The blog is back up and running. They got it transferred on the 18th but it’s taken until now for them to get it fixed where I could access my admin section to actually blog.
Hope y’all had a fantastic Christmas and holiday season. 🙂
(all baked goods made with gfjules flour except for the kolaches which were real for the rest of the fam)
All the usuals. Peppermint cookies. Cherry white chocolate chip cookies. Prune kolaches. Tamales, enchilada casserole, cheese rice and beans.
Do y’all’s Moms give y’all retro toys from you childhood for Christmas? Mama B does. I love love loved Holly Hobbie when I was little. 🙂
😉
Now for the best news…y’all know I’ve been going thru so much hell the last 3 months with all the antibiotics but starting Tuesday…
KETO is back and I can’t wait. 🙂
You can’t even imagine how rough the last 3 months have been on me mentally and physically. I hope that I will never have to go off of it again. 🙂
Hello, old friend. It’s been way too long. 😉
Ok that’s all for today. Y’all stay warm and have a safe New Year’s Eve / Happy New Year’s Day (eat your black eyed peas) and I’ll see you soon. 🙂
I’ve been having a really rough time with all the health stuff. 🙁
Last time we met I told y’all about the bone infection and the 6 months of antibiotics I’ll be taking. They are brutal, y’all. I’m taking 3500mg a day. My stomach and digestive system in general is a complete mess. I can’t keep anything really solid down at all.
Guided injection into my sacroiliac joint. My doctors have been trying to get me seen for several issues while I still have insurance. So in the middle of all of this bone stuff I’ve also been seeing a joint and pain specialist for some ongoing joint issues. They promised me that two guided steroid injections wouldn’t cause the same weight gain issues as ingested steroids.
Yeah, no. 🙁
In the 6 days between injection one and injection two I gained TWENTY pounds. From my face to just below my abdomen I puffed up like a water balloon. Of course a good chunk of that is fluid (that’s already coming off pretty easily) but still it’s so frustrating given how hard I’d been working for the last year.
And then the hits just keep coming. Tuesday of this week I went in for the first follow-up for the bone infection and he gave me some additional bad news. During the diagnosis phase for figuring out the bone stuff they ran so many tests and I had multiple scans and an MRI. Well all of the tests results were finally back in and one of scans found a lesion on my frontal cortex. The ENT thinks it’s probably lupus related (and a former rheumatologist did think I probably had some mild CNS lupus once before). They’re in the process of getting me back in to see the neurologist and I’m just hopeful that they will be able to see me before the end of the year when I’ll lose my insurance.
I’m so scared, y’all. 🙁
🙂
If you follow me on insta …and I’m sorry for the lack of posting there too…you know the brightest spot in the last couple months was birthday week trip to my most favorite place. 🙂
Take me back…please. 🙂
Now…the chocolate.
Have y’all seen this? scratch & grain gluten free baking kit.
All ingredients color coded for easy follow instructions.
Y’all this is the best boxed treat I’ve had since having to go gluten-free in 2013. The only place I’ve ever seen them is Target. I don’t know what kind of voodoo they’ve got going on with the flour in the brownie mix but it is perfect. Perfect fudgy texture.
Also…if you go to Target looking for it be careful. scratch & grain has other mixes and not all of them are gluten free.
Now…that brings me to this. Keto and lchf are completely out the window for the foreseeable future. I can’t do it. I tried going back on keto this week and I thought I was going to die. And I’m not being overly dramatic here. What these antibiotics are doing to my stomach…I just can’t fight thru it without some starch to buffer them. If you can do it. Great for you. You’re much stronger than me. But guess what? There’s no prize for that. 😉
My goal now is to get the real steroid gain off and then just maintain my losses from keto. If I can do that I’ll consider it a win.
In the meantime I will enjoy indulging in some gluten-free treats and I’ll share when they’re worthy…like these brownies. 🙂
Today would have been my pappy’s birthday. It was super bittersweet this year. He loved him some ‘stros baseball. I’ve written about this before but for the last 2 years of his life I saw him every single day. Each day when there was a day game we’d sit and watch it. Today was the parade. Papa B and I both cried for him a little more than usual. I also had some crack coke. An Icee…he always used to call it my crack coke. 🙂
Allrighty…that’s all for today. Y’all have a good weekend and I’ll see you soon-ish. 🙂
If you’re not following along on Insta we’re all safe and dry here from Hurricane Harvey. We had about 14 inches of rain spread out over 4 days. Friends and family weren’t so lucky. Please continue to keep Houston and the Texas coast in your thoughts and prayers now that the media attention has died down.
Reddit ftw today. #DACA
I mean seriously, y’all take a look around you today at the garbage in your lives who want innocent kids sent to places they’ve never even set foot in…and honestly how many of them are willing to take low paying jobs where they’d actually have to do something? Anything?
GT, doesn’t it seem like you could just roll this quote out every other day now?
Reminder this is my space. If you don’t like it here…don’t let the door hit ya…
Reminder 2: if you’re disgusted today (and every day)…join us. A lot of people are already putting in the hard work RIGHT NOW. Funnel the anger you’re feeling today (and every day) into meaningful action. 🙂
Let’s see…since we last met I’m loving
Blackened salmon.
Blackened Cajun salmon.
Dump nachos with chichies.
Mug cakes and brownies.
ICE CREAM. 🙂 This is called Bubblegum Bliss and it’s from a book called The Keto Ice Cream Scoop by Carrie Brown. It is so unbelievably good. It totally got me thru all the hurricane nerves.
Yeah, Minnesota. Stay in your lane. 😉
SO…
A year ago today I quit sugar and all grains cold turkey. Technically the calendar date was Sept 6th but it was the day after Labor Day and today is the day after Labor Day so I’m calling it year one in the books. 🙂
Those first 2 weeks were pure hell. I seriously thought I was going to die. But then the magic kicked in and my head started to clear. I spent the first 7 weeks doing pretty much hard-core keto. I lived on hamburger patties, cheese, chicken wings, blue cheese and mayonnaise.
I took the day off for my birthday in late October and then the next day went back to the way I was eating but removed diary.
I spent the next 60 days dairy free and edged more into paleo style eating.
And that’s when this whole thing got harder. Introducing more foods and allowing maple syrup and potatoes really set me back a little. I started jonesing for the next off day and inhaling every potato I ate.
I kept losing weight just fine but mentally I was out of it. I was just going thru the motions and counting down the days til my next off day.
In total from Sept 6, 2016 – April 16, 2017 I had 8 off plan days…on purpose. I planed for them.
On April 16, 2017 I went back to what I was doing in the beginning…Keto (25 net carbs or less) and haven’t looked back. I haven’t had one off plan lick, bite, taste, etc since then and don’t plan to anytime soon.
What changed?
Well I stopped making it harder than it needed to be. I like food. I like cheese. I like sweets. I like to cook.
And now I do. For me I think it’s far better to just go make me something safe and on plan (like a mug cake or brownie or ice cream) than to tough it out and then end up inhaling every real sugar sweet in sight on a planned off day.
Since I stopped making it hard…it’s easy. The other people in the house eat carbs all day long. I eat out with other people…and never flinch. It’s honestly just how I eat now. I don’t have to think about it anymore I just do it. And that freedom feels amazing.
I’ve lost 73 (point 4) pounds but even more important than that my iron is up for the first time in YEARS. I have energy for the first time in YEARS.
It still hasn’t helped my lupus / inflammation pain as much as I’d hoped it would and I’m going thru some inflammation stuff right now (why I was getting the MRI the other day) but I’m hopeful that eventually I’ll get those benefits too. Autoimmune stuff is just…hard. 🙁
So here’s the newest before / current pic. Left – shopping for fall 2016 Right – shopping for fall 2017. I didn’t buy the current dress because I don’t pay full price for anything. 😉 I’m having some issues with my vein surgery so that’s why I’m having to wear the black compression stocking again which totally sucks in this heat.
I’m still struggling to see the current me. I still see the left side me a lot of the time.
I’d like to lose 30 more pounds (15 would put me a couple below ‘normal’ and then 15 for a buffer) but if I stay right here I’m just fine with that. I’m going to keep on keeping on and let the weight land where it lands. I don’t plan on restricting my food anymore than I am now so I’m sure things will slow down but I want this to be something I can easily maintain…so I’m not chasing a number or a size. If I get there great if not I’m so far better off now than I was on the left…I’m good. 🙂
Tomorrow is Mama and Papa B’s 48th anniversary. I say this all the time but in the grand parental lottery we hit the super-duper power ball. 🙂 One number to the left or right on either side and…I shudder. We were so lucky to grow up in a home with two PEOPLE who are still head over heals in love with each other today. (Notice I said people there because…love is love, y’all.) More than anything I want to thank them for raising us in a home that taught us kindness, respect and empathy for those with less than us. Mama B’s a saint and Papa B is our comic relief. I love you both more than words on this silly blog could ever express. 🙂
So tomorrow is my first vein surgery procedure. I have two this week. Kinda a little scared but it has to be done before the human garbage take away our insurance.
I don’t know how I’ll feel for a while after it’s done so last night I made up a bunch of safe eats to keep in the freezer.
Also don’t know if I’ll have much to blog about for a couple weeks or so. So it might be longer than usual before I update. I just won’t know til after the procedures.
I’ll still be keeping in touch on Instagram though if you’re interested. JATGAHB
Yeah.
I took the day off for Easter. Ate that whole box of creme eggs. Not one bit sorry. 🙂
Made this cherry rum cake like I made for Christmas because it’s the fam’s new fav and was requested as our Easter treat. Thank you so much, gfjules for making flour the whole fam eats like it’s completely normal. 🙂
So we did brisket, beans, potato salad for our Easter meal.
Y’all I cooked that brisket in the pressure cooker and it was unreal.
It was a super fatty 5 pound cut.
I put 1 cup of beef broth in the bottom of pressure cooker. Added the well seasoned and rested (about 12 hours) brisket plus a chopped onion.
Pressured on high for 110 minutes.
Let depressure naturally and then let rest overnight in the cooking pot / juices.
Sliced and reheated. Everybody loved this.
My plate plus a big ol Sonic root beer. 🙂
Totally felt like this…for a few hours. Then all the sugar / carb pains kicked in and I’m 100% ready to get right back on plan. Today the day off was worth it. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow though. 😉
That’s all for today. Hope y’all are having a great Easter weekend and I’ll see you soon-ish. 🙂
First, the week leading up to Christmas I had to take Mama B to the ER late one night. It was all kinds of drama that led to us having to leave before she could be seen because the ER Dr at our Podunk hospital wasn’t covered under her insurance. If you know me in real life and live in our town…don’t go to the local hospital unless you’re like 110% sure you’re dying. Drive to SL or V and see some decent nurses / doctors. There was this one nurse there that must be the sister of Satan (and that’s being nice). And believe me…she’s already been reported. So anyway thankfully the urgent care at her regular Dr’s office was open super early the next morning. She got seen 1st thing and her temp was 104. The Dr. said if she’d waited any longer it would have been really bad.
So she was sick and then Sister B got sick and wasn’t able to come home. We ended up meeting her for lunch on Christmas Monday but she’s still not feeling all that great. Feel better soon, SB. 🙂
We still celebrated Christmas. It just wasn’t the same as if everyone had been healthy.
Made the real kolaches and pigs for the rest of the fam.
Used the roll dough I wrote about in this post to make me some celiac / paleo safe pigs and prune kolaches. These actually turned out really well. And they held up in the icebox too. I’m so impressed with this recipe.
So are y’all starting to practice y’all’s Russian. 😉
About that cherry rum cake.
Unreal.
I made my regular rum cake recipe using gf Jules of course (you can use any rum cake recipe) and for all of the water (just the water) in the cake and drizzling sauce I subbed cherry juice from a jar of maraschino cherries. I drained the cherries really well and pulsed them in the food processor then dried them even more on paper towels and added them to the mix. I left everything else the same. Mama B said this was the best cake I’ve ever made. 🙂
Amen.
My fav Christmas presents (so far)…a Rubik’s cube and a Salt Life sign / decoration for the back fence (it needs to be dropped down a little bit). We’re starting to decorate the back fence with old vintage and cute signs. When Rubik’s cubes were first a thing I got one for Christmas and played with it for hours on end. They had all those retro toys out for Christmas this year and it was one of them. My other fav won’t come until sometime next week. I’ll share when it gets here. 🙂
🙂
A progress pic. Left pic was Christmas 2004 (in the middle of a 4 year lupus flare) and right pic was the day after Christmas this year. White bar across chest = no bra. Also…while my stomach is in no way flat that is not a bulge it’s the way the white shirt bunched up.
So…about the title of this post. I took 4 days off plan for the holidays and while it was worth it in some ways it was horrible in others. In about 48 hours my pain level went from around a 4 to a 24. My face bloated up. I was itching like crazy. It was awful. I had planned to stay off plan thru Monday (because we were meeting SB for lunch that day and it was a road trip) but I went right back on plan after Christmas day lunch. It took a good full 3 days for my pain level to get back to somewhat manageable.
Lesson learned. I just cannot jump on and off from no sugar / grains (even with celiac safe ones). I have to find ways to make this livable. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to figure out ways to make things I like so maybe I won’t miss them as much. I did it when I had to go gluten – free. I’ll do it with this too. And of course I’ll share along the way. 🙂
Had to go out for lunch on Tuesday. Saltgrass. Caesar and Prime Rib. Forgot to take a pic of the steak but I cleaned the plate so you know it was delish. This was a perfect back on plan meal. 🙂
Normally I wouldn’t post something with that many curse words in two sentences but I saw this and it is just so fitting right now.
Ok. That’s all for now. Y’all have a great / safe New Year’s Eve / Day weekend and I’ll see you soon. 🙂
😉
🙂
🙂
