While you're eating your Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow, just remember, not all is lost. Remember portion control, and take steps to ensure success... tricks like this low carb pumpkin pie recipe!

To give credit where credit is due, I altered the recipe listed on Bella Online. I swapped Brummel & Brown yogurt spread for the butter, and cottage cheese for the heavy cream. This reduced both calories & fat content.

Pie Shell
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3 tbsp flax meal
3/4 cups almond flour (blend almonds in food processor or spice grinder)
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup Splenda
6 tbsp Brummel & Brown yogurt spread (the original recipe used REAL BUTTER!)

Mix dry ingredients first, then add yogurt spread. Blend & spread across pie pan. Bake @ 375 degrees for 12 minutes. Chill in refrigerator for 10 minutes.
8 servings, 114 calories, 2.5g net carbs, 10g fat, 3g protein, 2g fiber

Filling
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1 tsp Splenda
2 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups canned pumpkin
2 eggs
1 cup cottage cheese

Combine ingredients in blender & blend until cottage cheese is no longer chunks. Pour mixture into pie shell & bake @ 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until toothpick returns dry. Serve chilled.

Serving size 1/8 pie, 174.5 calories, 7.5g net carbs, 11.5g fat, 8.5g protein, 4g fiber

For reference, a regular slice of pumpkin pie is 30g of carbs & 229 calories.

No jogging today. As it was, I had to fight to finish the workout, because some brilliant person here at work decided that they should interrupt it. Totally threw me off for the rest of the workout.

Warmup, 3 sets of 5 reps, w/45lb bar
* Overhead Squat
* Squat
* Good Morning
* Barbell Lunge
* Romanian Deadlift
* Bent-Over Row

Workout, first exercise stands alone, other 4 are 2-exercise supersets
* Dynamic Pushup, 3 sets of 6
* Bench Press, 95lbs, 3 sets of 11
* Chin-Up, 3 sets of 1 (ooh)
* Combo Raise, 20lb dumbbells, 2 sets of 10
* Horizontal Lateral Raise, 20lb dumbbells, 2 sets of 10

Today's workout was more difficult than I expected it to be (or remember it to be when I did it before). Then again, I'm lifting heavier weight now. Anyway:

Warmup, Circuit of 30 seconds each exercise, 3 sets
Jumping Jack
Split Jack
Prisoner Squat
Alternating Lunge
Mountain Climber

Workout, Alternating supersets, 2 exercises each
* High Step-Up, 30lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 10
* Romanian Deadlift, 115lbs, 3 sets of 10
* Off-Set Incline Dumbbell Curl, 20lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 10
* Incline Lower Trap Raise, 15lb dumbbells, 3 sets of 10

Afterwards I jogged for 15 minutes in a desperate attempt to thwart the effects of Thanksgiving on Thursday. The old workouts would have worked well with Thanksgiving in the middle, since it was Monday weights, Tuesday cardio, Wednesday weights, Thursday cardio, Friday weights... I'm playing flag football on Thursday. However, the new plan goes Mon/Tue weights, Wed cardio, Thu/Fri weights. I know I'm not supposed to do it this way but I'm going to do Mon/Tue/Wed weights, with Thu cardio with the football, and Fri back into weights. To make up for lost cardio, I did some today. Not sure if that matters.

The prep phase for my workout plan is complete, so now it's time to move onto the "Maximum Muscle" phase. That's the book's fancy way of saying look, the goal is to gain muscle, not lose fat...

Anyway, before I launch into the workout, a couple of things. First off, my arm is healing, although it looks really bad. Here you go:


The fluorescent lights are obviously enhancing the bruise. One person posted and said I have jaundice; I know that's not the case, it doesn't look near that way in person. Maybe now it'll garner some sympathy!

So anyway, the 2nd thing is today's a protein day. Over the weekend I had noticed I was up to 165, so last night I did a protein dinner. Combined with today's protein day, I should be back on track and then some by tomorrow.

The workout...

Warmup, 3 sets of 5 reps, w/45lb bar
* Overhead Squat
* Squat
* Good Morning
* Barbell Lunge
* Romanian Deadlift
* Bent-Over Row

Workout, alternate two exercises at a time until technical failure
* Incline Dumbbell Press, 40lb dumbbell, 2 sets of 5, 1 set of 4 (technical failure)
* Neutral-Grip Dumbbell Row, 45lb dumbbell, 3 sets of 5
* Scaption, 25lb dumbbells, 6 sets of 5
* Incline Lower Trap Raise, 15lb dumbbells, 6 sets of 5

You may or may not remember, but I had taken a month and a half off from workouts completely. As a result, I started over again, so I've done these workouts before. Compare this to the identical workout I did on 5/22/07, which was the 3rd week of this particular phase:

* Incline dumbell press, 3 sets of 5, 30lb dumbells
* Neutral-grip dumbell row, 3 sets of 5, 35lb dumbells
* Scaption, 4 sets of 5, 20lb dumbells
* Incline lower trap raise, 5 sets of 5, 10lb dumbells

I'm consistently above these on each exercise. I didn't consult the earlier exercise to see what weight to use, I simply went with what the book says, which is to lift with a 7-rep max, then do the actual lifting at 5 reps. Pretty cool!

Finally, I found a neat little online Body Fat Calculator that calculates your body fat based on measurements with a cloth measuring tape. According to the site, I'm at 18.3% body fat, which is much better than I thought it was.

Things seem to be going well!