The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • The Smoothie Diet Recap

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    Ruth Carter

    I’ve been on a smoothie diet for the entire month of April. It’s been really convenient not to have to worry about what I’m going to eat this month and what I need to pick up at the store.

    Photos taken on 3-31-2013, weight = 121.5
    Photos taken on 3-31-2013, weight = 121.5

    This post is coming out on April 30th, but I’m writing this on April 26th. So far, I’ve lost between 9 and 10 pounds, and according to my last weigh-in, I’ve lost 2.5% body fat and my BMI is down to 19.7. One thing I’ve learned on this diet that’s really interesting is the fact that my bathroom scale says I’m 1-2 pounds heavier than the official scale at Dr. Terry Simpson’s office.

    My smoothies all consist of almond milk and nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt. In the morning I add coffee that’s been frozen into ice cubes and sugar-free pudding and/or unsweetened cocoa powder. For the rest of my meals, I add frozen fruit and maybe some spinach. I learned the hard way that I tend to have more energy when my smoothies have banana and spinach in them. The spinach tends to turn my smoothies kinda gray or green depending on what other fruit is in it. If I get too hungry or tired, I get to have black coffee or a sugar-free gelatin cup.

    Photo taken on 4-28-2013, weight ~ 113.5lbs
    Photo taken on 4-28-2013, weight ~ 113.5lbs

    I’ve been keeping track of my calories and my average intake is 1077.40 calories per day. I try to stretch my smoothie calories out by keeping my smoothies in the freezer and every 15-30 minutes I go to the freezer and eat the newly frozen portion. That can make a smoothie last for 2-4 hours. That’s definitely helped me stave off hunger, which was my biggest fear about doing this diet.

    Of course I’ve been having weird craving, especially as the month’s been going on. Lately I’ve craved tortilla chips, a gyro with tzatziki, red velvet cheesecake, a toasted bagel with butter, glazed doughnuts, and pasta with cream sauce and bacon. As of this writing, I have no idea what my first real food is going to be. I have a feeling I should go easy on the fat and sugar at first, even though part of me would love to start my return to real food with dessert or pizza.

    It’s been really easy to set up both my blenders with ingredients and let them defrost in the fridge at the beginning of the day and then blend them up when I get hungry.

    Here’s my favorite breakfast smoothie that I’ll probably make on a regular basis once the diet is over:

    • 1 cup Almond Breeze original almond milk
    • 5oz Lucerne nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt
    • 3oz sugar-free chocolate pudding cup
    • 1 cup of coffee, frozen into ice cubes

    Put all the ingredients in the blender. Let it stand for ~15 minutes to let the ice cubes melt a little. Then blend until the ice cubes are broken down and the ingredients are blended.

    I hope I keep off some of the weight I’ve lost, but given how low my calorie counts have been, I know I can’t/won’t keep it all off.

    If you want to see how my dieting counterpart, Evo Terra, has been doing on his beer and eggs diet, check out The Beer Diet page.

  • Ruth & Rosie – 1 Year Later

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    Ruth Carter

    I’ve officially had my rescue basset hound Rosie for a year! I love my dog.

    Pet me pleaseAnd can I just say that I won the dog lottery when I got this creature? She’s so sweet, well-behaved, and just a good dog. Her worst habit, which I find endearing, is the fact that she howls when the phone rings. When she wants attention and you’re sitting down, she walks up to you and puts her head on your knee or the chair – whichever her head can reach.

    She’s a basset, so she’s a bit stubborn by nature. When we go walking, she’s not an alpha dog, so she doesn’t like it when people or other dogs are walking behind her. She just plops her butt down and waits for you to come to her, hopefully give her attention, and then follow you after you pass. At 60 pounds, she’s quite an anchor when she wants to be.

    I’ve tracked her likes and dislikes on Facebook this year. It’s been pretty fun to see what turns her crank:

    • Rosie Likes: rawhide bones, tennis balls, belly rubs, fish, beef, chicken, rice, apples, mango, pineapple, peanut butter & butternut squash.
    • Rosie Dislikes: squeaky toys, stuffed animals, strawberries, lemon, carrots, & celery.

    Rosie BoneI love my baby girl. I nearly cry every time I have to travel and leave her at the kennel (or “camp” as I call it). I can’t sleep when she’s having medical issues – like when she got a lung infection. I was up every couple of hours to make sure she was breathing. Then there was the time I learned the hard way that she’s allergic to fabric softener. She was wheezing until I ripped the recently-washed sheet off her bed at 1:30 in the morning.

    Did I mention Rosie’s smart? She knows she’s not allowed on the couch, so she doesn’t do it when I’m around, but occasionally I’ll find a throw pillow on the floor from when she knocked it off while finding a place to snuggle in. She also knows where the UPS Store keeps the dog treats and will help herself to one if the box isn’t kept out of her reach.

    So here’s to my baby, Rose Louise Carter, and to many more years together.

    Belly Rub Please

  • Falling Back in Love with Reading

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    Ruth Carter

    Last year I realized that law school sucked my love of reading out of me. I had to read so much for my classes that the last thing I wanted to during my down time was read for pleasure. At the end of the day the most I’d read was Texts From Last Night. After the bar exam my brain was so fried I couldn’t read anything for two days.

    I <3 2 read by katerha from Flickr
    I <3 2 read by katerha from Flickr

    Now, I come from a family of voracious readers, so it’s weird that I barely read anything for years for my own enjoyment. I used to devour books. I made the decision at the end of last year to make reading a priority – and it’s been heavenly.

    My goal this year is to read 2 books a month – one for fun and one for business. It’s hard to make myself read the business books, but the books for fun have been absolutely wonderful. I flop into bed every night and tell myself that I’m going to read 10 pages from my book, and I usually end up reading closer to 20. I read until I’m so tired that the words on the page are blurry.

    I love to read nonfiction work. There’s something about reading about a person’s real life that is gripping. When I read nonfiction, I’m way more likely to remember it because it’s real. I forget big chunks of the fiction books I read and I think it’s because my brain knows the story isn’t real, so why bother remembering it. I recently read Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A modest bestiary by David Sedaris. I love David Sedaris’ work so when I saw he had a book out that I hadn’t read, I checked it out from the library without looking beyond the front cover. It turned out to be a collection of short fictional stories about animals. I read the book (It didn’t do anything for me – sorry David) and each night I picked it up, I couldn’t remember what I had read the night before – it just wasn’t important enough to remember.

    I rarely buy books that I know I’m going to read once unless I know the author, so I’ve been loving the Phoenix Public Library this year. I took suggestions from my friends and my virtual bookshelf is up to 68 books that I want to read. The first book I checked out was Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival. It was fantastic! Right now I’m reading You’re Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations by Michael Ian Black and I’m loving it. I’m looking forward to trying out the library’s ebook borrowing program so I can get library books on my Kindle. The library has a great system where you can put a book on hold and it will be waiting for you on the first floor with your name on it, but getting books without having to leave the house is even better.

    Reading is still a chore for me to get started each time but I’m so grateful to be reading books again. I’m looking forward to reading Heads in Beds: a reckless memoir of hotels, hustles, and so-called hospitality by Jacob Tomsky; Argo: how the CIA and Hollywood pulled off the most audacious rescue in history by Antonio Mendez; and I Killed: true stories of the road from America’s top comics by Ritch Shydner and Mark Schiff.