Time to Get Back on Track and An Experiment!

Happy New Years Everyone!  

I hope this year is a good one for all of us, healthy and happy!

For Christmas this year I got a new Vitamix!  How exciting!  My husband and I walked past a Vitamix demonstration in Costco a few weeks before Christmas and I was telling him that I'd read about people using them on the blogs.  I didn't want to watch the demo, because I didn't want to start wanting one since they are pricey.  However, my husband must have thought, "Yes!  Finally, a gift idea for my wife!"  and he ran out and bought one that week, lol.    Now that I have it, I must say it is really nice.  I put away my coffee grinder, regular blender, and food processor and replaced it with this one appliance.  I started searching the web for Costco demonstrations since I hadn't watched the real one, to see all that it could do!  I found this one lady that does demonstrations for a living and has a blog Blender Lady and started reading about green smoothies and raw food living.   From there I began to find a million blogs about green smoothies, you know how it goes.   Now, I'm not about to start a completely different diet because I've been doing the BFC for almost two years and basically like it.   But....., I have been sort of stuck in my weight, and even up since the Fall and over Christmas, so it makes me wonder how to improve things.   A green smoothie is basically 2 or 3 cups of greens of any kind (spinach, kale, collards, dandelion, carrot tops, lettuce, etc.) that you put into your blender with some water, and (here's the hard part) a bit of frozen fruit, and then anything else you want to put in, like chia seeds, nuts, cocoa nibs, flaxseed, etc.  Then you liquefy it all up in a matter of seconds and drink it down.  You get a ton of greens and fiber in one drink.   The only thing that made me hesitate trying it was the dreaded fruit, which we all know is not really allowed on the BFC.   Well, I've decided to do a two week experiment!  I'm going to make one of these (with as little fruit as I can stand) and drink them in the morning for breakfast and then again at lunch and then I'll eat a regular BFC dinner.

I'll do this for two weeks and see if the following happens:
1.) I lose any weight
2.) I feel healthier
3.) I feel satisfied
4.) I'm hungry or not

I started two days ago and so far have not noticed any difference in my weight, either up or down. But I seriously don't lose as fast as some of you, and have never been able to make much of a difference in just a day or two.  They do taste surprisingly good and you can't taste the greens at all.  The last two days I haven't been hungry during the day and so haven't snacked.  We'll see if that continues.   Yesterday I had 3 cups of spinach, a whole key lime, one green apple, chia seeds, small handful of almonds, a little stevia, and some real coconut and coconut water.  If you add berries, which are better for us on the BFC, it still tastes really good but turns an unappealing brown color.  Don't look, lol!

Other news, my son got me hooked on the Masterpiece Theater show,"Downton Abbey" .  Have you guys seen it - so good!

Merry Christmas (a couple days early)

 Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I thought I'd better wish everyone a Merry Christmas now while I have a chance.  I really like being part of this blogging community and though I've never met any of you, I feel I know you a little because of these blogs. I think about all of you as you go about your day to day joys and struggles with this diet and life in general.

For this blog I thought I'd just share a little of what I'm making to eat to help me through the holidays!  Only my husband and I were home last night (weird) and we had the best soup and sandwich meal ever.  I wish I had taken a picture of everything, but anyway, here is what we had.   The soup was a spicy butternut squash soup with black beans, red peppers and cilantro, that I found over here on kalynskitchen.com.  Then, because I LOVE to watch the show Top Chef, I got inspiration from a sandwich challenge they had and made a really good sandwich on some homemade Flax Meal Focaccia Bread.  I cut the bread into sandwich squares and then mashed up some avocado mixed with lemon juice, garlic and a little olive oil, and spread that on the bread.  Next some carmelized onion and cooked cherry tomatos, cheddar cheese, smoked turkey and bacon!  Yum!   It was a little messy to eat but SO good.

For Christmas I have alreay made regular gingerbread cutout cookies decorated with icing, ginger spiced chocolate chip cookies, meltaway bars, and snowtopped mint chocolate cookies for the boys and any guests we might have.   For me, my husband, oldest son, and his girlfriend I'm making Maria's Healthified Italian Pillow Cookies, New Chocolate Chip Cookies ( I use Jay Robb vanilla whey and sugar free chips instead of the chocoperfection bar), and lastly Orange Pound Cake from Jeri's old blog (I miss Jeri).  I might even make some more lemon coconut bread for Christmas breakfast....remember how much we used to all make that?!  I love having goodies sitting out in old fashioned tins for the holidays and this way we can have things to grab all the way until New Years.

 I tried to take a picture of our two trees this morning with my cell phone, but my phone doesn't have the greatest camera.

   So I'm almost finished with everything, just have to to a little more baking today, wrap the last few presents and then I'm ready.  My oldest son and his girlfriend are coming to stay with us on Christmas Eve and into the holidays.  I tried to get my dad to come for the day, but he doesn't want to go anywhere this year, which I can understand.  It will be a little sad for him.  The Thursday after Christmas my family and I are going to go down and see him and take him out to an old Inn for dinner and then stay the night at his house.  I might try and get my brother and his family to come too.  On Christmas day my husbands's parents are coming over to see us.  They take care of two mentally handicapped people through the county that they live in, so those "ladies"(they seem like kids to me even though they are in their forties) will be coming too.  I bought them coloring books, crayons and slinkies so they'll have something to open over here. 

For Christmas day I started a tradition of NOT having a big dinner and instead I set up a buffet in the mid-afternoon for everyone to get food as they want.  This year I think I'm putting out fried mozzarella and sugar-free marinara sauce, spinach artichoke dip and tortilla chips, a spiral ham, rolls (for those that want to turn the ham into a sandwich), a crock-pot of spicy meatballs, deviled eggs, and a huge veggie tray.  Also all the goodies listed above.  Most of this stuff I make ahead and that gives me a chance to enjoy the day with everyone too and not be stuck in the kitchen.  Plus I realized from years past, that when everyone is home on Christmas, spending a lot of the day in their PJ's, and snacking on goodies,  no one seems to want a huge dinner that night anyway.  

                                  Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy New Year to all of you!

The gift of love. The gift of peace. The gift of happiness. May all these be yours at Christmas

Christmas is Coming

Hello Everyone

Where have I been!?  I know, it's been quite awhile since I posted.  Thanksgiving has come and gone and now it almost time for Christmas!   I'm not sure what my problem is with blogging lately, I just haven't been motivated to put anything down these days.  My Thanksgiving was a little hard at my Dad's house with my Mom being gone and everything.  It was a little sad for me to use her pots and pans knowing the last time she used them she had no idea what was about to happen to her.  On the plus side, it was nice spending time with my older brother and his family since they stayed at Dad's house too.  Also, I think having us all there made everything a little easier for my Dad .  We were sad, but we did a lot of laughing too.

-So now it is time to get ready for Christmas.  I have the house decorated, but have just only begun my shopping, sigh.  We put up one little tree for the front living room and we are going out this weekend to cut down the big one for the family room.  This is going to sound awful, but this stuff used to be so much fun and lately it's all seemed a little bit like a chore.  The boys are much more into it then I am I think.  Even my oldest, that has his own apartment,  is coming home for the day on Sunday to help pick out and decorate the tree.  I'm sure I'll be more into things as they start happening.  I hope anyway.

Remember how my weight was up six pounds and then I lost three of those six pounds?   Well, I'm back up those six pounds again!  Ugh!!   What did I do wrong this time?   I'm pretty sure that it's because I had a lot of beer with my dad and my brother over Thanksgiving.  I bought Michelob Ultra, which is supposed to be the best beer as far as carbs go, but over the four days I was at my Dad's house I had nine beers.  Oh well.  I really felt like having them so that is that. Food wise I did pretty well, and think I stuck to the BFC.   One thing that was different for me this past month was I stopped taking my probiotics because I ran out of them.  I recently bought two more bottles and starting using them again.  I think they really do make a difference.  I also decided the "no snacking at all" rule did not do me too much good except for the first week.  I've decided to make some more BFC friendly treats to get me through the holidays.  As long as I don't overdo them I think they'll be OK at least for this month.  Today I bought a little donut pan that I've been wanting to try out.  In fact, as I'm typing this, I've just put my last batch of almond flour donuts sweetened with stevia into the oven.   The pan looks like this

 I used Maria Emmerich's recipe for Peanut Flour Donuts.  Since I didn't have any peanut flour I used almond meal flour and used Z-Sweet for my sweetener.  Here is how they look all done.

They came out pretty good. My husband and I are going to try and get an early start Christmas shopping tomorrow morning so I thought it would be nice to have something to grab and go. 

I'm going to go catch up on the blogs now and see how everyone else is doing. 

 Why do my dogs not want to wear their Santa hats?!!!

Hogwarts Express coming around the village under the tree.

Thanksgiving Week

It's Thanksgiving week already!  Usually I am the one hosting Thanksgiving for my brother and his family,that lives near me, and for my parents that travel over from West Virginia.  This year, of course, my mother will not be with us.  At my mom's funeral my dad requested that we ALL come down to his house for Thanksgiving.  He said he would provide the turkeys and his famous bread stuffing and asked me to come up with a menu for what everyone else could bring.  That's going to be a LOT of people at his house for the day.  My family will include my husband and I, our four boys and my oldest's son's girlfriend.  My brother that lives near me has two kids, and my brother that lives near my dad has five kids and three boyfriend/girlfriends that will be there for the day.  I think that is a total of 22 adult-sized people for dinner. and 12 actually sleeping at the house!    We will be having the traditional foods plus roasted brussel sprouts, mashed garlicy cauliflower and a sugarfree pumpkin cheesecake for desert, so those of doing low-carb will have something to eat.  I'm also bringing down some sugarfree coconut flour pumpkin muffins to have on hand for temptation times or a quick breakfast.  Not too worried about falling off the diet while I'm there.

Still have Thanksgiving decorations up over here!

I've been sticking to my NO snacking, and totally eating clean this past week to get off the rest of the six pounds I gained BUT I did not lose any weight this past week.  Weird huh?  I'm not going to try anything different this week since it will be hard enough to stay with what I'm doing over the holiday, but maybe the week after, if there is no weight loss, I'll re-look at what I'm eating.  

I have to hit the grocery store today to get my supplies for Thanksgiving.  I'm sure 10,000 other people will be out doing the same thing, so I better get out there early.  

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It's working

Happy Friday Everyone!

As you know from my last post I was up in weight from not monitoring my foods better the last two months. This week I decided to be much more involved.    Here is what I did:

1)  No snacking  - only eat three times a day and if hungry have hot tea with stevia - no cream!
2)  No healthy backed goods or protein bites this week - This was huge because I've been having so many of them lately.
3.) Track food on My fitness Pal - OK, I'm still not good at doing this everynight, but I tracked a little
4.)  Eggs for breakfast instead of baked goods or pancakes.
5.)  No eating after dinner
6.) No alcohol

I did all those things and have to say I definitely felt hungry in between meals.  I drank a lot of hot tea!  One or two times I did have a cup of decaff in the afternoons with cream just to be a little fuller until dinner.  I kept telling myself that it was good to feel hungry for the next upcoming meal.  I did feel hungry a little in the evenings before bed.  I think I was so used to popping an almond flour muffin, or protein bite everytime I felt a bit hungry that it is going to take my body a little time to get used to not having them in between meals.  I'll save them for the upcoming holidays and they will feel much more like a treat.

The good and suprising news is that I am back down by three pounds as of this morning.  Fridays are my new weigh in day.   I have another three to go before I am back down to my lowest weight so far of 159lbs. I still do want to get down to my original goal of 150 though and think I have to just do more of the above to get there.  There is a chance my body just doesn't want to get that low again now that I'm in my fifties.  We'll see.

My youngest boy has been a high school counselor at the local "Outdoor School" this week.  All sixth graders in our county go for a week to this overnight camp and learn about the environment, and owls and stuff like that.  As a senior in High School you can volunteer to be a counselor if you're in good standing with your school.  Kyle volunteered.   I'm picking him up this afternoon and taking him to Chipotle (I'll get the salad).  He says he is exhausted and starving!   It's been a cold week here to be in outdoor school -down in the thirties at night and only going up in the forties during the day.  We were supposed to get snow on Wednesday but it missed us and went north to Pennsylvania.  I have a feeling Pattie got some.   This week coming up is supposed to be much nicer and going back up to the sixties a few days.   Maybe I'll walk this week.  I will continue doing what I did this week foodwise and let you know how it goes.
Have a great weekend everyone!

Little slips add up

Hello everyone,

Things are slowing down again over here after the horrible past two months I've had.  Last Thursday my dad called to say his new couch was in, and wanted to know if I could bring my van down the next day and help him pick it up from the warehouse.  I drove back to West Virginia last Friday morning and he and I took all the back seats out of my van (they are heavy!) and drove over to the town of Winchester.   Dad wanted to stop for a Chinese lunch buffet before we picked up the van and I said OK even though I know Chinese food is NOT good on the BFC.  I didn't eat any rice but I could tell the sauce in the foods probably had sugar.  We picked up the couch and hauled it back to his house.  Oh and on the way back we stopped at the shellter to check out a dog we had seen on Petfinders.com.   They didn't write this on the description on the website, but it turns out this particular dog was back at the shelter after biting his new adopter's  face due to food aggression.  I felt bad for the dog (and the previous owner), but don't think the dog was right for my Dad.  He needs calm, and companionship right now, and can't take on a dog with problems, especially like biting.   I really think this shelter is going to have a hard time placing dogs, because they didn't have anything good to say about any of the ones we looked at.    Anyway, when we got back to his house we managed to haul the couch in and get in placed in his livingroom.  It looks good!  Dad said, that wasn't bad for an old guy and a midlle aged woman.  Hey!!   I don't like being referred to as middle aged!
After we were done, we went and put some flowers on my mom's grave and had a nice visit.

New Couch

 So over the past two months I haven't been weighing myself at all.  Although I thought I'd been eating right during this whole crisis, I know I've been having some slips, from not being home so much.  A piece of regular bread with my eggs at dad's, the chinese buffet, some  non bfc crackers, too many protein bites and not enough actual lunches,  eating after 7:00, restaurant food many nights while going to hospital, etc., etc.    Although these bunches of "little things" don't sound too bad, the bunches of little things have apparently added up to bad news!!   I got on the scale today and I am up in weight for the first time on the BFC.  I mean I've been up and down two or so pounds before because my weight fluctuates like that, but this time I was really up - SIX pounds!!   Now that is a concern, especially with the holidays coming up.  That's a hard enough time to maintain weight as it is, let alone trying to lose.  Ugh!   So I've got to come up with a little game plan to get my weight back down. I'm still feeling so lazy right now that don't feel like cracking down on myself but I really must!!  If I've learned nothing else this past two months it's that our health is important and we can't put it off until tomorrow.    It turns out that Rosalie's post came at a perfect time this morning because she had some good tips for staying on track.  In case you didn't see them they are:

1.Eat within 1 hour of waking up
2.Make sure to eat a healthy breakfast - get a good start to you day
3.eat every 3-4 hours
4.Never skip a meal
5.Make sure your snacks are healthy ones (healthy fats, nuts, etc.)
6.just protein and veggies for dinner (no Carbs)
7.No food past 7pm
8.get some form of exercise everyday if you can - for me its walking

I need to work on number 1, number 3, number 4, number7, and number 8!   That's a lot of numbers!  I guess I am slipping more than I thought!   I also wish I could be more like Kay and not snack AT ALL and just eat meals!!  My snacks are healthy but I think I get into them too much and sometimes eat the snacks instead of a meal!  Not good!

So starting today I am going to stop being so lax and THINK more about what I am doing and eating.  I will also try to track my food again (even though to me that is such a pain), and hopefully start walking again.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Sunday October 21, 2012

What a month I've had.  Things seem to have happened at warp speed and now that everything is said and done we are all left wondering "what the heck just happened!?"

As I told you in earlier posts,  my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer in the middle of August, after she exhibited stroke like symptoms in her right leg and arm.  The cancer had already metastasized into her brain and liver.  She immediately underwent 10 days of whole brain radiation, and then after a weeks break started her first round of chemo.  Three days after her first chemo she became jaundiced and was admitted to the hospital.  They were unable to perform a bile duct bypass, and they sent her home to see if the chemo would work well enough to reduce the tumor in her liver. Unfortunately that was not the case.   One and a half weeks later we brought mom back to the oncologist on the day of her supposed second chemo treatment (although we all knew by then she wasn't strong enough for a second treatment).  The doctor said there was nothing else he could do but did admit her into the hospital for some IV fluids to perk her up a little, and to give us a few days to prepare for hospice care.  That was on Monday, October 1.  We started making arrangements for hospice.  My older brother and I stayed with my dad that week to help him with everything.  My brother had to leave Wednesday night for a meeting at his work the next morning but was coming back by lunch time to help us with the move to hospice.  Thursday morning the hospital called to say they were not going to move mom after all  because she had taken a turn for the worse the night before.  I told my dad, and called both my brothers and then jumped in the car and zoomed to the hospital.  I made in time to hold her hand and tell her we all loved her...and then she took her last breath.   We buried her on October 8th - which just happened to be me and my husband's 24th wedding anniversary.  It was a beautiful Fall morning and the cemetery we found is almost directly across from my dad's property, in a quaint little church cemetery on a hill that overlooks the West Virginia mountains.   I think she would have liked it.

Now that things have settled down I can't help but think of how fast this all took place.  While it was going on we were all so busy running around, talking to doctors, making future plans, looking after my father, visiting in the hospital....etc.  Now we are all left wondering what the heck just happened, you know what I mean?   I've been down to see my dad a couple times and he seems to be doing fine.  With my mother being out of the house for the entire illness (she stayed with my brother, then me, then rehab, then the hospital), I think that gave dad some time to adjust to her being gone.  I recently went down to see him for an overnight visit and brought him some homemade meals, helped him pick out a new couch that he has always wanted (my mom only wanted love seats and chairs), and talked with about him getting a dog.  I think he'll be OK.  We are all planning on meeting back at dad's house for Thanksgiving this year and having a big family meal together, my dad, my two brothers and their families and me and my guys.   I think that gives him something to look forward to.

As for me I am surprisingly doing fine as well.  My husband thinks it hasn't hit me yet, but I think I've been adjusting to the inevitable ever since I took her to the ER when she was first diagnosed.  I have been thinking about how all my female role models are gone now, my mom, my aunts, and both my grandmothers.  I'm left with the men.

My husband and I are going up to Lancaster tomorrow for a little late anniversary overnight trip.  I'm looking forward to just doing some craft shopping, enjoying the Amish countryside, and spending some alone time with my husband, and taking my mind somewhere else for awhile.

My next blog I will begin thinking about the BFC again.  One thing we have all talked about during this trying time, is how we should all take care of ourselves, get ourselves healthy, get physicals, don't overlook symptoms and don't hold off until too late things you want to do and see.   I believe this lifestyle I have been on for about a year and a half now is one that will get me healthy!

Thanks for letting me share all of this with you guys.