Krispy Kreme Dream

 

It’s funny how you crave things when you aren’t allowed to have them.  Strangely, Jenn can’t remember the last time she actually had a Krispy Kreme doughnut and Richelle, believe it or not, has NEVER had one. What? Is that possible? Then all of a sudden the cheat monster appears and bam! We are on a mission. Like a good sister wife, Richelle is game for eating some doughnuts and jumps on the bandwagon driving like a bat out of hell to get us there. Let us rewind to the beginning of the night… It’s cheat day so we meet up with some girlfriends for brunch at Gibson Bar. Yes, they have food, but it comes from Luke’s Inside Out, the trailer right next door to the bar.  We fill up on shrimp & grits, chicken & waffles and mimosas. YUM!! Next we meet our friend Nick at the Black Sheep Lodge for more mimosas, fried cheese curds and jalapenos with ranch dressing and Keith’s corn dog bites with curry ketchup. Now that we are completely stuffed it’s time to head to Rain on 4^th to dance it off and shake our little “tushies on the catwalk”.  After dancing, we need a bathroom break and have to chuckle at the sign on each door that reads, "one guest per stall."  

After getting our Rain on, Nick invites us to his place for homemade meatballs and linguine - Delicious! Thank you, Nick!! We start to head home, it’s 9:30pm and cheat day is fast approaching an end. Just when we think our tummies are satisfied with meat balls, then out of the blue, Jenn gets a crazy craving.  Krispy Kreme pops into her head and she will not give up until she gets it - so she googles it on her iPhone and then screams, “oh my gosh the hot doughnuts now sign is on!” The clock is ticking and we’ve got to get there before cheat day is over (which is in 45mins) so Richelle puts the pedal to the metal (in Texas talk that means… steps on the gas!!).  We have our GPS leading the way and Richelle is driving like a bat out of hell. I’m not sure how it happens, but we get turned around and this is costing us valuable time because the clock is tick-tocking. We cannot afford to make any mistakes and how can we be lost? We have a GPS for gods sake!  Then suddenly the heavens part and angels start singing Ahhhhhhhhhh as the Krispy Kreme sign appears in our sights. 

We park the car and run inside, instead of going through the drive-thru, because when you go inside they hand you a free doughnut as they are coming off belt. That way, if we don’t order by the time the clock strikes twleve (or in our case 10:45) and the doughnuts go POOF! at least we will have gotten to eat one. 

As we enter the building, Jenn grabs some hats off the table for us to put on and we cannot contain our excitement. She says, “this brings up memories of my childhood when, as a kid, I took a field trip to the Butter Krust Bakery. On that tour, kids were given a hat, ruler and pencil (man, times were so simple back then) - afterwards was the piece de resistance when all the kids got to eat the most delicious, insane smelling, melt in your mouth, piece of buttered bread that he/she would ever taste."  So like little kids we accept our free doughnut and savor every bite while our eyes roll back into our heads and all you hear are the moans of mmmm, mmmm. Talking with our mouths full (like you are never supposed to do) we pick out six more doughnuts for our tasting - Hey we could have gotten a dozen, but we were being extra good.  Besides there was no way to eat them all within the next fifteen minutes unless we wanted to make ourselves completely sick (which is not our goal). The kid behind the counter is laughing at us as we ask him to take our photo with the sinfully, sweet smelling, warm, glazed doughnuts. Then we run off to the car to eat them.

It’s not something to be proud of, you know, stuffing our faces with doughnuts, but we ARE proud and excited too because we beat the clock and got our last treat before cheat day was over. Who else can you have fun and pig out with other than your best friend/sista wife/cheat mate - without judgement? In case you are wondering, no we did not eat all six doughnuts ourselves; however, we did satisfy our craving and then took the rest home for hubby to finish.  And so there you have it ... the story of how a Krispy Kreme dream came true.  Hi-five!!!

Falling Off The Chuck Wagon

Ok, it was bound to happen sooner or later because we're only human after all… the sista wives fell off the chuck wagon. Yep, it sucks but it happened - and in order to be honest about our progress, we must divulge that we cheated on our diet and here's the ugly truth: It wasn't just one cheat day but an entire week (7 days) - Gasp!!!  Are you ready for an explanation? Well, here goes... it was SXSW (South by Southwest) which is a set of film, interactive and music festivals that take place every spring in March. We were doing so well - we actually made it the whole month of February up until March 12^th (our first SXSW party) and then we caved.  That night it all went down hill, or shall we say down the hatch, turning into a non-stop drink and food fest. It’s basically impossible to go out to parties and venues every night, hang with your friends, and listen to incredible bands from all over the world and NOT cheat unless you are super human, right? And we've already established that we are NOT as much as we’d like to think so.  We aren't gonna lie it was a BLAST; but, after seven days of cheating, we’re definitely ready to get back on track because our bodies do feel differently when we eat bad food versus good. We haven’t weighed ourselves since starting the diet for the mere fact that we don’t want to get discouraged just yet. However, we've noticed that on top of feeling better and having more energy we’ve actually lost inches around our waist and our clothes fit a bit looser which is enough to keep us motivated. We know it’s not going to happen overnight (especially after a set back like the one we just had) because hey, we aren’t spring chickens anymore. Let’s just say we’re more like hens that are plump, flavorful and juicy. We’ve been around longer, but we can still strut our stuffing – hahahaha.  So don’t fly our blog just yet… give us a chance to lay our goal(den) egg.

Hubby On Board

Ok, since we've started this diet (based on Tim Ferriss's 4hour body) here's what we CAN'T have: carbs, rice, potatoes, pasta (anything white), sugar, fruit, dairy or alcohol (except for red wine). Man, that's a lot of "can't haves". That's everything that tastes good or just about everything you use to make things taste good. Here's what we CAN have: black coffee, vegetables, eggs, meat, beans, beans and more beans.  Gee that’s not many "can haves", but we also get to drink two glasses of red wine a night (now we're talkin') and get one cheat day a week where we can eat anything we want for 24hrs (hooray!).  After six days on the diet you get to cheat on the seventh day, so you get to choose what day you want your cheat day to be. For example: we started our diet on a Tuesday so that makes our cheat day on Mondays. We really look forward to Mondays; it's like our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. One thing about this diet is it does involve a lot of cooking, so if you don't have the time to cook something every day (usually three meals a day) then this may not be the diet for you.  Since we are supposed to eat protein within thirty minutes after waking up, sometimes we make hard boiled eggs or egg muffins the day before, for a quick grab on your way out the door breakfast. We usually go to Costo or our local grocery store and shop for enough food to make for the entire week since there are three of us on this diet. Yep, Jenn's hubby jumped on board the slow carb train too and he doesn't even need to lose weight. Well, he didn't really have a choice because he has to eat whatever the sista wives cook unless he wants to cook for himself (and that ain't happening). He just didn't have to go to the extreme that we are, by cutting out everything until cheat day, but after that first week on the diet he expressed that he was surprised at how satisfied and full he was eating this way and decided to go all in. He said he's never hungry (which is a miracle because the man can put away some food) and he notices a difference in how good it makes him feel. We happen to agree that you will not starve on this diet, but you have to get creative with your recipes because you may get tired of eating the same things over and over again. We will post some of the recipes we came up with on our site. Thus far, we’ve been very dedicated and have stuck to the diet - but man we do have our mental breakdown moments where we start jonesing for something like potato chips. It usually happens a day or two right before our cheat day (and sometimes the day after) where we have to talk each other down off the ledge.  At present, we have been successful at not succumbing to those temptations because we know we will have the potato chips eventually, we just need to be patient and wait for cheat day.  That's why we go cuckoo for cocoa puffs crazy on cheat day because all of our wildest taste bud dreams come true. It's a total celebration!! We've been very dedicated thus far because we want to be healthy and look and feel good for ourselves. OK, and also for the fact that we want to get our asses into that one pair of jeans still hanging in our closet from the year 1995 that we have kept, but no longer fit into. So will it suffice to say that we are on a roll? Oh man, did we just say roll? Damn it, now we want a sandwich, or jalapeño cornbread, or a butter croissant or...."Come Monday, we'll be alright"...

Cheat Mates

Hallelujah!!! Today is Monday and Cheat Day is here, but the sista wives are not together.  Richelle is in Austin and Jenn in Madrid, Spain. It's sad really, because as excited as we are to eat ourselves silly, it kind of takes the fun out of it if you can't do it with your cheat mate. One of the best parts of cheat day is the anticipation of talking about what we're craving, want to eat and where we will go to get it.  We map everything out in our heads from start to finish with a few unexpected surprises in between. It's awesome to witness our food dreams come true and to see the joy and smile it brings to each other's faces, as we savor every last bit of our eating and drinking extravaganza.  Even though we aren't together we still get to cheat, but it's with other people who just aren't quite as excited about that first bite of forbidden food as we are. This is because they get to eat whatever they want everyday so it's no big deal for them. They don't understand the seriousness of how hard we've worked at eating right all week just to get to this day. We've been so disciplined and this is our reward damn it!!  It's not that we don't want to be with our friends or enjoy their company on cheat day because we love them - they are the coolest.   It's  just that the meaning isn't quite the same.  So if we can't be together on Mondays,  is it considered cheating on your cheat mate if you are cheating on cheat day with someone else?

Cheat Day (eve) Monsters

Okay, we are on the eve of cheat day doing the one thing you should NOT be doing while hungry...GROCERY SHOPPING!!!  We are not talking about being hungry because you forgot to eat lunch. We're talking about being an obsessed, crazed, mouth drooling, eyes popping out of your head, monster that's dragging it's knuckles on the ground, kind of hungry.  We push our cart down each aisle like we are on that old game show"Supermarket Sweep", grabbing things off the shelves that we can't wait to chow down on on Monday (our cheat day).  Jenn even goes as far as to hold the box of Kraft Easy Mac & Cheese up over her head like a scene out of the "Lion King". You know, the one where Rafiki lifts Simba into the air with Mufasa and Sarabi looking on. Meanwhile, Richelle is doing the happy dance & "nodding her head like yeah, moving her hips like yeah" as she tosses in a can of Pringles Extreme Pickle chips.  We are lost in out own little cheat world not giving a damn that people are looking at us like we are completely nuts because hey, at this very moment WE ARE NUTS!!!  We are a giant sized Almond Joy.  Once our cart is overflowing with cheat day goodies we head to check out and realize there's no way we can possibly eat all of this crap in 24 hrs. - it's just not feasible; but after a quick pep talk, trying to justify our purchases, we agree that we can save whatever we don't eat for next weeks cheat day. After loading up the car, we drive out of the parking lot excitedly discussing what foods we will rip open and eat first and then decide that we must calm ourselves down. After all, we still have 24 hours to go before we can actually eat all of this stuff, so we need to get our minds back on track. We need to reel our inner cheat monster back inside and get a hold of ourselves. So for now the cheat monster is subdued as the drool on the side of our mouths dries up.

Too Bad You Can't Can't Have Some Cheese With That Whine...

We are not going to lie, it's been hard as HELL giving up basically everything we were used to eating: sugar, rice, potatoes (anything white), carbs (our beloved pasta – we ate it at least twice a week), fruit and all the wine we enjoyed nightly. The real killer was no dairy because we LOVE cheese. Not the processed Kraft cheese slices kind, but the delectably delicious kind that Jenn brings back from her trips to London, Paris & Switzerland. She cried 2 days after we started because she couldn’t have her beloved cheese, but as the days went by, we both found ourselves developing a strong sense of will power & determination. Together, we can do this diet and we owe it to ourselves to try. As much as we wanted to give in to our food temptations, we were not about to give up so easily. But seriously, stopping cold turkey is a shock to the system. The only thing that keeps us going is the fact that cheat day is right around the corner and we can eat whatever we want.  Well, that and the 2 glasses of red wine we get to drink every night. Did you hear that? That was the sound of us opening another Black Box of red wine - tonight it’s Malbec.  So watch out for us on Mondays because as Ozzy sings: we’ll be “going off the rails on the Crazy Train” at all our favorite little haunts in Austin, Texas (and discovering new ones).

Our Favorite Pastime

We do not propose to be experts on anything we blog about: health, diets, working out, or food. The only thing we can attest to being an expert at is drinking wine, glorious wine! And yes, we choose to drink Black Box Wine (hence, the Black Box Wine Mavens). We have also tried Bota Box and the Cube from Target and they are fine, but Black Box is our preferred choice. We like them all: Shiraz, Malbec, Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon. Now don’t get me wrong, we LOVE really good wines, but we can’t afford to drink them every night. We save those for special occasions. So, our discovery of Black Box affords us the pleasure of our favorite pastime. Yes, it may be one dimensional in taste for some, but it’s multifaceted for our purpose. It’s a little gem we have discovered…like Black Onyx.

         Onyx Gemstone Meaning:

•    Onyx is known to separate. It can help release negative emotions such as sorrow and grief. It is used to end unhappy or bothersome relationships.

         Onyx Guards Against Negativity:

•    Onyx jewelry is worn to defend against negativity that is directed at you. Black stone shave protective energies in the sense that black is the absence of light, and therefore can be used to create invisibility.

                        ·       Fortifies self confidence and responsibility

            ·      Sharpens your senses

            ·      Encourages a healthy egotism

Yep! There it is in a nutshell… Black is beautiful.