Photo and Cooking for Others

First I wanted to share a new photo of me in my favorite pants that my husband took this week.

It is so awesome to be shrinking so much.

Second, I have been asked how to cook for the family when eating the low carb way.

Actually it is really easy, all you do is skip the side dishes.

For example when I make meat and potatos for my husband, I just skip the taters.

Or if I make chicken and pasta, again - just eat the chicken and skip the pasta.

I usually have a salad instead


-- Posted from my iPhone

Fun day at the "shrink" - part 2

As I mentioned in yesterday's posting. I had to have a Psychological Evaluation yesterday in preparation for LAP Band surgery.

Today I wanted to write a little bit about the actual appointment and testing to help others who may be considering surgery to understand the process.

It was quite painless.

I am sure every Doctor is different, but my evaluation was in two parts.  First a basic interview with the Doctor and then some tests.

The interview part was just some basic family history questions. (how many siblings, birth order, parents get along etc)

He didn't get into weird stuff like you see in the movies like how old I was when I was potty trained. LOL.

It was basic conversation to ensure I was sane.

He asked what was the date, year, season etc.

We also discussed the surgery so he could determine how prepared I was for the undertaking.

Keep in mind the main reason for this evaluation is to determine if the person seeking treatment is able to follow through with the treatment. It is a major life change and people need to be able to handle it.

Anyway, the only tests he personally administered were he asked me to remember three words and then a few minutes later he asked for them to be recited back.

He also asked me to spell 'world' forward and backward. Backward was a little trickier that I expected.

I also had to replicate a few shapes from a piece of paper onto a blank page.

And that was the extent of the interview part.

Next I had to take 3 quizzes.

The first one (MMPI-2) was over 500 questions but thankfully he had me do the just first 370 questions. That was a bit tedious and some of the questions were pretty extreme but it looks for overall mental health with questions that will determine depression, anxiety as well as more major illness.
	The 2nd test was  was (MBMD) This was only about 150 questions and was very similar to the first test.
The last test was an eating inventory and it looked for eating patterns. It had questions about emotional eating or depression eating. It was only about 30 questions.

This whole process took less than 2 hours.

If you have been avoiding surgery because of fear of this, don't be afraid

It was less of a hassle than the colonoscopy that I also had to do for this
surgery.

Fun day at the "shrink" - part 1

One of the many things I need to do for my insurance* was to undergo a complete Psychological evaluation.

Tonight I am going to write about some more facts about weight loss that I learned today from this psychologist .

Tomorrow I am going to write about the evaluation itself to help people understand that and hopefully alleviate any fears about it. : -)

The doctor said that Psychology has been interested in weight management issues forever.

There have been countless studies about behavior patterns.

He told me that there is now over 30 years of studies about weight.

They have done studies where they provide very strict diet and exercise programs or ones where people follow popular plans (like Atkins or Weight Watchers) and everything in-between.

These studies show that people can loose the weight but statistically speaking (over 30 years of research), regardless of method of weight loss. Only 2% keep it off.

Yes, you read that right. Only two percent!

My Bariatric surgeon had said it was less than 4% which was bad enough.

To hear it is even lower than that is just amazing.

He said there are many reasons for this;  hereditary reasons, will power reasons. set points, etc 

With the Lap Band it is over 70%.   And he said that the < 30% who can't keep it off are ones had other factors against them and perhaps should have never had the surgery.

For example they thought it was a magic bullet instead of a tool and didn't change their lifestyle at all.


So, Yes, I have lost a lot of weight already, 50 lbs and I will keep loosing until the surgery but the surgery option just just got another check box in the pro column. 

This time, I want to loose and keep it off. 


*Be sure to check with your insurance company because what mine required may be different than yours.

Slipery slope

So today ended up being my cheat day.

It wasn't supposed to be. I was trying to save it.

Here is what happened. My husband and I decided to go to an outlet center this afternoon after church. (North Bend WA)

We were doing fine until we went into one of my favorite stores (Le Gourmet Chef)

Anyone who knows me well knows I love to play in the kitchen.

I once spent over an hour in one aisle of Whole Foods. The aisle with all of the oils and other jarred and bottled concoctions.

Anyway; this store not only has gadgets and bake ware. It has a ton of wonderful stuff in jars. And of course they had samples out to try.

May not sound so bad but these items averaged about 5 carbs per serving and that didn't include the pretzels they were serving them with.

Then came the bread dipping aisle. Oh-oh. Can't resist trying that.

One little bite won't hurt.

Don't be fooled, before I knew it I was up over 40 carbs just from a sample here and there.

So, because I had blown it anyway and my last cheat day was about a month ago, I decided to make today my monthly cheat day.

We went out to eat at one of our favorite Italian places and I had the pasta. Smoked salmon ravioli. Mmmmmm soo good.

And then of course the day was gone anyway so I enjoyed the bread and oil they provide and had a limoncello tiramisu for dessert.

But tomorrow is another day and I will be back on track.

Typical Grocery Shopping

Today being Saturday I started out my day running errands.

One of the items on my list was to do simple grocery shopping and as I looked in my cart at the checkout, I thought it may make a good topic for today's blog.

What do typical low-carbers buy at the store?

So here is a list of what I bought today followed by what I will use them for:

1 bag frozen chicken breasts
1 5lb block Swiss cheese
2 six packs of Hansen's black cherry diet pop
1 18 pack of Eggs
4 boxes frozen spinach
and

10 packages of Hormel frozen entrees (I had a coupon)

The chicken breasts I put half (4 breasts) into a Ziploc freezer bag with a bottle of low carb (I use Michelob ultra) and put into the fridge to marinate for a few days. The other 4 I put into the freezer for later.

The cheese is one of my foods.  We can have about 4 oz of cheese per day and Swiss has always been one of my favs.  I sometimes slice it over hamburgers. Sometimes I just eat it in cubes. I also needed it for my quiche.

The diet pop is somewhat obvious. However, I add some  DaVinci to it to make it even better.

The eggs will be used for a lot of stuff.  I am going to try another cheesecake recipe later today so some will go into that.  Some for my weekly quiche and the rest I may hard boil for a snack for my and my husband or just leave for future use.

The spinach is for my weekly quiche.  I make a crust less quiche every week.  It is straight out of Atkins book. I will post it below.  I eat 1/8 of it everyday for breakfast so it lasts me about a week and is a lot faster than cooking eggs every breakfast.

and the Hormel dinners are one of my newest loves.  They are precooked so they heat up in I think it is 3 minutes and they are fantastic.  You have to read labels of course, some have more carbs (meatloaf for example because of the binders).  But the roast is fantastic.   Great for weeknights when I need something quick.   also, even though they are prepared food, they don't have preservatives.  


Atkins quiche recipe:

First here it is directly from the book.  Below I will say what I change. 

4 oz. bacon
1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
6 eggs
3/4 c heavy cream
2 boxes (10 oz. each) frozen chopped broccoli or spinach, thawed and sqeezed dry
1/2 pound Swiss cheese, shredded
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1. Heat oven to 350*F. Butter a 10-inch tart pan or 9-inch deep pie plate ( I used a square 9 by 9 glass baking dish).
2. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels; coarsely chop.
3. Remove all but 1 tablespoon bacon drippings from skillet. Add onion and cook 5 minutes, until softened but not brown. In a large bowl, combine eggs, cream, broccoli, cheese, salt, and pepper. Stir in bacon and onion.
4. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes (tenting with foil, if necessary, to prevent over-browning) or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes before cutting into wedges.

Number of Servings: 8
4.7 carbs each serving.

My changes:  I don't eat pork so I use turkey bacon. I am not partial to onions but I love their flavor so I use onion powder.    I also sometimes add other herbs like Herb De Provence.   I haven't experimented too much outside this yet.  I plan on someday making a cream cheese and salmon quiche.  I will post about it if I ever do.

My new addiction: Davinci Syrups

On many of the low carb forums I use people often say how much they love Davinci syrup.

I wasn't sure what the big deal was so I decided to buy some myself.

My first experiment:
I made some cookies the other day (using nut flours of course) with the gingerbread syrup.

While I didn't end up liking the cookies I could tell that syrup added a great flavor.

I didn't like them because the recipe called for brown sugar twin and I just can't handle the taste of that artificial sweetener.

I actually spent most of the day trying everything (food, mints, brushing teeth etc) to get that fake taste of saccharine off of my tongue to no avail. 

I have been following the advice of many others in forums and adding the syrup to beverages.

Tonight was raspberry flavor added to Hansen's diet root beer. This added a great flavor.

I have also made Italian soda with diet rite white grape soda and some huckleberry syrup and a splash of heavy whipping cream. Unbelievably fantastic.

Because these are sweetened with sucralose in liquid form, there are 0 carbs so this is just free flavor.

I bought them at cash and carry for about 3.50 each. You can also get then in grocery stores or online. I heat netritution is a great place to buy them. (http://www.netrition.com/)

I am going to try a lime flavored cheesecake this weekend.

Here is the DaVinci website: http://www.davincigourmet.com/

Enjoy!

"fast" food

I have had some friends say they can not do a low carb lifestyle because they don't have time to cook.  They live out of boxed foods, canned goods and frozen dinners.

I myself work full-time, go to college, run an Avon business and help my husband with administrative duties in the Ministry (like manage the Church website, create the bulletins etc) so I understand being busy.

Here are a few suggestions for quick easy meals for those of you who don't have a lot of time to cook.

Tuna.   Open a can of tuna and add a little mayo.  You would be surprised how good it is even without the crackers or bread.

Nitrate free chicken sausages. I like Aidells. Their chicken with feta and spinich is fantastic. Just slice some up and fry it in a pan or microwave it.   Just be sure to look at labels, ones with sweeteners or fruits are more carbs.

I cook up a batch of beer marinated chicken every week and then can easily pop one of those breasts in the microwave at any time.

I make a crust-less quiche every week and have that most days for breakfast.

Frozen hamburger patties (beef or even turkey) are a quick fix. Simply stick them on a Forman grill and let them cook for a few minutes.  Yes, this is cooking but it only takes about as long as a frozen dinner does in the microwave.


Leftovers.   Most leftovers work great in a quick hurry.    I usually cook on the weekends and then have the leftovers for quick options during the busy week.

I don't personally eat this but they also make other canned meats like canned chicken or even canned corned beef.    Watch the sodium on these items and look to make sure they don't have nitrates.

I hope this gives you some ideas of some quick items you can eat on the run.