Eating Fool Followed by Cooking Fool

I spent the last week or so--through yesterday--craving and bingeing on carbs. It's hormonal, I've watched it happen over and over again every damn fucking month. I was doing much better than previous months, and then Monday I had to go to Target for something...groceries, I think (sale?), and I bought two boxes of PopTarts, one strawberry, one cinnamon brown sugar. Oh it wasn't spur of the moment, it was planned. Every damn bit of it. I actually ate a pack of strawberry ones in the car, dry, on the way home. I ate two more, toasted with butter, later that day. The next day I had a big dental appointment--I needed to have my trainwreck of a mouth evaluated for dentures--and I was stressing big time. The closer to the appointment time it got, the more stressed I got. I ate two cinnamon PopTarts; then two strawberry; then two more cinnamon. I expected GI fallout, but I didn't expect it to be immediate. As I showered and dressed to drive to my appointment, my stomach was already gurgling and bubbling. My normally comfortably fitting GV jeans were snug. It was gas. I farted all the way to the office. Then it stopped.

It started again while I was filling out papers and waiting. I held it through x-rays, reading as I waited for the dentist, talking to him about my medical history, past, current history (cancer NED: diabetes remission, HBP remission, in fact, low blood pressure "that's too low" he said. I know. I'm salting...), and my wreck of a mouth. He concurred on the dentures, a full upper and partial lower, he laid out a treatment plan and then offered valium for the day of treatment (actually, I'll take two the night before, then one one hour before treatment. I got it late in the day so my husband can take me and drive me home.). So the first of the extractions starts on Tuesday. Then we wait and pull the rest and the denture should be made by then.

So I'm holding it the whole time. I'm starting to feel like I'm going to shit my pants. The gas gurgles back up inside me and makes a loud, LOUD noise. I spent a bit of time talking to the finance / scheduling manager about DS surgery. I even gave her my surgeon's card that I carry in case of emergency (I thought I had more, somewhere), and we had a good talk. Side note: It's going to cost a fortune to fix my teeth. I'm not kidding.

I finally get out of there, drive to a Del Taco, rush inside--OMG TG the door is not locked--and I spend about 30 minutes in there. I carry around a little bottle of Peppermint body spray from Bath and Beauty that really covers up the smell of gas/poop. I was spraying. Luckily no one came in while I was in there. But aftewards, I felt SO much better. And I'm starving. I had planned on a Panera lunch. I hadn't been there since last May when I ate onions, which gave me severe diarrhea, which caused dehydration, which put me in the ER with SVT--supra-ventricular-tachycardia, or racing heartbeat. It was over 200 beats a minute (I want to say 290, but I'd have to check. Too high.) I had a Thai chicken salad and a cup of tomato soup and a few bites of baguette with green tea. It was really good and filling.

And I hated myself for eating the PopTarts. I came home and took the last PopTart and threw it out the kitchen door into the yard. The next morning it was gone, so something around here likes PopTarts. LOL

My hormones made me a crazy person. I mean...really, really crazy. Just emotional cycling up and down, rage sadness rage sadness anger depression rage. It's horrible. I felt like a tiger trapped in a cage. But then it passed, and I feel like myself. Today I was back at Target because I needed a new coffeemaker (The horror! Where will I go? What will I do? I must have coffee!). It was a cheap one I bought specifically to take traveling while we were semi-homeless living out of hotels. It was less than $20. I bought it in October so it lasted seven-and-a-half months. POS. So I did some online comparison shopping on my phone last night, and I found one I liked and that was on sale 20% off through Target's Cartwheel program. So I drove down today and bought it.  I wanted the rose-colored one but all they had available is the silver and black, which actually matches the kitchen. I made some coffee in it, and it tasted very good. I can brew it dark. Heh. It's got a lot of tech gadgets on it, so I'll be referring to the handbook for a while until I get it down. But it was a helluva deal.

Since I was there, I was going to utilize the free WiFi at the Starbucks inside Tarjay to do some websurfing. I was also hungry, so I got a chicken cobb salad out of the deli case. OMG, it was delicous. Grilled chicken, shredded bacon, bleu cheese, a whole boiled egg, ranch dressing (carrots and tomatoes, which I ignored. The former is too high in carbs, the latter is yucky. I brought them home for DH). I got full about 2/3 of the way through so I set a timer to check in fifteen minutes if I was still hungry and/or had room, I could keep eating, or otherwise take it home. I ate it. Well, I didn't eat most of the lettuce, maybe a 1/3 of it, less? I chucked it.

But here's the thing:  I had to walk through the bakery section to get to the salad case. I told myself I could have anything I wanted--cupcakes with frosting, Lofthouse cookies, muffins, cookies, cake, pie...and nothing appealed to me. Nothing. I walked by with not a care. Yesterday I might have bought one of everything.

I always want carbs, and three weeks of the month I can keep away from them. But that fourth? It's a bitch (and so am I LOL). I see the GYN next week, I hope she can help me. I also want to schedule a psychiatrist appointment to see if he has any advice or tweaks to meds he/she may know of. I can't stand being crazy one week out of the month. I can't stand to be around myself. It's pitiful.

***
I came home today and started cooking. I was only going to make this Paleo Chicken Pad Thai for the Crockpot. It just finished cooking about an hour ago, and it's very, very good although it tastes nothing like Pad Thai. I made it with skin-on chicken thighs, browned in olive oil and butter first, and I added a lot of cilantro. I made six thighs, not four. I used the whole can of coconut milk, two cups of broth, and upped all the other ingredients slightly. Like I said, it's very, very good, but more of a coconut peanut chicken than pad Thai.

So since I was cooking already, I browned up some ground beef with garlic salt, black pepper, and Mrs. Dash Southwest seasoning (chili powder and cumin are big ingredients--very good) for use with eggs and taco bowls for lunches; then I cooked some rice to go with the chicken for my husband's lunches. Then I made these cookies and OMG are they good. I'm going to have them for breakfast. I ate three for dinner. LOL  *I made them with butter instead of coconut oil, and they spread quite a bit. Regardless, they taste like anything you'd get at a nice bakery. Delish.

I also made a big bowl of my new favorite dessert, sugar free raspberry Jello with pureed cottage cheese. It is nummy, like raspberry pudding. I'm too full now to have any, but if I weren't it would be with whipped cream. :-)  I had made this with cream cheese and, although I liked the taste, the texture was very cement-like and felt like a brick in my stomach. So I tried the creamed cottage cheese and it is more of a pudding texture. Really good. It lasts five days if I have a little every night. Delish with lots of protein.

My weight? I had lost eight of the thirteen pounds, but that was pre PopTarts. I'm going to weigh on Monday after five clean days of eating.

Recipe:

32 ounces 4% cottage cheese, pureed
1 large package sugar free Jello, flavor of your choice--I like raspberry
2 cups boiling water

Mix SF Jello with boiling water until dissolved. Cool 20 - 30 minutes. Puree all 32 ounces of cottage cheese in a food processor. I tried it in a blender and it just came out lumpy, not the texture I wanted.

Once pureed until smooth, whisk into cooled Jello. Chill. Scoop some up or let it chill in small dessert dishes, but no matter what, don't forget the whipped cream! I really feel decadent (and healthy!) when I eat it. It really satisfies that sweet tooth.

***UPDATE***

Do not, and I mean, DO NOT make the strawberry chocolate brownie cookies. They are addictive. They are that damn good. I ate about four last night before bed, put them away, had a bunch this morning  with coffee (they fell apart so mostly pieces, but probably around four), so I put them in the freezer. Holy shit, they really triggered that chocolate/carb reflex. Man.

Also, if I were to make them again--I would make them AS a brownie--parchment lined pan, bake, cool, lift parchment from pan, then cut with pizza cutter. Cool, put in ziplocs to go right into the freezer for morning or snack portions.

Just be careful if you like the carbs. That's all I'm sayin.