The taste of success

It seems that my body is adjusting nicely to this lower carb -higher protein approach . A few years back I did Atkins, and one of the first goals to get your body flipped from burning carbs to burning fat had a teltale sign of a strange taste in your mouth. That started yesterday for me- which is a lot faster than it happened in that attempt. I am not rejecting carbs- just limiting them in my intake. I am taking this taste as a good sign that I am indeed making some progress. Another thing that is a sign for me is that I am once again running to the bathroom frequently. When my body flips to the weight loss mode, the potty becomes my best friend !

Two of the dishes I tried yesterday. The first one was my alternate grilled cheese sandwich. I took a handful of button mushrooms, a red onion and about a cup of broccoli, sauted it in olive oil and topped it with a slice of mozerella cheese, then microwaved it for 30 seconds to help the cheese melt.

I served it with sliced cucumbers and tomato- very tasty, simple and filling.

I found out sometime within the next 2 weeks our bathroom is going to be totally remodeled in a day , no definate date for it yet, and we will spend the day without water or facilities of our own. While this seems like a nothing, for me it is really stressful because of the weight loss side affects. The are going to give us access to one of the vacant apartments for the remodel, but still I am very anxious about it. So I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out how to handle different scenarios with this while playing with the Wii boxing. Best way I can handle anxiety is to use logic and get my body to do something productive with the energy.

Dinner was something I am calling "Fakeroni and cheese with Ham

Take one head of cauliflower, break it into florettes and boil for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile make a white sauce ( roux and milk) and add garlic powder , a pinch of dried mustard , a cup of mozerella( or any other shredded cheese) and a cup of ham cubes. Cook till thick, then put the cauliflower in a casserole dish, pout the cheese sauce over and mix. Cover and bake at 350 for 45 min. Serve with a tossed salad- really good !

Today I am going to try the flax meal bread recipe. I had no ill affects from yesterdays Peanut butter flax cereal, so I am good to go .

Flax Finds

I am discovering several interesting things that can be done with ground flax as a substitute for other grains. It can be made into bread, muffins and...hot cereal ! We just tried it this morning for breakfast. You take 1/4 cup ground flax, 2 T peanut butter and 1/4 tsp cinnamon, add 1/2 cup of boiling water, let sit for about two minutes and stir. Here is what you get -

It comes out creamy, thick and pretty darned filling. Nutritional stats for this are 351 calories, 5 grams of carbs, 14 grams protein, 5 grams of effective carbs, 29 grams of fat and 10 grams fiber.

I am going to try to make the flax seed foccacia bread as well, but I will hold off a day or two with that one. I am a little concerned that this level of fiber may be a bit "explosive" . Ground Flax is a time honored herbal remedy for dealing with cronic constipation. Should prove interesting to say the least.

In other news, it seems my body is responding to the lowered level of carbs with an amazing level of brain fog. Yesterday I sat trying to figure out two lunch options for over 3 hrs. Granted, there are a lot of variables I have to deal with, but this is ridiculous ! It will get better as my body adjusts, but till then coffee is going to be an absolute mandate around here. Needless to say because of the time spent in serious brain fog, it was a very bad day for exercise. Today I have to plan lessons for next week's homeschool, and I am hoping I can scape together three brain cells to do the job. They are predicting snow today , so the weather is cold and damp- not good for aching joints. looks like it is going to be a day spent with the Wii Fit Plus !

Intuitive leanings

Over the weekend I was reminded in two ways about something that my body seems to be wired for- that I really do not like starches or sugars. By not like I mean have a physical aversion to.

Some examples- when I was young, my parents would buy these presweetened cereals because , after all, that is what all kids liked. Not me ! I would LOVE it when we ran out of the junk and be forced to eat cereals like Total. Even better those mornings when we would eat eggs and bacon. The sweet cereal always made me feel sick to my stomach. Even wore were the mornings when mom would make pancakes ! To this day, if I eat pancakes it gives me instant heartburn . Oatmeal I can tolerate, as well as polenta. If I eat cold cereal it has to be something like Special K or homemade granola ( not premade variety's)

I was never a fan of candy, until I tasted my first bite of candy with nuts, and then I would eat it strictly for the nuts. I could never be bribed, swayed, tempted or influenced by candy. However, if you tried to do the same with nuts or meat, you would have no problem. It is something about that kind of fat or protein that I CRAVE, and in large quantities.

It was so intense, that as a kid I used to steal packs of lunch meat ( and liver sausage was my favorite) , hide behind the couch and eat the whole thing. If there was ever any leftover meat in the house I would devour it. One year on the day after Thanksgiving when I was a teen , I ate half of a leftover 22 lb turkey. Did not get sick in the least, and felt pretty energetic afterwords. My mother , however was horrified because there went a couple of days planned meals for the family. When we would go to the store and be promised a reward for good behavior, it was always the promise of picking something from the candy rack. Know what I would pick ? Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or beef jerky- never candy. My parents thought I was crazy.

This weekend while we were eating dinner I took a bite of the Bread of the Dead and passed it on to the guys because it was giving me instant heartburn. I mentioned it to Bob and he reminded me that I have always been like this, and perhaps my system is and has been protein deficient for a long , long time. I am begining to wonder if this is not true. With weight loss you have to get your metabolic rate to a level where it burns more than you injest, and this is done through diet and exercise. The more muscle you build, the higher your resting metabolic rate is. If your system does not have enough protein ( the nutrient that builds muscle tissue) , I believe your body fights harder to compensate and an imbalance is created. If you increase protein, there is more supplies for your body to build with.

So this week I am trying to lean a little heavier on protein, lighter on carbs , and we will see what happens. I know it works for me - in the past I did Atkins and lost 70 pounds . I quit because I became severely constipated and I was concerned about eliminating so many potential nutrients in my body.

I am planning next weeks menu today, and I am seeking out some healthy, low carb , high protein options to work into the mix.

Monday and back to the grind

What a great weekend ! Other than the incident with the cinnamon coated pecans, no damage was done. We were planning on heading to the cemetery yesterday but I was just wiped out mentally , and I needed to replace my French Press coffee pot. The little one was a victim of a can falling out of the cupboard, and mornings without coffee qualify as national disasters. So it was off to Meijers instead in search of a pot, a new crocopot and whatever other trouble we could get into for the afternoon.

While there my son insisted we visit the electronic game section, and I noticed two noteworthy new games for the Nintendo Wii- The Biggest Loser Workout and DaisyFuentes Pilates. While I would be very curious as to what the Biggest Loser one does, I think I will buy the Pilates one instead in a few weeks. Reason being that Pilates does not involve stomping- which is a big plus in this third floor apartment ! Till then, I will continue to be content with the Wii fit plus.

Plan for today is workouts, homeschool, the weekly houseclean , dispose of the Halloween items and cook down two pie pumpkins. I may then try my hand at some homemade pumpkin butter- we found some a few weeks back at Trader Joes, love it on oatmeal , but ran out and have not bought more. Sounds like a reason to try to make some !

Just to let you know

I wish to announce that there are such a thing as cinnamon coated pecans in the store. Cinnamon and brown sugar or white sugar to be exact. Furthermore, I wish to announce that these are indeed like crack !

Going down to the cemetary on this bright but cold day to pay my respects to the family and burn off the several handfuls of the above mentioned food. No regrets- whatever damage I did in eating these was well worth it !

Week of Joy weigh in results

So how did making a conscious effort to find joy impact my weight ? I did nothing different as far as food or exercise. I did not drop carbs, increase protein, drop salt, drop proccesed foods, eat only organic or any such thing. I did not increase cardio, take up running, begin weight lifting or any such thing. I ate after 7 pm at times, I had a couple of sleepless nights AND I am PMSing. The only thing I did was to consciously include things each day that brought me joy, and therefor relived stress.

Me- DOWN 2.6
Son - DOWN 2.2
Hubby DOWN 3.2

Still think stress is not a factor ? And I think it may be even more of a factor for those whom are 40 and beyond than it is when you are in your 20's or 30's. After 40 you suddenly have your own retirement to think of, bigger bills, teens, aging parents and the reality that you are not waiting to become someone but you are all that you are going to be. You get a lot less free time and personal space to do and be who you want to be some days because y0ou are now officially mature and should act your age. You look in the mirror and you find new rays, new wrinkles and wonder about strange spots and freckles a lot. You are heading rapidly to a place in life where you are in danger of being considered outmoted, things like the music you used to love and relax to has changed, new forms of technology come along that not only don't make sense to you but you find yourself surrounded by wide eyed children who seem to have been given the owners manual through osmosis. Things that you were taught as being absolutely must have skills ( like penmanship , spelling and grammar) are obsolete -knwtImn ? ( text speak for know what I mean ) You now live in a world where pens and vowels are an endangered species.

You do not stress eat, but the food that you do eat meets with strange hormones, and food being what it is takes pity on these hormones and decides to hang around longer to see it there is anything more it can do for you, and if you are really alright. Your grandma may have fed you soup when you were young but now grandma is dead and the soup seems to think that it has to do even more for you. You try to convince it that it is not nessisary and you will be fine through exercise and portion control, but like grandma, that food will not take no for an answer. So the scale creeps up and you find you have a new thing to fear. Aging , sadly, ,is about learning to fear many things. This is why most older people do not like horror films. Life is horror enough. As was said in an episode of the Simpsons by Grandpa , if you are not afraid, your not paying attention !

My son is young and optomistic, and simply watching his caloric intake and activity will get him to lose weight. Hubby and I are older, and things are complicated. I am 51 and he will be 55 in about 6 weeks. Because we are in a loving, caring relationship we share the joys, and we manage to share the fears. At night in bed it can either be the stuff that would make most romance novels jealous or fodder for a new Stephen King novel because we spoke of our concerns. If one is happy, usually we both are happy. If one is stressed, we both get stressed.

Enough silly ramble for the day. Seriously I am going to try once again to encorporate joy in my life this week agina and see if it brings the same results . I am not totally convinced of the affectivness of any plan until it brings me positive reasults for 3 weeks in a row. So till then it's just keep on keeping on !

Weathering the storm and changing plans

Technically, we live in a part of the country that will never see a hurricane, but that is what it looks like outside tonight ! All that snow from Colorado has moved east and changed to heavy rains and blustery winds. I was awakened to the sound of rattling windows, and became fascinated watching the wind and rain dancing with the window screens. What can I say...I love stormy weather !

Emotional storms come and go across our emotional landscape, and sadly at the time they occur , they are not so much fun to watch for either the one experiencing them or those around them. They are often not as predictable as those metorological events either. Especially not those associated with grief. They are often triggered by the silliest things, blow fierce for a time and then the sun comes out again. I learned that in the counciling sessions that we attended after we lost our son. I also learned that it is not uncommon to experience odd periods of grief as far removed as 40 years after a loss . Nothing is unusual in that department, and only worrisome if the sun does not come out again after a few weeks. Happily mine have always passed within a day or so. This one was triggered by a birth experience question and the time of year. The original meaning of Halloween was to acknowledge the spirits of the dead at this time because so much in the agricultural world was dying. The harvest was in, the foliage was dying back, the animals were either migrating or preparing to winter over, and men thought it only natural that the spirits of those who left the world of the living noticed this increased activity and came around for another look see.

During our workout session ( yoga for this day ), I started to think about the custom that marks my own celebration of Halloween/Samhain; that of setting out much loved foods for my ancestors and then partaking of it for my own supper. They do not physically eat it , but absorb the gesture of respect shown. There is no inherent power in the food put out ( other than calories and nutritional value to humans consuming it), so why should I run the risk of beginning a bad chain reaction just because that is how it has always been done ? There is no law saying this must be done. The only thing close to a law says that the dead will be remembered, and death thought of as a natural part of life. I pondered this , and bounced the idea off the Hubby. He is my best friend, best adviser, and best way to help me find a grip in life. He agreed, and so I rethought my plan for the night. We also decided to head back down to the family cemetery on Sunday afternoon to take part in the All Saints Day celebration going on there. Much more figure frendly than a table filled with foods to honor the memory of the dead ! So this will be the official display of honor for this year

On the wall is some simple papel picado we made, the gingerbread house, the sugar skulls, a paper model house, a skull and numerous ceramic items made by my mother in law before she contracted Parkinsons and Dementia. Watching her struggle with the disease as well as watching my own mother battle Dementia is a whole other kind of death. You remember who they were while watching who they are slip slowly into that world of death, and they become ghosts of a different nature. Sad to watch, but it shows you how valuable those little memories they made for you have become.

So it is decided that we will have a "feast" of seasonal foods and then the next day walk the cemetary to visit the graves of our dead. While there I will place a sprig of rosemary on each, as the cemetary regulations do not allow for flowers or grave blankets to be placed in the winter. Rosemary...that's for remembrance. Just as meaningful as a plate of perogi, arrancini, barmbrak and more !