Category Archives: lower carb

Lower carbing and being thankful

Today is a lower carb day this week.  Good thing, because there were sales on candy corn at the grocery store yesterday! 2 bags for $1.  Can’t pass that up.  Or I guess I could have, but didn’t.

Breakfast was one I haven’t had in while – the coconut flour banana bread pudding.  Our toaster oven is on the fritz, so I haven’t made this in a while and decided to use the regular oven today to make it.   Having the oven on helped warm me up.  I have been struggling with staying warm since the weather changed for whatever reason.

Topped with a couple tablespoons of almond buttah!

I worked and had a quick lunch  before heading out to meet my new literacy learner.

Nothing like grapes that are on the road to raisin town.  I had hot sauce on the turkey burger to get warmed up.

I met with a new literacy learner today. For those of you who are newer, last year I trained to be a tutor with Literacy New York.  I have had a couple learners, but they have dropped out.  I had a talk with the coordinator because it is hard to feel it isn’t me, but we really don’t think so.  Anyway, today I met my new learner and talk about making you feel thankful and grateful.  This learner had spinal cancer about 4 years ago, which left him paralyzed from the waist down.  Yet, he gets out there and is quite independent.  He has put 4000 miles on his motorized wheelchair!  It’s amazing to me.  Whenever I think about things that are annoying to  me, like my back and leg issues, yet I can still do pretty much everything I want to do, compared to someone who survived a very serious illness and came out paralyzed, it really puts things in better perspective for me.

We had a good starting session, so hopefully things will move along well.

Since I was downtown, I had to stop for my pick-me-up after our meeting.

Look how long my hair is getting!  I also brought home a coffee for John, good wife that I am.  This was my snack with my latte:

Classic Lori for dinner today.  I cooked up a lot of chicken.  Hi poultry rut!

More hot sauce to keep warm  :mrgreen:   Not only was today lower carb, but it ended up grain-free as well.

John is home tonight and we are going to watch MNF – Geaux Saints!  I did lose the football picks this week, boooooo.  Now John is lording it over me with where he wants to go for dinner.  Guess I need to let him have a week once in a while to keep his morale up.

My evening snack ready to go – almond milk and these almond meal crackers!

I really, really like these and the recipe is coming on Tuesday for them.  Have a great night!

My options

The first full day of spring, and what do we get?

It’s like winter left giving us a swift kick in the pants on the way out. Or spring is messing with us. Either way it isn’t very nice…

I am going back to lifting 3 days a week now with the lowering of the weights/increased reps, so I was up fairly raring to go today.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Split Squat 3 sets of 10 (each leg) at 65# Lower Body
Dumbbell 1-point row 3 sets of 12 with 20# DB Back
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 15 at 80# Low back
Barbell Chest Press 3 sets of 15 with 45# bar (which is an empty bar, btw) Chest
Reverse Lunge/forward reach 3 sets of 15 with 8# DBs (16# total) Full Body
Upright row 3 sets of 12 at 25# Shoulders
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 15 at 140# Calves

Whew! I did super sets with these in groups of 2, so it was a nice compact 30 minute workout.

I made it home before it started to snow, but you could smell it on the air. John doesn’t understand that, but you can smell when snow is coming.

I decided to play with the 1-minute muffin for breakfast. Instead of doing it in the microwave as a muffin, I put it into a pan with a tiny bit of butter to make a pancake.

Topped with peanut flour mixed with a little bit of cinnamon, salt and enough water to make it like frosting. (You can use PB2).

I have to say that I liked this cooking method better than the microwave for this! It almost is like an oatcake in density. I was a little worried it wouldn’t cook through, so I just had it on lower heat and cooked a little longer. 1-minute muffin becomes 5-minute flax cake. Winner!

I alluded to this on Friday, but here is my current dilemma.  The company that I currently work for, which I was unable to get full time with after losing one of my other jobs, has just offered me a full-time position in house.  Most of you know I do the work at home as an independent contractor.

– The new position I was offered with another company:

Employee. Hours 2pm to 10 pm Sunday through Thursday.  No commute.  Paid on production at a decent line rate (but that depends on the dictators and platform, really).  PTO.  Fairly affordable benefits.

– What was offered by current company on Friday:

Working in the office as an employee (currently IC with them). Hourly rate (which is quite good) with the opportunity to do production if it made more than the hourly rate (possible, although very dependent on the dictation quality). Hours 10-6 Monday through Friday.  Commute of 11 miles each way.  PTO.  Benefits available, although not that great price wise.

So.  Both definitely have their pros and cons. I haven’t worked outside in over 3 years since I was flipping houses,  – so I wasn’t even working for someone else then.  I would miss the freedom of working at home, but the schedule and pay is so much better.  Why they didn’t offer me this before is beyond me, although it is a new option they are trying to implement and I would be the first (eek!).

I do get to go into the office on Tuesday and try it out to see if I like working there.  That is pretty cool that we can test it out like that.  The company is fairly relaxed, which is one of the reasons I liked working for them.  We shall see what transpires tomorrow…

Lunch time!  Been on a real meat kick lately. The smokehouse has had some good stuff.

This pork burger was bigger than planned, but when I weighed out the meat that was left, I thought putting an ounce back into the fridge was pretty pointless.  Hooray for extra protein on lifting days!

Speaking of extra protein, I supplemented my latte with some whey protein (2% milk today).

Pixie not happy I came and messed with her space for this shot.  She will miss me tomorrow, though. :mrgreen:

I decided to go meatless for dinner tonight.  That meant eggs for me!

For the brussel sprouts, since I get a lot of questions, I just slice very thin and pan saute with some coconut oil, salt, and pepper.  This is my favorite way to cook brussels (roasting is 2nd).

Tonight I need to get my stuff together to go to the office. This means I have to plan some meals to take with and pack all of my work stuff.  I guess the slippers need to stay at home, though…

I’ll be snacking on this while I make my list:

** FYI – this is one of my lower carb days.  I had 85 grams of carbs and 27 grams of fiber.  Goes to show you can reduce your carbs and still get in a decent amount of fiber if you make the right food choices.

To run or not to run, that is the question

So cold this morning.  So cold!  It was minus 5 degrees and I was not wanting to go out in that weather, so I stayed home instead :mrgreen:   I figured I would either do a rest day or ride the trainer later.  No running today, and I will address that below.

So, I made up breakfast!  I did the 1-minute muffin topped with peanut flour (mixed with water).  Plus some of the platoon of strawberries we have now – thank you K-Mart!

No work this morning, so I was able to get right into today’s soap batches.

A funny note about our wedding rings.  We get tons of compliments on them.  Our original bands (which John did also lose … maybe he is trying to tell me something??) were gold with channel set diamonds and not many people commented on them.  I don’t wear that one because it is several sizes too big and I never had it resized. When John lost his first ring, we decided to buy new ones and ended up really liking these rings:

– and they were only $20 each!  Gotta love it.  I am so happy he found it!

Time for lunch! I did have a bunch of peanuts this morning while moving around the house.  I really am starting to head to Crack Town with those.  Not quite sure what is up with that.  Those may have to go up high now.  So, I made up a nice salad to eat.

This had chicken, greek dressing, and a few chopped pecans.  Simple, but very tasty!

I have been thinking a lot about running lately, particularly after last weekend.  Ever since I herniated my back, which was about 11 months ago now) – running has been a little problematic for me.  It took me a long time before I was able to run again and I never made it back to my previous form.  I still have a little remaining permanent numbness/hypersensitivity in my knee left over from that injury, plus a tiny bit of residual weakness in that leg. Gotta love nerve injuries. 🙄

While the actual act of running does not bother me, what I have found is that there are consequences the next day.  The day after I run, I always feel pain in my knee and a tiny bit in my back.  I took me a long time to put two and two together (hello Sherlock).  Whenever I run, the next day = pain.  This last Saturday was the worst.  I had run on Friday, and then Saturday my knee was bothering me and I stepped onto a stepstool and got shooting pain in my knee.  What is it with me getting pains or hurt when I am not doing anything? That is when I began looking back and realizing this pain happens the day after I run.  I am assuming it has to do with the high impact of running on the old herniated disk/nerve.

So, what to do.  Right now, a medical workup is out because I am one of the many uninsured and am not sure any diagnostics would lead to me be able to do anything about this if you understand what I mean.  I don’t want to go through all of that and be told it is what it is, which always seems to happen at the doctor’s office.

The thing is, I feel somehow pressured to keep running.  I wanted to do a duathlon this year, and possibly a half marathon, but right now I just don’t want to train for those.  I want to ride my bike, which thankfully causes no issues for me.  I feel like I am *supposed* to run.  However, I don’t know if running is really good for me if it causes problems.  I do want to do a few smaller races because those are fun (and I love the swag!), but not sure I want to do big events.  I would have thought that at a year out from an injury that I would not even be talking about it, but there you go.  Maybe I will just run periodically and not really do any training with it.

Dinner time!  Didn’t reading all that running talk make you hungry? It did me.

On the menu tonight was some ground pork from the smokehouse.  Burgers are good.

Happy 40th anniversary to Starbucks!  To celebrate, guess where are tonight? 😀

Magic Rolls – Eades Low Carb Comfort Foods

You all know I love my bagels and bread, so on the lower carb days I was just not having any bready type things.  I have made oopsie rolls in the past, but they are a little fragile.  Then I came across this cookbook at the library (and I do like Dr. Eades blog).
The Low-Carb Comfort Food Cookbook

This is their recipe for magic rolls.

They remind me very much of pate a choux (aka cream puff dough), only less flour (replaced with gluten) and they don’t get a big air pocket in the center.

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup plus 2 TBSP of water
  • 6 TBSP of butter (3/4 stick)
  • 1/4 cup of white whole wheat flour (or any flour, really)
  • 3/4 cup of vital wheat gluten (Bob’s Red Mill)
  • 3 eggs
  • pinch of salt (my addition)
  • 1 egg white (optional)

Heat oven to 425 F.  Line 2 half sheet pans with parchment paper.

Mix water (3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) and butter in a saucepan over medium heat until butter melts and simmers.

In a bowl, mix together the gluten and the flour.  Add a pinch of salt if desired.

Add this mixture to the pan and stir and mash until all of the dry material is absorbed.

Remove from heat, let rest for a couple minutes, and beat in the eggs one at a time.

It will seem lumpy after the first egg, but don’t worry about that.  Don’t use an electric mixture or you will work too much air into the batter, although a paddle attachment of a stand mixer would work on slow speed.

More egg added:

After mixing in the eggs, the batter should be somewhat stiff, but soft.

Here is where the optional egg white comes in. If the batter is too dry and really stiff, add the egg white.  If the dough mounds well on a cookie sheet, don’t add the egg white.  I did not need to add it.  I think it depends a little on the size of the egs.

Using a disher or spoons, mound the batter onto the cookie sheet into 6 mounds on each sheet pan for a total of 12 rolls.  I used a small disher and did 2 scoops for each roll.  I think that is just shy of 1/4 cup?

See how it settles a little, but still holds it shape and doesn’t spread out much?  That is what you want.  I lucked out on my first try!  Leave space because they get big in the oven!

Bake at 425 for 25  minutes.

I was really surprised to see these all puffed up!

Remove from oven and move to a rack to cool.  If you don’t eat these all the same day, freeze the rest in a zip bag.

This is one sliced open:

Fun, eh?  John had one toasted with butter and he loved it!  I was surprised that he liked them so much.  I can see doing a lot of fun things with these, like making a danish or french toast.  Or even adding something like parmesan cheese and spices to the batter before baking.

Nutritional stats:

Based on making 12 rolls per batch (egg white included in this calculation):

Calories: 107

Fat: 6.8 g

Carbs: 3.3 g

Fiber: 0.3 g

Protein: 7.9

These seem pretty much like a danish or cream puff in texture.  They are sturdy enough to be used as sandwich bread:

Split and toasted with cream cheese.  I think I liked this best:

This could easily be turned into a dessert as well.  Definitely a keeper recipe.

Gary Taubes “Why We Get Fat”

Okay – book review time!

I will say that I really wanted to read the entire tome of Good Calories, Bad Calories by Mr. Taubes and it was just a little too much for me to take.  Too heavy a reading for my bedside table.  The Why We Get Fat (heretofore called WWGF) is pretty much a distillation to make it more easily absorbed by more casual readers, although I think he distilled a little too simplistically at times.  I had a very hard time making this organized, so I am going to bullet points things that I jotted down as I read it.

  • The book is divided into a couple parts. The first part is what does not work to keep us thin or get us thin.  This is the part of the book that I found really annoying and too simplistic.  The 2nd part of the book is the interesting part with how the body works and how insulin and correlating (his theory) carbohydrate intake are what makes the body store fat.  I like the 2nd part way better than the first.
  • I am not sold that insulin is the be all and end all for every overweight person.  I think it is of importance, of course, but it isn’t the only answer.
  • When talk is of what our ancestors ate, well that also irritates me to a degree.  Yes, there were times when our ancestors ate only meat.  When they brought down a big mammoth,  what were they supposed to do, save it for later?  It’s not like they could stick it in the fridge with some marinade and plan a paleo BBQ for 2 weeks later.  It had to be consumed as much as possible before it went bad.  Same thing with finding honey or a patch of berries.  I bet they ate all of them.  No thoughts of “Hmmm… better only eat a handful of these berries and save the rest for the big bonfire tomorrow“.  Or “I’ll just drizzle a little bit of this honey over the nice apple I picked today.”  They ate what they could find because they did not know if that would be available to them again tomorrow.  A problem we just don’t have.   So, I don’t know if you would call their diet really balanced in the typical manner that we think of today.  Some days they ate only protein, some days they ate only fruits and root veggies.

Pros:

  • This book makes many references to how fat has been demonized irresponsibly, which I happen to agree with.  He brings up study after study and the flaws in them – at times flaws recognized by the study conductors themselves.  If you believe that saturated fat is evil (and I used to), then please really read this part.  He is not presenting anything new here, as it has been disproved already, but nice to have it all in a nutshell if you have never read about this before.  Then go eat some coconut oil :mrgreen:
  • Easily digested (haha) science on how the body works and what happens to food once it enters the body.
  • Explanation of the distinction between sucrose and fructose and how the body reacts to it.  (although I think the fructose in fruit is not treated the same as fructose in HFCS or honey in the body)
  • I really like that he does not prescribe a specific diet (although he does list the Duke Medicine diet in the appendix), so we at least know that this book is not tied to the Taube’s Diet program and products.  He acknowledges that some people may just have trouble taking and keeping off weight.  If fact, he specifically states on page 204

But there’s no guarantee that the leanest we can be will ever be as lean as we’d like. This is a reality to be faced.

Then he goes on to state that there is no set level of carbs that one is able to consume and still be lean.  It is different for everyone.  Thank you!

Cons:

  • Oversimplification.  Weight loss just isn’t as simple as eating low carb.  It just isn’t.
  • Still not convinced on the calories don’t count.  I do think the quality of the quantity of calories matter.  My opinion is the efficiency of how the body uses the calories consumed can really determine how much we can eat and not gain weight.  However, there just is a max amount before you gain weight. At that point, it doesn’t matter which macronutrient it is.  I don’t think Mr. Taubes understands how much a person who overeats can really overeat.  I would assume he never consumed an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s with a bag of Doritos as a chaser.  Or snarfed an entire 1 pound bag of peanut M&Ms.


In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics! ~ Homer Simpson

  • There is also the issue of exercise.  He says it only serves to make us hungry and does not make or keep us thin.  He says there are other benefits to exercise.  Okay.  Mr. Taubes obviously has never had a serious weight problem.  I totally agree that one does not need exercise to lose weight.  There are plenty of stories out there of people who either cannot or will not exercise and are still able to take off weight (and some keep it off).  I do think, however, that exercise is key in helping keep off the weight once lost.  Particularly if you have lost a lot as your metabolism is not what it once was if you lost a lot of weight.  It’s not the sole thing, though.  You know that saying that you can’t out train a bad diet.
  • He contradicts himself as well talking about how calories in/calories out doesn’t work, and then goes on to say how each body is different in how it metabolizes food.  So which is it??
  • There is also a lot of comparisons to wild animals and how they don’t get obese.  This just doesn’t work for me.  If you want to compare humans and food to wild animals, why not compare our diets to chimpanzees (as our closest genetic relative)? In the wild – they are omnivores with the majority of their diets from carbs and they don’t get obese.  Wonder why?  They should be according to Taubes because not only do they eat a lot of carbs, they eat fructose!  (Lori’s note – it’s the processed foods, people! Don’t be afraid of fruit)

I tried really hard to just review this book on its own and not get into the aspects it covers so much (low carb, no carb, vegan, athletic performance).  There certainly could be a whole slew of opinions from me on this stuff.  I am a little concerned that Mr. Taubes is so enamored of his own theories that he is becoming blind to things that might be counter to his opinions.  I hope that is not the case.

So, there is a meandering review in several nutshells for you.

Overall, though, I would say there are enough interesting points that WWGF is worth a read.  Particularly in understanding what food/insulin does once it enters the body.  It is a fairly quick read, too, which I think was the whole point in him publishing this.

Lifting and the last football dinner.

Happy Thursday! It’s almost the end of the week! Yippee! I was up and ready to hit the gym. After a protein drink, I headed out and got to work.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Squats 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower Body
Alternating bent dumbbell row 3 sets of 10 with 20# DBs (40# total) Back
Reverse Crunch 3 set of 15 Core
Pushups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 170# Calves
Upright Row 3 sets of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Good Morning 3 sets of 10 at 55# Low back and hammies
Reverse Lunge with Forward Reach 3 sets of 8 (each leg) with 8# DBs (16# total) Full body

Whew! I decided to really work today and to do super and giant sets with these (pairing 2 or 3 exercises together). I got this workout done in 31 minutes! I was sweating at the end.

I love this little guy.  He just cracks me up.

BTW – I lifted today because I am doing my Healthy Heart Weekend run tomorrow!  I’ll shoot an email out to everyone just to remind as I am sure there are those that don’t read my blog very often (gasp).

I was ready for breakfast.  Hope you aren’t tired of the 1-minute muffin thing going on here.

I made up the non-sweet one and chopped it up into a bowl of blueberry sauce.  Then I put on a tablespoon of coconut butter 😯

I was totally in love!  Who says you need grains for breakfast?  Okay, I say that because I do love my oats, but this was really good.  I actually was standing up eating this in the kitchen because it tasted so good to me before I made myself sit LOL!  Yeah, I like food.

Lower (for me) carb/no grains day, so lunch was something that I cannot remember having in forever.  I have to admit that this scared me a little bit.  Eating a lot more fat is taking me out of my comfort zone, but I like it.

I cooked up a sausage patty from the smokehouse.  Turns out it was a lean patty – as there was no oil left in the pan after I cooked it!  I had to add some for the eggs.

No latte picture today.  John was out this afternoon and brought a couple lattes home in travel mugs for us, so nothing really special to look at.  I have switched to 2% milk for my lattes and it is yummy!

I am actually eating a few less calories on the lower carb/higher fat days just because I am not hungry, so that can be a good thing, but I have to be careful to make sure I eat enough (how weird is that to read on this blog??).

John won the last of the football picks, as I said yesterday, and he called for Denny’s tonight.  I don’t know why he chose Denny’s for the last meal of the football season, but there you go.  I am just still very happy with how accommodating they are with special requests.  I would not have had eggs with lunch had I known that we were going to Denny’s for dinner.  When you try to avoid corporate meat and don’t eat fish and are avoiding grains- that doesn’t always leave a lot left over to eat on a menu other than eggs.  I cobbled together a tasty meal, though.  I had a side of fruit:

A side of sauteed spinach:

This was really good.  I can’t believe I am saying that about spinach, but it was!  I was half expecting some kind of frozen spinach disaster, but it was baby spinach leaves freshly sauteed. At Denny’s.  Who knew?

I decided to have an egg white omelet with cheddar in it for the entree.  At first it came out as regular eggs, so I sent that back and had it done right.

It was so hot, too, when the correct one came out lickety split!  I really do give them kudos for good service.  Never be afraid to ask for what you want.  You will be so much happier.

Question:  Have you ever gone to a place with low expectations and gotten great food/service?

To the dark side

I was worried that snow would keep me from the lifting today, but I lucked out as it seemed to have been delayed some, so I was able to get there before the snow really accumulated. Here is me pulling out of my driveway.

It’s not quite fully light out, so I don’t know if you can see any definition in the snow banks.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Cable Squat to Row 3 set of 10 at 60# Full Body
Stiff-legged deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower Body
Dumbbell Pull Over 3 set of 10 at 20# Back
Incline Dumbbell Fly 3 sets of 12 with 15# DBs (30# total) Chest
Planks 3 sets 70-second holds Core
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 140# Calves
Face Pull 3 sets of 12 at 30# Shoulders
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 10 at 100# Low back

The planks felt good today and I didn’t struggle at all. Actually I felt very strong today. I don’t know why, but I’ll take it! Actually, I think it is my overall reduction in exercise right now that makes me feel stronger.

Just a reminder on my lifting.  I don’t want anyone to feel bad if they don’t lift like I do, and I would not expect someone to take one of my workouts and do it successfully right off the bat.  There are plenty of people who lift a lot heavier than me (and are tinier!).  Also keep in mind that I have been lifting for a few years now, so I have a really good base of strength built up.  Just a PSA.

I came home for a different breakfast today. A cheese omelet!  With a bigazz bowl of blueberries.  Yum

Funny how I love to eat omelets for lunch and dinner, but I rarely have them for breakfast unless I am out to eat :mrgreen:

The snow fell in wet sticky flakes today.  I love how it makes the bare bushes look:

I planned out my lunch for today last night and still wasn’t all that enamored of it.  Except the peanut butter.

One more can of tuna and then it is going back on the ‘tired of it’ list again.

I received a wonderful package in the mail today from FoodBuzz as part of the Tastemaker program.  2 samples from Pure Dark!  Pure Dark is a division of Mars and have come out with a new line of chocolates.  The idea is that these are a premium chocolate with minimal processing.

For an afternoon snack, I had to crack into the Bark Classic, which is dark chocolate topped with cherries, roasted almonds, and cacao nibs. I fit it into my eating plan for the day.  There is *always* room for chocolate!

With a latte and it was totally delicious!  John and I both agreed. I loved the crunchy cacao nibs in it.  Didn’t taste much cherry (which is okay by me). I’ll talk about the slab one another day 😀

Dinner time was just assembled tonight.  I had chicken spread with laughing cow and hot sauce.  This is really good!

Lots of food talk today and not much else.  It was a quiet day, which really can be a relief sometimes.

John and I are headed out to Starbies for some coffee and relaxing!  I will be having cream in my coffee and bringing some nuts for a snack.  Total carbs for today is 90.  Yesterday was 86.  I just count all carbs – I don’t do the net fiber or whatever other people do.  I love how all that food looks today, too.  So colorful!

Tomorrow will be a grains day, which means it’s bagel time :mrgreen:

Question:  Sweet or savory breakfast?

Running to start the week

Another week begins 😀

I was up and ready for a run today.  Must be all that Super Bowl food I ate yesterday!  Hooray for pretzels! I headed out for the treadmill and did 3 miles with a speed arc going from 5.0 to 6.0 mph and back down over the course of the 3 miles.  All in preparation for the Blogger’s Healthy Heart weekend!  Don’t forget about it everyone (or sign up if you have not).

I came home for breakfast.  No grains today.  I made peanut flour waffles and topped with blueberry sauce.

I had cream in my coffee today, which is really unusual for me, but part of my lower carb experiment.  I think I am going to go no grains for 4 days a week, then have grains 3 days a week.  We’ll see.  I am just playing around here, so enjoy the ride.  When I don’t have grains as part of my carbs, then I am free to have several servings of fruit and dairy.  Obviously this causes all sorts of reactions from people who still consider 100 g of carbs too much, but to each her own, right?  Like I said, this is the Lori-eo version.  I should have an interesting report on this experiment at the end of the month.

I’ve never been an extreme on either end of any ‘diet spectrum’ with the exception of thinking fat was evil.  I remember going on the pasta and Snackwell diet in the early 90s.  You know – eat all you want, just watch fat because it’s evil (especially saturated fat)? That worked well… snort…  I could pack away the Snackwells like nobody’s business (especially the devil’s food ones).  Eat a sleeve of cookies?  No problem – and hey, they are fat free! 🙄

Think I might have to do a dietary fat musings post for fun.  Just need to source up some material.

Lunch time was a large salad.

Most of you know that I have BBQ sauce on chicken in place of dressing.  The reasoning for that is 2-fold:  I don’t like a lot of bottled dressings and those that I do like I never use the bottles up before they go bad.  Okay 3-fold, I just also really like the BBQ 😀  On a side note, I don’t do well making my own.

Here I am in my early 40s and I just had the idea to purchase packets of dressing in the deli section of the grocery store:

Of course, this is still too much dressing for me to put on one salad, but I can save it for another day.  And even if I only use part of it, I don’t feel so bad if I forget to use the rest.  Why this never occurred to me before, I don’t know. There are some things I am willing to pay more for to get smaller packaging that works for me.

So I had this with some cooked chicken, feta cheese, and toasted almonds.  I was quite happy with this.

Afternoon snackage before the latte was something interesting.  My mom made some of this up just for me at the Super Bowl because I had mentioned how much I liked it LOL!  It’s dried beef spread with cream cheese and rolled up.

Sounds gross, doesn’t it?  I don’t know why I like it, but I do. Salty and creamy.  Just a couple pieces go a long way, too.  I nibbled on a few of these.

Then it was time for the good stuff:

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and latte time is my favorite snack of the day!

Spent some time shoveling the driveway this afternoon.  We have a slate roof and the snow and ice slide off in big cascades with huge rumbles.  It’s like being in an avalanche.  Since it was so cold, none of the snow we have had has slid off until the last couple of days.  Giant ice hunks came down, too.  Some of them were at least 6 inches thick and very heavy. Sure wouldn’t want to be standing under those.  More snow on the way tonight, too… Anyway, that was a good pre dinner workout.

I cooked up the last of the pork.

Working tonight and getting ready for more snow.  It never ends, I tell you.  This winter has had a lot of snow, and it’s only the first part of February! 😯

I made up my snack to have for later on, and it is chilling in the fridge:

This is 1/2 cup of pumpkin, a pinch of stevia, 1 egg white, spices cooked in the microwave for a couple minutes.  Topped with toasted pecans.  Like a mini pumpkin custard!

Question:  What strange food pairing do you like?

Lifting and lower carb day fun.

Hooray for Friday! Today is a lower carb experiment day. I am shooting for 100 grams of carbs. I went off to the gym for my dose of iron 😀

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff-legged deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower Body
Seated Lat Row 1 set of 12 at 40#

1 set of 10 at 55#

1 set of 8 at 70#

1 set of 5 at 85# (couldn’t squeak out 6!)

 Back
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 140# Calves
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 8 at 55# Chest
Pliet Squat 3 sets of 10 with 40# DB Lower Body
Prone Cuban Snatch 3 sets of 8 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders
Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 at 55# Low back and hammies

It was very quiet at the gym today. Not sure if the cold is keeping people away or the January resolutions are petering out?

I pulled out an oldie, but goodie – the prone Cuban snatch from New Rules of Lifting!  Since we all just love to laugh at the name and I have a lot of new readers, here is the video for that again.  (Please turn your sound down) It’s a good move.  Basically you start with a row and then raise your hands so they are parallel with the floor.

Start with smaller weights on these.  The row part will feel super easy, but the raise will get you.

On to breakfast!  I planned out my day in advance last night on livestrong.com.  I put in the things that I wanted to have in there for carbs, which were 2 cups of milk and a pear, then worked backwards to fill in the meals.  I made a 1-minute pumpkin muffin, but left out the sugar.  I topped that with a full serving of the peanut flour mixed with cinnamon and a tiny bit of salt.

I made the muffin, then split it and skillet toasted it.  John said it looked like a cupcake, which it does. 😀

The taste was quite good, actually.  Many people would likely add splenda or stevia to this, but I just don’t go for the sweeteners (even stevia tastes a little funny to me).

This had staying power.  Let me tell you! I was full up until lunch.  I was amazed at the staying power of this.  When you reduce carbs, you have to replace them with something.  I already eat a lot of protein, so I replaced with fat.  Fat is filling.  It’s a little scary, but I am up for going out of my comfort zone on that.

Speaking of lunch –

I had a cheese omelet cooked in some butter.  I laid off the hot sauce a little bit to taste the cheese more. It was delicious.

And this cucumber was really sweet.  Every once in a while they are that way, wonder why?

Latte time!

Nutmeg sprinkled on top.

We make the lattes with whey protein isolate when we amp up the protein (we don’t always do this, but a lot of days).  This is really the only kind of protein that will readily dissolve and be almost undetectable.  BTW – whey isolate is what Starbucks uses when you ask them for a shot of protein in a latte, so you can try it sometime!

I popped some chicken breasts in the oven for dinner.  Emeril came to visit!

Gah’lic anyone? Dinner is served with sauteed brussel sprouts and a pear.  Yay – fruit!

So, the day has been interesting.  We shall see how I feel tomorrow.  This is as low as I want to go with carbs.  Personally, I believe the body needs carbs.  Yes, I know the body can make carbs via ketosis, but why make the body work harder when a system is already in place for it (not to mention the bad breath).  Note that this is not true paleo or primal with the dairy, although some primal people do eat dairy (thinking Mark Sisson people).  So maybe this experiment will be Lori-eo eating. :mrgreen:

Tonight will be fun.  As part of operation ‘do more things’ this month, we are going to a concert down at Skidmore.  On the program?

Janacek- Mládí
David Bruce – Steampunk
Beethoven – Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20.

Evening snack is 1/2 ounce of toasted pecans.  I also budgeted in coffee with cream for the post concert out, bringing my grand carb total today to 83.  It wasn’t so bad!

Bagel love

Bagel Wednesday Thursday!  Roads are all clear.  They actually do quite a good job around here keeping the roads clear.  First, I rode the trainer a little bit.

I tried reading for the first time while on it.  That was a little weird at first, but the time sure went by fast!

This is the Taube’s book, btw.  I am finding it both informative and irritating.

We headed out to Adirondack cafe for bagels.  My wheat bagel.

John’s coffeecake in the background.  We talked about Taube’s book and low carb stuff.  All while eating coffeecake and bagels.  Irony – it tastes delicious!

Slow work day in the morning.  I am really going to have to look for something else.  Not that I am not doing that already, but must expand horizons a bit.

Lunch time was more of the chicken chili.

I think it mellowed overnight, but I don’t think John agreed with that…

I have been thinking about paleo or lower carb to try as an experiment (although they sort of are hand in hand).  I normally subscribe to a moderate carb diet.  In looking at my nutrient numbers, I would have to leave some things out that I am not sure I want to (grains, bagels, dairy, fruit).  I may try a couple of days with no grains, but leave in milk and fruit and see where my carb numbers come in.  It will really take a lot of work and planning, more than I usually do.

What I might do is to carb cycle, where I do a couple lower carb days and then a higher carb day (bagel days).   That would likely be easier for me – kind of like when I was doing my no-added sugar days.  I could always get through one because I knew it was just for a day.

I can’t believe I am doing this just as an experiment or just for fun.  I really need to get out more LOL!

Latte time, and a protein bar I had before.

I am really fighting the hungries today.  Pretty sure this is hormone related, so I am just going to have to deal with it.

How did I deal with it?  With some of this x2…

See, for those of you who think keeping the weight off is easy or that I don’t struggle, believe me – I do.  It isn’t as often as it used to be, but I still have those days.

It really turned out to be a beautiful day.  Snow is always so pretty before it gets all dirty and yucky looking.

Dinner time was more heat.  Buffalo shrimp!

I need to get the other light for the lightbox.  I took my bedside lamp back to the bedroom 😀  Maybe an excuse to shop this weekend.

Pixie was watching us during dinner, which was really unusual.

She never eats people food, so not really sure what is up with that.

Working tonight.  Ugh.  At least it is something, though – and tomorrow is Friday, which actually means something to me now!

Don’t forget to sign up for the Healthy Heart Weekend!  We are getting a lot of participants, which is really cool.  Coming up in about a week and a half!