Day 17

Yes, I know. It's been a while since I've posted. And I'd like to tell you that I've been so busy out exercising and living life to the fullest that I haven't had time to post. But this isn't true.

I remained at 173.2 until about Friday, January 20th. I went out and had a few beers-- woke up the next morning slightly heavier. Then Saturday the 21st came around-- went out on capital hill-- drank most of the night, and then capped it off with Dick's-- 2 deluxe hamburgers and some fries at 1:30am.  Sunday wasn't any better-- my dad's birthday lead us to JAKs grill, where I had a steak sandwich and potato pancakes, and later that evening we drank beer, watched football and ordered a pizza. NO GOOD.

I weighed in the next day at 181...and this continued for a few days. I immediately got back on track but it doesn't come off as quickly as it went on. Weighed in yesterday at 178.4, and this morning at 176.2...so moving again in the right direction.

I've been cooking these cheesecakes-- they are delicious--addicting--and I think if I can get the recipe right, might be the key to a successful weightloss journey.  Although I lose weight doing strict atkins, I always end up sick of the same meals, and I crave sweets. Since cheesecake is my favorite "bad" food, being able to eat it makes me feel like I'm not on a diet at all. If I can lose weight doing this "cheesecake diet"-- well, anyone can, and it will be the key to really sticking with something.

Right now, I'm just going to start with these two recipes. They are absolutely delicious.  Combining them makes a really great low-carb day-- I obviously need to make some other recipes so I don't get sick of these, but, in order to test out this cheesecake diet thing, I'm going to give this a go for 6 days, and on the 7th, I eat cheesecake for two meals, plus a lulu jimmy johns unwich for dinner.
Daily meals:

Breakfast:
1 slice of cheesecake
1 whey protein shake

Lunch:
1 serving of caserole

Dinner:
1 serving of caserole

Here is the cheesecake:

32oz cream cheese
2 eggs+ 3 egg yolks
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup granulated splenda

mix it all-- pour it all in an 8" spring form pan. bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then 275 for 1.5 hours. Then let sit in the over for 3+ hours before popping into the refrigerator.  Here are the nutrition facts:

fat: 47.49 g
protein: 13.05 g
carbs: 7.43 g

Total calories: 509.33/slice-- assuming 8 slices per cake.

Here is the casserole:

1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound italian sausage
12 oz pack of frozen spinach, thawed and drained
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
4 teaspoons of taco seasoning
10 oz can ro-tel tomatoes (tomatoes with green chiles)
1/2 cup of slices jalepenos (I use canned)

mix all of these ingredients in a casserole dish. sprinkle 4-8oz of cheddar cheese on top. Then take 2 large chicken breasts, chop them into .25-.5 inch thick slices and lay all over the top of the casserole-- covering the whole dish.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes, then move to the top rack, and broil for 10 minutes.

Here are the nutrition facts:

fat: 35.01 g
protein: 37.79 g
carbs: 5.94 g

Total calories: 490.01/serving-- assuming 8 servings per casserole.

This casserole is essentially the perfect atkins dish. The percentages follow the golden ration of 65/30/5 almost the tee-- the ratios are 64% fat, 31% protein, 5% carbs-- about as good as it gets.

The cheesecake is higher in fat, so the ratios are off, but this is why I combine it with the whey shake. The cheesecake alone has ratios of 84/10/6.  So you can see-- lacking in the protein-- hence the whey.

Overall, combining two servings of this caserole, and the cheesecake/whey for breakfast, we end up with the following nutrition facts and ratios:

total calories: 1549

total fat: 120
total protein: 110.6
total carbs: 22.3

Ratio: 67/27/6

As you can see, the carb count is a little high at 22.3.  I'll have to see what I can do about this. I think I can play around with the cheesecake recipe some and get those carbs down. Or I can change the serving size of the casserole from 8 to 10 per dish.

All-in-all, pretty good-- I'm really hoping this works well because these two recipes are delicious enough to actually prefer them over other foods-- like actually look forward to eating them-- awesome.