I have finally gotten my About Page up on my main site. The copy is still not finalized; I have to find someone to write something more detailed, What really motivated me to put the page up was the picture, taken by my friend Nick and retouched by me.

Weight:: 166 lbs
Stagnant, even went up a bit.

Stagnant weight is probably due to all the nuts I’ve been eating. They are fine in Atkins, but can be very addictive. I think I will cut back if I can resist the temptation. I have also “discovered” low carb bars, Atkins and other brands. Not that tasty, but tempting and convenient. Also not cheap: there is on bar seen in many NYC delis for about $3. The Atkins bars are cheaper (about $1.30) but only seen in speciality shops. Of course the chocolate is relatively low quality; I got a much richer flavor with my homemade attempt.

Another cause of my steady weight may be the fact that I have started lifting again. It’s hard to tell if it’s making any difference but I do feel quite a bit better. Still getting the hang of things; doing whichever exercises seem appropriate at they time. I should note that it is absolutely necessary to get adequate sleep after one lifts. I didn’t last week and was absurdly exhausted and had sore muscles for 4 days. This week was much better.

Jim links to another diet blogger, Avram Grumer. After reading the linked entry about looking for a gym and then looking at his user info I realized that he lives in my neighborhood. Small world. Sorry I can’t offer you any gym advice Avram, but if you see a bearded balding man running to and from the hudson river it’s probably me.

It’s a beautiful day out and I am going to do some biking.

…am not blogging so much about politics is that people like Krugman, Kristof, Kevin Drum, Steve Gilliard and Radley are doing much better commentary than I could hope to.

I am happy that the media isn’t letting the uranium lies and even the “bring it on” comment go. They aren’t giving Bush as much free reign anymore.

Weight: 166.0 lbs
Steady downward trend.

A somewhat surprising downward trend too since:

• I went four whole days last week without working out
• I worked out this week with a heavy session of weight lifting (I am still sore)
• … and I have discovered a whole new fondness for nuts (macadamias, peanuts and especially pistachios)

This means that I have lost over 25 lbs since I started weighing myself (I have likely lost even more than that since I started weighing myself about a week into the diet). I am halfway to my goal of loosing ≈ 50 lbs.

I am getting compliments too on how much weight I have lost; always a great ego boost. It is nice to hear since it is often hard to judge how you look yourself.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t have a complaint though: None of my pants or shorts fit. They are all seriously too loose. I don’t want to buy new ones yet till I hit my goal weight, since I can’t really afford buy a set of pants just to have for the next month or two. I know I won’t fit into my goal pants of 32” yet, and I don’t just want to buy 34” pants that will only get limited use.

This talk about pants reminds me that I should state my real goal on this diet. Sure I want to loose ≈ 50 lbs to bring me to 140-145 or so, which I feel is right for my height (5’6” to 5’7”). But my real goal is:

To fit loosely into a pair of Levis 32” jeans. Specifically I should be able to remove the jeans from my body without unbuttoning them.

This is the point I was at in high school and early college. Pants size seems to be a better metric for me too since I haven’t been weighing myself or measuring my waist over the years, but I have been wearing ever increasingly sized pants.

Update: OOPS, I am definitely not 6’7”, more like 5’7”.

Of all the foods I have to give up on the Atkins diet, the only two that I really miss are ice cream and chocolate. However since we are in the 21st century, I think I can satisfy this craving without resorting to eating a lot of carbs.

Atkins recommends sucralose, marketed as Splenda, as an ideal artificial sweetener. It also turns out that unsweetened (baking) chocolate is not that high in “net” carbohydrates (go here and click for a report, chocolate has quite a bit of fiber). So I thought: why not mix Splenda with some decent unsweetened chocolate?

Yes, I know that several folks have already gone to the trouble of doing this and selling the result. I thought doing a little kitchen experimenting might be fun.

So I got out the saucepan, the chocolate and the Splenda. Put the pan on ridiculously low heat so I could melt the chocolate without burning it. Melted the chocolate and mixed in the Splenda.

I found out that you need quite a bit more Splenda than I expected: about 2 packs per ounce of chocolate and I like (liked?) my chocolate bittersweet. I used to frequently buy 50% - 70% cocoa bars, although I guess that 50% sugar would still look like a lot.

It came out really sour. Not so sour that it wasn’t delicious (its chocolate after all), but disturbingly sour. I thought it might be my saucepan (which I think is aluminum), so I tried by non stick skillet. A little better, but still sour. Also the skillet is worse for making small quantities. If I made a larger amount, I would go over my carbohydrate allotment very quickly. Even sour chocolate is hard to just leave around the house.

Sucralose

So I went looking around the web. I couldn’t seem to find a recipe for specifically adding sucralose to chocolate. I did find some interesting reading on the properties of sucralose (PDF, html is here) which mentions that it is quite stable with heat, so I doubt the sucralose is breaking down. This page mentions sourness as one of the attributes of sucralose, although pure Splenda is far from sour.

Looking at the ingredients of many sugar free chocolate bars I notice that milk and milk fat are used. I resisted this since I want dark chocolate not milk chocolate, but it might counteract the sourness. I am full from sour chocolate tonight, but I may add cream to my melting chocolate later.

I may also try making ice cream soon. My friend H_____ has a really nice ice cream maker, but it is unfortunately located in New Haven. It turns out that you can get a decent ice cream maker for fairly cheap, although it has the bowls you have to pre-freeze, not the built in refrigeration. Again, I may try it later.

Best news for last: Sam finally got his cart out and ready. I helped him haul food and supplies from his apartment and he took the cart out for a test run. He had the necessary food and operated on an honest to goodness, though somewhat deserted street. The food was delicious and was sampled mostly by Sam, myself, Molly (Sam’s girlfriend) and Neil (Sam’s father). Although he had one customer, his inaugural customer in fact, who discovered the cart almost by accident and seemed really pleased (and somewhat drunk). This cart should work out great; I am so excited for him.

Coming: Pictures. And my design for the cart sign (now on the cart and looking sharp).

Went to the Howard Dean meetup at the Essex Restaurant in the Lower East Side, NYC. Interesting. I, among several other Dean supporters, wrote three Democrats in Iowa personally to encourage them to support Dean. A good idea, although I hadn’t written longhand like that for about 10 years. Messy handwriting and no spell check, eek!

Weight: 171.0 lbs
I seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut around 170. I haven’t worked out as much because of the prior mentioned busyness, although I am still working out regularly. We’ll see.

… so little time. So much is happening. I just got in tonight (look at the timestamp) and I have to get up in 4 hours, go to work and head to Boston for the 4th of July weekend.

So I will go over things briefly. There is a lot I want to write about everything and I will do that. Later.