Day 71. The Cost of Spoiling Yourself & Results Day 10.

One day after mystery day, and look where it got me..... what happened...?!?! well if I told you, it wouldn't be a mystery right! You know what else.... believe it or not, the start of the week was really looking hopeful for losing weight, doh! This is what happens people when stray off target... or get naughty with food ;o) You put on weight... only half a kilo, but that’s half a kilo in the wrong direction.

Am I bothered though, yeah a little, but it was nice to take another brief diversion, plus the other day I was really having a bad time (Although normally I don't indulge on food for emotional support), so yup this cheered me up quite a lot, after all cravings + hunger + laziness + bad mood was easily solved by Mystery Foods hahaha!

Am not really going to comment about my results... but you can see, for the first time since starting Atkins, this is the first week of gaining weight. Although you cannot actually attribute my weight gain to Atkins, because I kind of diverted from lowcarb for a day :oS ops, my bad! :o)

Day 69. The Big Mystery... What Did I eat Today? You Decide! :oP

Oh its been one of those days, you know where nothing goes to plan! Sh*t has hit the fan...! For starters that 3G wireless package I subscribed to on Saturday, well all over the weekend I had no joy with it, so took it back to the store. Then I find out... oh sorry Sir, we seemed to of scanned (fc*ked Up!) the wrong number, and hence why we couldn’t activate you... erm! So yep after queuing in the store 40 minutes to find out this information, I wasn’t too pleased. Plus they couldn't resolve the problem there and then.. so still no internet connection...and I have to go back on Wednesday to sort out the problem :oS Grrrr! So a cancellation is in order me thinks!

Because two assignments have to be handed in tomorrow, this precious loss of time didn't go down to well either.

Afterwards, I then returned to doing my Databases assignment. This is where my day went really down hill, in fact this has occupied most of my time (nearly all really)... and finally the conclusion is "I'm going to fail another database assignment!"

Let me explain why... Three database assignments have been issued which count for 30% of that module. So far I haven't been able to hand in a single piece, thus missing out on 30%, which now means, I have it all to do in the exam, but... here's the tricky part! The stuff in the assignments are going to be in the exams, and the reason I haven't submitted my previous assignments is, because I cannot answer the questions, I just don't get it...!

Don't get me wrong, I have been trying really hard to learn this stuff, (Have read books, searched the web, ran through examples) but for some reason I just cannot apply Relational Algebra, ER Modelling and Normalization, which really sux's. The weird thing is, it's easy stuff (Honestly it is..!), just not for me, I just can't seem to comprehend it!

Anyways to make up for my bad day, or depending on how you look at it, you could say I added to my bad day, I did something very silly or actually very good at the time. Notice how there isn't a table showing my food consumption of the day... instead I thought I would leave it to your imaginations to guess what I ate...

Feel free to add in your suggestions of what I ate....(In the comments section below) You can make your suggestions as crazy as you want, or perhaps add something you would really like to eat right now...!". The best comments may or may not win a prize, just haven't decided yet what the prizes may be..! Perhaps my incomplete database assignment lol!

Anyhows peace out!

Day 68. Life on FastForward... Wooaww there Horsey!

Elo Moto :o)

Tell me where does the time go... one minute its Friday night, next minute its Sunday afternoon already...How does that happen, dammit...! Actually when I look in my Dr. Atkins Diet Planner its hard to believe am on day 68 already. Just imagining 68 more days from now feels so distant, but I bet in a blink of an eye it will soon come around... doh!

Anyways.... todays been pretty cool, chilled, studied and played abit of volleyball. Volleyball was my highlight of the day, also sad too, cause I found out that my Volleyball friend Hannah has only 18 more days left in this country - before returning back to USA :o(

On the diet front, I slipped up again... but what did it was the Battered Chicken, just one of these beauties was 18 net carbs... ouch! Very tastey though and free, so didn't mind too much... then again I might do come this weigh day, not another stall comes to mind...

Right back to my studies, tallio!

Day 67. Shopping & Coconut Oil :oP

Hey all, I kind of went on a shopping spree today and ended up buying loads of healthy foods and things.

First up was Strawberry flavored whey protein, which is delicious btw :oP (Because I’m currently running out of chocolate whey protein supplies).

Secondly I gave pure unrefined coconut oil a try. Per pot its £10.00 which is quite expensive… but I’ve been told from so many sources now how healthy it is, so I just had to give it a try. Actually the taste of pure coconut oil was unexpected. The best way to describe it is, imagine a bounty chocolate bar (Obviously without the chocolate coating), with a much watered down oily taste, and that’s what coconut oil tastes like (I was expecting a sweeter taste… but that sweeter taste normally comes from added sugar). Still its fragrance is very pleasant.

Anyhow I will keep you posted how this supplement affects me; I plan to take a spoonful everyday. Besides buying health foods, I also took back my Vodafone Wireless broadband and exchanged it for a 3G Wireless Broadband package instead. Unfortunately where I live, it’s real difficult to get a wireless connection. So fingers crossed that 3G will be a better network to use :o) If and when they decide to connect me.


Ps. Ops I also ate far to many carbs :oS

Day 66. Welcome to the Weekend…It’s only Bl**dy Friday!

Haha, I made it through another educational week. Actually it’s been quite a good day, I got a fair bit of work done, installed Ubuntu, and I only have 2 Java Labs left, woowhoo! But here comes the bad news, I still have loads more assignments to catch up with… when will it end…! Therefore another weekend of bombardment to look forward too, but for the rest of the day its miller time :o(

I have nothing much to report, but I have added another Guru to My YouTube Guru’s list. Check out WannabeaLoser if you’re in search of more food variety, and don’t forget to drop her a comment ;o)

Right gtg bye!

Day 65. No Assignment, No Badminton But Ubuntu 8.04 is Out :oD

My second semester thus far isn’t going very well. Already I have missed three assignments, and the quality of my work has slipped in comparison to my last semester. I’m really starting to feel the pressure and am a little concerned that I might not pass my masters degree. I think my mistake was cramming/over indulging in learning java over the entire Easter period which lead me to neglecting my other subjects, which then snowballed into me now being over worked with assignments/deadlines. This phase seems like forever to pass. I guess my morale is low today, sorry about that.

On top of this disaster, I wanted to go and get some frustration out. So for the 1^st time since the beginning of Easter, I decided to turn up for Badminton practice, but as the title suggests, yes…. Badminton was not on. I was really annoyed :o(

But today wasn’t all that bad, in the post arrived a laptop accessory. I bought an essential laptop stand (For better posture). Now I can align my laptop next to my widescreen monitor and dual screen. Plus I can use my regular mouse and keyboard instead of my laptop keyboard and track pad ;o)

Old Keyboard and Mouse + More Computer Screen = More Work Done Faster

The best news of the day however was the latest release of Ubuntu Linux, Hardy Heron 8.04. I’m a big fan of Linux by the way, and for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about please go here to find out -> ubuntu.com.

In a nutshell, Ubuntu is a free alternative to Microsoft Windows and other operating systems…. It can run on a PC or a Mac and comes with a whole variety of free software (Loads of alternatives to expensive software and sometimes even better than the real deal). It’s an ultra reliable operating system, fast, stable, virus/spyware free, and even without a firewall it’s difficult to compromise. So if you want to run a faster safer better computer with free software perhaps try out Ubuntu ;o) There are other flavors of Linux too, but if you’re a beginner Linux user, I recommend you start with Ubuntu :o)

Hum, well I hope this post wasn’t to techi or gloomy for you, till next time, keep losing :o)

Day 64. The Half Way Point & Results Day 9

Hey folks another week another measure… This time the loss isn’t so impressive, however it could have something to do with my McD splurge… Cough cough!

Actually earlier in the week I lost quite a bit of weight, then after volleyball on Sunday, I noticed a steady rise in my weight, weird! It’s not muscle mass, because the maximum amount in lbs of muscle you can gain in a week is 1 lb, so it has to be water retention. Nevertheless, no worries, I still dropped half a bag of sugar before results day, plus am officially at my half way point now :oD So just 12.5 kg to go ;o)

So what are my stats and differences… Basically I’ve lost 0.5 kg, I went from 90 kg (192.2 lbs or 14.2 Stone) to 88.5 kg (195.1 lbs or 13.9 Stone). In my measurements I noticed a drop in my waist size, hips, upper arm and thighs, so cool beans ;o)

A tip for new Dieters: As some of you may or may not know, it’s a good idea to take both weight and body size measurements, as weight by itself isn’t necessarily a reliable measure, due to fluctuations of water in the body. Plus let’s say you’re working out frequently too, muscle weighs more than fat, therefore you could be gaining weight but becoming leaner, so just bare that in mind. Plus Plus…For women, that time of the month can also affect weight results, but being a male I wouldn’t know anything about that ;o) hehehe!

As for my day, well I’ve been pretty busy studying but between work I did squeeze in a volleyball session. It’s so good to be playing again, I still haven’t caught up with regular badminton sessions though, boowho :'o(

My Atkins Quick Start Guide

Hi there and welcome to my Atkins Challenge, so you want to join me in losing weight, becoming healthier with an Atkins lifestyle, well ahoi :o) Now that I’ve been on a low carb lifestyle for a while I thought it would be a great idea to share some of my knowledge and resources, of course am no guru, but I think these tips I provide will be a of real benefit to you, after all there working for me so far.

So what are my tips.

Tip No. 1

My first tip would be, go out and buy the Dr. Atkins book, “Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, book.” <-- or get it from here...Without this book you will be lost.

Its essential reading, after all how do you know your doing Atkins correctly, without reading the book. It will teach you the fundamentals of the diet, how the body works and why a low carbohydrate lifestyle is extremely successful. If you’re a bit tight for money don’t worry, you can buy this book on Amazon from the link above, if you buy a used version, you can get it for as low as $0.01. Now if that’s not a bargain to get better health, what is!

Tip No. 2

Before you start the low carb way you need to first read the Atkins book, seriously get familiar with the principles. You don’t have to read the entire book, but I recommend at least reading the first few chapters up to (At least) and including the Induction Phase chapter. Besides the first two weeks you’ll be following this phase.

Tip No. 3

Whilst your reading the Dr. Atkins book and learning the processes to healthy living, start to clear out your cupboards and fridges of high carbohydrates, high processed junk foods, say good bye to an unhealthy lifestyle and temptation, and say hello to the new you. It’s a good idea to clear out your shelves, so you don’t deviate from your plan.

Tip No. 4

So you’ve read the book your familiar with the plan, and your ready to lose weight, but what’s next before starting. Stop! Go see your Doctor. Why?? for a health check, explain your going to change your life, by losing weight easily on the Atkins plan. Ask them to weight you, measure your height, check your blood pressure, blood cholesterol and just get a confirmation from them that you will be ok to do so.

Tip No. 5

Ok this is the difficult bit (if your not a fan of what’s on the allowed induction food list), then here is my big tip to being that more successful/faithful during this Atkins period. Devise a list of ten low carb meals and lunches that fit your taste. This is a real important step to prevent you from getting bored of your food choices (Which could eventually lead to potential deviations). Planning like this will successfully adjust your eating habits. If you can create 10 meals and 10 lunches (even 10 breakfasts on top) you will be set to go, and the Induction phase will be easy, a breeze and hardly boring.

Following this big tip, you’ll be indirectly forming a shopping list. This means, when your about to begin Atkins, hopefully you’ll be going into the supermarket and will be buying only what’s on your list. This prevents you from being lured into buying high carb junk foods ;o)

Tip No. 6

This step is preparation for the mind, and it’s probably the most overlooked most important step. Please set yourself a realistic and meaningful goal. Don’t say I want to just lose weight, or I just want to be healthy, nope that’s not good enough! You need to say, how much you want to lose, give a figure, perhaps a time, or even say I want to become a size blar blar. Your goal is unique to you, and it has to have personal value/meaning to you (Check out Motivation Show 4 – by the spikeyhairedgirl, to see what I mean) otherwise during your darkest hours, you may lose focus of your goal and deviate from your plan.

Tip No. 7

Be in constant communication with fellow low carbers, be honest with yourself, learn more about your diet, get involved. Perhaps start up a blog, keep a written journal of what your eating, your current sizes, your moods etc. Your not alone, a lot of people are trying to lose weight or have lost weight and can help you. Partner up with someone if you can, or just keep in contact with me and let me know about your progress. Feel free to post comments/questions on my site.

Tip No. 8

Definitely check out the my YouTube Gurus section, alongside reading the Dr. Atkins book, you will find tones of low carb wealth, tips and tricks to keep you onboard. Plus if you have questions, these fellow low carbers would be glad to hear from you.

Tip No. 9

This is an important tip, in fact for optimum health and weight loss you have to do it. Get active, do some exercise even if it’s just 15 minutes of walking a day. Pull a nikey, Just Do it! When I mean exercise, I don’t mean, go out and kill yourself type work outs just at a leisurely pase. Just be active ;o)

Tip No. 10

Last tip, drink plenty of water / fluids. This is an extremely important point, to prevent headaches, cramps, constipation etc… It’s real easy to do, and may help you pass the induction blues.

All that said and done, these are my top 10 tips, there working for me so hopefully they will work for you. Please take them onboard with the material you read from the Dr. Atkins book, and in no time you’ll reach your goal.

Here is to our Success :o)

Day 63. Here Comes the Summer!

Wow have had a great day, I did quite a bit of work, went to all my lectures, came home did a little more work, got a brief feeling of accomplishment, then went out for a nice walk in the sun (in shorts to take a break) then got home and was reminded of the rest of the assignments still due for this and the next week. The weather outside was bliss though, I love the sun :o)

Had “Bangors and Mash” low carb style for dinner (Not again your probably saying to yourselves) or cauliflower mash with frankfurter sausages, and I want to add…. this tastes the best, forget chicken, forget anything else the real deal with cauliflower mash is with sausages ;o) (If you disagree and have a better solution feel free to add your comment below).

For those of you who have been following my nutrition tables, may have noticed I’ve been eating a lot of same foods. I have a couple of reasons why this is…

1. I don’t have a freezer anymore... so I generally buy in multiples then eat the same food over the next couple of days before it goes off or bad.
2. Because of lack of time, or bad perhaps bad preparation I find it easy to cook the same meals. Cauliflower mash though is soooo quick and yummy :o)
3. and lastly because all these things taste so nice and am not getting bored of them yet…. I will continue to eat this way unless I find something else ;o)

Anyhow, am always willing to try out any new suggestions, so feel free to post new tasty simple ideas.

I can’t believe it either, my ninth weigh-in day coming up already. Am not looking forward to seeing my results. I think its either going to be a stall or possible gain… eck! Lets see what tomorrow brings shall we.

Night night and stay tuned!

Day 62. Who Can Say No to Free Food? Confession!

Oh the Soreness! For me this is very strange… I wake up and my whole body is aching… Ouch it hurts, even now when I lift my arms to type… :oS

Why you maybe wondering…??? Don’t worry it’s not some nasty Atkins side effect, no no no…. hum its my silly fault, probably because I over did it yesterday @ volleyball training + without a proper cool down, I guess I was just asking for it, doh! But it was all worth it, besides muscle damage + recovery = stronger muscles ;o) I also noticed this morning when I jumped on the scales, I seemed to have put on 1 kg. Probably all water retention who knows…

Apart from recovering all day, I also got productive, working on more assignments … oh and this is the tremendous bit… a mighty great big box full of computer books turned up at my door from Amazon (A total of nine books arrived, and no joke stacked together they’re about three quarters of a meter tall, lol!) yippee! Also just to note, I don’t normally get excited about receiving books, but these ones are just amazing.

Bit of personal background: For those, who haven’t already noticed from my frequent poor spelling/grammar posts, I’m dyslexic (So give me a break if I make a lot of mistakes ;o). I only found this out after my second semester this year (Been struggling all these years undiagnosed). Hence the reason for all these books, I get a £300 book allowance from my uni to help me with my studies, which is awesome… but perhaps they’ve come a little late, as am near the end of my course now…but I know they will be definitely useful in the future.

Did you notice as well, I updated my blog, I added another guru to my page, this time its HolaBaby. If your suffering with lack of imagination for low carb recipes, suffer no more, HolaBaby is here… check out all her videos for food inspiration ;o) You’ll be cooking up simple yet yummy meals in quick time.

If you have gotten this far and your still wondering about today’s header (I can’t fool you guys), I have a confession to make. Now, don’t be hating…I kind of broke my diet a little, perhaps a lot… and am sure all my excuses won’t convince you that it was ok for me to do what I did. Let me give you the low down of what happened.

Basically, as I said earlier I was working away all morning, plus I was running low on supplies (food in the fridge), and my house mate (Not mentioning any Names) came home. She was telling me how hungry she was, and vice versa. Anyhow some how or another she mentioned the topic McDonalds… and on top of that… free food in the same sentance. Anyhow to kind of summarise below;

Free food + Hunger + McDonalds = Craving

Craving = Breaking Out a (Large) Big Mac Meal with a Chocolate Donut :oP

Now my dad always says, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?!!? And still to this day, I don’t truly know what this means… (feel free to answer below)… but I’ve always had the impression it means… when someone is offering you something take it! So the morale of the story is, I ended up eating McDonalds, and not to make any low carbers drool, it was very nice. I had a Large Big Mac Meal, French Fries, Diet Coke with a Chocolate Donut for afterwards :o) hehehe!

Ok now for the excuses… Yes it was free + had nothing in the fridge, we did this one, also it was kind of a celebration for losing so much weight so far... plus it was nice to take a break from the studies and this is the big one which may get me off the hook… I did go for a long walk for about 1 ½ hours, (Perhaps this burnt off a side of a bun) ;o)… Did I mention it was another great day for weather too, not trying to change the subject or anything hehehe!

Alright, I think we have all established am a cheater… but to all you readers out there I would rather come out being truthful than lie and not tell you about it, plus a one off every now and then doesn’t hurt… or maybe it does… results day in two days eeck :oD

Till next time :oD Keep on smiling

Day 61. All Cool Things Come in Three’s!

Woot woot…! BTW I have never known exactly what woot woot means, I think it’s some kind of happy chat smilie gesture but not sure… if you know, drop a comment below and tell me…anyhow… today is a cracking day. The sun is shining and the weather is sweet.

Also more cool things have happened, first up and your going to love this one, it’s about my achievements thus far. Well, I know my Atkins is going well, after all 9 weeks on am still alive and I’ve lost 12kg’s. So I decided to put myself through a test….!

You’re probably wondering how…? Well let me tell you! basically I have a fair bit of clothing I haven’t worn in a while, so just out of curiosity I thought it would be fun to try them on :o)

Long story short… my so called tight clothing turns out to be not so tight any more… its now my baggy old clothing ;o) yea! Another story, a very good friend of mine (a while back) Hi Tim btw, gave me some really cool, high quality shorts, which unfortunately to begin with where a little tight, (in fact back then I thought I would never get into them…) well it turns out… never wasn’t that long after all :oP

So you maybe wondering, what instigated me to start trying out my old clothes in the first place? Well mainly to my embarrassment, I kept finding my trousers falling down in public…hahah!

Which reminds me of another cool thing I came across the other day. A couple of posts back Hazel and Roy…. commented on my blog (Thankyou BTW), anyways since then I have been checking out their progress on their blog, and I stumbled across a real funny entry (Actually most of their posts are funny ;o).

I hope they don’t mind, I kind of borrowed Day 37 from there blog to show you… Obviously in exchange of promoting their site ;o) But you have to read this, its hilarious and sooo true :o)

So here it is…

Day 37 - Signs of progress or just delusion?

Posted On Tuesday, 8 April 2008 at 21:58 by Roy and Hazel

Hey, I'm doing alright. I've identified 10 signs of me heading in the right direction:

1. I'm losing inches - my pajama bottoms fall down by themselves - OK, yes, I wear nightwear - its been cold recently!
2. I'm getting stronger - I broke one of my shoe laces this morning
3. I'm eating better - no more indigestion tablets at bedtime
4. I'm getting lots of exercise - going to the loo because of the water I'm drinking
5. My taste buds are changing - yes, I really do prefer cauli-mash to the real deal
6. My suit trousers stay at the waistline - and don't slowly work down to hip level
7. Some one at work notices - does it matter that another person asks sincerely: "is it working?"
8. I'm almost ready to go to the gym - quickly running out of excuses!
9. My head and neck is shrinking - or does my hair need cutting??
10. I'm watching less TV - I'm too busy blogging and reading everyone else's!

So yup I hope you found it funny too. Thanks Hazel & Roy. BTW do check out their funky progress / blog… here -> Roy&HazelBlog and keep up the fantastic work :o) That goes for all you other Low Carbers reading this too *o) and feel free to update me of your progress using the comments area below. If you post your site, I will come check it out ;o) Don’t be shy now!!!

Anyhows the third and final cool thing of the day was Volleyball :o) For the first time in 5 or even 6 weeks I finally got to do some sports… but as usual it was awesome fun and I got loads of jumping and running around done.

K ciao…

Day 60. No more Ghosts!

Boo, am back! Sorry about the Ghost Posts. As you're probably aware, I've been really busy with Assignments and such. Sorry to go on so much like a broken record but at the moment I am getting proper brain bashed with the academic stick :o(

Anyways, the good news is... here I am again before another week of mental torture...!

I don't know if you noticed?!?!? But I've added a new feature to my blog... look on the right handside to find out. If you can remember a couple of weeks back, I had a big surprise for you all, well here it is... its not quite finished yet... but its a working progress. Basically its links to my YouTube Guru's. Now wait before you go, awww big deal, let me explain!

When I initially started out on Atkins, thats right 60 days ago, apart from the Atkins book I had no one to really advise me, and believe me, when I first started out, this lifestlye proposed plenty of questions.

So how did I find out my answers that couldn't be found in the Atkins book...? Good question!

Well this is where experience comes into the equation ;o) and what better place to find such fine tuned Atkins athletes than on YouTube.

Now for new comers to Atkins, this is a valuable resource to have, because not only are all these video's jam packed with goodness, they provide you with a nice head start or library of resources. Plus this is the amazing thing, all these Guru's have been there, done that, and have plenty of baggy t-shirts to prove it, that's correct! ... and their some of the nicest people I've chatted to online, and if you ask them a question or two, am sure they will not only answer back, but they will be pleased to hear from you.

Each link provides you with a library of videos, experiences and stories from the Guru's themselves, plus at the bottom of the page you will find futher links to their personal youtube pages/websites, where you can obtain more en"lighten"ment!

Njoy and stay tuned for more updates on this feature :oD

Day 59. Ghost Post Part 2.

Day 58. Ghost Post Part 1.

Day 57. What do you get, When You Stuff Down 25g (+) of Net Carbs on a Daily Basis for a Whole Week? Well Results Week 8 Silly :o)

Hum...the results are in, its been a tough week eating so much :oP But how did I do? To be honest, fantastic, especially because it was another stressful week at uni, I did no sports, I increased my net carb intake and I still lost weight, hurra :o)

You know what else is funky fresh too... Am so close to reaching my half way point now :o) Take that obesity :o) hehehe!

I won't keep you waiting any longer...here are my results. If you can remember last week I was 90 kg (14.2 Stone or 198.5 lbs), well say hello to me now at 89 kg (14 Stone or 196.2 lbs). Thats another 1 kg (0.2 Stone or 2.3 lbs) loss in a week, awesome don't you think?!?! Bringing me to a total of 12 kg (2 Stone or 28.8lbs) loss so far with 13 kg remaining ;o) You can do the remaining math, because thats way tooo much mathematics for me.

And as usual here is my food intake for the day.

I'm going to be having another rough week or so with assignments, so I apologise for the last two almost blank posts and future ones to come. Two weeks from now my assignments should be all over, then I can get back to posting as usual.

For for now, keep up the good work, if Atkins is working for you, don't give in, feel free to comment :o)~

Day 56. Too Much work, Go forward One Space. Part 2.

Day 55. Too Much work, Go forward Two Spaces. Part 1.

Day 54. Whaaa? No Volleyball!

Hi Kids, I'm really gutted!!! Since the Easter Holidays I've not been able to regularly attend any of my sports clubs, just because I've been sooooooo dam busy with all this course work + during the Easter period no university clubs run. Anyhow... this Sunday I was really gearing up for it, and so @ 12 o'clock, I jumped into my car and drove to the sports centre. Only then to find a club member standing their informing everyone volleyball wasn't on.....Grrr!

Yep as you can imagine, I was pretty frustrated, especially because I wanted to take some aggression out on the ball, after all it's been a hectic week of assignments and smacking the ball helps alleviate such tensions... what a bummer!

So instead, I ended up returning home and continuing on with my assignment saga...!

Plus, I had some nuts again... ot o !

Day 53. Empty Stock!

Today is a sad day, you know all those 15 Atkins chocolate bars I bought a couple of posts back... Well unfortunately I've now run out... what the hell am I going to do now... whhaaaa no chocolate :o( I guess I will just have to go out and buy some more, but at normal cost do'h!... or perhaps not ;o)

This makes me wonder actually, should I really be substituting my chocolate cravings with a low carb alternative, or should I really be trying to manage my chocolate habit/addiction which probably got me into this over weight trouble in the first place... plus a few other things ;o)

Perhaps post your suggestions....

Day 52. Cauliflower Goodness!

Yum yum and more yum... if you haven't tried this yet... you just have to! Mash Cauliflower. O my.... this stuff is delicious and soooo easy to make. Boil cauliflower add cheese and mash. Its heaven, very similar to Mashed Potato but without all the cabrs. Seriously I think I am going to have this for the next couple of days. Quick and easy. I found out this idea a couple of weeks back but never got around to trying it, am so glad I did now :oP So give it ago :o)

I also got my new Laptop today aswell, a HP Compaq 6720s and its awesome ;o)

Ok that basically brings me upto date with posts. Its late here so adios amigos/amigas and stay tuned for tomorrows post ;o) I hope all you readers are still out there and that this post wasn't invain.

Day 51. Boring and Busy Part 2.

Other than spending nearly my entire day in front of my computer, working on my assignment I have nothing much to report here, just a nerdy day. I did have a deliscious stir fry though and I managed to complete my work :o) More deadlines to meet tomorrow, unfortunately :oS

Day 50. Results day and my strange loss.

Ok I learned something new today, and it was one of those “You learn by your mistake” type lessons. Well basically I had a really bad bloated stomach all morning. When I woke up (real early morning), the first thing I did was jump on the scales. After all I was excited to see what my results where, being weigh-in day week 7 and all. Anyhow at the initial weigh-off, I found myself to be 91 kg which would mean a 0 kg loss. So I was slightly miffed and frustrated at no loss, but nevertheless I went off to university.

So I was going about my morning as usual until..! I had real problems with my stomach... You know those scenes where someone takes revenge on someone by slipping them laxatives in their tea/coffee/food etc... and then a couple of hours later the victims stomach starts to make those deep grumbling noises. Well these are the sounds my stomach was making at the time... The end result of what you see in the movies is exactly what happened to me.... you know where the guy/gal can't get to the toilet quick enough but when they're there its all good, well boy let me tell you.... I definitely sh*t for Britain... Apologies by the way if your eating whilst reading this :o)

Anyhow why did I bring this up you maybe wondering, well later that morning I decided to step on the scales again after the incident (just out of curiosity) and believe it or not... I was 1 kg lighter - and a lot less bloated ;o)

My dilemma now is, which result to class as this weeks results. Initially I was 91 kg before the 1^st weigh-in and then 90 kg during the second weigh-in. I seemed to stabilized all day at 90 kg. Regardless, I decided to forward my second weigh-in results. But if you compare my measurements you can clearly see some differences to last weeks results too. All cool
improvements.

So now I am 90 kg (198.5 lbs or 14.2 Stone).

Maybe if I side tracked you a little, or perhaps your on the ball your probably wondering what lesson did I learn today... well I found out that Maltitol was the cause of my stomach trouble, and guess how I consumed soo much. Thats correct from the Atkins Endulge Crispy Milk Chocolate Bars. On the back of the pack it clearly states, consuming too many of these bars can cause a laxative effect... and geeezz does it hell... hahaha! So just a word of warning always read labels and don't eat too much of Maltitol contained foods otherwise you could be sorry :o)

More information about > Maltitol <>

One more thing to add, today I decided to move away from the Induction Phase and to begin Phase two of the Atkins Plan... The Ongoing Weight-Loss Phase!

Day 49. Vacations Over...

Today was the end of my Easter Holidays and the start of my University lessons. That was my last vacation of the semester or until the end of my course, therefore from now on it's work work work and more hard work to follow. So my day consisted of a full day of lectures followed by course work eeeck!

On the diet side of things I tried a different type of stir fry. This time I used Quorn rather than real meat and to be honest it went down a treat. Only problem is Quorn fillets contain a lot of carbohydrates. Which lead me to over eating net carbs again.

Day 48. Boring and Indulging Part 1.

Well other than over indulging in net carbs, I have nothing to really report, other than my local supermarket having an Atkins clearance sale. Which lead me to purchase 15 bars of Atkins Endulge Crispy Milk Chocolate Bars @ $0.50 per bar (normally £1 each) & 1 Atkins Chocolate Decadence @ £1 (From £1.98). They was on sale for such a low price, I was kind of obligated to buying a bulk load ;o) On the exercise front I did do some walking too ;o) But mostly, my day was spent studying Javascript programming.

Day 47. Deadlines are Coming!

Its a very short entry today. Unfortunately, time is running short and the deadlines are coming.... eck! So don't expect too much spiel over the next couple of days :oS

Day 46. Java for Dummies Completed.

Hi everyone, today I managed to finally complete a 400 page book on Java, yeeah! It only took me a whole week to get through, but finally Java is starting to make a little more sense, but not that much more ;o) I am proud of the fact though, that I made it all the way through the book from start to finish :o)

From tomorrow its time to get started on my assignments. I have some more serious deadlines coming up and hopefully with my new found knowledge it may help :o) Although some of the assignments are on totally different subjects :oS It should be ok… he says..!

As far as my diet is concerned, I didn’t stray too badly as you can see from the table below, still edging over my 20 net carbs intake still, hum… :oS

Anyways I think I will leave it there, with this non related Atkins entry for today. Ciao abella!

Ps. O o o.... I just remembered... I experimented today with my Chocolate Whey Protein Shake... and have I got a treat for you. Well basically what happened was, I mixed one teaspoon of Psyllum Husks in with my Chocolate Whey Protein shake (whilst blending it) and what a pleasant surprise. Not only do I now not taste the husk, but it also thickens up my shake texture :o) So if you have both ingrediants try it out :oP

Day 45. Nutty about Nuts

I don’t know if you have noticed recently, but my appetite has expanded. So much so, I seem to be eating more than 20 net carbs daily at the moment. For me this is a little concerning, but at the same time, perhaps my body is telling me to move on to phase two of the Atkins approach - The Ongoing Weight-Loss Phase.

To be honest am quite happy to stay within the Induction Phase. Am not bored with the food choices and I am still 15 kg from my goal (A long way), but maybe I should be starting to find my Critical Carbohydrate level. If you look at the graph of my weight loss journey so far (Found at the very bottom of this page) you can see my weight loss is starting to slow down each week.

If I find out my Critical Carbohydrate level I will then know my net carb limit to prevent putting on weight, and equally I will know the level of net carbs to carry on losing weight.

I think however, before I start to do this I might carry on with the Induction Phase alittle longer, just until I reach my half way point. (Am close to losing a whole two stone now). Something I do need to concentrate on is sticking to the Atkins rules of Induction. So for the rest of this week, I will try to be consistent with my 20 grams of net carbs (daily intake) :o) I think in order to do this I need to add more meat to my meals to generally make me fuller.

Another thing I have noticed is my nut indulgences. I love nuts, and I am glad they’re allowed on the Atkins plan, but my difficulty with them is sticking to eating only small portion. I seem to eat them in excess when snacking, ops. I think calculating nut quantities is difficult too, especially if they’re a mixed bag with no nutritional table :oS So another area to control me thinks :oP

Day 44. Mmmm Donuts :oP

I just want to apologize, I slipped up once again, and I kind of had a Homer Simpson Moment, d’oh!

First up my initial mistake was taking a friend to a Fish and Chips shop. She was real hungry and so we dined there. I was being real good by buying only a jumbo sausage, but then my friend started to tease me by waving the aroma of chips under my nose -> my kryptonite. Which led me to eat just the one, which then rolled into two and so forth, luckily I prevented myself from eating more than ten, oops!

Then we went on a small trip to Convy, after all it was another one of those pre-summer days where it’s a crime if you don’t go out and enjoy the weather. So we ended up hiking around Convy enjoying the sites, sea and sun. This was all fun until we passed this amazing Bakery. And yes you’ve guessed it, this is where mistake/incident number two occurred, and to be honest this could not be prevented.

Let me explain. Basically two things happened when I saw this shop, first I was gob smacked at the size of this cake, it was massive, and secondly I was so impressed with the price of this cream cake, it just had to be. You know when you see something in the sale and you just have to have it, well this cake @ £1.20 seemed just like that, and so I bought one and here are the pictures to prove it :o) Just to rub it in of course…!

Well I guess the damage is done now, but believe me it was delicious and hopefully just a one time occurrence (seem to be saying this a lot lately).

Nevertheless, to try and offset these Atkins crimes, I did however do loads of walking + an hour of table tennis so maybe it’s not all that bad. Something tells me I was lacking focus :oS

Day 43. Weigh-in Week 6. One and a bit Bag of Sugar Burned!

The results are in and that’s another bag of sugar and a bit I’ve lost :o) Yes I am 1.4 kg down from last weeks weigh off @ 92.4 kg (203.7 lbs or 14.6 Stone), so now I am currently weighing in at 91kg (200.7 lbs or 14.3 Stone) exactly. Yeeha!

From the body measurements there was only marginal differences from last week, but in some area’s still loses ;o)

Summarizing last week’s eating overall, I have to admit I wasn’t strictly sticking to the Induction Phase, a few days I would be eating sometimes more than my fair share of net carbs and other days I would be eating far less than the daily intake of 20 net carbs. Hum… Personally I put it down to still settling back at my uni home again. Nevertheless, lets see what results Week 7 brings.

What is amazing though, is am not really exercising and I am still losing weight, but on the other hand I cannot wait to get back into doing some sports.

Day 42. Liposuction Day

Hi guys, am so sorry, today I’ve had enough of doing the Atkins lifestyle, my results weren’t quick enough and so I decided to take drastic action (or some might say the easy way out), but am so glad I did.

I decided to have liposuction done all over my body, at a mere $8,000s what a bargain, painful but worth it don’t you think….??? ;o) hehehe! And now I can eat lots and lots of high carb, junk foods again…hahaha! Like pizza, chips, chocolate…. Oh so nice! Plus my body looks amazing, especially my six pack ;o)

Ok Ok APRIL FOOLS and all that! I guess I wasn’t so convincing with my story afterall! hehe me being a bad liar and story maker + I wouldn’t stoop to this level ;o) And who has $8,000s to spare, not me.

Anyways last day of week 6. Weigh in day tommorow, I wonder how am weighing up :o) Tune in tomorrow to find out.