I'm in LOVE!!

Yes, I believe I have found the bike I want to get. I stumbled across this particular brand while scouting out prices on Tanner’s trike and fell instantly in love with Electra Cruiser Collection! Now, I just have to figure out which one is my favorite which will not be easy. So far, my favorites are the Fleur, the Koi, and the Red Betty with the Leopard accent seats and handlebar grips! I have no idea how much they cost, but I have to have one!

We have a shop just a few miles from where we live that sells them. I called them to see what the weight limit was on the bikes and the guy said “Oh, there is no limit, we’ve had 300 pounders on them!” I laughed and said “Yeah, I’ll be one of those.” But not for long right peoples!! Especially once I get ridin’! I’m really hoping that I can afford to get something before Spring starts (although in San Antonio, we could be out riding bikes now!).

Anyway, visit their blog and then go to their website and look at the cruisers. You can see all the cool designs they have. Report back and tell me which one is your favorite!!

Bike update and the trials and tribulations of converting our family to a Low Carb Lifestyle

I just got off the phone with the guy we’ve been talking to about our bikes. I think I’ve decided to get both Tanner and I adult tricycles. Tanner has to have one because of his balance issues (from the meningitis) and I think that initially, it will work better for me since I have a history of back problems, etc. I also think it will be helpful since we will most likely be using our bikes to get around our immediate area at some point (get to the grocery store, local shops, maybe even to some karate classes down the street) and the tricycles will have a nice big basket on the back that can be used to transport groceries or whatever else we might need to take with us. I continue to lament being a single car household...it sucks.

Initially, I found an adult trike at Walmart that was around $250 and I thought we could probably just purchase that for both of us and save us quite a bit of money, but I recently learned that the trikes Walmart sells are only a one speed. Due to Tanner’s low muscle tone (also due to the meningitis...not to be confused with the general low muscle STRENGTH that comes from being just being lazy lol), he really will need the 3-speed. I’m thinking that initially, a 3-speed would probably be better for me as well as I work on increasing my own strength. The 3-speeds are going to cost us around $430 a piece of which I have $200.00 saved so far (some of that is money my grandfather gave Tanner for his birthday to put toward his own bicycle).

I would really like to get the bikes purchased in the next few months, but we’ll have to see. Something always seems to happen whenever we get ahead a bit financially which is frustrating, but that’s life. This recent hospitalization means I was out of work without pay for a week and Erik also was out of work (his night job) without pay. However, the good thing is that Erik’s second job (the day job) has him in a fairly consistent placement through the end of the year so we can count on his income to make up the difference. I also have another job I can work a few hours a day (it is monotonous as hell) that will help make up the difference so I’m sure we’ll be fine :)

On another front, our entire household is trying to convert to the low-carb lifestyle. I have to say that Erik has been fairly resistant to the whole switch (he’s always hated low-carbing because he is such a carb-o-holic) so it has been frustrating for me. He seems to be making more of a concerted effort now, but I can tell he really is not embracing the whole switch. Tanner isn’t exactly in love with it either, but has agreed to give it a try for at least the next month. We’ve had a few minor meltdowns when Tanner learned he couldn’t have mac and cheese, but I’m going to be trying some tofu shirataki noodles in the next week or so; we’ll see what he thinks of those.

I suggested trying to have us ALL on a lower carb diet because I really think it will help Tanner. He is on medication that makes him hungry all the time and I'm hoping that low carbing will help curb his appetite to some degree and give him more energy. Several years ago, the neurologist prescribing these meds indicated that he should probably be on a low carb diet, but at the time, we had bigger behavioral fish to fry. Right now, I'm mainly concerned about the fact that he hasn't been on a low carb diet but has been eating the meals I make in the evening and snacking on some of my low carb foods at other times. As most of you know, when you are on a low carb diet, you basically are changing the way your body metabolizes food and fat. While a low carb diet may be higher in fat, because your body is actually metabolizing it differently, you can still lose weight. As a matter of fact, trying to do a low carb, low fat diet often results in mediocre weight loss at best because you need to eat fat to burn fat when low carbing. However, if you are on a low fat diet and eat the occasional low carb meal (which is likely higher in fat), you are going to gain weight. My worry has been that Tanner will probably begin to put weight back on if he isn't low carbing with me. So we are experimenting and will have to see if the guys in the family survive. You'd think I was STARVING them with the moaning and complaining they've been doing lol! I'm hoping it will get easier as they get over their carb withdrawal.

I'm trying to make it easier on them by trying new recipes and I've actually had some success with quite a few so far. I made some banana nut flax seed muffins that turned out pretty good, but Tanner wasn't a fan of the banana flavor so I'm going to try and adapt it to a blueberry muffin or chocolate chip peanut butter muffin (made with SF chocolate and SF peanut butter of course) and see how he likes that.

Before I went into the hospital, I made some flax seed foccacia bread using this recipe, but I tweaked it a bit (I added some italian seasoning, minced onion and sundried tomatoes) and it tasted very similar to stove top stuffing so it may be a good holiday substitute for us this year. Yesterday, I made this mock baked potato casserole that I adapted from a sparkpeople recipe and Tanner went back for seconds so it is nice to know that he will accept some of the mock substitutes now and then. I made it with more green onion and didn’t include the bacon (mainly because I was lazy and didn't feel like cooking the bacon...I also had Tanner breathing down my neck for dinner lol). Honestly, it was a really flavorful substitute for mashed potatoes. The consistency was a bit off (a bit “softer” than I would like) so I may try to make it again and tweak it a bit until I’m happy with the consistency and then I’ll post it on my recipe blog.

On the weigh-in front...I'm back to 350 today so headed back down again which is good. Doing my best to stay hydrated. So far, so good!

Sleeping Beauty...NOT

She makes it look so easy doesn't she? I can guarantee you I didn't look quite so peaceful.

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I had my sleep study last night. I wasn’t feeling great AT ALL. Erik and I had to go to a morning appointment and I had a few pieces of toast with low fat peanut butter before we left thinking that would tide me over till we got back. At the appointment I started feeling kind of sick to my stomach, but lately I sometimes think being hungry makes me sick to my stomach. Maybe I just forgot what being empty feels like lol? It could be the medication I take too; I seem to have a hard time with the metformin and vacillate between 1000mg and 2000mg because every time I up it, it makes me sick. Someone mentioned talking to my doctor about getting on a liquid dose. I definitely need to do something about it.

So, after the appointment, I was STARVING. I decided I’d allow myself to kind of go off my diet as a planned cheat for doing so well with both my diet and exercise. I wanted some breakfast tacos, but Wendy’s was closer so I settled for a chicken club sandwich and an order of fries. I even got a regular coke! I couldn’t finish the sandwich and only had a few fries (somehow we must have ordered the biggie or something because I’ve never seen an order of fries that large before…even when I ordered it in the past lol…figures the day I can’t eat them, they actually fill the darn thing up!). I was kind of proud of the fact that I couldn’t eat the whole thing and stopped rather than continuing to eat just because it was my cheat. I immediately felt sorry though…spend the rest of the afternoon not feeling great and even laid down for a while.

Later for dinner, I had a bit of toast with some butter spray (zero calories, zero fat) and some chicken noodle soup and went off to my sleep study. I apologized to the guy that had to hook me up to everything because I wasn’t all that chatty and just wanted him to get the job done so I could go to bed. I thought about having him take a pic with my cam phone after he was done, because I was looking all kinds of crazy and figured you guys would probably LOVE to have a laugh with me. If I wasn’t sick, I probably would have done it ;)

The bed they had me in was so comfortable! I actually got some decent sleep, but apparently I didn’t hit some minimum so they didn’t have to do the second part of the study. I don’t know if that means I wasn’t having any apnea episodes and wouldn’t have a cpap recommended for me or if it just meant the apnea wasn’t so bad that they didn’t need to get me on a cpap right there and then. I guess I’ll know in a week.

Erik came and picked me up and again, I tempted fate and asked him to stop so I could get some breakfast tacos. I know…I don’t know what got into me, I’m disappointed. Especially since I stepped on the scale right after and saw I was back at 431 :( I doubt I gained weight that fast from the few things I ate though. I think it was probably because I’ve actually had loads of salt in the last few days, so some of it is likely water and maybe a lb or two from the cheats. Again, I felt like crap and slept most of the day. My poor stomach was screaming at me “What are you doing??? We are sick her woman, doesn’t anything kill that appetite of yours?” Apparently not.

So, I finally woke up and decided I should probably take a shower and get all that sticky crap they use for the electrodes out of my hair. Once I took a shower I felt a little better, but still didn’t feel like eating. I decided to call the bike place down the road from us to see if they had an adult trike we might see for Tanner. Carlos, the owner said they did and I asked him if he had any bikes he thought might work for me. He asked my weight and I was honest with him. Poor guy, he was quiet for a second and I just said “Yeah, I’m a big girl.” He said “Well, I think it is great that you are thinking about doing something like this, why don’t you come by and we’ll talk.” I asked Erik if he would want to go with Tanner and I and surprisingly he said yes. I thought for sure going to see about a bike for me would rank right up there with going swimming with me, but I guess not. Score a few points for Erik this round.

Tanner has never really been able to learn how to ride a bike due to some balance issues he has. I think that he probably COULD have learned when he was younger, but his frustration tolerance made teaching him very difficult. We finally just gave up after purchasing a bike that sat a bit lower and he still had difficulty managing it and finally refused to get on it. He tried out a blue adult trike that didn’t look all that goofy in person. He did fine, but the guy remarked that his muscle tone was pretty low. He had a bike for me, but said that I would probably need to wait until I was closer to 300 unless I wanted to ride a trike to start off with. Maybe for now, we can work on getting tanner the trike and get erik some clearance bike or free bike from somewhere so that he and tanner can start riding together. I can get up in the morning or go out at night and start building up my stamina on the trike and get me a decent bike when I lose a little more weight. Guess we’ll wait and see how it plays out, but it was kind of fun to think about getting more active and encouraging Tanner to get more active.

Afterwards, we stopped by McDonalds (Erik had already promised Tanner) and got Tanner something to eat (and a shrek mug for me....they already had the fiona mugs :(and then we stopped by a nearby BBQ place to get a baked potato for me. I ordered it dry and doctored it up with some butter spray (which is kind of saving my life lately) and some light sour cream. That seemed to sit a heck of a lot better on my stomach. I still don't know if the problems I was having was due to the food I ate or an actual illness. I suppose it could have been both, but you know what I mean. I'm back on track though. Want to see that scale start moving back down :)