Atkins, Take Two

I forgot to mention: Aaron and I went back on Induction last week.

We had both been gaining a little weight back (partially due to our repeated visits to the Happy Rose Buffet). I had gained back 12 pounds total from my lowest weight, but had gained it back slowly between January and May of this year, and stayed pretty steady after that. Aaron, however, finally hit a point last month where he decided he had to go back on Induction, and I gladly joined in. (I’m not good at doing Induction by myself. I’m too easily lured to the dark side.)

The first week, I lost 4.5 pounds. I was stoked. Then we went to visit Amy in Dayton, and I somehow managed to gain back two pounds over the weekend. I’m back to losing about a half a pound a day, though, so I’m going to lay off the daily weight check and go back to weighing weekly again.

I’ve been rediscovering old recipes this week, like the Mock Cream Cheese Danish, and finding new ones, like Hamburger Pie. OMG, so yummy. burger baked in the oven with a filling of cream cheese, mustard, and horseradish. It may sound weird, but it’s really, REALLY good. (Props to the Atkins All The Way podcast for that one.)

You know, Induction isn’t so bad. 🙂

Almost-normal-sized clothes again…

You know, self-portaiture isn’t quite as easy as it might seem, especially without a professional portraiture setup. In other words, finding an appropriate spot to set the digital-camera-on-a-timer in my house is a challenge. But I wanted to share my small joy with you, so… ph34r my new tank top. Rah.

To celebrate my return to this-is-how-fat- I-used-to-be- before-I-got-sloppy, I scrounged up a few pics of myself over the past 10 months or so and made a weight-loss montage. I didn’t seek out too many pictures, and I didn’t scan anything; it was just what I had already on the computer for whatever reason. But I think it gets the point across. And not only do you get to watch my double-chin melt away through the photos, you also get to watch my hair grow. 🙂

Aaaaaand I’m done.

Atkins Progress

Just happened to notice, hidden in amongst My Documents, the Weight.xls chart I created once upon a time when I was more obsessive over my weight-loss regimen than I am now. So, I opened it up and added the latest plot point of date vs. weight, and made a discovery.

Even though it seems like my weight loss is slowing, it isn’t. I’ve been losing at the same rate, a little over half a pound a week, ever since October or November. If I keep up at this pace, I’ll be at my ultimate goal (for now, anyway) by late Winter of 2005. While that might seem like a long time… I don’t mind. And, when you think about it, it took me a few years to put it on; it seems fitting that it should take at least a year and a half to take it off.

(Just stay away from the candy machine… Hershey’s with Almonds bad…)

My world

Aaron and I just had a major thrift purging, and took a carload of stuff to Goodwill. Seriously. A carload. The backseat and trunk were both full of computerage and old clothes. Mac Classic from Sheryl (rescued from an untimely demise in a landfill), scanner, Mac 7100, older Mac whose number I forget, 13″ Apple Monitor (which had to go to Salvation Army instead, since Goodwill doesn’t accept monitors), Genesis consoles and controllers, two bags of clothes, some books, an external Mac modem, etc, etc. We freed up a good amount of room in our bedroom and our computer room. And, hopefully, we racked up a good amount of thrift karma, to counteract our bad luck at finding deals at Goodwill and the flea market lately.

I weighed myself again yesterday, and found that my weight loss has temporarily stagnated at eleven pounds. Which, don’t get me wrong, I’m still grateful for, but I’m hoping to continue to lose weight at a decent clip, so I’m not tempted to drift from the Atkins Way. I do know I’m still burning fat, though, cause the pee-strip tells me so. Just to show how much weight this week and a half of Atkins has helped me lose, let me show you the lovely chart from my Excel weight-tracking worksheet (yes, I know, I’m a dork):

click for larger graph

That’s from mid-November of last year to right now. Note the stretch after the wedding where I didn’t give a shit about how much I weighed, and didn’t even weigh myself at all for a couple months. Also note the dip at the beginning of the chart, and the righteous rebound right after two Christmas dinners in a row. 🙂

In case anyone cares about my crazy work soap-opera… Andrew decided that one of the temps who was prepping should move to being a processor, and that Rama (who, you will recall, complained about being a temp and having waaay too many hours) should return to prepping. This took effect on Tuesday, and we’re all happy about it. All except Dawn, the other prepping temp, who pretty much hates all of us now, since we were instrumental in getting our old temp canned. But, really, Lorna just didn’t get it, for the most part. I won’t go into it, since you won’t really follow, but suffice to say she was inconsistent and just didn’t get it. So, yeah. All of us are in a great mood except for Dawn, who scowls and gives us all a silent treatment like we haven’t had since Junior High.

Still on the agenda: Loni’s carpal tunnel worker’s comp claim. Oh, yeah, and let’s see what Ruth says when she gets back from vacation and all the shit’s gone down. 🙂

P.S. – I’m on vacation today and tomorrow. Aaron and I are going to Ann Arbor tomorrow. Whee! Four-day weekend! Outside of my honeymoon, I haven’t had one of those for a long, long time.

Atkins and Aaron and work. (oh my)

Even though my site seems to be down, I’m still going to post an update.

Aaron and I are finishing up Day #3 of the Atkins Diet, and doing surprizingly well. People have told me they felt like crap during the initial induction phase of the diet — I feel great. I feel less lethargic than I did, though I’d stop short of saying I actually feel energetic. I at least feel more alert… though that could have something to do with my attempts to get to bed before midnight this week and last.

I’m enjoying having him home when I get home. It’s like every night is a weekend-night. All except for Monday, when I worked 12 1/2 hours.

At work, we swapped off what clients’ accounts we each process, and our temp, Rama, has apparently hit her breaking point with the stuff I used to run. She’s now complaining to our boss that she should only be working 30-35 hours a week as a temp, and she’s working 40+, and she wants to swap off with one of the other temps, so they can process for awhile and let her prep the work like they do. No dice, as per our meeting last week, but our supervisor, Andrew, said he’ll step in whenever she’s ready to go home. She was not satisfied with that answer, since it seems like he’s just trying to placate her, and not deal with the problem at its source — the problem being that the processors work 45-hour weeks (soon to be longer still), and the preppers are scrambling to barely make their 35 to 40.

We’re all at a snapping point. We’re sincerely hoping that we can all quit at once, having found other jobs, and leave Andrew floundering. We’ll see…