Holy Cinnamon Roll Batman!

Hello Again, sorry its been so long since we’ve last chatted but I was bound and determined to get myself under a milestone weight before I cheated again.

The good news is I made it there yesterday and I totally wore my size 4 skinny jeans for the first time in a long time…

The bad news is after I cheated myself sick I am no longer there; but I did not cheat my skinny jeans into popping open at any point throughout the day so all is not lost!

Plus I had to cheat because if you deprive yourself completely your diet will NOT work.

Plus, the next time I went to negotiate with myself that I can wait a week for something delicious the little voice instead my head would be like “You’re a liar! EAT IT!” So I needed to live up to the promises I made to myself you see.

I’m sure you understand and have those voices too right? Of course you do.

Well let’s get don to business: The moment I walked down the stairs in the morning I saw it: The bowl full of peanut M&M’s my husband has insisted on us purchasing and putting right there on Sunday.

You better believe I had a mouth full before my poor dog even got let out in the morning.

But, the really exciting stuff didn’t happen until I got to work.

When I walked up to my desk that morning I was greeted with three items of sheer deliciousness… seriously, 3 glorious sweets just sitting on my desk waiting for me!

So to start off, I had last Wednesday through Friday off and on Wednesday a little bake sale came through the office and apparently my cube mates got a little carried away with the charitable goodies and bought more than they could finish themselves!

Therefore I got a bag of wonderful homemade puppy chow! I know… I love Puppy Chow!

Next my company hosted breakfast and cake pops on Friday for us. (I feel like you should know that we do get work done there, this much food and work sponsored snacking isn’t always the norm!)

But anyway, I asked a very reliable cube mate to grab me one and put it in my lunch Tupperware that I strategically cleaned on Tuesday afternoon before I left for the weekend and set it on her desk so she could fill it for me when until the glorious treats arrived!

The inside of the cake pop was incredibly moist white cake, and it had a thin layer of white chocolate around it, with little pearlized crunchy candies! So. Good.

Finally my awesome boss wanted to thank me for a job well done and offered to buy me lunch sometime.

“Just say when and where” he said.

So I did: “A Do-Biz Cinnamon Roll on Monday morning please.”

I did not expect him to get it for me and have it waiting on my desk when I walked in though! This is pretty much the best way ever to start a Monday morning.

Let me tell you why: This cute little lady runs this cute little shop called Do-Biz Cookies in the Downtown Des Moines Skywalk. Every morning I walk by her cheery little self and smell the absolutely amazing aroma of cinnamon rolls. I know. Serious. Temptation…

Every.

Day.

Anyway her cinnamon rolls are so intense, even though I’ve been walking by her for two years I have only had like 3 or 4 of these things. Because I can usually only eat about half of one until I end up in a sugar coma and then I have to sit back and sip some water until I can function as a human being again.

This is because she has this bucket of icing and she uses an ice-cream scoop to put a whole scoop of icing on top of each warm cinnamon roll. The icing is slightly chilled so it is a little thicker and when it hits the warm roll it melts all over it and squishes in between each little layer so when you go to eat it every bite is like eating the middle piece.

Ohmygosh it is absolutely amazing!

After a little light research I estimate this bad boy set me back about 1,000 calories. But it is so worth it and I've been craving one for about a month now!

So by about 11:30AM all of the above had been demolished.

Holy Crap I’m disgusting.

HAH. Then I decided to find myself a giant fountain diet coke to wash it all down and keep my feeling stuffed to the brim. Do you prefer fountain or bottled or canned pop? I personally think fountain Diet Coke is hands down one of the best things ever.

Finally we joined my in-laws for my husband’s grandma’s birthday party and joined in on some Bavarian Cream Chocolate Cake from the Machine Shed!

I didn’t take a picture of myself eating it so I thought you might enjoy this one. (Some of the great-grandchildren)

So given all of this extravagance I decided to knock out about 1,100 calories via a 3 mile after-dark walk with the pup and the rest on my treadmill while rocking out to Aerosmith!

What constant battle do you have with your little voices?

Three Words: Iowa State Fair

Sorry I didn’t post sooner! My lame excuse is the beginning of some serious home improvement projects: new siding, windows, gutters, roof, etc.

After only one week of posting I decided to change up my cheat day and even take it a little early! (In my two months of Slow-Carb dieting I have not done this before!)

Why break such an amazing streak you might ask?!  The answer is three words and a pretty big deal around here. You guessed it: the Iowa State Fair. (ISF)

That’s right folks, as you may already know the ISF is one of the best state fairs in the country, and in the top 100 things to do before you die book I might add! But more importantly it is the home of dozens of fried foods available on a stick!

Since I’ve lived in Iowa my entire life, and was in 4-H as a youngster, I’m pretty familiar with the ISF, but shockingly enough I have never tried any of the crazy fried foods.

Therefore with having a brand new blog and (hopefully) blog readers to impress with my ridiculous food antics I thought what a better opportunity to give it a whirl! Unfortunately doing it on Friday didn’t work out so I decided to meet a few friends and enjoy an amazing free show put on by The Band Perry while I was at it!

So let’s get down to it for goodness sake! I ended up running into some colleagues and a few of their friends (I did not know them) and this guy here was trying his fried butter and was polite enough to share a bite with me!

Yes, you are seeing liquid buter squirt out the side there...

I’m sorry… I know I’m supposed to eat ridiculous quantities of ridiculous things but this is a half a stick of butter people. Dipped in funnel cake batter and cinnamon and sugar, then deep fried and drizzled with gloriously sugary icing… I just didn’t think I could down that all on my own, and I was kind of afraid of trying something so crazy! Meaning I imagined it might cause me to instantaneously gain all 20 lbs lost back right then and there!

I’m sure you understand right?

Sorry, back to the butter: O.M.G. It was like having a bite of a super buttery and moist cinnamon roll! So. Good. But I'm relatively certain I would not have wanted much more than one bite.

PLUS— not eating an entire fried butter allowed me the ability to try the next best deep-fried-on-a-stick food at the fair: A fried Snickers Bar! My boss said this was a better choice than the fried Oreos and the friend Twinkie so I decided to go for it! After all it is my cheat day right?

Ok, Ok, so I also shared this with the same stranger and my friend Abby, but I ate most of this one!

It was pretty good, to give you an idea, I think you could recreate something pretty similar if you made chocolate chip pancakes, and drizzled caramel syrup and nuts and topped it off with a little powdered sugar. Essentially they put a stick in a snickers bar, freeze it, then dip it in funnel cake batter, then deep fry it and sprinkle powdered sugar over it.

Basically it liquefies the Snickers and causes magnificent ooey-gooey chocolatey caramely happiness inside your mouth… and those of strangers J

Then I washed it down with a wonderfully sugary strawberry smoothie… Alright FINE I shared this with my hubby too, and a long overdue Coor’s light while I watched the show. (Which I did not share and polished off all on my own.)

I only gained a pound luckily and I worked out like a crazy on Thursday to help compensate!

The Bad Boy of Breads

Hey Everyone!

I hope you had an amazing Friday, I know I certainly did, let me tell you about all of the ridiculous things I ate. I have to be honest; I’m feeling particularly ill this morning so I’m thinking I may need to go a little easier next week, YIKES!

I don’t know what your usual breakfast looks like but on my diet I need to consume 30 grams of protein in the first 30 minutes of my day so I just suck down a protein shake with almond milk every morning, and I don’t mind it. but

So as you can imagine I’m usually ready to binge the second I wake up on my cheat day so I was thrilled to start my day with a piece of WHITE toast, a little butter and this amazing berry patch jam that I got at our local farmer’s market. It was to die for. I know what you’re thinking… White toast? Why not at least whole grain lady?

I’ll tell you why! I happen to think of white toast as the leather-jacket-wearing-hasn’t-shaved-in-a-while-bad-boy of breads! Plus, I’m on my cheat day people, why would I flirt with healthy and responsible?!

Ahhh swooon. He just looks so... Naughty J

At work our boss decided to provide us with a little treat for breakfast, so I had an Asiago cheese bagel with light cream cheese, a little organic granola, strawberries and grapes. Breakfast number 2 of my cheat day… Mmmmm.

Ok, so maybe the fruit was me trying to make up for my rendezvous with the rebel bread. J

Believe it or not, on Thursday another one of my bosses decided to host a “Hot Dog Days of Summer” lunch and provided hot dogs, chips, cookies, and other grilling out snacks for one last Hoo-Rah this summer. I couldn't participate due to the diet but I was so dying to sink my teeth into some of those treats….

So instead I just horded some of the cookies and chips in my desk and saved them for Friday! HA! And yes despite my two breakfasts, I ate these too. PS- this Dahl's cookies were So. Soft. (Even after spending the night in my desk drawer.)

I know I’ve mentioned my love of my employer before, well here is another thing that is amazing about them: They let a massage therapist come in periodically on Fridays and give 15 minute massages during people's breaks. Well today was one of those days and since I ate so much in the first part of the day I decided to dedicate my entire lunch break to Erica and take advantage of 2 timeslots for 30 minutes of heaven. At work. On a Friday afternoon!

I figured I’d make it without a lunch because our company also had Maggie Moo’s ice-cream brought in yesterday!

I. Know. Maggie Moo’s! I chose vanilla with cookie dough, heath bar, and snickers as my toppings! But I kept them separate because I don’t love mixing my toppings. I’d rather eat one at a time you see, I like organization, it bothers me to just mix all of my flavors up into each other. I can’t do it.

You'd think all of this before 5 would be enough for me... but no:

When I got home I realized there was Shullsburg havarti cheese in our fridge and Wheat Thins… ohmygosh I LOVE Havarti Cheese and wheat thins!!!! You better believe I polished those babies off. Unfortunately, it wasn't until I was done that I thought that might have been a little over kill.

Of course my husband who needs three solid square meals a day didn’t eat any of my cheese and crackers so he went out and got a pepperoni pizza from Little Caesars! … Aaaannnddd of course I participated there too.

Wooo: looking at all of this is making me feel kind of ill again, (I better go lay down.) But don’t worry I did maintain a smidgen of responsibility on my day off and I burned 1,000 calories on my treadmill last night!

I was pretty jazzed as I’ve never gone that high and I have got to say that the darn thing didn’t even acknowledge it for me! Apparently the little calories screen does not register more than 3 digits; so I went right from 999 calories to 000 calories. Ok, I know what I accomplished but it was still kind of a letdown.

Tell me about the one thing that you love to eat that you know has a better alternative? This is definitely white bread for me, because when I eat bread I don’t mind whole grains and I’ll usually choose it since it is healthier, but sometimes I just think there is nothing better that fluffy soft white bread.

So what’s your leather-jacket-wearing-hasn’t-shaved-in-a-while-bad-boy food?

Introduction

Hi All!

Let me start by saying thank you for visiting, I want to fill you in on what prompted me to start this blog.

In mid June I started what's commonly referred to as a "slow-carb" diet. I've got to give credit where credit is due so I want to let you know that I decided to do this diet after researching the book by Tim Ferriss: The 4 hour body.

Basically, for 6 days a week I only eat lean proteins, non-starchy veggies and throw in legumes here and there for energy. My goal was to loose a large amount of weight in a very short time, and I have been doing that. I'm been on the diet for about 7 weeks now and have lost 18 lbs total, but my size is much smaller than it was the last time I weighed this. Unfortunately I was not diligent about measuring myself so I don't know how many inches I've technically lost... FAIL! But I know I fit into clothes that I haven't been able to wear in years!

Which brings me to why I started the Free Food Friday BLog: Did you catch the number in there? Yes I only do this diet 6 days a week, this because your diet will fail if you never let yourself cheat, and by giving myself something to look forward to each week I’ve been able to stay on track almost the entire time!

I’ve actually really started looking forward to my cheat days, and recently switched from Saturdays to Friday, and you know what? I really like cheating on Fridays!

I work at a great company and there always seems to be food around, it is actually kind of a nuisance to not gobble it all up; but on Fridays I can!

Since so much planning goes into my cheat days now I thought it might be an interesting topic to blog about, maybe people would like to hear about my glorious gluttonous escapades… perhaps, no?

Well time will tell if nobody ever reads I will take a hint I promise ;)

This week I’m not sold on what choices I will make on my cheat day but I do know that my awesome boss as decided to bring breakfast in and I don’t know what it will be but I cannot wait!

I have lunch plans to go: somewhere with one of my best friends, so if you have any suggestions for fast food in Downtown Des Moines, just let me know!

Finally my husband and I will either be eating out at Okoboji Grill and getting “boji” fries thanks to an awesome Groupon from last week or we will be trekking to the wonderful Iowa State Fair, the home of Fried Butter this year if you can believe it! FYI- if not this Friday then without a doubt next Friday!

I will fill you in with pictures shortly and post about my glorious food feats as soon as possible!