Days 66, 67,68, and 69: Down and Up and Down Again

I'm bouncing up and down again, but it's because of the foods I've been eating this week.  Friday night, I had my first fast food cheeseburger since the dreaded load days.  Again, we hit Carl's Jr. and tried their new Six Dollar Cheeseburger (which really should be called the $2.59 cheeseburger, but whatever....)  Not surprisingly, it was easy to get down, and then I felt bloated afterwards.  The fact that I skipped the usual fries and shake likely saved me from overdoing it, and I was down another pound Saturday morning (putting me two pounds BELOW my last injection weight)!


Then Saturday came.  Saturday had long been planned as a Girls' Night Out and coincided with the end of Phase 3 so that it could be a slightly indulgent evening.  I probably should have worked my way up to those indulgences instead of partaking in all of them at the same time, but Saturday ended up marking the return of a lot of long-lost foods to my diet: pizza, garlic bread, dessert, and my beloved Moscato.  I had one slice of a take & bake pizza that was "meh," but I had several slice of cheesy garlic bread that was in no way whole grain.  For the dessert, I had a couple mini-pies, but I don't think I went overboard on those.  I was afraid to drink Moscato, as my tolerance is probably next to nil these days, but I had about two glasses (small glasses...not the large beverage glasses I used to drink it from!!) and felt a little happy, but not buzzed.  Throw into the mix some Swedish meatballs, a few slices of cheese, and a cream cheese/brown sugar fruit dip, and it seems pretty obvious that I had a bunch of calories Saturday night.  So...not surprised to wake up Sunday morning two pounds ABOVE my last injection weight.  Gulp.  A four-pound gain overnight.  Realistically, I should have done a "steak day" on Sunday, but I knew that getting my diet back in check would do the trick, so I made better choices throughout the day, and I was already down a pound this morning.  Whew!  We have Thanksgiving coming up this week, of course, and we'll be heading into the holiday season of parties, goodies, and lots of calories, but I'm trying to keep my head on straight.  I'm VERY anxious to get back to injections, but we're waiting on our shipment of HCG now.


I talked to the doc today and got my lab results back, and everything looked good.  Cholesterol, blood sugar, and thyroid were all normal.  She didn't have my previous results available to compare, but she's going to get those for me so I can see what the difference is.  I'll post those results when I see them.


One more quick point tonight.  I've been asked about some of the recipes I use for cooking, but I honestly don't use recipes unless I'm baking (which I rarely do....).  I tend to dump things in until it tastes good.  The best I can do is give a rough guideline of how I made a dish.  


One night last week, I tried something new: Spaghetti Squash.  We'd never even tasted it, much less cooked with it, but I decided to try to mimic a pasta dish we like and made Faux-ghetti Pomodoro.  I cut the squash in half, drizzled it with olive oil, and stuck a couple cloves of garlic under each half and baked it for about 45 minutes.  While that was going, I sauteed several more cloves of garlic, about half of a minced onion, and a few chopped roma tomatoes along with a handful of roasted pumpkin seeds (because I didn't have any pine nuts).  When the Squash was tender, I removed it from the oven and scraped the "meat" of the squash out (it resembles angel hair pasta when you do that) and tossed it with the tomato mixture, some fresh chopped basil, and feta cheese.  Everybody eyed is skeptically--especially HS--but it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.  Definitely going to be making it into the rotation!  


I've never cooked with winter squash before...do you have any recipes that don't call for brown sugar, maple syrup, or marshmallows?  Please post if you do!