P Is for Practice Makes Perfect

When it comes to weight loss, Lord knows, I’ve had plenty of practice. I’ve been losing weight for years. The problem is I keep gaining it too. Like many of you, I have tried many different methods to control my eating and my weight. Sometimes this involved mild attempts at starvation that naturally resulted in binging when my body could no longer handle the lack of food. I have tried diets that focused a single food such as the grapefruit diet and the cabbage soup diet. I’ve tried different plans like counting calories, counting grams of fats and currently counting carbs.

I’ve also tried exercise. I am not a natural athlete. I did not come from a family of physically active people. Activity of this nature takes great effort for me. I do not enjoy the physical strain, getting sweaty (remember, I live in a moderately southern locale with no air conditioning) or the muscle pains that come from working out with a body used to a sedentary life. Still I have tried. I have used a treadmill mill vigorously for months, taken exercise classes like basic step, Zumba and aerobics. I have used a swimming pool and had partners who walked with me 3 to 4 times a week for months.

When everything is going right, I have been able to shed more than a few pounds but let something happen to upset the apple cart and I’m thrown off my game. It seems any disruption in a newly developing routine, even a couple of months into it, is an excuse to fall completely off course and revert to old patterns. Yes, practice make perfect.

However, in spite of some dietary straying this weekend due to a currently stressful financial situation (yes, an excuse – I know!), I am still determined to keep trying.

This morning I weighed in at 249.9. So, considering the bad weekend, that’s not too bad. I had my low carb breakfast, a dish I will share below, and feel ready to face the week. In addition to maintaining a strong commitment to eating low carb this week, I am pledging to exercise at least 4 times for a minimum of 30 minutes each time. Practice makes perfect.

Sausage & Egg Casserole

8 oz. bulk pork sausage

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

3 eggs

1 oz. heavy whipping cream or half & half

Break the sausage into crumbles and brown. Cut the cream cheese into small chunks and add to the sausage. Stir for 1 to 2 minutes to melt the cream cheese a bit. Add the cream and stir to keep cheese from sticking and cream from scalding. When most of the cheese is melted, add the eggs. Stir to break yolks and blend. Keep stirring until eggs are done. Serves 2

Net carbs per serving 1.5

O Is for OMG!

I’m overweight. There is no other way to look at it. You can’t be a woman, 5’ 6” tall and weigh well over 200 pounds and not know that you’re overweight. It is no secret to me. But I have had a few OMG moments, usually involving mirrors or photographs.

I don’t own a full-length mirror. The only mirrors in my house are in the bathrooms and they only reflect from the shoulders up. No – I didn’t have them specially designed to do that though I would if I could. They are over the sinks and that just happens to be where they are placed. This has allowed me to live in ignorant bliss about what the rest of my body looks like to the rest of the world.

I had an OMG moment recently when I used a public restroom that did have a full-length mirror. I was in total disbelief. I don’t know where I thought those 250 pounds were hanging out at but apparently they are hanging out all over because the creature staring back at me in the mirror was huge! Mammoth!

There I was, or some carnival-house-of-mirrors version of me, in jean shorts, a t-shirt and sneakers looking like a blue-clad version of the Stay Puft  Marshmallow man. There was a definite roundness to the middle of me and my arms hung in curves around my girth instead of dangling down beside me.

Lets’ not even talk about my face -that round orb with no neck that seems to begin where my shoulders leave off. Yes, I had an OMG moment. It reaffirmed to me in a way no number on a scale could that I really need to do something.

So in my continuing (and seemingly endless) efforts to shed the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, who is masquerading as me, I am still pursuing the low-carb diet. This week I tried a wonderful Spinach & bacon salad with dressing that I will share with you. Having come from the old school of “FAT IS BAD,” I was taught to trim away fat and soak up the extra grease off of my bacon. So when I read that I was supposed to use the bacon grease to make the dressing, I was skeptical but it was…OMG! Delicious!

Here is the recipe:

Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing

1 bag fresh baby spinach

1/4 c chopped onion

4 slices bacon

2 hardboiled eggs, chopped

1/4 cup vinegar

1 tsp Splenda

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon and allow it to drain on paper towel but keep bacon grease in pan. Add vinegar, pepper and Splenda to bacon grease. Stir and heat slowly until boiling. Tear spinach into salad sized pieces and toss with egg, onion and crumbled bacon.

Immediately pour on hot dressing and toss lightly.

Yields 2 servings

Total Net carbs: 5 grams per serving

N Is for New

I think I need a new scale. I know in the early days of following a low carb diet you can see some significant weight loss but my scale said 249 this morning. I tried it three times to be sure. I just don’t feel as if I’ve lost 6 lbs. since Monday and usually I can feel that kind of weight loss. Oh well, I am not going to obsess about it.

Yesterday morning I made a new recipe, sausage and egg muffins for breakfast. I used Johnsonville Four Cheese Italian sausage because the recipe called for Italian sausage and these are my favorite kind. I loved them though the husband was unsure. He’s a little quirky sometimes. If he’s expecting a certain taste and doesn’t get it, he then judges the dish not to his liking rather than judging the dish on its own merit without expectation. He expected the typical pork breakfast sausage and when it wasn’t, he thought the dish tasted “off”. Personally, I enjoyed it immensely. The recipe calls for you to bake the eggs. I’ve never cared for the texture of baked eggs in the past but this dish really worked. Here’s the recipe:

Sausage and Egg Muffins

6 oz. Ital. sausage

6 eggs

1/8 cup heavy cream

3 oz. cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Spray large muffin pans with cooking spray. Cut sausage links and place them 2 to a tin. Mix eggs with cream, salt and pepper. Pour into tins over sausage. Sprinkle with ½ cheese, layer on remaining egg mixture and top off with cheese again. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until eggs are done.

Yields 3 servings

Total Net carbs: 2.3 grams per serving

I used 2 full Italian sausages, added 1 egg and a pinch more cheese to stretch this to 4 servings.

The bacon cheeseburger recipe I tried was less impressive and will need a major overhaul. It just wasn’t flavorful enough as written. I won’t share the recipe since in my book it was a flop. When I get it right I’ll post it.

Still getting over a summer cold that has settled in my lungs, I didn’t exercise yesterday but I have plans of doing so today. The cold seems much better this morning – it doesn’t hurt much when I take a deep breath. Also on the agenda is some house cleaning, a little time out on the riding mower before the jungle takes over and canning tomatoes.

Yes, in the 90+ degree weather, I am canning. I’m not sure why tomatoes have to ripen in the hottest time of the season but they do so I will be blanching and canning all morning. 25 lbs. will go into salsa and 25 lbs. into diced tomatoes with garlic, basil and oregano. Yummy!