Combining Low Carb with Weight Training

Here are some amazing before and after pictures. What is most incredible is that there is only a seven pound difference between them.

Age: 25
Height: 6’4”
Weight before: 250
Weight after: 243

Lucas embarked on an extensive exercise and weight training program together with a low carb diet. Just twelve weeks later he had lost 19 pounds of fat but had gained 12 pounds of muscle. See more about his amazing change in body composition here.

50's housewife...

Well it seems like I have been home forever already.

Yesterday I made lasagne as I said, and as I made double, I was able to freeze a whole meal for 4. Yay. So I portioned it off and wrapped it in clingfilm and put it in the freezer with labels on. today I have made a chicken casserole of sorts...
Here's the recipe - for remembering how to do it again if its nice if nothing else

4 chicken breasts
1/2 grated celeriac
1 small Chinese cabbage
3 onions
a bunch of tarragon
8 rashers (the big non fatty bit) or Back Bacon cut up into strips
8 large field mushrooms
3 knorr chicken stock cubes

I put the Chinese cabbage and the grated celeriac on the bottom of a casserole, then I chopped the onions and bunged them in. I kind of mixed it up a little and then buried the chicken breasts in that lot. Then I put all the tarragon (and there was a lot) on top of it all and then snipped the bacon up and spread it on top of that. The whole thing I topped with field mushrooms face down and whole with a couple of layers of streaky bacon over the top to give flavour but to take of when its cooked. I then put 2.5 pts of stock in it.

I hope it will be good. We will have it with potatoes. I probably will just have i like it is, but the rest of the family can pig out. Hopefully there will be enough to freeze too.

I am also making Borscht. Russian style of course. We are going to have it for lunch. DS helped me chop and peel all the veg and make it which was cool.
chipped celeriac
6 whole fresh chipped beetroot
4 cloves garlic
1 large potato cubed
1 onion sliced thick
2 carrots
1 packet of fresh dill (about 100g)
beef ( the most rubbish cut you can get and throw away at the end of cooking)
we just have to pop around the shop to get sour cream to dollop on top and we shall be tucking in.

I haven't actually had a morsel to eat today. I have had 3 coffees but that's it.

I have so much to do its scary, so I wrote a list. It always helps me sort stuff out.
I have today:
*Booked Keith in to the vet to be 'done' on Friday
*Rang dentist to see if we are booked for check-ups
*Booked a doctor appointment for DH tomorrow about his knee
*Texted DH the number of someone who smashed into his car
*Sorted out the money for my Piano Pupils who pay 10 weekly
*Had Tesco's deliver and put it all away
*Been to chemists to get stuff
*Made dinner for this evening
*Made borscht for lunch
*Taught DS how to work out HARD fractions
*Sorted out a couple of direct debits that had got canceled for some reason (???)
*Tidied the whole house
*Done 2 loads of washing and drying

I still need to
*Pick Carina up at 3pm
*Write a cheque and remember to give to DS to pay Kidz Klub
*Drop DS at Kidz Klub with said cheque
*Go and have a coffee before work with TB and my sis
*Go to work @ 4:15pm until 10pm
*Clear up the dinner things when I get home
*Collapse into bed.

Personally I cant wait until the last one!

I am in a considerably good mood today as well... It might seem weird that I would think this notable enough to put on my blog, but it is. I don't normally feel this up beat! I think my tablets with their increased dose are really doing their job now. I am getting a bit worried about my fill though, because I might have problems taking them. I know they don't want to prescribe me the liquid for of Prozac because of the cost, but because I am feeling so happy, I am not really wanting to change tablets to be honest.

Anyway, long may it last. Today's lessons are the worst. I really hate Wednesday's. All the lessons I have are either hard work, or stressful in some way. The first 2 I have are totally NOT interested in learning. The next 4 are all in the same house and its not just hard work doing it straight for 2 hours, but they are also hard pupils to teach. They are not talkative or open and I haven't got a rapport going with them yet. Also one of them thinks they are really great and that they know best, so it really pisses me off and makes me feel like a crap teacher. I hate that. But obviously its her who has issues receiving instruction... so get over it! Then I have a relatively new pupil... seems ok, but because its new, its hard as I am still getting to know her skills. She also wants me to teacher daughter now too... so I must have made a good impression... Then last I have 2 of my friend's kids. They are fine, but one is now working towards grade 8 which equals hard work for me!!!!!

The only one I really like is my very first pupil on a Wednesday as she is so eager to learn and a beginner... it kind of just zooms by. she isn't having a lesson today though which is a shame, but there we are.

Right, off to eat borscht.

Thinking of Becoming a Vegetarian?

Have you ever considered becoming a vegetarian? I have at times. My husband really loves his meat though. But after seeing this video (and having a toddler myself) I'm really serious about giving it a go for myself (sometime soon maybe).

In this video you see some agile tigers who hunt down a young buffalo. Then a crocodile tries to get their catch away from them. The fascinating part is when the buffalo herd comes back in full force to try to save their young one. This was the #1 most buzzed about YouTube video of last year. I felt a terrible revulsion at watching this, though I realize this is nature and the most natural thing these animals can do in nature. But it would be something if humanity could rise above this.

Goodbye to Chips, Cookies and Candy

Sean has lost 60 pounds. He's 6 feet tall and now weighs 280 and has much more muscle mass than when he weighed 340 eight months ago. He says eating chips, cookies and candy were 90% of his problem. At the age of 27 he was already feeling bad each morning when getting out of bed. His feet would be sore and tight. He's given up the junk food and is exercising regularly (with the help of a SWAT personal trainer) and feels great. See his success story and photo here.

The photo shown here is another success story featured on the SWAT Personal Training website.

My two boys in Red Square, Moscow

Looking forward

Yesterdays food was ok...
I had a pot of instant couscous and roasted veg... 220 cals
I also had 2 banana's and some chocolate whilst I was at work, and then home made curry when I got home. I was glad I froze it because after 9 lessons I would have ordered takeout for sure!

Yesterday went well. I was a little worried about going back to work after having such a lot of time off, but everyone was really cool. All 9 kids had been practicing and it was great to know that I they would be ready for their exams in March.

Today I have 4 new pupils. WOW! The first is a lady who had a knee op who wants to use her time off to the maximum advantage. The next 2 are a couple of boys who have had lessons before but must have moved to the area and need to resume their studies, then I have a regular that has changed from Saturdays, then I have an old pupil coming back into the fold. She took her grade 6 with me and also some preparation for her A level music performance and then stopped in the summer to concentrate on her studies. Now she has been given a place at uni, but she needs grade 7, so we are going to get that cracked now!

So At the moment DS is doing his Maths lesson and I am kind of getting my head ready for work. I have to remember to take new notebooks for the new pupils and a selection of graded material to give them something to do to ease them into my regime and a little bit of preparation on a personal study I have.

I am at present sitting in the classroom with DS and between us is his half finished breakfast in a bowl. It is some kind of chocolate pillow style cereal we got from France. I am not joking, but it smells EXACTLY the same as baby poo. That yogurty new born baby poo made of pure milk.

I was sitting here getting wafts from the past when I realised what it was. I had forgotten that smell, but isn't it funny that the minute you smell it (even after 9 years) you start to look around for the wipes and a new nappy!

I haven't had anything to eat today, and frankly the baby poo cereal has kind of put me off to be honest. I am going to make something to go in the oven for dinner when I get home so that I don't order take away again as I might be tempted if there is nothing ready to eat when I get home. I am going to make a lasagne. YEAH! Easy peasy and nice to eat with my band.

Right, have fun chaps!

A Virtual Weight Loss Gadget

Hi everyone. My name is Adriana and I developed the virtual weight loss gadget you see on the right sidebar. Isadora has kindly let me spout off about it here.

Although we've had this free virtual model for people to put on their website sidebars for a while now, just two weeks ago we got accepted as a gadget in iGoogle.

So now anyone who wants to try it on their own private iGoogle page can do so.

We are hoping to get some comments from people about the gadget. It's meant to be a fun tool for weight loss inspiration in that it shows what you might look like at your heaviest weight, current weight and goal weight.

One reader recently complained that the gadget makes a 100 pound woman look good in a red dress. This is something we need to fix very soon, as currently the images only go down to a BMI of 18, and everything below that looks the same. We definitely don't want to encourage thin people to try to get even thinner and are very aware of the serious illness of anorexia. (Update February 2008: We've made this change now.)

We realize this virtual model is simplistic and there's little people can add on it to make it look more like themselves. But our mega maniacal hope is that if enough people like it and use it, that we might qualify for Google's gadget seed investment program. At that point we would receive the funding to develop this model into something much more versatile and exciting!

There is one other virtual model that we are aware of and this is much more sophisticated than ours. It's called the My Virtual Model and it was developed by a very successful company that employs over 100 people. (See my overview of My Virtual Model on Squidoo for more info). One day we'd like to compete with My Virtual Model ! ;-)

I hope you have fun trying this gadget out and would appreciate any feedback.