sweets

Best-laid plans

It turns out ol’ Robert Burns is right: The best-laid plans of mice and (wo)men often go awry. Such was the case for me at my writer’s conference last weekend. You knew there was a reason I’ve been silent this week, right? (Actually, I’ve still been super busy.)

I planned to get in my last two Best Body Bootcamp workouts on Saturday and Sunday mornings while everyone else was still sleeping, before conference sessions got under way. I even packed my gym clothes and tennis shoes. I scoped out the location of the hotel gym on the map … and then didn’t go anywhere near the darn place.

I did get quite a bit of walking in on the conference center grounds — more than 12,000 steps Friday alone. But I didn’t do my formal workouts. Is it coincidence that I didn’t win bootcamp’s big cash prize? I think not.

My plan also included staying on my low-carb diet. I packed Atkins bars and brownies to help me avoid temptation … and then, between sessions, I snatched a mini Reese’s cup from one of the bowls in the conference check-in area. (Writers love their chocolate, so it was present in abundance, and I’d foolishly left my Atkins snacks in my luggage … in the hot car.) One led to another, and pretty soon it was open season on sweets and carbs in general.

It didn’t help that there were no diabetic meals after all, and every chicken breast was breaded. Someone suggested Saturday that I ask for the gluten-free meal. No breading there … but by then I’d already devoured potatoes, white and wild rice pilaf, chocolate mousse, a heavenly chocolate cake with whipped cream and raspberry sauce and other assorted carby treats.

Oh, it was way too easy to slip back into my old, bad habits. We stopped at the swanky Scottsdale Fashion Square mall Sunday after the conference and I was still in a carb free-for-all. I got a dark chocolate milkshake from Johnny Rockets, crowned with thick whipped cream. It was dee-ee-licious.

But after I tossed the cup in the trash, I gave myself the old diet pep talk. You know the one: “One day — even one weekend — of out-of-control eating won’t cause you to regain all the weight you’ve lost. Continuing to eat crap will, though, so get back on track now.”

I took a deep breath, told myself that once I left the mall I was back on Atkins and then stepped through the doors. I didn’t look back.

After a weekend on carb overload, I felt blah and bloated. It’s also been tougher for me to say “no” to the things I usually have no trouble bypassing. But I’m doing it, and I know the desire for bread/sweets will go away.

I’m not looking forward to getting on the scale in the morning, though. It won’t be pretty.

At least I got in all my water each day. H2O was nearly as omnipresent as chocolate, with giant pitchers of ice water in each conference room and more in the common area.

Note to self (and some other random ramblings)

Discovered: Low carb or not, these cookies are too good to keep in the house.

Dear Self:

The Atkins Endulge Chocolate Creme Sandwich Cookies are fantastic. They taste just like Oreos — and are, in fact, so good that you should never buy them again. It’s too hard to stop with just one package (and you don’t want another OD on sugar alcohols any time soon).

Love, Arlene

Actually, I did stop with one serving — but mainly because the remaining single-serve packs were nowhere near when I inhaled the first one.

So I’ve learned one thing this weekend: I should avoid those cookies like the plague. Only 5 Net Carbs or not, it’d be way too easy for me to overeat them. (They might even increase cravings.) That means they’ll have to stay off the menu.

Shame, that. They really are delicious. Oh well. Not delicious enough to give up all the progress I’ve made.

Despite my best intentions to work out, it ended up being a fairly lazy Sunday. I spent some time at Starbucks, writing. Got some fresh, new words — a good start to the new, improved ending of my WIP. I also spent plenty of time with the Boyfriend.

Monday, it’s back to work — but first, a good Best Body Bootcamp workout. I’m kind of looking forward to a new challenge.

My two personal goals for this phase:

– Keep tracking food. It’s slowly becoming a habit again, but I still want the safety of requiring myself to do it.

– Drink at least 64 ounces of H2O each day.

Blast from the Past, Part 4

When I was doing Atkins the first time, I started writing a nonfiction book about being low-carb and loving it. The other day, I stumbled on these pages again. They read a lot like blog posts, so I thought, “Why not share them like they are?”

Enjoy!

Like many people, I was skeptical of the Atkins Nutritional Approach. At one point, I read a coworker’s copy of “Atkins New Diet Revolution” and scoffed openly at the ideas it revealed.

Then my mother died and I had a very good reason to lose weight.

About a month after Mom’s funeral, my brother and his wife started doing Atkins. And although I’d sworn I could never give up pasta, potatoes and bread, I listened when Dan said it wasn’t so bad.

I got my hands on another copy of the Atkins book and read it again, with a more open mind — and I decided “What the hell? Nothing else seems to work.”

My roommate and I agreed to do Atkins together. We purged the pantry of carbs and started on Oct. 9, 2003, two days after my 32nd birthday.

The first week, I lost 9.5 pounds. The next week, another 2.5 pounds, then 3.5 more. After a month, I was down 18.5 pounds. After two months, I’d dropped a total of 28. Three months in, I was 37 pounds lighter. In four months, I’d lost 46 total pounds.

My first Atkins journal (the only one I have readily available) only goes through that first 120 days — but 46 pounds in four months is no small feat. It was certainly more success than I’d had on other diets.

That’s right: The low-carb diet I was initially so skeptical about was the one that finally let me get off the diet roller coaster — at least for a while.

I did eventually fall off the low-carb wagon, just nine pounds from my goal of 160. Over the next two years, most of the weight slowly crept back on. I flirted with other diets — most notably a couple-year stint on Weight Watchers. I lost more than 50 pounds on WW (getting 12 pounds from my goal of 170), but stopped following the plan and started gaining.

Last May, after much waffling — and complaining that I couldn’t live without pasta, bread and potatoes, I recommitted to Atkins. Not surprisingly, after a couple of days, I didn’t miss the foods I’d claimed I wouldn’t be able to survive without.

That’s the great thing about Atkins: It totally banishes the cravings. I can walk right by donuts or cake in the break room at work without giving them a second glance. In fact, they smell too sweet.

Huh. Never thought I’d hear myself say that!