Tree’s been up for weeks. If you’ve followed me for a while you know I’ve been searching for my forever tree for the last few years. This is it. 🙂 I love it so much.
It snowed in South Texas last night. So pretty…but this summer girl says thanks for visiting…you can return to wherever you came from now. 😉
Because of the stomach issues there’s just no way for me to do keto or even low carb right now. Combined with the steroid shots I was up 20 pounds the last time we met. Now I’m only up between 8 and 10 depending on the scale (or I guess time of day). I don’t weigh at home but at all these different Dr. appointments I’m holding right there between 8 and 10.
I’m ok with that for now. Considering in my past when I’d lost as much weight as I’ve lost over the last 15 months…the first taste of sugar and I went off the deep end gaining it all back plus some. This time I went up some and then got it going right back down in the right direction.
Before / current comparison. (Yes…wearing Santa leggings as pants…because they are pants.) 😉 Same dressing room. I shop very little at Penny’s but I like to run in there every now and then to take a current pic in the same dressing room as the before. It really helps me when I see how much less of the door is covered by my body. 🙂
Ok That’s all for today. Hopefully I’m going to start doing some Christmas baking next week. I’ll share here or on insta whenever I get started with that. Until then y’all stay safe and warm and I’ll see you soon. 🙂
Happy 4th. Hope it’s been a safe and fun one for you. 🙂
I am so tired of seeing these stories. 🙁 I truly hope there is a special place in hell for these ‘parents’.
Last week I made these homemade maraschino cherries. I used xylitol for the sugar but you can use whatever you like…even real sugar of course. Heat the water and sugar over medium heat til the sugar is dissolved then cool to room temp and stir in extracts. Then pour over the cherries, seal and put in the icebox. I actually had left over juice and I think I could have used a 1/2 cup each of water and sugar. The longer they sit the better they’ll be.
Made a batch of oopsie bread in my hotdog pan. They didn’t end up being big enough to hold a wiener and ‘fixin’s’ so I decided to deconstruct it. I cut up and pan fried a ‘bun’ in butter then added chopped up wieners, chili and cheese. I’ll definitely make this again.
Ok, y’all this is the best sugar free thing I’ve made yet. 🙂
It’s a single serve cherry chiffon cake.
I took one egg and separated it.
To the yolk I added 1 tbsp Swerve and beat it for 2 minutes then added 1 tbsp coconut oil, splash of vanilla and one tbsp of the homemade maraschino cherry juice.
To the whites I added 1/4 tsp cream of tartar and beat til frothy. Then I added 1 tbsp Swerve and beat to stiff peaks.
Added 1 tbsp coconut flour and a heaping 1/4 tsp baking powder to the yolk mixture.
Then I mixed in about 1/3 of the whites to the yolks.
Then gently folded in the rest of the whites.
Spread into an UNGREASED pan and baked at 300* for about 25 minutes. (My pan was a little too wide for this small amount of batter.)
Y’all this was so moist. That’s right. I said moist. Because it was.
Topped half of it with two small scoops from a fresh batch of sugar free ice cream, 2 of the cherries and a tbsp of the cherry juice.
Best sugar free cake yet and the most perfect finish to 4th of July eating. 🙂
Most recent before / current.
I went to the Dr. last week and I’m officially down 64 pounds. 🙂
Or an elephant’s penis plus an ostrich egg. 😉
If you follow me on Instagram here you’ve already seen this but my blood work was great too.
Y’all know how long I’ve struggled with my iron levels. It’s been years since it’s been this high. 🙂
The only things that are still not improving are my inflammation markers (ya know…the main reason I’m doing this whole weight loss / sugar free thing). But I’m just going to keep on going and hope that it’ll get there soon. It’s really weird…the more weight I lose the worse some of my pain is. I wonder if some of the fat was creating a cushion or something? I don’t know but it’s kinda annoying to be working so hard and still be in so much physical pain.
Hope things are good in your part of the world and that your summer is off to a great start. 🙂
It’s crazy hot and humid here.
I’ve got an appointment with my vein doctor today. It’s just taking this thing so long to heal up. 🙁
🙂
Except for the vein stuff everything else is pretty good here. Still rocking grain free / sugar free / keto (9 months now) and I have gotten to a place where I actually love it and am not jonesing for the next planned off day. In fact I don’t even have an off day planned at all right now. Not saying I won’t plan one but right now…I don’t need or want one and that feels so good. 🙂
Reminder: I’m still posting over on Instagram. More frequently than here anyway. 🙂
I made these real kolaches for Papa B for father’s day and it didn’t bother me one bit.
Get the bad people / things and energy out of your life, y’all. Your world will change for the better almost instantly. 🙂
Chopped steak, caesar, loaded mashed cauli. This is one of my fav keto meals.
How many times a day do y’all feel like sayin’ this? For me it’s at least forty seventy billion.
So…what’s this cookie butter you mention, Texas Girl? 🙂
Well…it’s not actually cookies but it totally hits the spot for me anyway.
First you’ll melt 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp sugar sub (I use swerve) and 2 tbsp cream.
Get it all bubbly and a little bit thick (about 3 minutes).
Remove it from the heat and add sweetener drops to taste.
Of course I use liquid Splenda but you do you, boo. If you think Splenda is going to make you grow a second head…well I can’t help you. Pick something else and move on with your life. 🙂
While that cools off a little bit…take 1 – 2 cups of raw nuts (cashews are best but for a lower carb option I like macadamias). Yes I know these aren’t raw but I like the roasted taste too and this is all I could find here in Podunk and I wanted some cookie butter right that second. 😉
(Also…if you don’t want to use fresh nuts you can just use a cup of cashew butter or other bland flavored nut butter and save some time.)
Ok so take your nuts and put them in your high powered blender or your food processor.
Blend til smooth.
Add one heaping tsp of Gingerbread spice and 1 heaping tsp of Apple Pie spice plus the melted butter / sugar / cream mixture. Blend again til all mixed together and smooth.
Pour into a jar and cover. This lasts about 5 days in the cabinet or longer if you icebox it. Honestly it’s never lasted more than 3 or 4 days around here. We all love it.
So what can you do with this magical butter concoction, you ask? 😉
Well first you can make you a mini spice cake mug cake.
Melt 2 tbsp butter in a mug add: 1 heaping tbsp of your cookie butter, 1 egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla.
Mix it all together and add:
3 tbsp Almond flour, 1 tbsp Coconut flour, 1 tbsp sweetener (I used swerve) and 1/2 tsp baking powder.
Mix again and cook in micro for 1 minute.
Remove. Slice in three little layers.
Spread some of your cookie butter between layers. (See that Cookie Butter Torani Syrup there? It’s sugar free and to make the cookie butter easier to spread I thinned it out with a little bit of the syrup…it’s not necessary but it was good.)
Stack and ice. I used a mix of Mascarpone / Butter / Swerve and vanilla.
Oh my gravy, y’all this was GOOD. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t already made it again. (It’s only been a couple days.) 🙂
My Mema’s shrimp pasta salad minus the pasta. Topped with garlic and parm flavored Whisps. Instant seasoned ‘croutons’.
I flavor Whisps and those chicharones with popcorn seasoning. It makes them taste a million times better and I hardly ever miss chips now.
🙂
Something else to do with the ‘cookie’ butter…
I take a Snickerdoodle Keto Kookie…heat it up either in the micro or in the toaster oven. Plop a spoon of ‘cookie’ butter on top. Mix it up and eat. Almost like eating chunky cookie butter. 🙂
Finally…a before / current. This was actually a week ago. I had Sister B take a non-mirror pic but we were in Walmart and when I looked at the pic at home I realize there were some questionable items in the background so we’ll go with this one. This is one of my most favorite summer shirts but I probably won’t wear it out of the house again. The top part is way too big and the straps won’t stay up at all. Don’t wanna have a wardrobe malfunction at Walmart. 😉
Ok. Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂
I’m kinda liking the whole Instagram thing now. Thank you to those of you who are checking me out there…where you may have already seen some of this stuff. 🙂
Since we last met…I took a road trip with the fam. Bluebonnets and lunch…loaded fajitas. No tortillas of course.
Just kidding. I don’t workout so that’s just my face in general when a good song comes on. 🙂
Cheesy cauli mash over left over roast and green beans.
Love this. 🙂
New before and current pic.
So…I tried to make some chocolate cream eggs. (This is the only one that survived and even it broke into a big ‘ol mess the second I bit into it.)
Do y’all love Cadbury Cream Eggs as much as I do? I was in second grade when we got those perfect nuggets of delish in our little town and I’ve had an Easter love affair with them ever since. Mama B was the room mother of my class that year. Ok every year but specifically that year. When Easter was over and all the candy went on clearance she bought up all the little boxes of cream eggs and then when we had our end of year picnic she gave them out to the whole class as our treat. My classmates thought she was the coolest. Which of course she is. And to this day she still gets me a box of cream eggs every single year. 🙂
Anyway…they’re my absolute fav Easter candy. I’m happy to say that this year I haven’t had one at all so far. I will be taking the day off for Easter and will devour a box of the real eggs but I saw this mock low carb version and decided to give it a try.
I’ve been trying to get some health stuff taken care of before those @ssholes in congress / those of you who put them there condemn those of us with preexisting conditions to certain death. 🙁
(Thanks for the bumper sticker, democrats.org. As always…love y’all but no not putting anything political (or anything other than the Aggie sticker) on the car. I will however share it here. 🙂 )
🙁
Two weeks ago I had to have a bunch of blood work and x-rays. Then last week I had to have both legs scanned for possible clots.
They gave me these lovely disposable plastic shorts to wear. Look how baggy they were. 🙂
I’ve always had some circulation issues from the previous clots but it’s gotten really bad over the last year or so and they were looking to see exactly what’s going on. I won’t know results til next week when the dr gets back from spring break. (If there had been any bad clots they would have let me know immediately…so now it’s just waiting to find out what if anything else they found.)
Then Mama B got pneumonia 🙁 (She’s doing much much better today) 🙂 Poor thing was sick on her birthday. 🙁 Happy b-day, best Mom to ever walk the face of the earth. 🙂
I LOVE this lime mineral water from Whole Foods. I add a few drops of liquid splenda and it’s like a milder Sprite.
I got my blood work back and some great news…my iron is up. 🙂 The whole reason I started eating keto though was to get my inflammation down and those results were still awful. 🙁 But I’m ecstatic about the iron. Y’all know how I’ve struggled with it for years. I’d tried everything to get it up and now 6 months of eating this way and it’s finally within range. 🙂 I’m feeling it too. I’ve got energy I haven’t had in ages.
Other eating news…I’m back on dairy (cheese / butter / cream) and so super happy. 🙂 I take a digestive enzyme if I have more than a slice of cheese and it’s working great. I missed it a lot. It helps make eating like this easier and I’m all about staying on track right now.
So…last Monday was 6 months of no grains or sugar (I also had 3 1/2 months of no dairy mixed in there too).6 months, y’all. I’m so proud of myself for sticking with this as long as I have…and for continuing to stick with it. 🙂
I was at the dr the next day and…I’ve officially lost 50.2 pounds…with clothes on. 😉
I also happened to go shopping after the dr.
Left pic: before. Other two pics: last Tuesday.
I’ve been checking the clearance racks for any cheap left over spring-y / summer stuff since I’m still losing and don’t want to waste money on stuff that will only last a month or 2.
I saw this halter jumper and thought it was a halter dress. I didn’t want to get completely undressed so I just put it on over my leggings and then realized it wasn’t a dress. By summer it will be perfect. 🙂
So, yeah I’m still going strong with this. I did recently get back to strict 25 carbs or less 5 days a week. 50 grams or less 2 days.
For about 5 weeks I’d been doing more Paleo style eating and even though it was all safe food and I continued to lose weight the higher carbs were making me hungry all.the.time. A couple days back on strict keto and that went away.
Ok that’s all for now. Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂
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