Rough Day...

OH MY today was rough Reader. I woke up with a migraine and all I wanted to do was to eat everything. Whenever I get a migraine I try a few things - coke, water, cereal, yogurt and whatever else I have in the house. So this morning was rough eating some fruit and water. It's about 3pm and all I want is a PB&J sandwich and chips. Thank goodness for Diet Coke...let's hope I can get through this day and onto the next few without caving. 

Cravings: 1 (one being Craving scored a point on me today)

On another note I've got a new puppy! Frank, the Tank, is a schnoodle: part poodle, part schanuzer. He's freaking adorable Reader. For some reason I can't get a picture of him uploaded, but I will figure it out! 

Until next time...send me good vibes I can make it through the rest of the week!

So I'm a caveman now, I guess

Reader - 
It's been too long. For that, I am deeply sorry. I'm starting a new subject and therefore will be writing consistently about my daily struggles with going carb-free. 
As some of you may know, I suffer from migraine headaches. For the last 8 months I've had too many incidents of migraines that I can't take care of with medication. So, finally I went to a Neurologist who instructed me to try the Paleo Diet, also known as "the caveman diet". 
Basically the idea is to eat nothing processed, which includes carbs and dairy. Now, I understand carbs aren't great for you, but my normal diet consisted of every carb you could think of. Not to mention cheese, milk and yogurt. All of which I now have to give up. **I should also mention along with this diet, I'm also on a medication to help with chronic pain.**
I made some notes from the day before I started to today. Hope you'll enjoy my musings....


The Day Before the Diet: Carb Party
A few things I'm eating today are: PB&J sandwich, some French bread with margarine, a pop tart, chips, soda, cereal. It's not the entire menu for the day, but I really want to carb-overload. 


Day 1: Grapes and Carrots
I should have gone shopping. 
All I have in the house is grapes, carrots, yogurt, frozen chicken, frozen pizza, string cheese, milk, pop tarts and more carb/dairy -related foods. So my breakfast consisted of water, grapes and carrots. In fact, my entire day, until my chicken thawed, was grapes and carrots. Without even thinking about it I had a small cup of cranberry juice. I'm still counting this day as Day 1, even with the juice. I've had a headache all day, but it's probably because I've only had grapes and carrots. I was extremely proud of myself because I had a lot of food in the house and I kept looking at it, but stayed away! Instead I went starving. 
Cravings: 0


Day 2: Punch Me If I Ask For Carbs
I'm totally ready for today. I have breakfast (apple, almonds, diet iced tea), lunch (chicken breast, grapes, carrots ((surprise!!)), celery, 12 oz. Diet Coke) and snacks (almonds, cashews, dried apricots) for the work day. I tell all my co-workers to not let me eat carbs or dairy for the next week, maybe two. I just need to get over the hump! Everyone was super supportive and hoping this helps with my migraines. I even posted on FB and got a ton of comments and support. Others have been through this, so I know I can do it! Breakfast is the hardest for me. I always eat a yogurt and have something around 10am - maybe a granola bar/Fiber One, or some caramel mini-rice cakes. Now I'm left with fruit? I found out later in the day I can have eggs - so maybe I'll start making eggs at night and reheat in the morning. I'm definitely very hungry at lunch. I'm glad the doc said to wean off Diet Coke instead of going cold turkey. I'm doing 12 oz (cans) for 8 days, then 8 oz (mini cans) for 8 days. Hoping this can help me get off soda for good. 
Cravings: 0 (yay!!)


Day 3: Are You Eating Chinese Food?!
Ready for the day with the same food lists from yesterday. I packed more grapes for today as I was really hungry yesterday at lunch. I also got freeze-dried strawberries. These aren't as good as I was hoping they would be. And to be honest, I'm not sure I can eat them on this diet. There isn't any sugar, but there might be some dairy. I'll have to look into it if I want to buy them again (probably won't). I definitely need to make more chicken. The chicken breasts I got were small. The diet says you can eat as much as you want of meat, fruit and veggies. And by lunch I could easily have an entire chicken. A co-worker today at our team lunch brought in Lee-Ann Chins (Chinese food). ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Tempt me why don't you?? She even had wontons! Funnily enough, I really didn't care. I'm making a big deal out of it here, but honestly it was ok. I'm incredibly surprised that I'm not craving anything yet...seriously Reader, I was made of carbs. Imagine a stick figure made of rice, bread, pasta, cereal, chips, and cheese. That's me. So now, cutting that out of my diet all-of-the-sudden should shock my system, right? I dunno, but Reader...I'm feeling good!
Dinner this evening is a chicken breast, diet iced tea, raspberries and a few almonds. I've realized people do this diet to lose weight - while that would be AWESOME - I am so excited to see if this helps my migraines. Yesterday and today I had minor headaches, but nothing some Excedrin couldn't handle - which is saying a lot since it's never worked before. Crossing my fingers this really helps. If I can get through even 4 days with no headache, I will freak out, which will probably cause a headache. ;) 
Cravings: .1 - If I'm honest I did want a bite of wonton.


Reader, wish me luck for the rest of the week! Hoping I can keep this up for at least 2 weeks. At this point, if I make it 7 days without eating a carb, I should get a gold medal. These stupid, weak athletes got nothing on me!


In memory for Phil Hartman and what I'll look like in 2 weeks:

You can slap me now

Dear Reader,

I feel like an abused wife continuing to apologize to you. When in reality, I haven't had much to write. I'm a pretty boring girl despite the rumors. I will quickly recap January, February and March to get you up to speed.

January:
Las Vegas wedding baby! LV was so much fun. Having never been there before I went in with high expectations and they were met! Dirty, trashy, drinking, people, crazy...I don't know what else to say about it. I ended up going as Buddy the Elf from Elf (Will Ferrell movie). Which is funny because my mom ended up going as Mugatu from Zoolander (also a Will Ferrell movie and her favorite). On our way to the wedding, leaving the hotel some random guy wanted to go with us to "the Will Ferrell convention". We had a good chuckle.

Both of us looked awesome and people loved it. My head was so scratchy the whole night from that dumb wig! Plus I was friggin' hot!

The ceremony was nice, held in the smallest chapel I've ever been in. In fact it might be the smallest room I've ever been in...held all 40 of us like packed sardines.

Other costumed guests included: the Blues Brothers (my dad and his bro), the Dude, the Queen of Hearts and the Madhatter, Mary Poppins, Jack Sparrow, Lucille Ball and many more. Everyone went all out - no one slacked with this theme at all. Which made it hilarious. People wanted to take pictures of us while we were walking through Vegas - we were that good!

I loved Vegas and will go back yearly if I can make it work. The only thing I didn't like in Vegas was looking at this hotel...it gave me vertigo.

I mean - hello?! Totally unstable. That thing is coming down soon. So if you're headed to Vegas, don't book there.

We did the typical stuff - drank, gambled, drank, ate, watched the fountains, drank, walked around and stared at people, drank and ate. It was a blast!

I'll try to get some more pictures to show you. I was a stupid tourist and got one of those Eifel Tower drinks filled with a Pina Colada. I got gut rot and a freeze headache within seconds. I got drunk within minutes. It was awesome and bad at the same time...a great combination!


February:
Nothing to report for me specifically, but my brother's house was finally done! This whole situation has thrown my family out of control at times. He was hit in June of 2006 and finally has a decent place to live in February of 2011. Their new house is freakishly huge! There is plenty of room for Porter (5 yrs old) to run around like a banshee. There's also plenty of room for my brother to manuever easily in his chair. AND it has an elevator. Totally pimp. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures for you to look at, but you can follow my sister-in-law's blog documenting the whole thing. She hasn't updated in a long time (must run in the family), but you can get a pretty good idea of what things look like.
The Gruman Project

March:

Winifred, March Extraordinary Chicken of the Month. Oh yea, I have a calendar of Extraordinary Chickens. It's awesome. However, people think I am totally weird for having it up in my cube. Too bad, it makes me laugh. Especially this one. This picture doesn't do her justice.

And no, I really don't want to pet her.




Other activities in March include a themed-CD party. Not sure I've told you about this Reader, but a group of friends and I have started a themed CD club. We pick a theme and create a 5 song album. Past themes include: Top 10 songs that changed your life, top 5 songs for a summer roadtrip, top 5 songs that remind you of college. March's theme was top 5 songs by dead people. Our group has a lot of similar music choices, but also a few eye openers. It's a ton of fun and a great way to learn about new artists (or dead artists but new to you).
My album:
Everyday by Buddy Holly
It's Gonna Take a Miracle by Laura Nyro
Blue and Green by Miles Davis
Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding
Somebody to Love by Queen

It was hard to come up with only 5, my entire playlist was originally 25 songs, spread across genres. BUT all of my 5 songs were from dead people. We had two particpants who put Al Green and Meatloaf on their albums. For the record - they are still alive and kicking.

What's on your top 5 songs by dead people?

I think I've recapped the last three months pretty well. I will leave you with the cutest thing on the planet: Chester

Baby Bridget

Hello Reader!

I'm sure you were wondering if my friend Rachel ever had her baby...well she did! Here is the whole family: Rachel, Bridget and Craig! Bridge was born December 1. Welcome la petite cake!

More to come on my online dating and Las Vegas adventures later....