Taking Seven For the Team

For those of you who don't follow my daily excursions into lunacy on Facebook, I have lost 20 pounds in one month. I am hitting the Atkins diet hard with a goal of losing 30 pounds by the end of May. This is when I go on my cruise with the best buds, and no, I'm not losing weight for the cruise; it just provided a nice little deadline to give myself.
So 20 pounds in one month. Pretty impressive, right? Thank you, thank you. Your applause is much appreciated, but hold onto it for just one second.
You see, this past weekend was my two day anti-diet following a two week Atkins cycle. I basically get to eat anything I want on these weekends and enjoy some carbs. The idea is that my body slowly gets adjusted to low carbs, and the once every two week "shock treatment" lets me indulge and resets my body chemistry so to speak.
The exacerbating factor, however, is that I am a rabid, college basketball fan. My Tar Heels made it to the Sweet 16, so in my warped, uber (I just threw that word in there for my friend, Karen) sports fanatic mentality, I decided that eating all kinds of sports watching, junk food would help my team to win. (Incidentally, the strategy worked on Friday, but by Sunday evening, if I had consumed one more unhealthy food product, you could have squeezed out some Crisco through my pores.)
So today we will examine how I put on what I had planned to be 4-5 pounds, but turned into 7, over 3 days of carb super consumption.
Friday lunch
I went for Mexican with Julie because we had not been to lunch in a couple of months. We just had to go to Mexican, which is of course a pure carb fest, because there are few places Julie and I can agree on because as this blog has previously documented, she is a fancy, schmancy, healthy vegetarian. (We will ignore the fact that Julie was completely open to a more Atkins friendly restaurant.)
I was going to take it easy at lunch since I technically am supposed to only have 2 diet free days, and I knew those would be Saturday and Sunday. However, after that first chip with salsa, I was done. I became the carbohydrate equivalent of a crack addict who is locked in a room with an 8 ball and told, "Hey, the first hit is free." I honestly think Julie became afraid to put her hand near the basket of chips for fear of losing a finger. Then, of course, when the meal came I devoured every morsel of taco, enchilada, and rice on my plate. Then I quite unashamedly ate some of Julie's rice when she said she was not eating it because it was fattening. (What does a vegetarian know about healthy anyway?)
That meal pretty much set the tone for my weekend.
Friday dinner
Connor and I split a family size Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese. By split, I mean Connor had an appropriate portion to go with his hot dog. Magically, the container was empty by half time of the game. (I should point out here that I also had cookies and cream ice cream at half time because it was a close game and I needed to do whatever I could to help us win.)
I can neither confirm nor deny the rumor that during the second game, in which Kansas played, because I had them in my Final Four bracket, I inhaled back to back candy bars to support them. If I had done such a blatantly hedonistic thing, it would have paid off since they advanced in that game.
And I only had a bowl of ice cream again at bedtime because there was a small amount left in the container, and I had just purchased a new replacement container. It just seemed more orderly to go ahead and take care of that little detail.
Saturday breakfast
I got up and made breakfast for my son and me: scrambled eggs and cheese, and jellied toast, only one slice. Nothing extreme, right?
Saturday "lunch"
We went to an early matinee of the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which your kid will enjoy if, like Connor, he is 8. There we had a large soda each, not diet, and split a LARGE buttered popcorn. On top of that, we had snuck in two boxes of candy from Dollar General. Hey, I'm all for supporting the local theater, but come one - $4 for a box of candy?
Saturday dinner
Since we were already in town after the movie, we got a pizza for dinner. You cannot beat a $5 large pepperoni from Little Caesar's. It is possible that I ate HALF of it for my dinner. Connor had two slices. In a cruel twist of fate, as I was walking into the kitchen later that night, I tripped and fell, causing the remaining two slices to fly down my throat. Ain't gravity about a bitch?
I should also point out that Fig Newton brought garlic bread sticks left over from her lunch. I most certainly did not eat three of them at bedtime.
Sunday breakfast
I started the day off with a slice of cold pizza from Fig Newton's stash.
Sunday lunch
I cooked Shrimp Jambalaya, which is mostly rice. Fig Newton had one bowl. The rest evaporated somehow.
Sunday dinner
Fig Newton was craving the garlic bread sticks and pizza again, so she ordered them online. I fiercely argued against this idea for 0.3 seconds. There may or may not have been ice cream again at bedtime.
So seven pounds, once UNC victory, and one UNC loss later, and the weekend was done; my carb orgy was complete.
Now for those of you who do not know me, don't freak out too badly. The reckless abandon I devoted to eating myself into a delirium gets transformed into a Naziesque discipline now that I have resumed my diet.
Mmm, this salad sure is yummy.