Until Next Year...

   I'm taking some vacation from the blogosphere and partially from my diet. No, not entirely. I'm not throwing in the towel, but I am planning on indulging this upcoming Christmas weekend. We'll also be hosting a get together at our Casa for New Year's eve and I'd like to get my drink on. Soooo my plan is to hopefully maintain my weight loss to date. If I stay the same, great. If I lose, awesome. I weighed in this morning and I lost 3lbs! 18 total since 11/14 - 32 more to go...

  If you're reading this You have a Wonderful Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanza and all that Jazz! Let's hope 2012 is good for us all!

Until then let my friends entertain you.

Yup, still making me smile...

Any Dragon Tattoo fans? Rooney Mara looks amazing as LS. So looking forward to this...

Get your Swerve on Peeps!

    I ordered some Swerve about two weeks ago and received my package last week, and since then I've been thoroughly enjoying it in my coffee and tea. Swerve is an Erythritol based sugar alternative that measures cup for cup like sugar. It is the closest thing I've found that tastes like sugar in my coffee. It's damn expensive about $12 bucks a pound, but having now tried it in my coffee I can't go back to the liquid sweetener I was using. I plan on using it sparingly but I did want to try and bake with it. I decided to make cinnamon sugar cookies and boy did they come out yummy. Because it is Erythritol there is still that slightly cool taste to the cookies, but these were still really good and held up very much like a real cookie. No, I'm not going to put Toll house out of business with these. I may call it a cookie, but I've yet to come across a LC cookie that came close to tasting like anything made with actual flour. If you're like me and the "white stuff" is off limits these end up being a decent replacement.

  Now, I am by no means a baker. So if you're looking at this recipe and wondering Why did she add that? or Why did she do that in that quantity? I can't answer you. All I did was find a basic sugar cookie recipe and tweaked it. There is no rhyme or reason to my recipe I just used what I had on hand. If anyone has suggestions to make it better, please let me know (And No, use flour and real sugar is not a helpful suggestion) :p

 

Low Carb Cinnamon Sugar Cookie

• 1 Cup Blanched Almond Flour (I used up some Bob's and some I got from nuts online)
• 2 Tbsp Vanilla Whey Protein Powder
• 2 Tbsp Coconut Flour
• 3/4 Cup Swerve (or equivalent sweetener of your choice, original recipe called for 1 cup but I thought that would be too much. These were still pretty sweet may use even less next time)
• 1 stick soft room temp butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 room temp egg
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 1 tsp cinnamon (or as much or as little as you want, I may have added a bit more can't remember)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum (If you don't have this, it may still be okay not sure if it's necessary or not. I added it because I had it - remember no rhyme or reason!)
• About 1 Tbsp Swerve and 1/2 tsp cinnamon for rolling your cookies.

I got about 18 cookies out of this. Approximately 1 Net carb per cookie.

  Cream butter and sugar. Once blended add egg and vanilla. Combine all of the dry ingredients in another bowl (Make sure to mix it up so the different "flour"/powders are all distributed evenly)Add about half of the flour to the creamed butter and mix, add second half and mix until all is well blended. Put the dough in the fridge for about 20 minutes (It's too sticky otherwise). When ready take the dough and roll into balls, dip one side of the ball into the sugar/cinnamon mixture and place other end on your cookie sheet - flatten ball with the palm of your hand. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, but watch carefully after about 8 minutes they go from cooked to burnt pretty quickly. 
   
    I baked my first batch for about 10 minutes, the edges were nice and browned but the middle stayed somewhat soft. My next batch I kept in for about 12 minutes and the whole top was browned. I prefer the taste of the first batch because it was a bit soft and crunchy. You will probably want to taste one right out of the oven like I did and they will be really soft and you'll be like WTF?! but put them on plate and check back in about 10 minutes and they'll have firmed up nicely. This is when they tasted the best about 15 minutes after I took them out of the oven. The next day they were good, but that "cool taste" oh so familiar with Erythritol baked goods was much more prevalent.

Black hole aka shopping mall parking lot

   Day's like this I thank Jeebus we have the Internet. The shopping Gods were not in my favor today. Yeah, I know it's the Sunday before Christmas but damn it was ca-ra-zy out there. Lots of honking and finger flippin' a plenty. At one point I tried to go to Old Navy, after circling the parking lot for about 15 minutes I gave up and left. I made my way to Target only to realize I left my purse at home which contained my Red card and a gift card I had. I still had my debit card in my back pocket so I stopped at a Ross on the way home, found a super cute jacket only to put it back once I saw that the checkout line wrapped all the way around to the back of the store. I think I managed to check maybe one person off of my list. So I wouldn't feel completely defeated I managed to find a few things on Amazon and make my list a bit smaller - It's probably what I should have done from the beginning and saved myself the headache and some gas.
   One highlight from today was my lunch. I took advantage of Cheesecake Factory's curbside pickup and ordered a Salad w/Chicken - I know, what's so special about a chicken salad? Well, not much. BUT their ranch dressing is off the hook! Yes, I said off the hook (Are kids still saying that?) I forgot how good their ranch is. I can't be certain, but I'm fairly positive that they put crack in it. Why else then would I be at this very moment craving ranch dressing? It's the crack I tell ya!!

Oh yeah I made cookies too!

   These low carb cookies were good, really good actually but I want to try again this weekend and tweak the recipe I used before I share it...This is just a teaser :)

One Month In! Plus a rant...

   So it's been a month of low carbing and blogging...so far so good. I'm down 15lbs; I feel great. This is probably the most will power I've had since I originally did a version of Atkins back in 2004ish. For the most part it's been smooth sailing, but there were times when the cravings were very intense. A few times I tried to talk myself into binging and then throwing it all up. If it weren't for the fact that I hate throwing up I probably would have. I've never had an eating disorder, but I understand that whole mental dilemma that you go through when trying to convince yourself to do something deep down you know is not good for you. Food is a powerful drug, it really is.

  Now onto my rant

     I love children - I really do, but some kids are assholes. There is a child in my son's class who will remain nameless just in case any Parents from my son's class happen to stumble upon my blog - I'll let them figure out who I'm talking about. This child has behavior problems going back to Kindergarten, I'm talkin' hitting, punching, cursing, stealing YES stealing all at the ripe old age of 6. Today I volunteered in class and I observed this child walking all around the classroom while all the other kids were sitting criss-cross applesauce on the carpet. She walked in and out of the classroom looking to see if her friends were coming. She walked up to the Teacher's desk where I was sitting and began rifling through paper's on the desk until I told her to go back to the carpet - she walked away in a huff stomping her feet all the way. While all this was going on, the student teacher (Regular Teacher was out sick) told her multiple times to sit down obviously to no avail. I've observed this behavior on numerous occasions but it's like no one wants to confront her or her Mother.
    I've had some interaction with the Mother in the past and she's either in total denial or she's batshit crazy because her kid is a fucking brat. From what I've heard partly from her and other parents is that she blames the Teachers and staff for not being nurturing and patient enough with her child. This whole situation is sad because it's not the child's fault her parents have screwed her up so bad, but she is such a disruption that it's also not fair to ALL of the other kids that are there to learn. This girl can be really sweet when she wants to, but when she doesn't get her way all hell breaks loose. What is supposed to happen in this situation? What really can the Teacher and Principal do? It seems as if their hands are tied, or at least that's the way they're acting. It's such a shame.
  My son's no angel; he talks out of turn, he's super hyper, and he easily loses focus, but he's nowhere near this level of disruptive destruction. If this girl isn't pregnant by the time she's 15 I'd be surprised.

Day 29 and Bread Pudding...

 So I had my weigh in this morning - I lost an impressive 0lbs! Yes, my little experiment was a disaster. Didn't lose a damn pound or actually I did lose 3 but it was the 3 I packed on after my cheat day last Monday. I know it wasn't actual weight, but when the scale goes up it goes up. On the upside my clothes are fitting loser so that's something. Lesson learned.

  I did get a nice little package from nuts online that I ordered a week ago. I got blanched almond flour, coconut flour, sugar free chocolate chips and some xanthan gum (they included some chia seeds for free cha-cha-cha-chia!). They have a good price on almond flour and they also carry LOTS of other different nut/seed flours. I'm no baker by any means but since low carb sugar free desserts aren't readily accessible you have to get kind of creative in the kitchen. I've been wanting to make a single serve bread pudding for awhile now. I don't really know why because it's not something I really crave when I'm not dieting but since it's an easy recipe to convert to low carb I knew I had to give it a try. I found a recipe online and swapped out the high carb items for their low carb alternatives. Here is the recipe I ended up with:
 

Single Serve Low Carb Bread Pudding!

• 1 slice day-old low carb bread cut up in cubes (I used Carb Krunchers)
• 2 teaspoon butter, melted
• *1 egg slightly beaten
• 3 1/2 tbsp Unsweetened Almond milk
• 2 tbsp heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons splenda or equivalent sweetener of your choice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Put your bread in a ramekin or other small oven safe dish.  Pour melted butter over bread. In another bowl mix remaining ingredients and pour over bread. Stir until all pieces are covered. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes or until top is nice and browned and springs back when you touch it.

*I quite liked the end result EXCEPT that it was a bit eggy tasting at the bottom. Next time I will try to use maybe just the yolk or half the egg instead.

 This recipe can easily be modified. I added some sf chocolate chips after I took it out of the oven, but you could add nuts, raisins, coconut, sf maple syrup, caramel syrup whatever floats your boat. If you make it please tell me how you liked it!

DIY Disaster

   So remember when I mentioned here that I had done some crafting? Well, I'm finally getting around to posting my results - you'll see why below I didn't rush to show you all the fruits of my labor. About a year ago I noticed some crafty chicks on craftster had made some pretty sweet versions of ruby red slippers. I had to have some myself. I found some old shows I didn't wear anymore, took a trip to Joann's and picked up some sequins and glue. I grossly underestimated how many yards of sequins I would need and only had enough to cover one show. In the closet all of it went, until a few weeks ago when I decided to finally finish it. Went to Joann's again picked up more sequins and got to work finishing the other shoe. Here is the finished project. See if you can find where I went wrong...

 

 You see how one is slightly more red than the other? Yeah, note to anyone attempting this BUY ALL OF YOUR SEQUINS AT THE SAME TIME. I should have known this, being a knitter and all that even sequins have different dye lots. It may not look very noticeable in the picture (or maybe it does) but in person it was quite obvious. You'd think this was the disaster part wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. After wearing them all around the house doing my little turns on the catwalk I decide I like them and I can still rock these. The very next day I walk into my room and find my shoe looking like this, or rather what was left of it.

 

Our darling new 5 month old puppy Colt thought this was his shiny new chew toy. Notice how there is very little sequins actually there - yeah he ate most of it. He had shit that would make Liberace jealous. Needless to say I was pissed, but look how adorable he is I couldn't stay mad for long.

What are the lessons we learned here: 1)Buy enough sequins the first time around and 2)Keep your finished projects away from your pups - unless sparkly shit is your thing of course :p

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   Oh and I've decided to forgo writing about my daily menus unless I've eaten something new or interesting. I feel like posting menus of meals that I've already mentioned in past posts is pretty boring and I don't really think anyone is helped or interested in what I eat every day, right? Seriously my day to day meal habits are quite boring. If I manage to whip up something good I promise I'll share.

Day 24 and more...

  Does anyone else feel like they haven't quite grown up? I'm nearly 30 years old yet I feel like I could have just graduated from High School - of course I was skinny then so I mean this mentally not physically. I still watch cartoons; Hello New Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network whaaaaat! I've been known to eat cereal for dinner, I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy and I'm a total slob (Yes, Honey I really did admit that). I thought becoming a Mother would instantly change my perspective, but it hasn't. It is still weird to me that I have this little person calling ME Mom. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't change the fact that I am a Mom, but I often wonder when I will finally grow up and if I even want to. The funny thing is I'm not even sure what my definition of grown up is, I just know I'm not there yet.
 
   I have to believe that my weight issues are the root cause of this feeling of immaturity; or at least part of it. I've been overweight basically since I graduated high school. I cut ties with all but 1 of my friends, I avoid Facebook, Twitter all of the social networking sites for fear of someone from high school seeing how big I've become. With the exception of this blog I virtually don't exist. My boss was actually stunned at how little information you can find on me by Googling my name - And that's how I wanted it.
 
   I'm pissed at myself for allowing this weight to control my life to the extent that it has. I see women hanging out together and I'm jealous. I have practically no friends of my own, all of my friends now I met through my Husband. I have all of these crazy insecurities that I mask in various ways that have kept me from having really great relationships with people and I really regret that. You know how hard it is to make friends as an adult! It's not like High School where you're forced into these situations where friendships are inevitable.  In High School I had more friends then I could count, got along with everybody and dare I say I was actual popular. I had a pretty rocky senior year; I partied really, really hard and pushed myself to the edge. I met my Husband right after graduation and never looked back. Are these feelings going to go away when the weight does? I have no clue.
  
Alright, enough rambling. I'm not even sure what my point was - I guess I just wanted to vent a bit. I don't normally like posting any of this heavy type stuff but it can't be shits and giggles all the time and because it's my blog (In my best Cartman voice) "I DO WHAT I WANT".

Here's what passed my lips today:

Breakfast: Nothing but coffee. Super busy today didn't even have time to realize I hadn't eaten.

Lunch: Spicy Turkey Sandwich, small side salad

Dinner: Nothing official like, I was too lazy to cook for myself and ended up just eating Salami and Cheese. But It's okay I wasn't actually hungry anyway.

I know that menu is pathetic, I'm a horrible dieter so please don't do what I do! :p

Gettin' all Christmasy up in here...

I. LOVE. THIS. PIC. It puts an instant smile on my face whenever I look at it. I want to be like, totally best friends with these guys. ESPECIALLY the guy on the left - Look at his face! He looks like so much fun!!

Day 23

    Holy hell I ate a shit ton of food yesterday. As I mentioned here I started the day off with cupcakes, followed by Thai food, chips/candy when I got home, again Thai Food from my favorite place washed down with gobs of ice cream. I really took advantage of my cheat day. Seriously though the cupcakes, or rather "bundtinis" as their called, totally made the cheat day worth it. The best cake I've had in I don't even know how long. This is what they look like:

    Now, I should mention the bad side of my cheat day. I had heartburn last night, tossed and turned, had a really hard time waking up this morning and generally just felt like shit. So yeah, wasn't too hard hopping back on the wagon this morning. I know not everyone agrees with cheat days but for me they are a necessity. Anytime I completely cut off any food group it becomes the only thing I can think about. Knowing I have scheduled cheat days allows me to put my mind at ease when I know I can look forward to enjoying food from my favorite places once or twice a month. Sure, it may slow my weight loss but I'm more likely to stick with this for the long haul if I have these day to look forward too. Not that I'm miserable every day with what I'm eating, I really enjoy eating low carb foods, but come on LOOK AT THOSE CAKES! I don't want to live in a world where I can't have one.


Here's what passed my lips today:

Breakfast: Strawberry Yogurt, coffee

Lunch: Went to "In and Out" with my boss. Had a Double double with Cheese Protein style (No spread)

Dinner: Breakfast for dinner - Scrambled Eggs, Bacon and a piece of Toast

Didn't really snack much today. I think I ate so much yesterday that it killed my appetite for today.

Weigh In! Day 22

  Well I'm posting my results early today because today is my planned cheat day and I'm not planning on doing a daily menu for my junk food. Why a cheat day on a Monday? Because it's the farthest day until my next weigh in and I plan on still having a loss this week. I wasn't intending on cheating today but I've been stalled since last Wednesday - I know boo-hoo not really a true stall for most but for me it is. So I'm doing this today and we'll see what happens. If it's a disaster it'll never happen again. So...really, this is an experiment of sorts to see how my body reacts after 3 weeks of having not even a single bite of off diet food. And let me tell ya, I started this cheat day off with a bang - A client delivered mini bundt cakes called Bundtini's that were Heavenly. I had a red velvet, my absolute favorite. Pure yum.

  Dang it, I forgot to take a pic of my TV screen this morning. I keep meaning to take a snaphot of my Wii screen but forgot again. Big surprise.

 Now...Drum roll please...I lost 3lbs! Total of 15lbs since I started on the 14th of November.

Hope everyone had a Wonderful Weekend. Weather's been GORGEOUS here in the Bay Area.

~Christina

Day 19

  I had crazy cravings tonight. I almost completely gave in. I'm not really sure why, but I just really wanted everything I couldn't have; it didn't help that we were at a Holiday lights show with all kinds of yummy treat filled booths but I've had little to no appetite/cravings for the past week - I was quite enjoying that. I've had really intense cravings before when dieting, to the point where the only thing I could think of was that chip/cookie/cake and my body would literally ache until I got it; like a junkie waiting for their next hit. I'm not sure why this past three weeks I've been able to get through those cravings when in the past I've given in every single time. Actually I know why, this blog. I know nobody really reads it, or actually very, very few people read it, but for some nutty reason I feel totally accountable to it and I don't want to post about being a failure. I don't know why I care, but I do. And I really think I have an excellent shot at hitting my goal.

Here's what passed my lips today:

Breakfast: Creme Fraiche scrambled eggs and bacon - coffee.

Lunch: Usual Friday Indian lunch: Tandoori Chicken, Paneer Masala, Chicken Kofta, Aloo Palak (minus Aloo) and Salad.

Dinner: I had a chili dog made with Half a CK hot dog bun and this awesome chili that I found online. It's made with black soy beans instead of regular beans so the carb count is super low. It's not quite as thick as regular chili, but for the carb count you can't beat it. It's shelf stable so it makes an excellent travel food. If you've been reading my blog you know I'm all about convenience foods so this was right up my alley.

with Cheddar cheese topped with Onions and Sour Cream. Yeah, I like my Hot dogs kinda burnt

I bought mine at locarbu, but if your not in CA Netrition would probably have the best shipping deal.

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Cute conversation I had with my son this morning, it went like this: A little back story, I make my sons lunch everyday and Friday's he gets to take a Lunchable. His favorite is the Pizza.

Me: Hey, Ethan do you want me to make a sandwich or do you want a Lunchable today?

Son: Um, sandwich Mom. I want a healthy lunch today.

Me: Really? Ok. But it's Friday your Lunchable day. Are you sure?

Son: Yeah, put an apple and an orange in there too. And NO treat.

Me: What's going on? Did someone tell you something? No treat, really?

Son: I just want to be healthy today. No treat but ONLY today, Mom. You can start the treats again on Monday.

  My son is 7 years old and highly susceptible to Nick Jr. - so I imagine there must have been a very special healthy episode of Dora the Explorer on this morning because any other day he's making negotiations with me to get extra pieces of his Halloween candy with his lunch.

Day 18

  Thank you Mr. Schwan guy! You must know I'm a total sucker because I bought stuff from you even though I wasn't planning on it, didn't place an order online and didn't call you directly. What I should have done was politely said "Thanks, but no thanks." No, instead I feel bad that you took the time to walk the 10 feet from the curb to my door in the chilly night to ask if I needed anything. Of course I don't need anything hence why I didn't place an order, but feeling bad for no apparent reason whatsoever I cave and buy some carb comfort pecan ice cream and broccoli w/cheese...Both are actually pretty darn good. Damn you Schwan man...you know me too well.

Here's what passed my lips today:

Breakfast: Running really late this morning forgot I had to help out my Son's teacher this morning. Managed to grab half a bagel w/cream cheese on the way out.

Lunch: Went to El Pollo Loco with the work crew. Had yummy grilled chicken with Salad. Their cilantro dressing is super yummy I need to find a recipe.

Dinner: My Mom cooked a turkey and brought over a whole spread (of mostly stuff I can't eat). Luckily, I bought the broccoli from the Schwan dude. Had Turkey with a little gravy and Broccoli.

Dessert: 1 serving of the ice cream. It's surprisingly good, creamy and no funky aftertaste.

Snacked on nuts and sunflower seeds. Lots of Green Tea today too.