Giving My Body to the Internet

I got a physical.   

He didn't mention weight loss, my blood pressure is great, and then they took my blood.

A week later, someone calls and tells me that my cholesterol is very high and the doctor wants me to eat less fat, sugar, and exercise more.

And this is AFTER I told him that I have IBS and control it with diet. No grains, no sugars (certainly no processed foods), just meat and vegs and fruit.  For YEARS!  I am the living, breathing definition of eating clean.

I asked for my cholesterol number, even though she had, "already put my file away and had to get it out again."

Bitch? Seriously?

258.

So I eat perfectly. I work out everyday, weights and cardio and I'm about to die from a heart attack?

Can't be right.  I have an iphone, apps to the rescue!  I started tracking my cholesterol and calories.  Ok, clearly I'm eating too much.  I can eat less. I can always eat less.  If I could only lower my calories I might actually reach my goal weight, which had remained elusive except for one afternoon, when I got all the way down to 127 pounds--and then ate lunch and that was the end of that! Of course, to get there, I biked for 30 minutes every day, then hit the weights for an hour, and did this all with 1 Lean Cuisine a day.  In 5 months, I lost 50 pounds and to get that final 5, I stopped eating for 3 days and went to a water park to burn as many calories as I possibly could!  Voila!  Success! So I can do this!  I can drop more calories.  As long as I'm eating, I can drop more calories.  Noooooooooo problem.  

After a week, know what I learned? My average daily cholesterol is 66 (300 is the norm) and my average daily calories is 777.  Huh. 

Ok, I know I don't eat a LOT but that seems low. Apparently, some days I only eat 300 calories.  Sometimes more, but never more than 777.  And OBVIOUSLY, high cholesterol ain't coming from what I'm eating.  My liver is making it all on it's own with no help from me.  But why?  Why is my body making so much cholesterol?  I did some research and messed up thyroid and starvation both raise cholesterol. Matter of fact starvation messes up thyroids.  I see a viscous circle forming.  So much for dropping calories.  It ain't making me thin yet, it's just keeping me from getting fatter, actually. 

Sigh.

You know how diets have for years said to lower your calories to 1200 and I'd laugh and say there's no way I can eat all that food! Yeah, well seriously, not only was I never overeating but I started looking at what my calories should be for my height and all.  It's like 1800. The internet says I need to be eating 1800 just to maintain.

Huh.

And then the internet says to add 500 extra calories to build muscle.  And gee, I guess it's not shitty genetics why I never built an ounce of muscle in the 38 years I've been lifting. 

Ok, internet. I have turned my life over to you.  I'm eating.  I'm eating so much that it hurts.  I'm up to 1300.  It's so hard to eat so much. Eating too much has always triggered my IBS and this is not helping.  I'm eating a lot of SCD yogurt and...well, eating. Nuts and olive oil are my constant companions to raise those daily calories and oils are another trigger so...this is so difficult.

Making Specific Carb Diet Yogurt is Easier Than I Thought

Making homemade yogurt is easy and it's worth it.  

When I first heard the term, "homemade yogurt," I had visions of hippies and of 3rd world village huts and I wanted no part of it for years.  Yogurt!  Who EATS that mess anyway?  It tastes repellent and it's made from fermented milk!  Nasty!
But I've learned to embrace the nasty because of my Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  Yup, I can digest meat, vegetables, and most fruit, in small amounts, and hard cheese.  I can't touch sugars like grains or actual sugar, although I'm ok with small amounts of honey.  For years, I didn't know this, I just got sick nearly every time I ate.  I was absolutely fine until I was around 17.  One day I had a pastry and just got violently ill.  Ever since then, I just learned to live with getting violently ill pretty much every time I ate, which makes going out nearly impossible and some days, it was so bad, I couldn't leave the house at all.  The only pattern I could figure out was avoid dairy, avoid oil, avoid sugar, and sometimes avoid days with a vowel in it because a lot of the time I would get sick for no reason at all.

And now I know what that was about---grains.  And grains include oils made from grains.  So those days I know I didn't eat dairy or sugar?  I probably had something cooked in grain oil (and on top of being so unhealthy, most of it is rancid before it even hits the grocery shelves!) because after all, butter is so bad for you, right?  How did I figure this out?  Well it wasn't from any of the specialists I saw, I guarantee that.  A couple of years ago, I was puttering around the internet and found Elaine Gottschall’s book, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle."  And there it was, all the answers about what was causing my IBS and what I could eat and not get sick!  After decades, I could go out to eat in any restaurant and not have to be be home within 15 minutes of eating a meal.  Matter of fact, I've done this all over this country and Europe (except for Pennsylvania) with no problems whatsoever.
So why yogurt?  It's SCD (specific carb diet) yogurt, fermented for 24 hours.  The 24 hours gives the bacteria time to remove all the milk sugars.  No more worries about being lactose intolerant with this particular yogurt. 
But why did I start eating it?  After years of having the wrong intestinal bacteria generated in my gut, I could eat correctly, but I still felt a liquid churning every time I ate and occasionally still got sick.  After months of avoiding it, I finally made the SCD 24 hour yogurt and after I ate it?  I think I heard angels sing.  My stomach pulled itself together almost instantly.  It's been 2 and a half years and now I can go a few times eating questionable food before it builds up and I have to eat clean and eat a lot of homemade yogurt again for a few days.  On trips, I take a probiotic with Bifidobacterium infantis.  Right now, that's Align, but it's the bacteria I'm concerned with, not the brand.  Can you just have probiotics and skip the yogurt?  I guess you could but having yogurt around really adds to my dinner possibilities,  A recipe needs cream sauce?  I use yogurt.  Sour cream?  I use yogurt.  Want to make some ice cream?  How about some frozen yogurt instead?  Tzatziki sauce?  Coleslaw dressing?  Beef Stroganoff?  Moussaka?  How about a parfait dessert?  Oh yeah!

Plus it's good to keep SCD yogurt around for kittens.  Since it's fermented for 24 hours, it contains no lactose so they don't get sick either.  Those little tiny ones that are weaned but still miss their momma's milk, I just mix a little yogurt in their food and they eat like champs!  When Mei Mei almost died and stopped eating, I force fed her a mixture of watered yogurt with a little olive oil every 2 hours for a couple of weeks until she started eating on her own.

Making SCD 24 hour Yogurt Is Easy

 My yogurt maker is a Euro Cuisine YM80.  Why?  Because it doesn't have an automatic 3 hour shut off timer AND it has an expansion ring!  So you can buy another set of glass jars and double your yogurt production or if you're handy, you can use power tools to remove the center rack of the plastic ring and then use from 1 to 3 mason jars which is 3 quarts of yogurt.

So that covers the yogurt maker, but how do I make yogurt?
Remember, I said it's easy to make homemade yogurt, right?  Here's all you have to do.  Go to the grocery store and by a gallon of milk (I use whole milk) and a small container of any Greek yogurt.  Yes, just buy a store bought yogurt as a starter.  Of course, you CAN go online and find yourself an expensive starter from an exclusive hippie store but grocery store yogurt works fine.  I use a Greek style because it's a thicker yogurt.

1st-you need to boil the milk to kill off any microbes already in that milk.  You want to grow your yogurt bacteria, not some unknown mold or fungus.
And here's the trick to making thick yogurt, you boil that milk to a roiling boil and then let it simmer and watch some tv for a while.  Let it boil off some of the liquid and you'll have a thick yogurt.  I always pour in extra milk than can fit in my jars specifically because I'm going to boil off some of the volume.  FYI-you can boil your milk in the microwave but it's a LOT harder to boil off the excess that way, which is why I only go stove-top. 

2nd-remove the boiled milk from the heat and let cool some (you can use an ice bath if you're in a hurry).  You'll have skin on top, just discard it. 

3rd-once the milk is only warm (too hot and it will kill the yogurt starter), add about 2 generous dollops of yogurt to the milk.  NOT the whole container.  It does better with less starter than more.  Mix it, break up the chunks, and pour it into your jars.  If any missed lumps will bother you later, then use a strainer to keep them out of the jars.  If you're using the expansion ring, you probably have to insulate the yogurt maker with a towel.  I use a retired child's sweater.  Fits around the unit perfectly!  Then I set an alarm for 24 hours and I forget about it. 

 

And that really is all there is to making homemade SCD yogurt. 

Smoking Fatties This Weekend!

I've been studying with the online masters all week and this weekend, we gave these a try!  Everyone else buys a tube of store-bought sausage but I really like the way mine homemade sausage tastes so I made my own.  Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding pork at the grocery store so we settled for hamburger.  I guess these are closer to a grilled stuffed meatloaf than a proper sausage fatty.  But these are pretty paleo and SCD diet ready.  Adjust your cheeses to your needs. 

This is the ground meat with, now mine is to taste.  Like, I really like rosemary, so I use a lot from my garden.  If you like a lot of onions and garlic, add a lot of the powder or use fresh.  But in this mix I have:

rosemary, sage, red pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, ground cloves, ground pepper, ground anise seed, dash of cinnamon, and basil.

 And apples. 

 Although fabulous in my Thanksgiving sausages, the apples do impede rolling.  Avoid chunks of other food like onions and apples.

 I would recommend that you use parchment paper to work on instead of wax paper.  Wax paper just tore all up.

Bacon weave!

Now, I have to say, I LOVE bacon!  LOVE IT!  But it's such a strong flavor, along with the sausage meat, you really need to push the envelope for the center filling. 

 This first one is inspired by Sonic.  I love their Supersonic breakfast burritos...when they can manage to do it right.  85% of the time they leave off half the ingredients so I stopped bothering with them entirely a couple of years ago.  But here, I can finally get what I want!  That's chipotle salsa, cheese, homemade hash browns (instead of tater tots), diced green chili peppers, and scrambled eggs!

Here are the leftovers from the Reubens we've been having all week (smoked a homemade corned beef last weekend).  So this is homemade Thousand Island Dressing, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese.

tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and sausage

 Mexican style with salsa, cheese, grilled onions and peppers

This was dinner.  So far, it's a good start but it's not quite there yet.  The fillings need more punch or the meat needs to be thinner or maybe go without bacon (sacrilege!) but right now, all I can taste is bacon and some meat.

Oh well.  Can't wait for breakfast tomorrow!

SCD-Chawan-Mushi, Japanese Egg Custard

Officially called, Chawanmushi this is a little dish that I ate a lot in Tokyo and it's perfectly healthy and very versatile. 

Sorry, no really fabulous pictures of Japan.  My camera broke the first day we went  out sight-seeing.  And THAT'S why I'll never buy Canon again. 

1st, you can either go all out and purchase handleless cups with matching lids (actually considered to be bowls)  on Amazon, and I have a couple that I bought in Japan, but I've also been known to use whatever mugs or ramekins that I have clean and some cling wrap or tin foil as a lid.

Basically, for 4 people, you need:
3 eggs
2 cups Dashi (2 tsp dashi powder and 2 cups hot water)
2/3 tsp soy sauce (again, this is for flavor.  You can skip it if you cannot digest soy)
a dash of sake
1 tsp mirin

and now the ingredients are whatever you want to add.  Traditionally you can add ginkgo nuts, but I really don't bother.  Just pick some things from this list and add as much of it as you'd like:
8 canned boiled ginkgo nuts
3 ounces of chopped chicken
4 small thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms
4 ounces lump crabmeat
4 medium shrimp, heads removed, peeled, and deveined, halved lengthwise

This is a perfect use for a small amount of leftovers.

I had it in the winter, so it was served hot.  You can also serve it cold in the summer.

So, whip up the eggs, pour into bowls, place the meat and nuts and mushrooms into mixture.  All of this goes into a bain-marie.   Arrange covered cups in a large pot with hot water to 1/3 of the height of the cups.  Cover pot and steam the bowls over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes.  Don't let the water boil too vigorously.  To check, insert a skewer; if clear broth comes out, the dish is done.

SCD Dessert-Honey Nut Cake and Parfait

Specific Carbohydrate Diet-Easy Healthy Dessert Recipe

 

Grind almonds in the blender, not the food processor, to make almond flour.  

If you've got Crohn's or IBS and are on the Specific Carb Diet, you do NOT have to give up dessert! No flour?  No problem!  This recipe works for Paleo diet folks and gluten free as well.  I DO use honey to sweeten, not too much or it makes me ill.  You can use stevia or whatever you normally use to sweeten. And don't make that face and start thinking that honey isn't sugar and this is going to taste all weird and not like a dessert at all.  Just between us, I think a honey cake is 100 times more delicious than a cake sweetened with insipid tasteless white sugar.  Pick a honey with flavor.  I've tried lots but my favorite in the entire world is orange blossom honey. 

Make SCD Yogurt

This Should Be A Kitchen Staple

If you haven't made it yet, do it. The homemade yogurt puts the right bacteria back into your digestive tract, healing you from the inside out and making the constant churning go away.
I make, at least, 1 quart a week. I can use it in so many recipes.

SCD Honey Nut Cake Recipe

This Is An Easy Cake Recipe

You can add grated lemon or orange rind, spices like cinnamon and cloves, turn it into a carrot cake with grated carrots and raisins, or eat it plain, it's so good!

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoon butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups almond flour

Instructions

1. Almond flour sounds tricky but it's just ground almonds. Pop some almonds in your blender and voila! Almond flour.
2. Preheat oven to 310. Use a mixer to whip ingredients together. Pour into a buttered 8" square glass pan. Bake 30 minutes until cake tests done.

 

pssssst...in case you were wondering if that green bowl is a radioactive bowl from The Atomic Age, yes.  That absolutely IS uranium glass.  More on that another time.

Fruit Parfait

Use fresh or Frozen Fruit

What's in your freezer or on your counter? I have some frozen strawberries so I thawed those, added some yogurt, honey, and a dash of vanilla and mashed it all into a pink delicious parfait filler.

Ingredients

• Strawberries or any fruit you like
• Honey to taste
• About 1/2 cup yogurt
• dash of vanilla extract

Instructions

Layer inside a pretty glass, crumbled cake, then yogurt, repeat. I sprinkled unsweetened grated coconut on top and a fresh strawberry would have looked even prettier, but I don't have any fresh.

 

SCD Banana Pancakes!

Today I got a craving and somehow the stars were aligned and I actually had all the ingredients!  Crazy!

Banana pancakes!

Oh, you can't eat flour?  You can't digest syrup?  Gluten intolerant, right?  Hey, guess what?  No flour at all in this recipe! 

It's dead easy!  Melt some butter in a frying pan.  In a bowl or a blender (blender makes it fluffy but there won't be any banana chunks) mash a banana.  Add a couple of eggs.  The end.

If you want to go crazy, add a dash of vanilla, some cinnamon, and a handful of walnuts.  

Once it's cooked you can either eat it just like that or add honey.

Cauliflower Crust--Indian Style

Alright.  I'm going to warn you right up front that unless you already have a full collection of kitchen spices, you're going to HAVE to either visit your local Indian grocery or hit up Amazon.

PART ONE

Herb Companion

I have years of back issues of The Herb Companion, back when it was good.  In December 1992 - January 1993, the Herb Companion picked the winners of their Great Spaghetti Cook Off!  I want everyone to know that one of those recipes, the one by Leesa Townsend of Aurora, Oregon changed MY life and the lives of everyone for whom I've cooked her winning Calcutta Pizza Sauce.



Here's the recipe:

2 tbls butter

1 1/2 tbls cumin

1 tbls paprika

3 cloves minced garlic

2 tbls ginger

2 seeded and minced jalapeno peppers

3 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes (canned works fine)

1 tsp ground cardamom (have you ever added this spice to your apple pies?  DO it!)

1/2 tabls garam masala (don't panic)

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup cream (I skip this because of my IBS)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat it, let it cook 30 minutes, add dairy, serve on rice.

Except I can't eat rice.  It doesn't hate me as bad as wheat hates my guts but I don't want to be all bloated from stupid rice.  How can I make this SCD diet compatible?

PART TWO

Cauliflower Crust

Well this stuff is THE rage, isn't it?  Cauliflower crust pizza, all paleo and SCD and carb free.  Of COURSE I tried making pizza with it

and it's ok.  It will never be bread that holds together but it's serviceable.  It would much rather fall apart than be firm.

It's a simple recipe.  And ground up caulifower seems promisingly versatile, doesn't it? All you have to do is squeeze out the moisture

add spices, cheese, and an egg and it should become anything, right?

But you can see that it's just not going to survive being picked up.  But the real problem is that it tastes like cauliflower.  

So I said, "Self, what food works with cauliflower?"
"Hmmmm," I responded.  "Hey, what about Indian!"
Ok so, Indian sauce on the cauliflower crust!  But then what?

Well, February/March 1993 not only did garam masala but it did paneer!  So I made paneer for the top!  And by the way, if you don't have some onion seeds for making naan or even cauliflower fake pizza, then YOU are missing OUT!  Anyway, I've been making my own garam masala for years, it's dead easy!  

Grind together:

2 1/2 tbls cardamom pods

4 tbls cumin seeds

5 tbls coriander seeds

1/4 tsp mace

2 tbls peppercorns

1 1/2 tbls cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1/4 tsp ginger

1 tbl nutmeg

and the end result is:

So give this a try next time you feel like having a healthy Indian lunch!

AND
here is is with pesto, tomato slices, and feta cheese:

Next?
BACON!

Vegetables--how to get more vegetables in your diet!

I hate vegetables!  I hate them!
Ok, let me carefully rephrase that.
I have grown to hate vegetables...in America.
In Europe, wow, they have WAY better produce than we do.  I can't say that enough.  Have you ever had a potato with distinguishing flavor?  Yes, I said potatoes have a flavor!  The potatoes in London were great but tasted different from the potatoes in Paris.  What do potatoes taste like here?  Um...white?  Doesn't matter.  I don't eat them.  They're just starch and I'm no farmer, up at the crack of dawn, needing that extra energy to get a full day's work in, so no starch for me.
Know why I don't have a garden?
Can't stand vegetables!

So I have to work hard at choking down the bland to awful tasting, good-for-me vegetables.  What about you?  Starting a diet?  I know, you're Paleo.  No, you're embracing that whole raw diet idea.  Wait, thinking about becoming a vegetarian?  Yeah, every healthy diet sure pushes vegetables on ya, don't they?  Blech.  So what am I doing?  The first thing I've done is loaded my freezer with bags of frozen vegetables that I bought at Costco.  I'll avoid vegetables until they rot in the fridge so with frozen vegetables, I can load a bowl with nasty colorful healthy vegetables, already washed and cut, nuke it in the microwave, and serve a piece of meat on top and call it lunch. With enough seasonings, this works for me.

Know what else I did?

    

See this thing?  It's a Julienne Peeler.

I know I've heard of Julienne peelers before, but didn't pay attention.  Had something to do with VEGETABLES, right?  Well, it turns your vegetables into thin strips!  Vegetables noodles!  Exactly!  You see it in your head, right?  Vegetable pasta with shrimp or meatballs.  Vegetable stir-fry with slivers of vegetables!  This morning, I tried it for the first time.  I sauteed some onions in butter, then added zucchini and there it was.

   I added some eggs and had an omelet.  I actually had an omelet with a vegetable in it!  I think this concept of making vegetable noodles is going to really help me to eat healthier for the New Year.

There are other things you can use to get similar results.  There's a Mandoline

Seems to give exactly the same results. Or, if you want longer, "noodles," try a vegetable spiralizer! 

That will make a whole bowl of, "pasta," and your eyes won't know the difference. 

And if you want more vegetable slicing options, like those large flat spiral vegetables as well as vegetable pasta, you should get this gizmo:

You can make all your salad and side dish dreams come true. If you're having salad and side dish dreams of some sort.

Hot Chocolate for Paleo and SCD

The hot chocolate is a work in progress.  Because of my IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) there's a lot that I can't digest.  Specifically, chocolate and sugar are trigger foods.
For normal people, yeah, I know, that leaves out a whole lot of food, doesn't it?  I should be skinny as a rail!  Ok, yeah, but I cheat.  Not a lot, but let's just say I got into a cream puff frenzy over the summer and gained 20 pounds that I haven't managed to lose yet.  But I perfected the recipe.
Anyway, I follow the SCD (specific carb diet) for the most part.  It's a lot like Paleo, but more strict.  So, by definition, any hot chocolate I'm going to make is going to make me a little ill.  I told you, I cheat.  If you're in this same boat with me, plan on regular sized mugs (don't a porky size giant mugs.  Portion control!) and not having hot chocolate very often.  You'll only get a little gassy if you control how much you drink and if you don't cheat the rest of the day, you won't actually become violently ill.

I have not perfected the recipe because I think it's more a matter of taste than hard-core instructions you must follow.  If you're new to this style, you'll miss that milky part.  I haven't willingly ingested a milk product since I was a child and we were too poor for hot chocolate back in the day (I didn't always have IBS) so watery hot chocolate is all I know. This is like a choose your ending kind of story, remember those?

Liquid Base                                            Chocolate                                             Sweetener
water                             Dark or regular unsweetened cocoa powder                   honey
coconut milk                                                                                                         chopped dates


I wouldn't like the flavor of the dates in MY hot chocolate, but if you have problem with honey, there ya go.  Chop them, put it all in the blender, and you have sweetened hot chocolate.  I also ALWAYS add a dash of cinnamon to my hot chocolate.  I've tried it with both the water and the coconut and I prefer the water.

I don't want to get any hopes up, but there's talk of the ability of whipping coconut milk just like whipped cream.  I've never tried it but you have to understand that these same people claim that coconut oil also whips up into the consistency of whipped butter AND smells like coconut!  Listen, I've been making soap for 20 years.  Coconut oil does NOT whip up into a fluffy butter-like delight.  It merely smooths out, but the whipping makes it runny.  Doesn't matter if you freeze it or keep it in the fridge as you whip, it only becomes a smooth liquid.  Add scented oils to it and it remains runny but gradually goes back to being a little grainy again over time.  And yes, you add scented oils to it because it has no odor whatsoever.  Do you really think people want all their food cooked in coconut oil to taste and smell of coconuts?  Of course not!  Any scents were processed out during the making of the product.  If you're unfamiliar with coconut oil, I hope you just gleaned from that paragraph that yes, you can utterly cook with it and yes, it is a nice body oil after a shower.

I had an idea today!  

 I bought this for my son this year.  Gingerbread house ornament (edible) and I thought, "HEY!" 

Cinnamon Dough! 

I could make a whole fleet of these as ornament gifts next year!

Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey?

     I've been going over this recipe in my head a few days.  I'm using leftover roasted chicken.  Works the same with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, as you can imagine.

And THIS is 100% SCD diet compatible and absolutely paleo!

Now the recipe is loosely based on your personal tastes and how many leftovers you have.  Here's what I did:

• 4 cups of chopped cooked chicken/turkey
• 1 chopped stalk of celery
• 1 tbls sage
• 1 tbls rosemary
• 1 tbls thyme
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1 onion
• salt and white pepper to taste
• 3 eggs to hold it all together

Technically, I use this:

I send everything through and it comes out a nice diced mixed product.  But you can chop everything super fine and get the same results (but why would you WANT to?  Sheesh, that's a lot of work)!

Then I take 3 more eggs in one bowl, 2 cups of ground almonds on a plate (ground in the food processor) and I make flattened meatball shaped croquettes out of the turkey mash, dip into the eggs, roll it into the ground almonds.  After that, you just fry in coconut oil and there you have it!

My sauce there is just a raspberry BBQ sauce but think of the things you could be using!

Paleo Cran-Cherry Sauce
Cranberry Sauce – Paleo/GF/DF/EF/SF/NF
3-Ingredient Paleo Cranberry Sauce

Wheat is Junk

I'm watching tv commercials and gleaning that most people have fallen for a big media lie.
Let's see if you've heard this before, ready?
"Anything made with wheat is empty calories."
Or how about this one-
"Whole wheat bread is better than plain white bread, but it shouldn't be the bulk of your diet."
Yeah, see, that was all common knowledge in the 80s. Since the 80s, two things have happened.
1) grains went from frivolous junk to, "healthy grains," and we've been admonished to make them the biggest part of our daily intake.
2) people are MUCH fatter than they used to be.
Even bodybuilders used to know that a proper diet was to eat something with a face and a salad. Of course, LOL, that was before steroids began winning contests. Get on the juice and you can eat anything you want. They say they can feel the fat burning off them at night in bed.
Here's a thigh-slapper.  Someone asked me what I do about fiber.  Now, this is AFTER I told him, "Yeah, I just eat meat, vegs, and fruit."  For some reason he's been laboring under the delusion the there's fiber in grains.  Ok bread eaters.  Get a big ol' mouthful of bread and chew it up (by the way, your saliva is turning it to sugar while it's still in your mouth.  We learned that in a 7th grade biology lab).  All chewed?  Ok, spit it out and rub your finger in it.  Notice any fiber in that gooey mess of paste?  If it's this bad just in your mouth, you think it'll firm up once it hits your stomach acids?  Now try it with say some lettuce.  Yeah.  There's no fiber in grains!  Don't be silly.  They lied to you.  I'll give props to corn as a fiber but as much as I adore corn, I don't adore that it filled with sugar.  You know, corn syrup?  How about corn starch?  Ever hear that starch makes you fat?  How about corn-fed?  Big ol' corn-fed cows all fat for market.
 
Look, I'm not that old so I can't figure why people fall for this. I KNOW y'all know this, same as me. This must be the whole, "media is all about the youth,"that old people always complain about because it looks like history is only 10 years old on tv.  Anything older than that is conveniently forgotten and no longer counts.  Well look, you don't have to be young AND stupid. Don't fall for the media. They lie.

Bad Eating In Pennsylvania

You know, I've never come back from a vacation and been giddy with all the food choices in my hometown before, especially since my town has a real dearth on good restaurants. And Burger King and the one deep fried fish joint don't count.  
A) Eating from Philly, across Lancaster, in Hershey, and back across to New York was a nightmare. Hardly any restaurants at all, just a few fast food places.  

B) Damn, the people in Pennsylvania are weird looking. First, the majority is super doughy, dumpy, and just plain obese. In Harrisburg, I counted 2 normal looking people, the rest topped the scales from 50 pounds overweight to over 100 pounds overweight. And it's a particular kind of fat. A super soft, slack looking torso with thin legs. I also saw some strangely misshapen...well, they weren't thin exactly older people. They were very soft looking but had flat, almost concave butts and hunched backs with a curved neck. No muscle tone whatsoever. Skinny-fat for so long that they sucked the calcium out of their bones? The Amish are thin but they work off all that flour and sugar mess they eat at every meal plus I've seen their gardens. They're the only ones eating even slightly healthy over there.  

C) I was violently ill every single day we were in Pennsylvania. Every thing I ate made me sick. I'd have eggs and fruit at the hotel but they used the nasty vegetable oil and I'd be needing a toilet after a few minutes. Ate a hamburger, clearly it was full of breading or the wrong oils or something because I'd be sick. I didn't feel better and get my intestines under control until I got back to New York (where the people are thinner and fitter and overall look much healthier) and had a steak and a salad--which I couldn't find in Pennsylvania.  Oddly, New Yorkers look fitter than Californians.  I didn't see a soul in California who I was jealous of at all.  No more hard bodies left, I guess.  Most of them look like they could lose a few and should push some iron around to tighten up. 

Pennsylvanians, y'all eat too much flour and sugar junk and that's why you look so very god-awful. Although, 3 Mile Island could have something to do with it, LOL 

Yogurt.

Do you like yogurt? Because I can take it or leave it.
But I bought a yogurt maker last night.
I know, that's CRAZY talk but when you're doing the whole Specific Carb Diet because your bowels hate you, you're suppose to eat yogurt. It's that whole good-bacteria-chokes-out-the-bad thing. I thought I'd try it because, although I've gotten much better, I still have explosion time in the bathroom at least once a day. It used to be 4 or 5 times a day, so yeah, this is better. And why don't I know exactly how I often I get sick? I've been like this since I was 18. I barely even notice anymore. It's second nature to just not eat when I go out (have to be near a bathroom when I eat) or eat in restaurants close to home. If only it made me thin. What's the point of getting sick if you can't be thin, right?

On the uptick, I can always cook with yogurt if I don't actually want eat it with a spoon plus I can make frozen yogurt. And if I can eat it and not run screaming to the closest bathroom, that's always a plus. Oddly, I've never been a big fan of ice cream or frozen yogurt (in general, not because of the results), but watching, "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog," so many times is getting to me. My application into the Evil League of Evil is really strong this year.


Squash Bowl by cinnamonbite

Weight Loss The Hard Way

Yeah, I'm losing weight. It's not as easy anymore BUT I figured out what was stalling my weight loss for 5 YEARS!
I know, right? The devil's own plateau!
It didn't matter how much I ate or how hard I exercised, I suddenly couldn't lose weight at all. I'd lose 2 or 3 pounds, then with no change in activity or diet, it would bounce back up for no reason.

So, one day, a couple of months ago, nothing was on Netflix (as usual) and I saw an interesting DVD cover on the streaming video feed. Sigh. Whatever.
I watched, Fat Head, which was so interesting that it led me to the blog which led me to Wheat Belly where I discovered that my IBS was more diet related than I thought with the SCD diet. Ah HA! Now I not only know my trigger foods, but I also know EXACTLY why sometimes I get sick for no reason. Yeah, there are a whole lot more trigger foods than I knew. Long story short, when I have things like rice or small amounts of illegal food, I may not get sick, but I don't lose any weight regardless of how hard I worked out or how few calories I ate that day.

So anyway, yeah, weight loss the hard way today. I worked out a notch harder and I'm feeling it. A late meal also means I was sapped for energy too, but lunch was a steak and a salad. My own dressing of oil and vinegar and spices. A dash of rosemary this time of year. So basically, I don't eat grains (which just turn to sugar) or sugar or processed food because they're always jamming sugar into everything.
The way I see it, when I lose all the weight I want to lose (40? 50 pounds?) then I can have the occasional bad-for-me food. I was really getting into little cakes too.
Single Serving Cake
I'm not craving anything, but I miss experimenting with fillings and frostings.

Still Life by cinnamonbite

I did stumble upon a recipe involving acorn squash and sausage! Needs work though. Needs work.