some needed clarification for certain parties:
Let me just clarify that I'm not on a "diet" because I think I'm fat or because I want to do something extreme. I will be doing something "extreme" in the summer, so if that's what you're looking for, please check back in a few months for my skydiving adventure update. It will happen.
As for the present month, I merely seek to encourage someone dear to me and become a little more disciplined in the process.

A brief overview of this "diet":
A whole lot about cutting sugar out of your diet.
This includes white bread, white flour, beached wheat flour, concentrated natural sugars such as juice, and anything that is more 1 gram of sugar. Sigh.
A whole lot about pairing foods.
Since your body breaks down the combination of foods differently and even takes vegetables like potatoes and turns them into sugar, the pairing of foods is quite important.

I can eat meat, cottage cheese, whole wheat bread (with NO sugar), eggs and cheese, veggies, fruit, etc. Trust me, I'll be fine.
And I'll spare you the rest.

The reason for my "torture exercise" called a "diet" this month.
1. To support my dear sister
2. To learn to cook (or force myself to cook)
3. To become more disciplined
-Living without out coffee forces one to go to bed earlier
-Going to bed earlier encourages waking up early
-Waking up early helps being on time for work


So really people, it's not that bad. I'm just ignoring my desire for that wonderful cereal stash in the pantry.
I'm going to discipline other areas of my life now.

Day 2.

Listening to:
"Don't Panic" - Coldplay

Current Physical Condition:
Just fine. A bit tired…then again…it's late. 11:02 pm.

Current Mental Condition:
Apathetic. But not in as much of a daze as yesterday.


Pardon the disorganized mess of a blog update below. It's quite late and I'm quite tired.

Status Update:

1. Timeliness: Check. On time to work for the second day in a row.
2. Sticking with the diet plan: Check-ish.
I accidentally took a swig of milk with my breakfast of eggs and sharp cheddar cheese this morning. BAD. You can't mix the pro-fats (eggs and cheese) with the carbs (milk).
I also accidentally fried the yellow squash with butter (totally fine) BUT I mixed this in with the whole wheat pasta for lunch tomorrow (mixing pro-fat butter with whole wheat carbs). It's not going to kill me…but I'm just trying to stick with the strict menu.
3. Learning to cook: Check-ish.
Tonight I made a mad dash to Food Lion. Starving. Desiring something other than meat and veggies. WHAT? What do I want? CRACKERS! Crackers and tuna! But nooooo….I can't mix carbs and pro-fats.
I took my sister's advice and decided on the cottage cheese.



Discovery: Triscuits and cottage cheese do in fact taste good together. I found this out as I stuffed my face with this delicious new snack while making lunch for tomorrow:
Lunch for tomorrow: Whole wheat pasta, fried zucchini and sliced cherry tomatoes. PEPPER AND SALT!




It was quite funny actually, trying to eat dinner, make lunch and get out of the house in 30 minutes. Didn't quite happen.
Scene of the night: Lael throws the pan on the stove along with a pot of water turned on high for a quick boil. Runs around the kitchen pulling random veggies out of the fridge, washing tomatoes, throwing butter on the counter, stuffs wheat crackers and cottage cheese into her mouth.
Starts slicing butter with a less than sufficient knife and as the butter and sliced zucchini gets thrown into the pan she realizes that she has absolutely no idea how to slice veggies quickly. Starts to hear a sizzle…it grows louder…realizes the pot is boiling over for the pasta. In between turning down the water, throwing pasta in and stuffing her face again she realizes that she hasn't stirred the zucchini once and promptly throws herself across the stove to grab a spoon and man both sides of the stove at once, while chewing another cracker.


4. Becoming Disciplined: Check and fail.
Going into the day was fine, I came home and made dinner and lunch for tomorrow. However, it is now 11:53 and I'm still at a friend's house brainstorming for an art project. Brilliant. JUST WHAT is going to happen when I'm falling asleep at work tomorrow and CAN'T HAVE COFFEE!!??

C'est la vie, eh?

Day 1.

Listening to:
"Taxi Cab" - Vampire Weekend

Current physical condition:
My legs are slightly sore from my Saturday jog. My stomach feels funny and I have a headache.

Current mental condition:
I've been in a bit of a daze. But fairly motivated…to get some sleep.


I found myself wondering about my decision today, as I do with most decisions that stem from what my older sister says.

I never read the fine print on her packaging and I'm not sure I ever learned my lesson.
It started as I was rushing to work Friday morning, mumbling "I can't be this late AGAIN" to myself and praying for discipline and timeliness. I work through lunch and stay late but still…late is late.
She asked for support, that's all it was.
"I NEED somebody to hold me to my diet!" she said. A Susan Sommers diet. It can't be that hard. Something about staying off of sugar and not being able to eat certain foods together because it imbalances you, blah blah blah.

"Sure!" I said. I was thrilled to help hold her to something she really wanted to do and grateful that she suggested I do it too! I knew I wasn't dependable enough to remind her of her diet daily so there was no better way to support her.

Conversation over a sub:
Me- "Okay…well I can do this. *thinking of my daily snack venture over to the little Asian Cafe* I can just get tea instead of my usual coffee and animal crackers (don't make fun!). I won't even put sugar in it! Now that's a stretch!"
Sis- "It's gotta be decaf".
Me- "What!? Darn. I don't think they sell decaf. Fine. I'll just get orange juice! I love orange juice!"
Sis- "You can't have juice"
Me- "WHAT!!??? What the heck!? It's JUICE!"

And then proceeds the conversation that leads me to wonder now why I didn't ask about this stuff before agreeing.
C'est la vie. And such is a gullible person.

My purpose in this rant:
1. For the next 31 days I'm going to document my occasional pain and suffering *note my current headache and overall funny feeling*. NO, I'm not trying to be cool like the girl in "Julia & Julia". YES, this is a blog and the subject is food-ish.
2. To occasionally update. No, I will not update every day. Am I THAT dependable? Hmm.
3. To learn to cook (more than a sandwich for dinner and cereal for breakfast).
4. To become disciplined.
a. In eating
b. In getting to bed and waking up at a decent hour
c. In being timely

Tonight's dish:



(Yes, I'm sitting on the counter. What? The cats do it.) Some left over chicken warmed with mozzarella cheese melted on top. Sliced yellow squash fried in a pan with butter, salt and pepper. Water.
Overall dish quality:
Chicken was too dry, I found out mozzarella does NOT stay melted (just sorta melts and turns into a stretchy plastic-like substance), and the squash was amazingly good- but a bit too juicy. I'm surprised at how delicious the squash came out though!

Note:
I found out potatoes are on the "No-No" list. Seriously!?

You should also make note that I've never enjoyed using pepper and salt more in my life. Seeing as how cooking skills could improve my chances at marrying and keeping my love's appetite satisfied, this month may just prove to be a useful experiment.

Life of Lael as of late

My randomness typed out by the famous Hannahisbananas-

"to bible study ne dhj oh i already know all this..right on kempsville pause left on orchard rd its 1526 orchard grove dr. ok thats it watcha doing hannie? killin the keyboard? im gonna make a list of all the people that have helped me car shopdkajkdhabut um puttin a number in my phone this is great were using up minutes yknow what is it hannah oh my word dontcha have homework to do or something?!? um yeah actually i do waith a minute546 ineed to finish my art portfolio im getting my wisdom teeth out on friday i need to go for a jog real quick think its dangerous to go by myself what am i supposed to do jace isnt here shes gone till wednesday um shes in richmond visiting her friend-or boyfriend actually 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 yeah i know huh oh boy lets- drop this i wanna crop your....cant crop it hannah"