Check In 2/18/16

This is a shrimp scampi with yellow tomatoes and zucchini noodles! Yuuuummmm!

I was off work Monday for President's Day, so I spent some time making all my lunches for the week. Tuesday was cabbage and sausage sauteed together. Wednesday was Parmesan chicken and broccoli. Thursday is homemade turkey soup that I had frozen a couple of months ago and Friday is creamed spinach with chicken breast. Everything so far had been delicious, and it made lunch so easy!

I ran my first 5k of the year on Saturday with my friends Sam. I have a goal to do 6 in 2016! I'm off to a great start!

My fasting blood sugar this morning was the lowest I've ever seen it!

Also my weight this morning was 227, which is a grand total of 17.6 lost since December 31, 2015.
Happy Low Carbing!

Check in!

Greetings Low Carbers!

I haven't written in a while, so I thought I would give a quick update! I did have one day (really only one meal) where I strayed a bit recently, but I got write back on the wagon.

I can't give a weight loss update that is precise because the battery in my scale died. Yesterday, however, it showed me at 16.9 lbs lost! I'm pretty happy with that!

I've joined 2 dietbets this month. It occured to me that if I had joined one in January, I would have won!

Diet Bet

Check out the link for details. I'm pretty motivated to win!

  This is a cheese sauce I made yesterday! Sometime I will definitely post the recipe, because it's soooo good.

I put it over broccoli and cauliflower! We ate it with t-bone steaks! Yum yum yum!

Happy Low Carbing!

Layne

My Fitness Pal

You can follow my food Diary on My Fitness Pal.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/layneacarver

I've selected Wednesday's to be my intermittent fasting day, so there won't be any entries until this evening. 

I'll make a post soon about why I choose to use intermittent fasting as part of my plan.


Happy Low Carbing!

Low Carb Schnitzel and Mashed Cauliflower

Schnitzel is the German word for a breaded and fried cutlet of meat. It can be beef, chicken, or pork, but I find myself partial to pork cutlets. They're inexpensive and delicious. Also, I can often find them marked down for quick sale at the grocery store.

Meats that have been marked down for quick sale are my favorite! Now, unless the package is damaged irrevocably or there's a bad smell emanating from the meat, then it's perfectly fine. You should use it quickly or freeze it though. I have a deep freezer, which is very convenient for stocking up on all sorts of things when they're on sale or marked down.

Here you can see, I have 4 packages each with 2 cutlets. All of them were mark down, and all in all, I spent $5.54. There are 3 people in my house, and I expect that everyone will have 2, with 2 being left over (maybe).

I put a large dollop of lard in my pan to get hot over a medium heat. You could also use bacon grease, coconut oil, or other cooking oils.

The breading mixture consisted of:
Parmesan Cheese       1/2 Cup
Almond Flour            1/4 Cup
Garlic Powder            2 Tbsp
Onion Powder            2 Tbsp
Salt                             To Taste  
Cajun Seasoning         To Taste (Optional) 

Mix the ingredients together well, and then push the cutlets down into it, covering both sides. Fry them on each side for several minutes until they reach a nice golden brown color.

The nutritional data is approximately as follows per serving:

Calories: 524

Total Carbs: 8 g

Net Carbs: 7 g

For a side dish, I made mashing cauliflower.

Boil 2 bags of frozen cauliflower. Cook until tender and then drain.

 

These are the added ingredients:

Mozzarella Cheese   1/2 Cup
Sour Cream              1/3 Cup
Ricotta Cheese         1/2 Cup
Salted Butter             1/2 Stick (4 Tbsp)

Spices (all to taste):

Salt
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Cajun Seasoning

 I put everything in the pot with the cauliflower, then I use a stick blender to mix it together.

This is what it looks like once blended. The nutrition breaks down as follows:

Calories: 287
Total Carbs: 9 g
Net Carbs: 7 g

I ate my entire plate, and it was delicious and filling!

This is my food log thus far today. I'm sure I will eat a little bit more before bed.

Happy Low Carbing!

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Blood Sugar

Hello Low Carbers!

My blood sugar reading this morning was 98! That's the lowest I've ever seen it in the morning (fasted).

I had some nuts, cheese, bacon and a sausage patty around 11 am, then my husband, Rocky(my dog), and I went for a 2 mile trail hike at a local park.

(This picture is actually from a week ago, but it was a similar experience. Husband not pictured. lol)

Upon returning home, I cooked up some beef liver with onions and tomatoes. I would have taken a picture, but it wasn't very pretty. 

Liver is one of the most nutrient dense foods I can think of off the top of my head (along with maybe eggs), however, you should know that liver does contain some carbohydrates due to it being the store house for glycogen. Your muscles also store a small amount of glycogen for quick energy. It works the same way in animals, so their livers tend to have a few carbs. It's worth the carbs for the nutrition, if you like liver!

So, the liver, onions, and tomatoes was a little bit of a carby meal for me. I'm estimating it at around 15 net carbs (total carbs - fiber).

I tested my blood sugar about an hour after eating and it was 110. Not too bad. I hadn't exercised between eating and testing. (Exercise is a quick way to lower your blood sugar.) In fact, I had been sitting on my butt playing Assassin's Creed Black Flag for over an hour.

Here's a screen shot from My Fitness Pal for today so far. Since I'm subtracting fiber, my total net carbs are at 19. I will probably eat something else before going to bed, since it's only five now, and I last ate at three.
I'm hoping my blood sugar is still low in the morning! Below are some related links on blood sugar and liver that are worth checking out! There is a ton more information out there. These are just a few to get you started.

Happy Low Carbing!

• Mark's Daily Apple - Organ Meats
• Mark's Daily Apple - The Definitive Guide to Insulin, Blood Sugar, and Type 2 Diabetes
• Diet Doctor - How to Reverse Your Diabetes Type 2
• Chris Kresser - Why your “normal” blood sugar isn’t normal (Part 2)

What I ate today

Hello Low Carbers!

Today before I left for work I ate a small handful of mixed nuts. Specifically Planter's Pistachio mix. I didn't count or measure how many or how much, but I think a safe estimate is about 1 oz.

For lunch I had 2 Land 'O 'Lakes snack cheeses, a medium-ish Haas Avocado, half a container of lunch meat, and some mayo.

For supper, I baked some cheddar cheese slices on a silicone mat. I friend some hot dogs in bacon grease, and when the cheese was just slightly golden brown, I plopped a hot dog in the middle of it a rolled it up. I ate two of those and one frank by itself. I also ate about 7 grape tomatoes (watch the sugar in these), because I was hungry before the food was ready. For a side, I fried a bag of frozen green beans in the left over grease until the were slightly browned.

Picture below are the franks rolled in cheese on the baking pan (be sure to use a silicone mat or parchment paper) and about 1/3 a cup of green beans.

My estimates are as follows:

Calories: 1958
Net Carbs: 23g

Net carbs are total carbs minus fiber and/or sugar alcohols. These do not affect your blood sugar like other carbs and sugars do.

(Cheese wrapped Hot Dogs)




(My supper plate)

My blood sugar this morning before eating was 113. This evening before eating it was 109. I took a walk and checked it again. It was 96.

These numbers may seem a little high, but in December before I started my journey, my morning glucose was averaging around 126 and after meals it was sometimes over 200. Those numbers scared me! I've never been diagnosed with diabetes, but it runs in my family. I'm sure I have pre-diabetes at the very least, but I know what foods to avoid to keep my blood sugar out of those dangerously high numbers.

I'm hoping my blood sugar continues to fall along with my weight!

Happy Low Carbing!