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. 🙂
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. 🙂
Things are good here. I’m still doing my day to day posting on Instagram. Check it out if you miss me. 🙂
Hope y’all are having a great long weekend and that you took a moment to remember why we have a long a weekend. 🙂
Shall we get caught up?
just a reminder…if the pics in my post show up super small refresh the page and that usually fixes it
Some of this will probably be familiar if you’re following along on insta but as usual I’ll be a little more wordy here. 🙂
I tried peace love and low carb’s lasagna ‘noodle’ recipe. Oh my gravy, y’all this is a keeper. I LOVED this. Check out that link to her recipe if you wanna try it out. It’s super easy and is just eggs, cream cheese, mozz, parm and spices. I used my own sauce recipe.
If you’re missing watermelon this summer try this out. It’s watermelon lime sparkling water with some sugar free watermelon syrup.
🙂
This cup of deliciousness is sugar free sweetened condensed milk.
You’ll need it for a couple recipes coming up so here’s how I made it. It’s the equivalent of one can.
I put:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp butter
1/3 cup swerve
in an 8 cup pyrex measuring cup. Micro’d for a total of 8 minutes stopping and stirring about every minute and a half.
After 8 minutes
I stirred in:
1 tsp vanilla
24 drops liquid splenda
1/4 tsp xanthan gum.
I let it come to room temp then transferred to a bowl and into the icebox til ready to use.
after eating a few tbsp of course …this stuff is so good I just wanna drink it with a straw. 🙂
Me too, awesome granny. Me too. 🙂
Sugar free deconstructed key lime pie. 🙂
If you’ve been reading me for a while you know I dream about key lime pie. The last thing I made before going sugar free last September was the best key lime pie filling I’d had in years.
This isn’t as good as that and it does have sweetened condensed milk (which I complained about in that post) but man this did hit the spot given how I’m eating these days. 🙂
I don’t know if y’all have seen Keto Kookies or not but I ordered some chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies from them.
They have a recipe on their blog for using the snickerdoodle as a pie crust.
I tried that multiple times and lost seven pretty expensive cookies in the process. They burned no matter how low I set the temp. Not willing to be deterred…or waste anymore cookies…I decided to deconstruct the ‘pie’.
I layered a snickerdoodle cookie with some pie filling and topped with homemade sugar free whipped cream. It was so good.
This is just a regular sugar full recipe that I followed exactly replacing the real condensed milk with my homemade sugar free one. Here’s how I made the pie filling.
2 eggs
2 egg whites
1/2 cup key lime juice
1 can sweetened condensed milk (the recipe above)
splash of vanilla
I made half the recipe since it was probably going to be just me eating it.
Beat the eggs and whites til completely smooth. Slowly add lime juice, milk and vanilla.
NOW here you would pour this into a pie crust and bake at 325* til set.
I am not scared of raw eggs and since I was deconstructing this I took mine in its unbaked state and folded in about half a cup of whipped cream then ice boxed it til ready to eat.
Like I said…I loved it but if you’re scared of raw eggs then you’ll need to figure out a pie crust or just bake it without a crust and use a water bath.
I’ll leave y’all with my most recent before current set of pics. I’m standing in the same place for all three.
Left to right: Late 2015, Early Oct 2016, Last week late May 2017.
Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂
Y’all know we have to kick off summer with my fav summer anthem. 😉
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. 🙂
🙂
🙂
🙂
😉
🙁
