Happy Fat Tuesday!

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I love Boston Creme Donuts. They bring me back to my childhood. It was always my favorite donut, and the one I chose when my grandparents took me to the donut store. Soft and doughy, filled with a silky vanilla custard and topped with a decadent chocolate glaze. They were my favorite.


Every year I would allow myself one Boston Creme Donut on Fat Tuesday. I did that for many years, well into adulthood. It was my Fat Tuesday tradition. Fat Tuesday is the traditional name for the day before Ash Wednesday. It is also known as Fastnacht day, and also Mardi Gras. It is supposed to be a time of feasting and celebrating before the somber time of fasting and penance of the Lenten season which leads up to Easter Sunday. Every year after Fat Tuesday, and my donut , I gave up all sweets during those 6 long weeks of Lent, 

Many Christians abstain or give up something during lent. It is a personal thing, and not something that is mandatory. Many Catholics do give up or deny themselves something as a form of self discipline and penance during this holy season leading up to Easter. As Catholics we also do not eat meat on Fridays during Lent or on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday. 






When I discovered the Belly Fat Cure, that was my first real connection to the sugar/insulin roller coaster I was on and why I always struggled to lose weight, fight the cravings and get in control. Sugar was everywhere and in my quest to eat low fat, I was actually increasing the amount of sugar in my diet. Now I know better, and I'm wiser, and I haven't had a donut on Fat Tuesday in a few years. 

As we grow and learn, we may have to tweak and change some of the traditions we grew up with for a healthier lifestyle.I can still have those wonderful childhood memories, but stop that donut tradition. 

Maybe I'll make a new one with this recipe I found on Maria's blog for mini filled donuts. Someone on that blog post suggested filling them with cream and topping them with the glaze from her Boston Creme cheesecake recipe. I just might have a new Fat Tuesday tradition, and one that is  a lot better for my health!

Happy Fat Tuesday! Laissez les bons temps rouler!!!


 The English translation is: let the good times roll


Thought for the day:  If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got!!

Making sense of it all.

Hello everyone! I am typing this looking out on the 2 inches of snow that we received last night. So pretty and the good news is, that it's not enough to cripple us and we really don't have to shovel to get out of the driveway.

This week I have been more focused on what I am doing and eating. I have been tracking everything in my fitness pal. I always try to do that, but I never really succeed 100%. I stop short or forget to put in a meal or snack. It's not always easy to figure it out, but I have been focusing less on if it's the exact item that I ate, and just trying to come as close as I can to entering every bite that I take.

Last night we went to a lovely place called the BlackFish for dinner with some friends. It was a cold, rainy/snowy night. We shared some great wines and had a great time catching up.

This was what I had for dinner last night:



1st course:  Smoked scottish salmon, deep fried egg, potato, sour cream, mizuna  ( the egg was inside with the salmon wrapped around. Unbelievably delicious!)





2nd course:  Salmon 'confit', maitake mushroom, globe artichoke, brussels sprouts. ( The best salmon I ever ate. Confit is a french type of preparation. So tender and flavorful.)


As you can see I love Salmon and the waiter said they are very different preparations, so I tried them both. Both dishes were delicious and so beautifully prepared and presented.

To record this in my fitness pal, I just broke it down the best that I could and entered it in.

After entering all of what I ate yesterday, my fitness pal showed the following:

Calories 2376
Carbs 92  ( net carbs =69)
Fiber 23
Sugars 10

Now looking at this, I realized there is a very good reason why I struggle to lose weight. That is too  many calories to consume on a regular basis. I am well within my limits for sugars and carbs according to the BFC. I am still eating my flasxeed bread for my morning meal and it contains wheat ( spouted organic wheat berries is the first ingredient.), but I really watch my carbs and sugars and still that is not enough. I know that calories do matter to some extent. Some people naturally have the instinct to keep their calories in check.  I have the instinct to always figure out a way to eat what I want and stay within the set parameters of sugars and carbs.

So this week I'm going to continue to track in my fitness pal, and also pay attention to the calorie dense foods that I eat  and try to cut back on them.  Cheeses and nuts are hard foods for me to limit and they pack alot of calories even though they are relatively carb and sugar free.

I am also making a real effort to lower or cut out alot of the wheat products (I usually have toast at breakfast, sandwich or wrap at lunch). I just want to see if that helps me.  I have had terrible luck with some of the recipes on Marias blog. The protein bread was terrible. I'm still so puzzled as to why it is a staple of hers and why it tastes fine to her. It really was like stryofoam and not good even dipped in egg for french toast. But there are others that I can try. I am always willing to find healthier swaps for foods, but I won't sacrifice taste.

I organized alot of the random scraps of paper containing recipes from all of you. I always print them out and shove them in  a file. I am going to try some of those recipes in the coming weeks and come up with some new ideas for things to eat.

Have a warm and cozy winter Saturday, wherever you are! XO

Thought for the day: 

“If you only read the books
that everyone else is reading,
you can only think
what everyone else is thinking.”

~ Haruki Murakami

Update on the last post!

Hello Everyone;

Just wanted to note a few things that I was not clear on in my last post. Maria Emmerich  does not advocate omitting dairy in her eating plan . I saw several of her posts labeled dairy free and for some reason I thought she didn't use any cows milk products. Trina pointed out that she does use cheese and butter, so sorry about the confusion.

Also, Trina pointed out that Dr. Davis does advocate a low sugar diet. I made the assumption based on some of his recipes that include tomato sauce and fruit. Usually when these things are included, the sugar level per serving increases sometimes quite dramatically.Trina pointed out that the sugar amount per serving is not that high on these recipes. Trina and I have had a few discussions starting with her comment below, so please check those out for clarification if you misunderstood what I was trying to say.

My basics beliefs are that too much sugar and processed carbs in your diet are bad for you, cause cravings for more sugar and carbohydrates, raise your insulin levels and are one of the primary reasons for fat storage leading to excess weight. The plans I spoke about and the books about these plans seem to have this as the common thread. They differ on some points and these are the areas where I suggest you can tweak to fit your lifestyle. Bottom line...if you can't do it forever then it isn't going to work for you. There are many success stories out there, but there are just as many people religiously following an eating plan that isn't working for them, and they are still overweight. That's not healthy either.

Thanks for listening and for your thought provoking comments!XO

I'm an Early Adopter? Are you?

Hello to to my fellow bloggers, readers, curiosity seekers, and those passing through. I have so much to say and I feel like there is a connection between many of us from what I've been reading on some of the other blogs lately.

 I am feeling like so many of you, confused about the "perfect" way to weight loss and more importantly good health. What is the one right answer? What is the easiest way? What will make the pounds fall off effortlessly? Is is the BFC? Maybe Wheat Belly? The Virgin diet? How about Paleo/Primal? Atkins?  A combination? UGGHHHHHH!!! STOP THE INSANITY!!!!

I started reading some blog posts today and started with Kay's. Is she reading my mind I thought? It was such a good post, and it really resonated with me. Then I went to Trina's blog, and after reading that post I thought, I have to stop and write about all the thoughts that are flooding my mind.

I am an early adopter? A what?  It's a term given to me by my daughter-in-law. She works in human resources and gives a sort of personality type test to new hires. I took the test and one of the descriptions shown by my test results is that I'm an early adopter. I took it to mean, I like to know what's new and trending and I'm open to a change in ideas from the standard way of thinking. I googled that term, and found this description from a marketing website. I'd say it's pretty accurate for me.


In comparison to other social
groups, early adopters are more likely to adopt a new product or
service comparatively earlier than other groups of consumers.


These studies also showed that early
adopters tend to be more likely to share information they have
gathered about a specific product or service with other members of their local reference groups.


Numerous studies have shown that early adopters are heavy users
of commercial, professional and interpersonal information sources.

  They are more likely to disregard the
risks associated with new products or services.

Yep, that's me. I'm an early adopter! Always looking for the next best thing, a better way, a better answer.

I remember the first time I heard about the Belly Fat Cure. I was so excited. I ran out and bought the books, found the blogs and started right on the plan. It made and still makes sense to me. Cut the sugars way down and limit those carbs.  But somewhere along the way, I didn't follow it so strict and then the fast track came out. That's what I need  I thought. Cut the grains and the weight will drop off. I couldn't do without the grains for long, so  back to a combination of both. Then I found Maria Emmerich's blog. She makes great sense, but no dairy and no grains. Not sure I can do that. I like my cheese and my butter. But wait there's a new guy in town. Dr Davis, and his book Wheat Belly has great ideas and wow, wheat could possible be the missing link to the puzzle of why it is so hard to lose weight. But he uses artificial sweeteners and doesn't care much about limiting the sugar. Is that the right way to go? 

And then there are all those letters and testimonials by people for one program or the next and that just make me want to jump right on the wagon and do what they're doing.  These peoples' lives have been dramatically changed almost overnight. They grab you and make you want to try and have the same overnight transformation to health and well being. They are an early adopters nightmare. 

Well here's the deal. Here's what makes sense to me. Nothing is a one size fits all, because we are all different sizes. I don't mean that literally, but in the sense that our bodies are very complex machines. And they are all different Some of us may be like a hybrid car and some like an Italian race car. You can't put economy gas in the race car, and the hybrid doesn't need high performance tires. Both have engines, but they are so very different.They are designed to move, but move differently. They have different requirements for them to operate the way they are designed. And they come with manuals, and experts who tell you how to take care of them and what you need to do to have them function properly. These manuals come from the designers. 


For us humans, first we have to figure out what type of car we are in terms of design and then we have to figure out what makes us function the best. Note I said WE HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT! We don't come with a manual of instructions. That's where it gets tricky.

It's so unfortunate that we don't come with instruction and performance manuals based on our individual body and metabolism. We don't even know what we really are, so that's why it's hard to hit the right combination of what works on the first try. It takes many tries for most people. It's trial and error for us.

 Some may get lucky and find the exact perfect way for them to reach their goal....like Rosalie. She happened upon what works for her. She does the same thing every day regarding her diet because she likes the way she eats and she knows it works for her. She doesn't count calories, but she has an instinct about what she should stay away from and she does that. That's her way of counting calories. Her body tells her, no butter on your popcorn, steer clear of that because it has too much fat, etc.  But from what I read, that's the exception, not the norm. We are all trying to figure ourselves out, and anything new that comes along piques our interest. Maybe this new plan will be our ultimate instruction manual.

The bottom line is give yourselves a break. It doesn't have to be all or nothing regarding whatever plan you are following.Do what makes sense for you. Keep trying things if what you are doing isn't working, or you just can't eat the way the plan suggests. Tweak it and try new things. Come up with your basic road map and then go from there. Listen, read, try things out, but then do what makes sense and what is right for your personal comfort level. But this is important....when something works BE CONSISTENT. Stay with it, do it day in and day out unless it stops working. Lack of consistency may lead us to think the plan we're on is not the right one, but in actuality we never stayed with it long enough to know. I know from experience.

 There are many ways to achieve a healthy body and your ideal weight. My mom eats wheat and desserts and she lost 40 lbs on weight watchers and has kept it off for several years. Rosalie doesn't eat sugar, does eat wheat and she lost weight and kept it off too. Different strategies, same results. But both are doing what they found to work for them and they are doing it consistently.

I know for sure without discovering the Belly Fat Cure, I would have never known how detrimental sugar is to me. When I limit it, I feel better, I don't have cravings, my skin doesn't break out, and my energy and mood are better. I can't say staying off wheat has had the same effect, but maybe I haven't done it long enough. So for me, the original Belly Fat Cure may be the best way to go. I like to have a few days here and there that are free of grains, but I can't do that forever, and I know it. 

So stop trying to fit yourself into an all or nothing type eating plan. There are many ways to achieve this goal. The answer for some might not be the answer for you. But we all want the same end result and that is to find a way of eating that helps us lose and maintain our weight, and one we can do and ENJOY for the rest of our lives.

Thought for the day: 

 “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” 

― Friedrich Nietzsche










,

Breakfasts of Champions!!

 Hello Everyone!

I promised a post on all the great breakfast ideas and here they are. Thanks to all who wrote on the comments. If you are the type of person that can’t stand breakfast in the morning, I would offer this suggestion. Just try for a week to eat something. It doesn't have to be breakfast food.

 Sandi gave a great tip about eating dinner leftovers. I have done this many times and there’s nothing wrong with it. There are lots of good egg ideas. I know many of you don’t like eggs. I am fussy about eggs too. I really only like them when I make them, and they can’t have any brown or crusty parts on them. Poached are my favorite, but it takes some time to do it on the stove and I don't always get the results I like with the microwave poacher. Sometimes too runny, and then others too cooked. I like a runny yoke and I found a new, easy way to get the results I like..

Start with a small non stick skillet. Add some water and bring to a low simmer.

Gently add two eggs. Crack them in a small bowl to make it easy to slide into pan.

Keep water at a low simmer

Add a lid to build up some steam.

I use a spoon to spoon some water over the yolk.

This is what it ends up looking like after a minute or two. Use a slotted spatula to lift out.

This is the finished product served with some flax seed bread and some asparagus leftover from dinner the night before.

 Here are some great ways to prepare eggs:

Scrambled eggs w/cheese and spinach plus 2 strips of bacon...throw it in a low carb wrap if heading out the door

Microwave scrambled egg in a mug. Great combinations are smoked gouda and artichokes, cheddar and diced chili’s, or a little cream, or sour cream mixed in with any type of cheese.

 Fry up a Johnsonville brat, add scrambled eggs and some fresh spinach.

Fry a potato, add 2 jimmy dean sausage patties, then add an egg, letting it cook up a little so the yoke breaks out over the potatoes

Toast some flax or low carb bread, top with some grated cheddar and a sprinkle of chia seeds, add some fresh spinach and top with two poached eggs.


Ideas if you miss your carby breakfasts of the past

Cheesecake muffins with natures hollow sugar free jam.

The minute muffin.

Pancakes - there are many great ways to  make pancakes with almond flour, coconut flour, flax or a combination of all three.

Protein pancakes- Here’s the recipe from Sherri.

Protein pancakes
1/2 cup breakstone live active cottage cheese
1/2 cup Vanilla protein powder
1/2 c egg beaters or 2 eggs
2 T. almond milk
2 T. Flax meal
1 t. vanilla

2 t. aluminum free baking powder
Combine all ingredients in your blender. Use approx 1/3 cup of pancake mix on griddle sprayed with Pam or oil. Makes 6 pancakes. I top mine with 1 T natures hollow jam, 1 T sugar free syrup & amp; fresh berries. YUMMY!!!

Power Pancake made with oatmeal  

Oatmeal ideas

Oatmeal ( about ¼ cp) with 1/2 scoop of whey protein  and some almond milk

Oatmeal with some sugar free peanut butter stirred in and topped with a few blueberries and walnuts.

Thought for the day: 


“When you wake up in the morning,

Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to 

yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said

 Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.” 

― A.A. Milne
.

Let me just say this about that!

Good morning happy people! Another dreary January morning over here in Pennsylvania. Kinda grey, no sun to speak of.  We are supposed to reach 54 here today, with even higher temperatures this weekend. Hopefully that will bring the sun out of hiding. That's good because the massive undecorating of the outdoor Christmas lights and decorations will take place this weekend. It's always good to do this on a warm weekend.

I had to jump on my laptop this morning because I have some thoughts regarding something I think perplexes all of us trying to maintain or lose weight, and that s a rapid, and sometimes overnight change in the scale.I'm talking up or down in numbers.  
 
I am curiously following Dawn as she embarks on her Atkins journery. Dawn, as well as several other lovely ladies ( Amber, Rosalie, Kay, Beth, Ashley) are very aware of what it takes for them to lose weight and they have met their goals. Me, not so much. I lost twenty pounds, gained some back after the wedding, and remain on the journey to reach my ultimate goal. But I still get confused  how what we eat or do no eat affects that number on the scale.

I think it is very much different for everyone. I don't think having a glass of wine or something carby or sweet the night before will actually make a difference 8 to 12 hours later in your real weight. It may show up a few days later, but what I think people are seeing the next day after they have a real "good" day or a real "bad" day is water retention or water release. Yes that's weight, but true fat gain and true fat loss can't happen that quick.

Here's a food confession for you. I ususally jump on the scale each morning. I make Wednesday my official weigh day, but I keep a close track on the other days. Yesterday I jumped on the scale, naked in the morning before breakfast  (don't try to visualize this!) and my shower, and I was a the highest I've been all holidy season. I was bummed. You see there is this direct correlation between my weight and my mood. Does that happen to you too?

Nevertheless, I went about my day. I'm still nursing that torn hamstring/knee injury and yesterday it was really hurting alot. I had my usual eggs and flax toast for breakfast, then I met my son for lunch, and had a chicken sandwich, minus the roll and some ginger slaw. Then I went to my brothers' house to be with the kids. The land of forbidden foods is a hard place to be a few times a week.
 
 I know I should prepare and bring stuff I can eat, but I didn't and ended up picking.  I looked in the pantry and found some pretzels, some pistachio nuts, and a piece of peppermint bark. I can look back now and see that I was bummed at my weight that morning, and then I get to my brothers house and got really emotional ( Sunday was the one year anniversary of Beth's death.) So what did I do, but use food to comfort myself. I wish I could see this happening while it's happening, but I don't!

It gets worse. I start taking down their tree ornaments, end up staying until 8:00 helping my brother get this 12 foot tree out of the house, make some dinner for my nephew, help with the clean up of everything and walk in my door at 8:45. That would have been a good time to pack it all in and head up to bed. But no, I pour myself a glass of red wine, and heat up some pasta with homemade alfredo sauce, chicken, mushrooms and asapargus. I made the pasta at the urging of my son and had it ready for their dinner last nght. Well I served myself up a good ole' portion of that pasta, and went in to my carb como eating this delicious concoction.

And it gets worse. My son loves my homemade chocolate chip cookies. I make up the batter and leave it in the fridge. He makes himself a batch whenever he wants some fresh cookies and I don't have to deal with any temptation. Plus I have the sugar thing licked for good right? Ahhh...not so much. Last night I had a warm, gooey, fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookie....at  9 PM!!!! WHAT AM I DOING TO MYSE'LF????? Why does a person with a perfectly sane mind, do insane things at times?

This morning, I have to face the crimes I've committed. I get up and get on the scale and it's 4 LBS lighter then yesterday!! WHAT???? I go get my 10 lb weight and put it on the scale. It weighs in at 9.9 lbs. So the scale is pretty accurate. I get on again, same number, and once more. It's still the same.
 
So here's the mystery. How could I eat that many carbs and sugar, and wake up weighing less? Well, it's just how my body handled this deluge of carbs and sugar, and I know that I will see this show up probably around Friday in the numbers. If you eat more calories than your body can use, it has to eventually store them. Even though we don't count calories on the BFC, just by eliminating processed carbs and sugars, we are taking in less calories then we did eating our old way. And what we do take in is used more efficiently than the "white stuff."

So what's my point? My point is that scientifically we know that any drastic change up or down in the scale in an 24 hour period is usually fluctuations in hormones and water levels in our body. One cookie or glass of wine isn't going to make a big difference overnight. Cumulative damage from many days of eating the wrong things or many days of eating healthy is what will move the scale in the wrong direction or in the right direction.

 I will see the damage from my eating binge yesterday, but if I jump right back on track and even limit some of my carbs then next few days, hopefully I can neutralize it. I would have expected those carbs to grab and hold alot of water and cause that scale to be way up this morning. Chemically that didn't happen in my body for some reason. The problem happens when you see what I saw, and think, 'hey, I can eat that, I lost weight when I did that before.' This is how we trick ourselves. It will catch up with me.
 
All of our bodies react differently and that is the key to understanding what it takes to lose wight and maintain it. Don't let the scale fool you one way or the other. Don't be foolish and directly correlate every bite you eat to what you see on the scale immediately. Like anything, what you do repeatedly will have the most influence on your ultimate outcome.
 
Sending hugs and love. Also thanks for the breakfast comments on the last post. There were some excellent breakfast ideas for those looking for some new ways to shake up breakfast. I'll post them in the next blog post. XO
 
Thought for the day: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle

Stay the same or mix it up?

I read somewhere that when establishing new eating habits, it's good to automate your meals. This means to eat the same thing, with maybe a few slight variations, every breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 I like food variety and sometimes I think the more variety I give myself, the more chance there is to overeat. Do you find that works for you?

On the belly fat cure, eggs are a given for breakfast. That's usually what I have every morning in some form. Now there are lots of ways to make eggs so you don't get bored.  My favorite is poaching them. I bought a microwave poacher, but still like the old fashioned way on the stove better.

Today I had oatmeal with unsweetened peanut butter mixed in. It was very good. I hadn't made that in a long time, but I was getting tired of eggs.

What's your favorite breakfast? Mine is poached eggs with spinach, cheese and chia seeds on ezekial bread.  I'll post your responses it so we can all have some new ideas!

My favorite poached egg breakfast.

 Thought for the day: 

Square meals, not adventurous ones, are what you should seek.
- Bryan Miller