This dancing head is called "agree," I just think it looks like a cool dance.

Here I am, here I sit.
Insurgent mortars please don't hit.
Duck and covers shout the sky,
And into bunkers I do fly.
Thirteen fourteen fifteen hour days,
In the 140 degree haze.
It makes my body so darn beat
That all I do is eat, eat and eat.
Which wouldn't suck if I was a gunner,
but sucks pretty bad as a chair-bound lawyer.
Chair-bound JAGs don't need cookies.
Chair-bound JAGs don't need pies.
Chair-bound JAGs don't need potatoes
Boiled, baked, sauteed or fried.


Two weeks ago I decided to take this 6 month "vacation" to Iraq courtesy of Uncle Sam. "That's great," I thought, "an opportunity to lose a little weight while being an active military member," NEGATIVE. I got here and am sitting behind a desk for 13 hour days, often pushed further on a semi-regular but strictly emergency basis. Funny how regular emergency filing projects are around here... Either way, at this base, the food is good. GOOD GOD IT'S GOOD. Thanks to contractor food service which cost my Uncle approx $28/head/meal, our meals are ... let's just say they're obscenely good. They're opulent. OPULENT. Result = the biggest risk may not be mortars, but obesity in these parts. I mean, mortars might or might not get you, but I've seen several friends leave 40 pounds heavier in 6 months. Yeah.

Anyway, 2 weeks ago i decided to cut back. I got mad, I weighed myself and was 192, which is a size 12 for me. (I used to be a body builder in college and so I have a LOT of muscle, I never looked that heavy.) My goal weight is 150 and that would be freaking lean for me.

So I started on ... basically a fat fast, added exercise and then switched to maintenance (lots of veggies). I've been losing and whatnot. I'm happy, but being back on this forum I thought I'd give the whole True low carb thing a fair shake again. Even if it's just for a week to see if it can fit into my PT schedule.

I really don't sit around ALL day. I mean, my colleagues do, but I don't. I PT between 1100-1300, obviously not all of that is PT, some is changing and showering. Usually about 30 min weights and 40 min high HIGH intensity cardio. Today I did just 60 low intensity cardio, fat burning. no weights.
I hooked up with a mistake of a "Friend" who roped me into a nightly 3 mi run. Yuck. I hate running. She wants to shape up for this cruise in 2 weeks. Hopefully, that's it. I don't think I can run every day for longer than that. F.

So I'm trying to find the right balance of low carb to fit this SUPER active lifestyle WHILE not trying to get injured. All this PT is actually good for me, IRAQ really wipes you out. Geez I've never been so exhausted! And I get 7-8 hours of sleep a night! it's just an exhausting place.

I didn't eat enough today. I didn't expect to get roped into the extra run tonight, otherwise, i would have eaten more at lunch. oh well, it's a war, sometimes war isn't pretty, hm?

Cheese, cottage, dry curd .5c
Almonds, roasted 8
Egg, whole, boiled 1
Egg, white only, cooked 2
Emergen-C 1
Turkey or chicken breast, prepackaged or deli, luncheon meat 3oz
Tuna, canned, water pack .5c
Olives, green 10 jumbo
Cornish game hen, roasted, skin not eaten 1/2 hen
Salmon, baked or broiled 4 oz
Polish sausage 4"
Broccoli, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt 1 c
Banana, raw 1 small

And that banana was the best darn part of what I ate all day. I needed that potassium or something. Darn good.

Totals 1196cal 54f 40c 136p

My body said, "no way sister" to that low cal and carb so I snacked on the following at night and don't feel a lick sad about it cause I had to go and run 2 miles this morning anyway with my unit. Geez this place is PT central. If I don't look like a victoria secret model by the time I leave it'll be darned close.

Popcorn, popped in oil, unbuttered 1 cup (1 handful actually)
Tomato and vegetable juice, mostly tomato, low sodium 8 oz

Totals 1303 57 59 139 FINAL TALLY FOR THE DAY




Well see how long I can take it before returning to maintenance style or zone-ish with the veggies like before. I guess I was a little miffed when I jumped on the scale and it hadn't budged, but my clothes feel great. One week, we'll reassess. (unless period... then maybe reassess after that).


JAC

Stay Safe! Gosh I don't even know what to say to those of you who are in Iraq accept... Thank you and stay safe!

I can't appreciate what it's like to be in a war zone. My dad was a lifer and as a kid I felt the stress my father in Viet Nam, two one-year tours. But the food....is exactly what I dealt with when I worked on an offshore oil rig. Meals were put out every six hours since the rig did not shut down at night. The best I could do was spend mealtimes hiding on an unused subdeck with my jumprope. I would also do squats with short lengths of oil pipe then handstand pushups.

My advice is put some fast carbs (4 or 5 cookies) in your system before the nightly run. You'll run faster which will in the long-term burn more fat. Also running in monstrous heat stimulates a lot of Growth Hormone. I run 60-80 miles a week all year. In the winter I gain weight regardless of running. In the summer the weight disappears even though my diet is no different than in winter. I attribute the weight loss to Growth Hormone secretion in the heat.

Above all, stay safe.

The Anti-war movement
awaits your swift and safe return...

Someone mentioned handstand pushups. Wow. That's skill.

Hoo-yah Motivated.


Well a cookie or two sounds like a great idea... far be it from me to refuse a cookie, hm? Only a 2 mi run this morning and I'm not doing anything else. I did not get a good night sleep at all last night. Tossing and turning.

Everyone around here is the devil since they pop popcorn all dang day long. it's hellish for me.


Today has been good so far:

Scrambled egg, made from packaged liquid mixture
Soybean oil 1 tbsp
Canadian bacon, cooked .5 slice
Egg, white only, cooked 2 white
Peanut butter 2 tablespoon
Tree of Life, almond butter, plain, without salt added 4 tablespoon
Beef jerky Jack Link's 2 svgs
Guacamole, NFS .25 cup
Chicken liver, fried or sauteed, no coating 5 livers (tried to knock off all trace ofcoating... did a passable job)
Beef sausage, smoked 1 4" link
Grapes, European type, adherent skin, raw 20 huge globes seeds
Cookie, chocolate chip .25 big cookie, a bite or two

Totals 1760 116 67 123

Seems like a lot, but I feel alotted more calories on LC than normal. Also seems like a lot more carbs than I should have. but I don't worry about it. I'll burn it off tomorrow. Don't fret my pet. It's all part of the master plan. ALSO, the nut butter, jerkey and chicken liver and "veggy scrambled egg" carbs really REALLY don't count because my body just won't spike sugar on those. Nah not really. I'm not one of those hyper sensitive people, thank god. (especially while I'm super PT)

I did have one HUGELY SUCCESSFUL MORAL DIET MOMENTS TODAY. IZ (that's the acronym for iraq). IZ is really fatiguing place and you're working long damn hours so I didn't get a whole good sleep last night and with my cals so low (and the thyroid problem) I was dragging... like REALLY TIRED. I needed food and cals so when I went to the DFAC (Dining facility, galley in the navy, but when in rome!) I went with a general plan to be consious but not strict on calories and do the best I could with carbs... basically not to go nuts and lose all sense of reason. I succeeded but the real dilemma came when I went to my hooch (trailer) and rested for a bit, slept for a 1/2 hour and started back for work about an hour or so later... hungry as balls.

HUNGRY AS BALLS EVEN THOUGH I ATE OVER 500 CALS NOT MORE THAN 1.5 HOURS BEFORE. dang. I had all these visions of swinging by the sandwich shop and "just getting some cheese" but I knew 1) I really didn't need the cals, 2) I promised myself I wouldn't eat after dinner, 3) that was one of my foundational promises for eating the grapes and cookie, that I wouldn't indulge in the semi usual late night popcorn grab and 4) if I went to the sandwich shop I PROBABLY wouldn't ahve stopped at cheese... but rather ice cream, peanut butter, pie and bacon wouldn't be far behind... that's me.

SO I just said, "no" and decided to turn the other cheek, exercising a little moral fiber for once and just fill up on water. "Likely it's not real hunger anyway, but thirst." I'll tough it out. I was right and I feel better morally and physically for not being fooled by my trickster body. ha ha

Aw yeah.

No activities today but there was a large platoon sized attack somewhere in the country that I can't talk about very much against our forces, we came, we killed, we conquered. Way to go guys, "RAH" if you get my meaning.

Good god... watch out now. Pink elephants on parade. And I'm into the last stretch of my 13 hour day. O-yah, last stretch. Usually I go to salsa night but I think I'll pass tonight, i don't want any PT.

Today I shall incorporate a pre-workout 1/2 cookie and see what that'll do me. It should have been a banana, but the cookie sounded way too good.

COOOOOKIE.

Now I will go to the gym and do a monster rowing workout and see what that does for me. Rowing, supposedly, burns as many calories as running if done vigorously. I am a vigorous kind of girl and I intend to do it quite vigorously.

It's my second work out too. I did a 45 min circuit "football drill" type of cardio earlier and 30 minutes of medicine ball fun. Yeah.

CIAO.

Day's food:
Filberts, hazelnuts 2 nuts
Almonds, roasted 1/2 oz
Brazil nuts 1/3 cup
Cashew nuts, dry roasted 10-13
Emergen-C 1 serving
White potato, chips 4.5 chips
Tree of Life, almond butter, plain, without salt added 2 tablespoon
Beef jerky Jack Link's 1 svg
Beef stew with potatoes, gravy 1/2 cup
Tuna, canned, water pack 1/4 cup
Beef, stew meat, cooked, lean and fat eaten .5 cup
Cookie, oatmeal, with raisins 1/2 large cookie
Seafood restructured .5 cup
Mayonnaise, regular 1 tsp


Totals 1505 96 67 103

The carbs are off a bit because the stew didn't have potatoes in it and I don't really need to care about the carbs in nuts, come on now people! I understand that'll make a big diff for some, but i can suck a lot more carbs that that and still be in ketosis.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not kill people.

I can kill a lasagna, though. I am a lawyer, as I've mentioned and I hold CRRB boards. CRRB is the combined review and release board. There are 12 attorneys hosting 12 CRRBs a week and they review the files of individuals detained persuant to UN security resolution 1546 and 1637, they also follow Coalition Provisional Authority Memo 13 and 3 as well as MNF-I policies (Memo 11-1). Broadly the UNSR authorizes the coalition forces to intern security detainies for imperative reasons of security and the search for weapons that continues to threaten the security of Iraq. These men are not prisoners, but detainees, and they do have due process rights, including file reviews/boards mandated at least every 6 months. We are exceeding that standards and, in most cases, able to give people a review of the file every 3 months. The board consists of "members" or "jurors" that are a majority Iraqi with a few Coalition Force members. I hold the board, have thorougly read every paper in the file and field questions from teh board.

I have many opinions on this process, none of which I choose to voice.

But that is what I do, and as all jurors are ... individuals... I happen to have members that act like petulent, temper-tantrum ridden children. I don't need to baby sit, I need a working, thinking board, but I have to work with what I got.

Sheesh. I hated today.

BUt food wise it's been ok. And I'm also not too keen because it's my time of the month, so I have even less patience for 40 year olds acting like babies. I am goingn to go to the gym sometime. I need it. I need to sweat.

Growl.

I need to burn fat. I'm eating fat for the rest of the evening becuase I'm too annoyed to eat.

I admit I haven't been exercising for the past 2 days very much. I feel under the weather. In fact, yesterday I was getting a migrane and sent myself home 2 hours early. (At 1900, not that an 11 hour day is much of a break, but it sure felt like it!)

I always get hungry at 2300 and have been indulging in 1 tbsp of peanut butter, the one with sugar because I'm in a war and war is hell.

Hell with sugar & transfat peanut butter.

Glad you are losing weight
over there. I am glad someone
is getting something good out
of Bush's Folly.

Be safe, watch your back and
may you and all the others come
home safe from this waste of
humanity.