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The Mama C Countdown

I’m in the hard push to finish this book.  I’m determined to have it finished, polished, and submitted by the end of this month.  Sooner if I can manage it!  So it’s balls to the walls.  I want 2014 to start out with a bang.

3055 words today.  It’s a good start.

To keep myself motivated, I’ll try to post little snippets as I go along.  I’ve only shared the first draft of the opening scene with you so far.  I mentioned that I was going to have to go back and explore Ty and Virginia’s relationship thirty years ago… so here’s the first part of how they got together.

First draft, subject to revision.

According to her fashionable mother, seventeen-year-old Virginia should have been interested in shopping and boys, not show horses.  But horses were her life.  She’d rather spend a whole day sweating in the ring with a stubborn horse than talk for five minutes with most of the humans of her acquaintance.

The recently hired tall, lanky handyman was one exception.  For one thing, he hardly ever spoke.  When he did, he revealed a surprisingly sharp wit that as often as not infuriated her even while she had to grudgingly admit he was exactly correct.   As far as she knew, he was only a few years older than her, but he’d had a hard life compared to hers of privilege and ease.  He’d roamed the country chasing rodeos, and when he ran out of money, he paused in some town and got a job, working just long enough to earn enough cash to put a little more gas in his old beat up Ford and haul his roping horse to the next dusty falling-down arena.

He’d been more than forthright with Colonel Healy when he’d taken this job, but Daddy had hired him anyway.  Virginia still couldn’t quite believe her hardcore by-the-book father had hired such a bum, but she had to grudgingly admit Tyrell Connagher did more than his fair share of work on the ranch and he never stuck his nose up at a job.

Even when she deliberately sent him to do something disgusting or petty, just to see if she could get a rise out of him.  Instead, he’d push his sweat-stained straw hat back on his head and look up at her with that leathered tanned face and say, “Yes’m.”  The last few times, she’d sworn there was a twinkle in his eyes.  Deep blue eyes the color of ocean on a perfect sunny day.

She pushed such a ridiculous thought away as she led Dancer out of his stall.  It was pitch dark outside and the ranch was silent.  Miss Belle and Daddy had gone out to some charity ball, both acting like it was the crime of the century for their only daughter to refuse to go.  When they knew she hated such fancy events.  All of the major families of the area would be there, the doctors and lawyers, the politicians.  Ugh.  All fake smiles and sparkling gowns and expensive perfumes while they plopped down a couple of thousand bucks for some charity none of them really cared about.

Then Miss Belle had dared say that Dr. Garrett’s son expected her to be there, like Jebadiah had bothered to ask her on a date or even spoken to her about the event.  Everyone assumed they were a “thing” when nothing could be further from the truth.  Before he’d left for college, everyone had kept checking her finger like they expected him to pop the question any day.  Now that he came home only for holidays, it was even worse.  Those snide smiles as if they knew he’d only come home to see her.

They weren’t even dating.  They’d never dated.  They’d just happened to attend a hundred charity balls over the years because the Healys and Garretts were friends.

Great, just great.  I’m engaged and the man’s never even asked me out.

She turned around and ran into a solid wall of muscle.  She jumped back with a squeak that made her blush, even while she tipped her chin up.  “Get out of my way.”

“Now hold on, Princess,” Tyrell drawled out.  “Surely you aren’t thinking about heading out in the middle of the night.”

Princess?  She couldn’t help but snort.  “What I do is none of your business.”

He pushed his hat back further on his head.  In the moonlight, his eyes were dark and intent on her face.  “It is my business when I know for a fact your folks are gone and most of the other hands have the night off.  So if you get lost or hurt out there in the dark, I’m the only one here to make sure you get what you need.”

His words made her shiver, as if he meant something else entirely.  She was suddenly aware of his size.  The fact that he was more hobo than respectable man, that he’d only been working for them a few weeks.  Nobody knew what kind of man he was, not really.  For all they knew, he was wanted in a dozen states for petty crimes.  Or worse.

And here I am alone with him.

Fear curdled in her stomach, which only served to piss her off.  She hated to be afraid.  When she’d stared at her first triple-pole jump and felt that sick pit in her stomach, she’d marched over to her horse and jumped it a dozen times until she’d conquered the fear.  She refused to ever let fear cripple her.  As Daddy always said, it was time to saddle up and ride on anyway.

Dancer snorted and pranced sideways, picking up on her anxiety.  He almost tugged the lead out of her hand, but she couldn’t spare a glance at him, not with this danger threatening her.  She clutched the crop in her left hand, glad she’d snagged it out of habit.  “I told you to get out of my way.”

“No’m.  I’m sorry but I can’t.”

Ignoring him, she led Dancer forward, planning to use the horse to push him out of the way, but he was on to her and stepped across the aisle, closer to her.  She started to turn, swinging Dancer his direction, but her horse was too polite to step on a human, even if the man might cause her harm.

His fingers closed around hers in a punishing grip, trying to yank Dancer’s rope free.

Panic flared but her anger burned hotter.  None of the help ever laid a hand on her.  They were too respectful—and too scared of her Marine father.  If she said boo, every man she’d ever met jumped.  Even Jebadiah Garrett, the boy she’d watched turn into a man who was too damned polite to even ask her on a date away from their parents.  Before she could stop to think, she brought the crop down in a sharp crack on Tyrell’s left shoulder.  “Get your filthy hands off me!”

Instead of letting her go, he clamped his hands on both of her shoulders and hauled her up against the long, lean lines of his body.  God, he was so tall, a tower of strength that sent her pulse hammering frantically.  She brought the crop down again, swinging awkwardly against his back, but he didn’t let her go.  In fact, he bent down and slanted his mouth over hers.

He was hungry, hard, his lips and mouth melting away the fear into something else that was wild and reckless and still pissed.  She swung her arm up toward his head, the crop handle clubbing him against his temple and knocking his hat off.  She wrenched out of his grip and stomped away.  “Pack your bags and be gone before Daddy gets home or he’ll shoot your rangy hide.”

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Goodbye, 2013–What’s Coming in 2014

I’m not sad to see the end of 2013.  It was a year fraught with change on both the Evil Day Job and the homefront.  I haven’t been able to do Dark & Early this fall since school started because we already have to get up at 5:45 just to get everyone to school in time.  Plus, our first year of high school and band camp, need I say more?

I’ve been trying to write more at night — which works just fine as long as I don’t use the opportunity to get caught up on *my* TV shows, like Project Runway, Almost Human, etc.  My gas tank runs on empty more often than not, but what’s new.

The Evil Day Job turmoil has hopefully slowed down and now I can concentrate on just getting the job done.  That was a lot of stress that simply sucked down my creativity levels and eroded my weight loss goals.  There are still changes ahead but I think the main core is in place.  I’ve GOT to get back to my weight loss goals, though.  I’ve really backslidden there.  Is that a word?  Anyway, ugh, and more hard work ahead.

My main goal for 2013 was MOAR WORDS and that didn’t quite happen.  I did finally get Lord Regret’s Price finished and published, so yay!  I also wrote The Billionaire Submissive, which will be out next June.  Two releases in 2013, currently two slated in 2014, pending acceptance of Mama Connagher (once I finish her story, which should be soon).  I’d really like 3-4 releases a year but it’s just been a struggle to balance everything.

I finally started a story that was inspired by RT 2012, thinking it was a novella (35K) that now I want to make a full-length longer book.  So good words–but not a finished project yet.

I definitely want to get my PNR series complete and ready for submission sooner than later too, but that’ll have to be after I finish Mama C.  I’ve done a lot of good work and planning on it — just need to get the first draft finished.

I’ve got a follow-up to The Billionaire Submissive started, as well as a shorter Christmas novella partway plotted in that series that would be ideal for the end of next year.  After I finish Mama C, I need to get Mal’s book figured out too.  That’ll wrap up the Connagher series.

A Jane Austen Space Opera series is in flux.  Sales just haven’t been that great.  I’ll be spending some time in 2014 trying to build a little broader exposure to the series (promo, ugh, a necessary evil) and hopefully wrap up Lady Wyre’s planned trilogy.  I’d really like to finally finish Deathright too but we’ll see how it goes.  I love this world so I definitely want to do some foundational exposure that will hopefully help.

Right now, my main concentration will be building the new contemporary series, finishing up the old contemporary series, and filling in with PNR and SFR as I’m able.  Building momentum, both in words and weight loss.  That’s my general goals for 2014!

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Click

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think I’ve *finally* got Mama C fully cooperating!

I’ve been chipping away at her story all month, but it was slow going.  I had the general feeling that something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  I had all the players in place. I have the general plot in my head.  I’d reread the opening scenes and was pleased with them. But there was something missing.

Sometimes you’ve just got to talk out loud with people about a story, and so while we were at Granny’s for Christmas, I mentioned to my Beloved Sister that I was having problems but I didn’t know why.  I said the story wanted to be too many things.  It wanted flashbacks.  It wanted a story within a story.  It’s basically two romances in one.  No, three.  And it was just TOO MUCH.

In saying all that, I finally realized the problem.  It was me.  Snort.  Raise your hand if you’re surprised?

The problem was the tension in me fighting what the story wanted to be.  I *didn’t* want flashbacks.  I didn’t want to have to go back and write a bunch of scenes with Ty and Virginia twenty or thirty years ago.  I don’t have time!  I didn’t want to spend too much time fleshing out the story within the story.  Again, time!  The worldbuilding for that thing could get me in a heap of trouble in a hurry.  Thanks a lot, your deep dark secret identity sucks, Jeb!

But that’s exactly what I have to do, because that’s what the story wants.

And bingo, as soon as I sat down and wrote the first flashback scene with Ty, the magic was there.  It was like everything clicked.  All of the character motivations I’d been pretty sure of but not quite perfectly happy with suddenly slid perfectly into place.  That scene told me what I’d gotten wrong.  Jeb wasn’t best friends with Ty.  He couldn’t be.  He was Virginia’s best friend.  Ah.  Now that made things much more interesting and definitely made her conflict much more real and personal.

So I’m going to have flashbacks.  I’m going to have a story within the story.  I’m going to show her romance with Ty, even while the main romance with Jeb begins.  Because in the end, this is menage in a way.  Even though Ty is already gone.  And somehow I have to weave them all together into a tight, compelling story.  One story reveals the other story reveals the other.  It’ll definitely be a challenge.

Whew.  I definitely have my work cut out for me, but at last, the pieces are falling into place.  Now I just have to put it all together and finish the damned book!  It’s going to be like NaNoWriMo month around here but she’s finally cooking!

Now if I could only find the TITLE.

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Giveaway: Lord Regret’s Price

LordRegretsPrice72webHappy birthday, Lord Regret!  To celebrate Lord Regret’s Price’s release from Samhain, I’m offering several prizes, including:

A free electronic copy (any format) of Lord Regret’s Price

A free electronic copy (any format) of Lady Doctor Wyre (book 1, if you need it)

A custom Her Grace’s Stable make-up size bag created by Haut Totes filled with pens, bookmarks, etc.

Winner’s choice $25 gift certificate to any online ebook retailer (Amazon, B&N, etc.).

I’ll ship the bag anywhere on the planet and you can comment on this blog post as many times as you’d like.  BONUS: Post a comment on this blog post with any online review or rating you post for an extra entry.

Just enter using Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Reviewers: Lord Regret’s Price Releases Next Week

LordRegretsPrice72webIt feels like his day has been a long time coming, but Lord Regret’s Price is just around the corner! (Next week, dies!!) If you enjoyed Lady Doctor Wyre, I hope you’ll give Lord Regret a chance. There are more hijinks and inventions, a new world to explore, and yes, more relationship exploration between Charlie, Sig, and Gil. Yes, they had their “happy” ending in Lady Wyre, but committed relationships take a lot of work to keep healthy and strong, even more so in a ménage.

Did you ever wonder exactly who Sig was? Which House he could claim? How exactly did ladies come to rule in Britannia? It’s all revealed in Lord Regret’s Price!

So if you’re able to post a review anywhere online, please drop me a note with your desired format and I’ll gladly provide a review copy.

Here’s what Vivian Archer had to say on GoodReads:

Burkhart can be depended on to deliver strong characters and a high level of sensuality and that is evident here. The one great torment? Gil. The tension between Gil and Sig is killing me. Sweet mercy above.
He had the distinct longing to touch those marks and see what else she’d done to Sig.

This is beginning to feel like the Dance of the Seven Veils, and being the barbaric heathen that I am…I want to rip them all off at once.

Recommended for steampunk devotees, cultural melange lovers and polyamory fans

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General Update

Sorry for the unexpected blog silence!  Things have been crazy around here.  Let’s see if I can catch you up without writing a book.

Survived the trip to MN for the Evil Day Job.  Reconnected with lots of people, gave and participated in training, and realized I’ve actually picked up more than I expected over the past few months, so that’s good.  Work is crazy as usual with meetings, tight deadlines, production issues, etc. so it’s going to be a big push through the end of the year.  I’m taking 47.5 hours of vacation starting 12/18 at 11:15 and I have to get a major project in shape before I can comfortably leave.  (Otherwise I’ll lose the vacation.)

Survived Thanksgiving prep.  It wasn’t the same without my beloved sister and my ex-SIL I still miss sorely, especially on Thanksgiving when we used to prep (and drink wine) together.  Of course it wasn’t the same without That Man’s father either, but we did okay.  I didn’t burn anything, though my cherry pie didn’t come anywhere close to living up to Mistress L’s expectations (see The Billionaire Submissive in June to understand what I’m talking about).

I ended up getting a new computer this weekend so I spent a lot of time transferring files and generally cleaning up my old ASUS for the kids.  They’ve been killing my miniscule writing time by stealing my computer to play MineCraft so I had to do something.  The new baby is also an ASUS, touch screen with Windows 8.  It’s not as bad as I feared though I had to do lots of updates to get caught up to 8.1 and get Scrivener, etc. installed.  So far so good.  It has a gorgeous HD screen that’s crisp and clear, easy on my eyes, though I reserve the right to buy a large monitor at some point to ease my eye strain if needed.

We’re still working on Koko.  She saw the vet today and got some doggy happy pills to help with her anxiety.  The vet also recommended some trainers to help us with her socialization.  The vet agreed that Koko is a sweet dog – she’s not mean.  She’s scared.  Yet that doesn’t mean she couldn’t get into trouble in the wrong situation if we don’t learn how to handle her difficulties.

I got the paperwork done for The Billionaire Submissive and discussed plans with my editor on what to concentrate on next.  Up first is Mama C and then a holiday billionaire submissive for next year.  I’m also still working on the new PNR as well, so it’s going to be craaaaazy and full the next few months!

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The Diet Mentality

The short explanation for this post:  The Fast Metabolism Diet is NOT for me.

The long explanation follows.

This latest experiment highlighted for me that I still battle the diet mentality, or the diet trap.  Obsessing about what to eat, when, as if there’s some magical formula that will help me transform my life.  I can eat this… but not that.  I can eat 2 of this, but never more than that.  Or the whole diet is ruined.  If you fall into that all-or-nothing mentality, then it’s a). impossible to stay 100% on plan all the time and b). it’s difficult to recover from slippage.  It’s not a LIFESTYLE.  It’s a DIET.  Aka temporary.

That’s one reason I’m so sensitive/worried about That Man’s salad diet, because I’ve been there.  I’ve starved myself.  I lost weight…for awhile.  And then ended up right back beyond in my worst nightmare.

That vicious diet trap started to rear its ugly head this week, but thankfully I’ve nipped it in the bud before it could cause too much damage.

As I posted, the first week of comparison went well.  I had planned to do another 7-day cycle while still counting my points this week.  However, Middle missed a day of school last week sick, and while I had both Monday and Tuesday off…. I didn’t plan to lay around the house with no energy myself, nor to have Littlest home with me.  So needless to say, NaNoWriMo is not going well right now.

The first two days of the new cycle I did fine.  Then I entered the high protein, low fat, low carb days yesterday.  This is like the WORST of Atkins…without at least the bacon to help you get through all the protein.  I can eat eggs for breakfast, no problem.  I can even do egg whites, although I really hate throwing that glorious farm egg yolk down the drain.  But does it really make that much of a difference if I use 1 tsp of healthy oil to cook the egg?  Taste wise, it’s a huge difference.  I even made egg white “muffins” with sautéed veggies and could barely gag them down.  A little turkey bacon helped but even with 4 egg whites and 2 slices of bacon I was still starving.

Not a good sign.

I soldiered on, even though I just felt like crap.  Littlest wanted soup.  I didn’t have any whole food soup on hand and I sure didn’t feel like making any from scratch.  I SURELY didn’t have phase 2 appropriate soup on hand with no carb or fat of any kind.  Then she wanted mac and cheese.  A traditional comfort food.

I still did okay.  I had my lunch (tuna, a little Dijon, celery).  It wasn’t horrid.  But I was still hungry!  Worse, I had to run some errands to WalMart to stock up on stuff for the sick kiddies, and I missed my snack of cold deli meat.  Ugh.  I did not want cold turkey meat even if it was nitrate free.  No, heating it up wasn’t enough.  I wanted something… good.  Soothing.  Nutritious.  Or at least soothing and good.

You can see where this is going, right?

Yeah, the last bit of mac and cheese met its maker in my belly.

But I got back on track for dinner with a huge plate of plain ground beef and cabbage.  I sautéed the cabbage in a little coconut oil in my iron skillet to caramelize it (a slight cheat).  I even put salsa on it.  And siracha.  And I still couldn’t get it all down.  It just didn’t taste right and it sure didn’t feel GOOD.

Obviously some of that’s the cold speaking.  When you’re sick, you want a comfort food.  So I fought off the cravings, put the leftover cabbage/beef in the fridge, and went to bed.

This morning I was supposed to have the egg whites again.  I tried.  I really did.  But all I could think about was some nice warm delicious steel cut oats with sunbutter, like I’d had Sat.  I wanted it bad.  I started rationalizing in my head about how it probably wouldn’t matter if I ate it today instead of tomorrow.  Or would it?  Back and forth.  I ate the egg whites but I was still hungry.

Still starving.  I’m not kidding – this wasn’t emotional hunger.  My stomach was growling.  I started to get that HUNGER MUST EAT NOW feeling.  Like I’m going to stab someone with a fork hungry.  Maybe part of it was mental, driven by deprivation, but it was physical too.  I needed food.  Good food.

And I suddenly realized I had stepped into the diet trap.  I was excluding perfectly healthy whole foods–not because I have an allergy or real need to avoid certain foods–but because some book guru said to.  I was eating a formula instead of listening to my body and fueling my energy.

Dumb.  I’m sick.  I’m traveling to MN next week and Thanksgiving is the following week (we host, so I have a lot of prep to do).  The last thing I need to do is starve myself with some diet and make myself sicker, maybe even end up with pneumonia again.  DUMB. DUMB. DUMB.

So I made my oats and tracked it all.  And here’s the funny thing:  I didn’t even need a midmorning snack.  I was perfectly satisfied to wait for lunch, and I even ate later than usual because I was working on a production issue.

Whole foods = good.  Clean eating to minimize chemicals, processed foods, artificial sweeteners = good.  I’m not lactose intolerant or gluten sensitive to my knowledge, so there’s really no need for me to avoid dairy or whole grains unless they affect my weight loss.  Whole grains do sometimes make me ravenous unless I have protein or fat with them, so I do try to minimize them for that reason.

I like many paleo recipes and do incorporate many of those beliefs into my eating… but I don’t currently feel the need to give up all dairy and grains.

I’ll continue to use Weight Watchers to help me keep my portions manageable, but I don’t have to be so regimented in staying beneath my daily points.  It’s not a test that I have to pass every single day!  I’m also hoping that as I eat more whole foods and less of everything else that eventually I won’t need WW to tell me how much/little to eat any longer.  But for now, at least with WW no food is ever off limits.  I just have to be faithful in my tracking and measuring, which does get old really fast.

If it’s whole food, I’m not going to put some silly restriction on what day of the week I can eat it.

In summary, I’m grateful to the Fast Metabolism Diet for a few things.

  • introduced me to sunbutter, which I’ve decided I love.
  • reminded me that I love Ezekiel sprouted breads.  (I hadn’t had them since the stint with Atkins many years ago.)
  • if I’m more liberal with the coconut oil, things don’t stick in my iron skillet.  And taste really good.  Duh!
  • I finally found a way I really like sweet potatoes:  diced, cooked in coconut oil until crispy, sprinkled with salt, cumin, and a little cinnamon
  • I can eat well beyond my points a few days a week and still see really nice losses on the scale.
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The KoKo Intervention

I mentioned a few days ago that we were having some issues with the pup, KoKoKoNa, and promised a longer post.

It’s one of those situations where I didn’t realize how bad it was…until one particular incident.  Then I realized we were in trouble.  She’s always been fearful.  When she was a puppy I never had to worry if she got off her little collar — she would run right up and sit on the porch to wait for us.  We joked she was afraid of outside.  She didn’t WANT to go outside.

We used to have Uncle J stop by and take her out if we were going to be gone longer than 4 hours, but he said she was scared of him.  He’d have to reach into her crate to get her out, and then sometimes she peed on the floor.  Again, fear.

She barked at my Dad every time he came over.  She hated That Man’s Mom.  Still hates Uncle J.  She barks nonstop at anything and everything if I put her outside for a while, and for a medium sized dog (45 lbs) she has a very mean, ferocious bark.  I would never leave her unattended outside for fear the neighbors would call the police.

But one particular incident happened a couple of weeks ago that scared me to death.  Princess and That Man were gone to a home HS football game, so I let the two youngest monsters invite friends for a sleepover.  Of course they were excited and a little loud.  I sent puppy outside and warned the girls to let me handle her because she was nervous around strangers.

She stood at the door and barked her head off.  I went out and leashed her, brought her in slowly, and she was like a frothing-at-the-mouth insane dog.  She barked and lunged and carried on like she was nuts.  Not the even same dog.  The girls didn’t look at her, didn’t say anything, just sat quietly on the couch while I stood with her at the back door trying to get her used to them, and I could hardly handle her.  She was so frantic to bite something, anything, that she almost got my leg (I was standing between her and the kids).  She caught my pants’ leg in her teeth.

I know she loves us.  She’s not a mean dog.  But fear can still make a dog go redline and she was over that line and then some.  She would have bitten me if she could have.  Even after I put her in her crate, she couldn’t relax.  She couldn’t stop barking.  She even barked at me every time I walked by, as if she were saying, MOM GET ME OUT OF HERE SO I CAN BITE THOSE STRANGERS AND CHASE THEM OUT OF OUR HOUSE!

I finally put a blanket over her crate and only then was she able to settle down.

The next morning… she was fine.  She spent the night in Princess’s room (unusual — she usually sleeps with Middle but I didn’t trust her anywhere near the guests) and was calm enough the next morning that I carefully introduced her to Middle’s friend.  She didn’t bark once.

But I can’t have a redline dog around my kids, or our neighbor’s little girl (less than 2 years old), or any of the other kids that run in and out of our yard in the summer.  I can’t risk anyone getting hurt – I would feel horrible.  As horrible as I was feeling at the thought of finding KoKo a new home.

I know Cesar Milan recommends walking regularly, and I’ve not been able to do that with her even using his techniques.  She’s just too strong for me to handle and I’m exhausted after 30 mins.  However, Raelyn recommended the Gentle Leader collar.  My local pet store was out of the size we needed, but I found a knockoff version that has worked wonders.  I’m able to walk her and keep her calm.  Wearing that collar, she didn’t bark at my Dad when he came over the next time and even took a treat from his hand (where the time before she struggled so hard she got out of her collar and ran away).

Better, but not enough for me to trust her with children.

So in talking to my Dad, he’s taking her for two weeks for a little intervention.  He has a well-trained, calm bird dog that she can hang out with and he’ll work on teaching her some of those commands.  She’ll be on the farm with lots of new situations and animals to hopefully help her settle down a little.  It’s deer season, so he’ll have lots of strangers in and out (all grown men who’ll be warned to be careful around her).  It’s my hope that a few commands that I haven’t been able to teach her will help steady her out, and I trust my Dad’s recommendation.  If he feels she’s not safe to keep around kids, then we’ll have to rehome her, as hard as that will be.

He gave me an update this morning (we took her up Saturday afternoon).  She will do what he asks…but she doesn’t do it “eagerly.”  She’ll come at his command, but not offer affection or welcome affection in return.  She leans away from him and retreats as soon as he allows it.  She can’t relax but paces constantly.  If he uses his “alpha” NO voice, she pees all over herself.

But he said she is better.  She hasn’t tried to bite him.  She’s just scared.

I have no idea what happened to her before we got her at 10-weeks old.  Maybe she’s inbred.  I really don’t know anything about her or where the people we bought her from had gotten her.  I’ll just keep hoping for the best.

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Diet Comparison: WW and The Fast Metabolism Diet

I’m always interested in what the current diet trends are, so when Middle’s best friend’s Mom (an ex-Weight Watcher) said she was doing The Fast Metabolism Diet, I was intrigued.  I’d never heard of it before, and she was highly recommending it.  She was loving the food plan and seeing good results.  So I thought, hey, I’ll check it out.  I bought the book and scanned through it quickly.

A lot of its premises were really fascinating and I totally bought.  Yes, my metabolism is wretchedly slow after a lifetime of dieting.  My set point is low.  I can eat within my Daily Points (DPs) for weeks and the scale won’t budge–even if I’m exercising hard.  But oddly enough, if I have a controlled splurge of one thing–say we go to Quiznos Subs and I get a sandwich instead of a salad–I can suddenly see a huge loss the next day.  So I like the idea of “shaking things up.”

(Old time WWs will automatically think of the “Wendie Plan” – where you deliberately eat a low and high range of points throughout the week to do a similar trick.)

The basic premise of TFMD is that you keep your body confused with various high and low days carefully fine tuned to get your hormones balanced, your adrenals working again, and more importantly, your body actually burning your own fat stores.  There are phases — don’t groan, I know we’ve all heard all the phases of Atkins and South Beach, etc.  What makes this interesting is you only do the phases a few days (2-3) at a time, so you’re constantly changing things up.  I like that too.  There’s nothing worse than eating something nasty for weeks on end to the point where if you have to gag down one more dish you’re going to hurl.

Even better… everything is WHOLE FOODS.  Organic, sprouted, wholesome foods.  I find that highly appealing too.  No artificial sweeteners, no chemicals, even nitrate-free deli meats.  It does get pretty restrictive though with no wheat, no corn, no soy (unless you’re vegetarian), no dairy as well.  There’s also a relatively complicated list of eat this on this day, but don’t eat this on the other day.  I’m not a fan of such restrictions.

But the idea, the premise, is definitely intriguing. It’s like you’re deliberately fooling your body with high whole-food carbs like steel-cut oats and fruit for a few days.  Then you go strict Atkins/paleo-style high protein — only it’s extremely low fat too.  No fat-laden cream or cheese dishes here, or as many bacon and eggs as you can eat.  Then the last three days of the week, you go high natural fats with avocados, sunbutter, coconut and olive oils, seeds and nuts.

I could totally see how swinging through those cycles could fool your body into working harder and get a sluggish metabolism working again.  I had been back to tracking faithfully on WW for the past 3 weeks, eating within my points every single day, and the scale had not budged.  Okay, I lost 1 lb, gained two, then lost 1.  See?  Sluggish metabolism!

So last week, I decided to give it a try, with a few caveats.

  • I’m still tracking all my food in WW and trying to get my points in (more on that in a minute).
  • I’m not going to rush out and buy a bunch of diet crap.
  • I’m not going to have a cow if I eat something that’s not on the “okay” list on a certain day.  Whole food = good even if it’s not the “right” day.
  • I’m still keeping my coffee and half and half.

I was far from perfect that first week.  Right away, I had a coffee drink at church that had some sugar and dairy in it.  (That Man ordered a plain cappuccino but that’s not what I got.)  I made Chocolate Chili which had tomatoes in it — which weren’t approved on that certain day.  I also used whole grain wheat products a couple of times instead of sprouted because I wasn’t going to waste what we already had (and yum, I love whole grain).  I didn’t have any sunbutter, so I had natural peanut butter instead. I cheated a tiny bit on my oils too and had coconut oil a few times on the “low fat” days.  I didn’t really even exercise much — just a little.

I tracked on WW the entire week.  The first two days of high carb and fruit I was pretty close to getting my points in… but didn’t meat the healthy oil requirement.  The next two days of high protein, low fat, I was extremely low on points (like 10 pts short) and I ate a TON of food.  Those days, almost every single thing I ate were Power Foods — lean meats and veggies — so I knew I was getting a lot of nutrition.  If I was hungry, I ate, but I tried to stick to the plan.

Then the last three days…

Whoa.  WAY over points.  It was a shock.  For breakfast, I was supposed to eat 4 1/2 T of fat.  Yes.  4 1/2 T!!!  I couldn’t stomach it … let alone actually track that much fat.  I did a T of coconut oil in my oats and about passed out in fear logging it.  I went way over on points that day, and you know what?  The very next morning I was down another pound.

Hmmm, I thought to myself.  What the heck?  So I tried to be a little more generous on the healthy fats.  I ate the avocado AND the healthy olive oil on my salad.  I went ahead and used the full 3 T of natural peanut butter on my 1/2 bagel the next day — so much peanut butter I could hardly swallow it without my mouth gluing shut (man was it good!!).  And the scale went down AGAIN.

I ended up using almost all of my weeklies — something I hardly ever do.  And I lost 2.8 lbs, after staying in my dailies for 3 weeks and not losing a thing.

It was an eye opener for me.  I know you’re SUPPOSED to eat your weekly points.  They’re there for a reason.  But I always hoarded them for a special occasion….that never really came.  Sure, sometimes I’d have pizza or something and try to track it, but I never deliberately set out to eat those points.  Even when doing Power 90 faithfully, I only ate 4-6 pts extra a day and still felt guilty!  It’s crazy, I know.

If nothing else, giving this plan a shot is helping me get over that reluctance to use all of my points as WW intended.  I ate a TON — enough healthy fats to make the long-term dieter in me cringe — and I still lost a huge chunk of weight (for me).  I ate tons of Power Foods.  All healthy, organic as possible, whole grain, whole foods.  No “diet” foods with fillers and chemicals.

I’m still not a fan of being so restrictive on the first four days of the plan.  I mean, does it really make that much of a difference if I use 1 tsp of olive oil to cook my egg in?  Or 1 yolk?  The high protein days, I’m supposed to have 4 egg whites only for breakfast, which is hard to cook without any fat at all in the pan, even if it’s non stick.  There’s only so much all meat dishes I can get down too — I’m just not a fan of so much meat after my months of Atkins years ago.

However, it’s only two days.  And the very next morning I know I’m going to sit down to a delicious bowl of steel cut oats rich with coconut oil, sunbutter, and an apple (although apple wasn’t listed on the phase 3 fruits I ate it anyway).  It was SO GOOD and stuck with me for hours and hours.  I ate that on Saturday morning before the girls had two basketball games and I was so stuffed I really didn’t even need the snack 3 hours later.

I definitely saw enough results that I’m going to run through the phases again this week.  I’m continuing to track on WW again and get as near as I can to my points on the early phases.  You’re supposed to give a whole 28 days to allow your metabolism to recover.  With the upcoming MN trip next week, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to keep up with the restrictive plan, but I’ll at least continue to track my foods on WW and see what happens.

I strongly believe that we can heal our bodies with food.  I’m hoping that I can actually heal my metabolism a little after wrecking it all my life with one crazy diet after another.

P.S. I also ordered Well Fed 2 since I’m loving the first cookbook so much.  The high protein and high natural fat days are very paleo friendly with a few modifications.  (e.g. paleo doesn’t allow beans but TFMD does on phase 1 and phase 3)  I’m hoping to find some new inspiration!

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Chocolate Chili So Good Your Head Sweats

I had a small roast thawed in the fridge.  Too small, really, to feed the whole family the way we eat roast beef.  But it was already thawed and so I wanted to come up with something interesting.  I was in the mood for something different.  Not just a hunk of meat…but something tasty and good and unique.

With the rule that I wanted to keep it low carb today.  (I had a few too many Panera whole grain bagels over the weekend!)

In came my Well Fed paleo cookbook.  No, I’m not paleo and never could be paleo long term.  But I’m committed to whole foods and nothing on the paleo menu is ever going to be made with pre-packaged ingredients.  Plus it totally fit the low carb/no wheat bill!

The recipe for Chocolate Chili struck my fancy.  I’ve never put chocolate in chili before, but I know it’s a crucial ingredient in mole.  I love that dark, rich, spicy sauce, so I thought, hey, I’ll give it a try.  Princess is gone tonight, Middle is eating vegetarian right now, and That Man is still doing his crazy salad diet, so it was really going to be me and Littlest eating it.  As long as I make pasta for her, she’ll eat about anything on top of it.

The results…. OH.  So good.  Yum.  To me, it wasn’t spicy at all (there are only 2 T of chili power in it).  As I ate, it made my head sweat, but it didn’t burn my mouth at all.  Littlest said it was spicy but she ate a good bowl’s worth.  That Man sampled the meat and said it was way too spicy for him.  So if you’re a bit of a wimp in that regard, you might want to cut down on the spice!  For me, it was perfect.

So here’s how I modified the original recipe to come up with Chocolate Chili.

2-3 lbs lean roast beef, trimmed and cubed (original recipe called for ground beef)
2T coconut oil
1 diced onion
4-5 cloves garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 c. beef broth
2 T chili powder
1T cumin
1 t all spice
1 t parsley (original recipe called for oregano but I didn’t have any)
1 1/2 T cocoa powder
salt and pepper to taste

In batches, brown the chunks of meat in coconut oil and remove. Add the onions to the pan and scrape up the browned bits. If needed, add a little broth to help deglaze the pan. Press the garlic and add the rest of the ingredients, including the browned meat. Reduce heat to a low simmer and let cook 1.5-2 hours.

For me, it was two thumbs way way up.  The meat was fall apart tender and I didn’t miss the beans at all.  I put a nice mound of raw spinach in the bottom of my bowl and spooned the hot chili over the top.  Littlest ate hers over pasta.

On a chilly gloomy day, it was the perfect belly warmer!