Various Bits and Pieces

The weekend before Christmas I house-sat for my dad and watched his golden lab, Sophie, for him.  Sophie and I bonded and I'm proud to say that she now responds when I call her "So-Fifi".  I feel as if I've accomplished something here.

On that Saturday I went to Sugarless Delite in Richardson for the very first time.  I wandered around aimlessly - it's a tiny store, but they have a buttload of stuff there - until a very nice woman named Hannah came up to help me.  I could almost swear she read my mind because the first thing she had me taste-test when I told her I wanted low-carb things was a 0 net carb brownie, then a 3-4 net carb piece of pecan pie with a pecan crust.  Pecan pie is my absolute favorite and brownies come in a close second, so I snatched some up.  The pie was just divine, and the brownies were so fudgy that when I let my nephew eat one he spent a few minutes arguing with me because I'd called them brownies and he insisted they were fudge.

I also got a few sugar-free, calorie-free, carb-free syrups.  I usually put Starbucks peppermint or vanilla syrup into my coffees, but those can run something like 26 net carbs per serving.  Yikes!  Since I'm only allowed 20, that didn't fly.  These are very tasty and I found that since they're artificially sweetened, I didn't need to add extra sweetener.

What I forgot to take a picture of is the Millennium pie I went back on Monday for.  Once again Hannah helped me out.  I wanted a pecan pie, but they were out so she had me try the Millennium pie and explained that it had the same ingredients and the main difference was that it had caramel and the pecan pie didn't.  It was tasty!

Seriously, if you're low-carb, sugar-free, diabetic, or just want sweets that aren't going to blow your diet out of the water then go to Sugarless Delite.  And ask for Hannah.  Hannah is awesome!

Monday night I made dinner for my nephew and dad.  It included what I was affectionately told was called "crack slaw."  It's very simply shredded cabbage, ground beef, onion, soy sauce, and rice vinegar but it is so so good.  Yum!

Along with that went brussel sprouts tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Look at how crispy and caramelized it got!  It was seriously delicious.

And no low-carb meal is complete without jalapeno poppers.  Seriously, meals are incomplete without them.  No joke.

When I got back from house-sitting and Christmas festivities with my dad I found this beautiful dish of oxtail stew in my freezer waiting for me.  CarbTripper has shown herself making this a few times in her blog and she was kind enough to make it for me.  Oh, you have no idea the deliciousness in that bowl.  I've been eating on it slowly so as to savor it and have it as long as possible.

These awesome dishes that are part Christmas present and part house-warming present are also from her.  If all I got as house-warming gifts were things for the kitchen, I'd be a happy person.  Forget the bedroom, living room, bathroom...  I want pots!  Pans!  Spoons!  Knives!  Blenders!  Food processors!  I might be a little sore from sleeping on the floor, but it would be a good sore.

Okay, so there's one thing other than kitchenware that I need.  Books.  Books are what make the world turn.  I took a box of books up to Half Price Books to sell to them.  When I left the box was as full as it had been before, but now with books I'd bought thanks to an amazing Christmas gift card from my dad.  Kitchenware and books.  Life is good.

Some food. And then some more food. Oh, wait, and then more!

Isn't this the most beautiful picture you've ever seen?  Okay, maybe not, but it's gotta rate up there, right?  The pink of the shrimp, yellow of the oil, and white of the pan make for a beautiful mix of colors.  Mmm, shrimp.

I used said shrimp to make this - lemon shrimp on a bed of spring greens with a chipotle-garlic vinaigrette.  Yummy.  It made 4 of the large bowls pictured.  Each bowl is 217 calories and 3.7 grams of net carbs.

These gorgeous chicken thighs got marinated in worchestershire sauce and spices, baked, then chopped up and put onto salads I'll show you in a minute.  My nephew's reaction to the sheet pans of chicken was, "You made grease like on Schlotzsky's pizzas!"

One of the things that got topped with the chicken thighs was this warm salad.  Wilted greens, sauteed onions, and toasted pine nuts.  It took about 5 minutes to cook everything up and it's delicious!  There's 4 servings.  152 calories and 5.2 net carbs per serving sans the chicken.

Another dish that was topped with the chicken was zucchini a la romano.  The herb you can see on there is mint.  Yum!  This pan of wonderfulness made 6 plentiful servings at 62 calories and 2.5 grams of net carbs per serving sans the chicken.

This monstrosity is my attempt at a quiche for my breakfasts.  There's two types of ground meat, green onions, and mushrooms in it.  8 servings on this one - 730 calories and 5.8 grams of net carbs per serving.  I forgot how heavy in calories quiches are!  Whew!  Like I've said before, breakfast is my largest meal of the day.  As you can see from the lunches/dinners I made, their calorie counts are very low so while everything made is full fat, the calories are still very much under control.

Last but not least, I made something for snacks.  Sorry for the picture quality!  That white glob there is veggie dip.  Sour cream, mayo, and a couple of things thrown in.  It's super delicious!  I cut up some broccoli and cauliflower florets for dipping.  It made about 3 cups of dip, with a serving being 2 tbsp.  For each serving it comes out to 65 calories and 2.2 grams of net carbs.

Everything I made today - except for the dip - has been pre-portioned and put into individual containers.  This way I can just grab a couple containers on my way out the door in the morning.  The dip was harder to deal with because you just can't find containers that are 2 tbsps in size.  I might just portion a cup or so into a smaller container and leave it in the fridge at work so I won't have to worry about taking a single portion every day.

I spent so many hours cooking today.  Oh, so many.  The good news is that I now have 2 weeks' worth of meals ready to go!  I'd call that a good thing.

Great news! + My morning breakfast routine

Hello!

I have some great news!  As part of a cardio/fitness assessment this morning I had to calculate my BMI.  The BMI categories look like this:

For a very long time my BMI fluctuated between 38 and 40, making me severely or morbidly obese.  After calculating my BMI this morning I am now at 28.72, on the higher end of the "overweight" category!  Now, I know that overweight isn't good, but I am now officially not considered morbidly or severely obese.  I'm not even in the obese category.  This gives me so much hope and motivation to keep going.

(There is a ton of controversy over BMI and it's accuracy, but that would take an entire post in itself just to go over.)

And now for my breakfast routine!  I said before that I love getting up and making scrambled eggs so when I did so this morning I thought I'd document it.  So this is what I do!

The very first thing I do is get everything ready.  I get out my eggs, my cheese - which just so happens to be freshly grated this morning, how fancy is that? - bacon, and then I chop up any vegetables I can find.  Today all we had was onion and cauliflower which means a trip to the store is in order!  Usually I add mushrooms as well.  Only recently have I been putting in cauliflower.  I find it makes the eggs much more filling and tastes like potatoes!

Next I get a pan screaming hot and throw in my bacon.  I cook that until it's rendered all its fat and is nice and crispy, then I transfer it to a plate until I'm ready for it.

Into the rendered bacon fat goes all of my vegetables.  I love good, soft, sauteed veggies in my eggs so I cool those until they're nice and tender.

Then I add in my 3 eggs.

And the cheese!  Then stir, stir, stir until the cheese is melted and the eggs are cooked through.

After the eggs are done, I add the bacon back in for some yummy crunch!  Sadly, I realize now that the picture I took of the beautiful bacon crumbles on top of the finished eggs somehow got deleted off my phone or didn't take or some other such treacherous thing.

Totals for the dish: 555.8 calories and 6.4 carbs.

I had that about 9:30 this morning.  It's 12:30 now and I'm still not hungry.  Eggs like that chocked full of protein and veggies will keep me full for at least 4 hours.  It's my biggest meal of the day.  For lunch I'll usually have a salad, ham and cheese roll-ups, or an Atkins shake, and for dinner usually some kind of meat and some veggies.  Once a trip to the grocery store happens I'll make a post about lunch and dinner.

From Disblief to Wonder

I've been heavy for a very good portion of my life.  As I've gotten older, I've gotten even more so.  Two years ago I decided I was going to lose the weight once and for all.  Two years later and I've gained back 35 of the 50 pounds I'd lost.  Restricting calories and fat just didn't work for me.  I felt deprived and unsatisfied.  I'd stick with it a day or two, eat salads and lean chicken and count every calorie, but then I'd ultimately break down and eat most of the calories I'd managed to save the previous days.

I'd heard of Atkins before - I mean, who the heck hasn't?  - but I'd never really looked into it.  It was something I'd heard of and that was it.  A few months ago a friend of my mom's started talking about how she has been on Atkins for the last couple of years.  She's lost a lot of weight and is so much healthier now.  At first my calorie-restricting self balked.  The first low-carb meal I saw prepared featured bacon-wrapped scallops, bacon-wrapped shrimp, bacon-wrapped asparagus, jalapenos filled with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon, and bacon-wrapped salmon.  Everything was swimming in bacon and fat.  There's no way that's good for you, right?!  I couldn't believe it and I refused to eat it.  My calorie allotment for the day just wouldn't abide it.

That was months ago. I kept hearing about Atkins, and hearing more.  This friend is extremely passionate and I started asking questions.  Then, about three weeks ago I decided, "Why not?"  Calorie-restricting and staying away from fat and sugar hasn't worked for me.  Why not try Atkins?  It's not like what I was doing was doing any good, so why not?

I jumped into it headfirst after I went to a doctor's appointment and saw how high my weight had creeped back up on the scale.  I started with Induction, the first phase of Atkins.  Food is most restrictive in that phase but, honestly, other than things like potatoes, bread, and cookies, I don't feel restricted.  There's so many vegetables, meats, and things you can eat.  I made salads, cooked steaks, bought wonderful, glorious, fresh vegetables.  I bought bacon!

For the first two days I felt incredible amounts of guilt every time I ate a meal.  What I had been fed for so long was to cut out fat, watch calories, eat "healthy", and here I was eating bacon, cheese, and cooking things in oil and butter.  I felt like I was doing something wrong.  But I stuck with it and kept going.  The food was good.  Better than good, it was great!  I found that I was no longer hungry between meals.  Before I had been ravenous even right after a meal.  Now I look at the clock and go, "Oh, I should probably eat dinner now."  That's the most amazing part for me, being satisfied and not feeling like I'm starving all the time.

My first week on Atkins I lost 7 pounds.  So, I kept going.  My second week I lost 11 pounds.  My third, I lost 3 pounds.  That includes Thanksgiving week!  I'm at 21 pounds lost in three weeks' time and I just keep losing.

And the best part of all?  I have cravings for pasta, candy, or cookies....but I'm so satiated by the foods I can and do eat on Induction that I haven't broken my diet and gorged like I have so many times in the past.  Not even once.  I look at things I can't eat, give them a mental shrug, and reach for something I can.  I've never had the self-control to do that before!

So far Atkins has been an amazing thing.  I'm starting to reintroduce exercise into my routine to amp it up even more.  Along with almost weekly low-carb cooking sessions and reading all the books I can get my hands on, I'm very excited about the Atkins way of life.

And now, a few pictures of food.  Because who doesn't love pictures of food?

Two of my absolute favorite foods ever - low-carb meatloaf and jalapeno poppers.  I could eat either by the gallonful.  Which, just to let you know, is not a healthy idea nor Atkins-approved.  Nothing should be eaten by the gallon!

I love eggs.  A lot.  But with calorie-restrictive diets they're just not on the menu.  Look at this beautiful picture!  Eggs over easy topped with blue cheese crumbles, diced avocado, and bacon.  I can eat eggs!  And avocado!  And bacon!  Yum!

For two and a half weeks I got up every morning to make eggs.  Then I got lazy and made egg "muffins".  One egg, one piece of bacon, shredded pepperjack, and sauteed onions and mushrooms in each cup.  Super easy and I have breakfast for a week!

The true test of will came at the donut shop.  My nephew made this beautiful donut rainbow.  Isn't it gorgeous?  He dined on kolaches, a chocolate-glazed donut with sprinkles, and chocolate milk.  I dined on water....and then went home and cooked my favorite breakfast - eggs with veggies and bacon.  I didn't even feel at all deprived!