Today marks four full days on antibiotics, prednisone, cold medicine, etc… and I’m not feeling any better yet. In fact, now I have a sick tummy on top of the bronchitis and head cold symptoms, thanks to all the meds. 😛 Seriously. I expected to be well by now. Rah!
Prednisone, or any kind of steroid, is known to make you gain weight and/or make you feel unreasonably hungry.
For some reason it (steroids) dramatically increases your appetite. I experienced that on this medication before (years ago), but that hasn’t been the case for me this week. In fact, my appetite kinda sucks so I’m having to *make* myself eat.
I’m focusing on smaller, healthy meals. And I haven’t gained or stalled either. I’m steadily losing weight this week. Yay. 🙂
I haven’t been sleeping well either. A combination of the effects of the meds plus not being able to breathe and/or waking up coughing.
I’ve noticed in the past that a lack of sleep usually affects my weight loss. Often when I go through periods of semi-insomnia my weight will stall, and the first GOOD full nights sleep I get… I wake up with a “whoosh” weight loss effect.
I’ve seen stalls & gains with stress too. Bodies are weird, aren’t they? lol…
Anyway, I woke up 1.4 pounds lighter today than I was yesterday. Totally unexpected, but I’m not complaining! I already shared with you what I ate on Wednesday, so here’s Thursday’s food journal – with food photos to follow:
That’s 1685 calories yesterday, 15 net carbs, 20 total carbs, and 70% of my calories in fat. My numbers for today (Friday) are higher than that, but I’ll share those with you in another post. I’m using MyFitnessPal to track, by the way.
For breakfast I had 1/3 cup of pecan halves. I’ve mentioned before these are a great LCHF snack. I also had a slice off my Colby Jack Cheese block – and a bottle of water. I’m drinking as much water as I can to try to kick this cold/bronchitis madness. 😛
As for the Coffeemate Hazelnut Sugar Free Creamer (it’s powdered)… that’s sort of a new addiction. And not a great one. I found it, decided to try it, and got totally hooked! Luckily it hasn’t triggered any cravings or caused a stall in my weight loss, but it has way more ingredients than I typically like to consume. That said, I’m not one of those “granola freaks”. While I’m on a mission to be at my absolute healthiest, I do allow myself some guilty pleasures here and there. And lately – that creamer has been one of them.
Anyway, what I set out to tell you about it was this: If you go looking for it, pay close attention to the label. Everywhere I look there are two different labels on the shelf. One is 2 net carbs per tablespoon, the other is 1 net carb per tablespoon. I keep meaning to ask them about that, so I’ll do that and keep you posted. Just make sure you get the one with the lower carb count. And be warned: it is highly addictive and totally delicious! lol. Seriously. I warned you.
I think the checkout lady at my local grocery store is going to call in an intervention on me, given I buy up every bottle of it I can find on the shelf that has the 1 net carb on the label, lol. She must think I’m a serious hoarder. Or a serious coffee drinker. (The latter would be true.) I just keep thinking the higher carb version might be replacing the lower, and don’t know which one is “new and improved” and which is going to disappear, lol. A true addict talking. 😛
Where was I? :-/ Ah, lunch. Apologies – the meds make me loopy. Blah. So I had some leftover bacon. And yes, there is such a thing – but only if you make it on purpose. lol. You might remember we had bacon & eggs for dinner Wednesday night, so I had a little extra cooked for the next day. I used that, and threw it in a skillet with two eggs and a slice of Borden Natural Mild Cheddar cheese.
It didn’t come out pretty, but it tasted great – and filled me up:
Quick one-skillet low carb breakfast: 2 eggs fried in 1tbsp real butter, with 2 pieces of leftover bacon + 1.5 slices of Borden Natural Cheddar cheese mixed in. Easy!
Dinner was Pizza Hut Naked Wings. Per my usual, I got a double order – and ate the other half today. 🙂 Keeping it easy!
I love low carb delivery. 🙂
Someone asked “why the Naked Wings?” The Mild wings are fairly low carb. The Parmesan Garlic wings are even lower carb. The Naked Wings are ZERO carbs. 🙂 AND… I just prefer them. They’re really delicious just like they are. I find the others to be really overpowering, and the flavor seems a little “fake” or something. So it was just a preference thing.
You can see what I had for snacks in the nutrition journal – 1/2 cup of Daisy Brand cottage cheese (the best), and a dreaded Atkins bar. I know, I know – lump that in with my evil coffee creamer, lol. I eat them rarely, but the Peanut Butter Granola Bar is tolerable (not waxy like their icky chocolate stuff) – and it was a matter of getting something down quick to take meds.
You don’t have to be perfect, eat all organic, or even live in your kitchen… to lose weight eating low carb. Thank goodness. Right? 🙂 I’m big on keeping it simple, making it easy, and making the best possible choices in any situation.
Even if sometimes that’s a “fake candy bar”. 😛
What about you – what did you have yesterday or today?
Best,
Lynn Terry, aka @LowCarbTraveler
p.s. I haven’t been able to do my workout lately because I feel like pure hell. I’m kinda sad about that because it’s SO much fun (!!) and because I seriously want to tone up. That’s my big goal lately.
Someone asked me on Facebook the other day if I exercise. You don’t have to exercise to lose weight eating low carb. I didn’t. I just started more recently to tone up. I have this vision of being amazingly healthy – all glowing n stuff. 🙂
But no, you don’t have to exercise so don’t sweat it (ha!) if you can’t for some reason. Of course I should tell you to exercise regularly and never eat an Atkins bar. But I’m not your doctor or your fairy carbmother. I’m just a middle aged woman losing weight, getting healthy, doing my best, learning & improving as I go. And I really enjoy having all of you to do it WITH. 🙂 *cheers*
Do you really drink 96 oz of coffee a day???
LOL – yes, that came out to about 8 mugs (one large mug holds two 6 ounce cups of coffee). And no, not usually, but I’ve been awake A LOT lately (the insomnia) and if I’m up and around I usually have a coffee in hand. π
I probably had 6 or 7 mugs, not 8 – but if I brewed it I counted it. Good catch! π
Ah – I had 6 mugs, because I had 6 creamers. So it should have been 72 ounces. Obviously some of that coffee got poured down the sink. π
Thanks Lynn…. You have been truly inspiring and helpful !!
Thank you, Yola! π
To help you get a good nights sleep, try rubbing vicks on the bottom of your feet before bed. Add socks on top. I promise you will not cough all night long. Don’t know why or how this works but IT WORKS.
Great advice, Stacey! I’ll grab some today. π For some reason, Nyquil has an opposite effect on me – it makes me jittery and keeps me awake (the antihistamine). But it works, lol. Bad trade-off. :p
I hope you feel better that sounds awful.
Thank you NIchole – it’s been miserable. π I am really hoping it runs it’s course soon!
I’m looking for a good low carb option for the 1/2 & 1/2 my morning iced mocha. I’ve found a sugar free chocolate with no carbs to add to my coffee but still looking for an alternative to the 1/2 & 1/2 to reduce carbs down a lot lower. Any ideas please let me know.
Chris
Hi Chris! Try heavy whipping cream. π It takes a lot less too, which is a plus – and it’s nice & creamy.