Our Halloween and October in a Nutshell

Well today is the 1st day of November and October was a blur! Not sure why starting in October the day's just fly by!

But it was a great month. The weather is finally feeling a little bit fallish, even though today is back to 82 and sunny.

We had some great times this month. We had Baby J all to ourselves one Saturday so we took her for a walk in the neighborhood! She loves to walk the dogs, even though you can tell in this picture that Chorizo is not too sure about Baby J walking her!

We also were lucky in finding my cousin Art outside cleaning out his Koi Pond. Baby J loves the beautiful fish and I thought she would be scared of them but she had no problem petting them! Child has no fear! You can see that her grandmother who Baby J calls Nini is full of fear, fear of Baby J falling into the pond! See her grabbing the back of J's shirt? 

After our walk we headed to the Little Bear Pumpkin Patch. There is nothing like seeing the holidays through the eyes of a little one! She loved it and we loved watching her!

Baby J and I in a pumpkin cutout!

Baby J and I and my mom. Baby J is my moms only great granddaughter.

Baby J and her Nini at the Pumpkin Patch!

Then last night of course was Halloween and Baby J came trick or treating to our house. The funny thing is she tried to give us her candy, silly baby! She looked adorable as Minnie Mouse and she loved Chorizo's costume, a big red lobster!

And now we're in November. Thanksgiving, changing of the leaves, football and hopefully more Baby J awaits!


 

The Fall of the Squash

Recently mom and I were watching The Food Network and we saw a Chef preparing Acorn Squash. "What's that?" my mom asked. "Have you ever had Acorn Squash?"  

And no, I had never had Acorn Squash so we said next time we went grocery shopping we would pick one up, and we did.

We were going to make it the way we saw on the Food Network in a dish called Acorn Squash Agrodolce. Argodolce is Italian for Sour/Sweet.

Their recipe started out with cutting the acorn squash in half then scooping out the seeds then slicing it into 1 inch slices. Which I did, easy-peasy! 

Then you toss with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and roast about 30 minutes. Then it said to remove the peel. 

Well, I did all of the above but when it came out of the oven I tasted it with the peel as other websites said you can eat the peel and O.M.Goodness!!! It was so delicious. I almost ate the whole thing right then and there. Mom loved it too and she's a very picky eater.

Here you see a few slices that I had with my dinner that night, alongside some coleslaw and some cubed Parmesan crusted pork chop.

The rest of the recipe called for the agrodolce, which sounds terrific but it's very high in carbs due to sugar content. It calls for red wine vinegar as the Agro (Sour) and Dolce (Sweet) in the form of dried currants or raisins and honey. Also some crush red pepper, fresh mint and salted almonds. You can find the complete recipe HERE.

After I had eaten my fill of Acorn Squash I had to log it in to my food tracker which I will share more about in another post. 

Turns out that Acorn Squash is pretty high in carbs. Which makes sense because it was so delicious. 1 cup cooked has 30 carbs, then you minus the dietary fiber and you end up with 21 net carbs. Again, too high when you stick with 20 to 24 carbs per day. 

However I can eat a slice here and there once in a while. It is very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. It's a great source of Vitamin A, Thiamin, Vitamin B6 and Magnesium and Dietary Fiber, Potassium, Manganese and Vitamin C.

Photo Credit - Nutritiondata.self.com

Have you ever had Acorn Squash? What other squashes would you recommend? I think this fall I am going to try different ones. A friend of mine recommended I try Carnival and Kabocha Squash, so I'm on the hunt for those.

~~~Alicia

Living Low Carb and the Challenges that come with it.

Happy to report that as of this morning I have lost 18 pounds! 

That's just slightly more than 1 pound a week. If I can manage to lose 1 pound per week, I will have lost 52 pounds in one year. I don't need to lose 52 pounds, but I have set a goal to lose at least 1 pound a week and so far I'm hitting my goal!

I'm not going to paint a pretty picture and say that this has been easy because it's not easy.

One of the biggest challenges I have encountered is eating out. For the most part I eat at home, or I pack my lunches and snacks for work. But once in a while I have to eat out. My sister Lisa and I try to keep one night per week as a sister night. This used to be a lot of fun. We would go to a favorite Mexican food place and have margaritas and eat baskets of chips with salsa. 

Since I am eating low carb/high fat and Lisa is watching her sodium intake, it is very hard to find a place we can eat. I can't eat the chips due to the carbs and Lisa can't eat them due to the salt. We try to go places where we can eat salads but that's difficult because many salads have hidden carbs in the shape of croutons, won tons, rice, beans, corn and sugar in the dressings. For Lisa just the dressings themselves are packed with sodium.

One of our favorite places to eat was Coco's Restaurant. Our favorite dish there was the Spicy Asian Chicken Salad. Below is how the carbs/sodium facts play out. Remember I stick to 20 to 24 net carbs per day and Lisa I believe sticks to 1200 to 1500 Mg's of sodium per day. Our favorite salad has a net carb count of 81 carbs and sodium level of 1410 Mg's. Just one salad!

I also have the same problem eating out with my mom. Mom and I like to go shopping on Saturdays. We both love going to Goodwill and we also do our grocery shopping. We also usually have a nice lunch somewhere. But Mom is a very picky eater. She doesn't do salads and she has such a small appetite that she can't eat in a steak house where she would have to pay $15 or more just to eat one or two bites. Yesterday we went out and the only place she wanted to eat was Del Taco. I ordered their Chicken Bacon Avocado Salad. You can see the nutrition info for carbs is a net of 18. I figure it was less than that as I didn't eat the tortilla chips shown in the photo. I estimate I ate about 7 to 10 carbs. But the salad was horrible, not at all as pictured below.

Another challenge is exercising. My problem with exercise is that I've hurt myself exercising! You remember my post a few weeks ago about my heart attack scare where I actually had only hurt myself exercising. I was diagnosed with Bursitis. I didn't blame exercise at that time, but just this Friday I had to see my doctor for a horrible pain in my left ankle and foot. I explained to my doctor that I had started a walking regimen and she said it's either a heel spur or Plantar Fasciitis. I had x-rays taken and hopefully it's not a heel spur.

Unfortunately this has derailed my exercise routine. I tried all last week to continue doing the 1 mile walking video but by Friday I couldn't stand the pain anymore, and yesterday going shopping with my mom we had to shorten our day due to the pain. It really is irritating because I was enjoying the was daily exercise.  I'm going to start riding my stationary bike since that doesn't affect either my arm or my feet, we'll see how long my knees can hold up! But I'm not going to stop moving!

Another challenge is that because it's so hard to eat out I've literally stopped going out. No more Happy Hour with the girls. Margaritas have sugar in the simple syrup, about the only thing without carbs is drinking straight alcohol, like tequila or vodka and I'm not big on that. I can maybe have one Michelob Ultra which I believe has 3.6 carbs, but what about the happy hour foods? Chips and Salsa, Guacamole, Chicken Wings, Potato Skins? None of that is carb friendly.

But challenging as it is I am determined to continue with my new WOE (way of eating) and if I have to give up girls night it's worth it to feel as good as I do, to have the energy I have now. Sometimes it is disheartening and I guess that's why I'm venting now, but it would make my life so much easier if all my favorite things didn't have so many stinking carbs!!!





 

My Version of Bullet Proof Coffee

There's a trend that's been going on for the past few year for a coffee that is made with such ingredients that it can replace or enhance your breakfast. It's called Bullet Proof Coffee.

Have you heard of it? Have you wondered what it is? Well, the original Bulletproof coffee is the creation of Dave Asprey, Founder and Author of the book The Bulletproof Diet. 

My version of the Bullet Proof Coffee is a bit different. I don't include the Grass Fed Butter and I use Organic Virgin Coconut Oil in mine.

Here's a picture of the one I made this morning. Doesn't that look delicious? It's so creamy and the ingredients I use give it such a unique flavor. It definitely enhances coffee!

So how do I make this? 

1.  Coffee - We just brew it normal in a Mr. Coffee coffeemaker. I do have a Keurig but my mom makes coffee each morning so I drink the one she makes cause...well...she makes it for me!
2.  1 Tablespoon of  Coconut Oil, this is the one I buy at Trader Joe's . It's about $7 a jar, but you can see there are 30 servings so that will last me a month.

3.  2 Tablespoons Half and Half Creamer
4.  1 packet Splenda

That's it! I put it all in a pretty mug, like the one above. (During the week I put it in my travel mug). 

When I want to make it special I used my Aerolatte Coffee Frother. Using this is what makes that beautiful head of foam you see in the picture above. During the week I just wait until I get to work and I shake, shake, shake my travel mug and it gets just as frothy and I get a mini-workout too...it's a win-win! (I bought my Aerolatte Frother at Williams & Sonoma.)

So that's it. That's how I make my morning coffee. I could add the butter, but that just seems like overkill to me.

Coffee this way is the first thing I have in the morning and it gives me energy and helps me feel full until 10 am when I have my morning break and I eat my bacon and eggs. Yeah, eating LC/HF is really, really tough!

When I mention to anyone the way I drink my coffee they always are skeptical of the Coconut Oil, but once they try it and taste the flavor it gives the coffee they get hooked just like I am. 

On my LC/HF diet I am supposed to get 70% of my daily nutrition goals from healthy fats. I'm not a big lover of fat. I've never been one to like legs and thighs on chicken, I prefer the drier, less greasy taste of chicken breasts. I always trim the fat off of pork chops and steaks. This way is an easy and fast way for me to get my healthy fats. The net carbs on my version of Bullet Proof Coffee is 3.

And the facts on calories, net carbs, carbs, fat, protein, sodium and fiber in the graphic above come from a handy dandy little website myfitnesspal.com. I'll be doing a separate post on them later, stay tuned. 

 

The Sacrifices Women Make - From Left to Write - The Little Paris Bookshop

Before you begin reading this post I need to clarify that I am writing strictly from the woman's point of view. I'm not saying only women make sacrifices, but writing only about the sacrifices that I have seen women make.

Disclosure: This post was inspired by the novel The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, where Monsieur Perdu--a literary apothecary--finally searches for the woman who left him many years ago.. Join From Left to Write on October 8th as we discuss The Little Paris Bookshop. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

We all know that women are strong, strong willed, and stubborn. I know this as a fact because that describes me. Those three attributes are not always considered to be an attractive or needed quality for a woman. We're the weaker sex, we should be submissive, quiet, recalcitrant. As women we sometimes fake those attributes in order to survive and prosper in this world.

This post was going to be about all the great things that women do for others, especially their children, but I deleted everything I had written after this because today I read something that really brought home the strength and courage of a woman and I think a lot of what is in that women is in all of us.

On Facebook, I follow HUMANS OF NEW YORK or HONY. HONY was started in 2010 by a fellow named Brandon who thought it would be cool to start photographing people in the streets of New York. He was going to photograph 10,000 people and plot their photos on a map.

Brandon didn't know what he had started, never dreamed where he would go, never imagined what HONY would mean to his life and the life of the over 10 million followers that he has worldwide! 

He's traveled and documented photos all over the world. Photos that make us laugh and photos that make us cry. Photos that prompt us to realize that we can make a difference in someones life other than our own. 

Currently Brandon is sharing his Humans of New York Refugee Stories. During a time when our country is horribly divided because of refugees here in our own country, he is showing us why refugees and immigrants seek to escape the countries they come from. It's gut wrenching and the photos and stories are not for the faint of heart, even the toughest of people read these stories and look at these pictures with tears in their eyes. 

The photo that I want to share today and the story that goes with it shows just how strong women are, how selfless, how protective.

Here is the story that goes with it...

This mother, this woman...the heartbreak she must have endured to send her beloved child out alone in the world. How does she sleep at night. How does she eat even a morsel of food knowing that her child is out there and not knowing if he is eating? I can't even imagine!

But she didn't think of herself, she thought only of him and of saving him. So many women do the same thing. 

In the book The Little Paris Bookshop, Manon, the love interest of Jean Perdu becomes pregnant while ill with Cancer and she doesn't tell anyone until it is too late to make a difference. She died so her daughter could live. 

Woman may be strong, strong willed and stubborn because it's the attributes we need to face the challenges that life brings so us. 

      

Is it harder to stay thin now than it was 50 years ago?

Recently I noticed a post on Facebook with a picture of Jane Fonda doing her exercise video. I believe her video was the one that many of us first exercised too...well hers and Richard Simmons! Now I love the Leslie Sansone Walking Videos!

The post asked if it was harder for Millennials to stay thin than it is was for Baby Boomers? Just for the record I think it is.

If you have been following my blog then you know that I have been following a Low Carb/High Fat diet and have been having great success with it. I keep my carb intake between 20 and 24 carbs per day. To put that into perspective let me list a few of my favorite "regular" foods that I would eat before:

1. Venti Breve Latte with One Splenda at Starbucks = 25 net carbs
2. Coco's Restaurant Asian Chicken Salad = 70 net carbs
3. Subway Black Forest Ham Sandwich with Jalapeno Bread = 40 net carbs
4. Chips and Salsa = 35 net carbs
5. Cheetos (my poison of choice) = 14 net carbs per every 21 Cheetos (I would eat a whole bag in one weekend!)

As you can see if you are trying to stick to low carb, just one serving of any of the above and you have blown the carbs for the day!

Whenever I would sit down to watch TV in the evening or on the weekends I would have a snack. Popcorn, Cheetos, Chips and Salsa, cookies or some type of candy, Licorice being one of my favorites. Every single time!! So I've been having a hard time controlling cravings when I sit down and watch TV.

I started thinking back to when aimlessly snacking on junk became the norm for me and I realized that when I was a teenager we would have three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner...and that was it! We didn't have snack time and we didn't even know what that was.

Oh sure, every once in a while my mom would give us some cookies or my dad would bring us home a small bag of sunflower seeds each or a piece of beef jerky, but that was few and far between and those were treats, not snacks or something that we had on a regular basis. We didn't crave them, we just enjoyed them when we got them.

At night when we would all gather around the TV to watch Chico and the Man or Sanford and Son, we would just watch TV, no snacks. Wow, I can't even imagine just sitting there and watching TV! 

When us Baby Boomers were younger, we just didn't aimlessly snack, at least I didn't. But Millennials now are bombarded with what I consider junk food. Chips, cookies, pastries, dollar menu hamburgers, hot dogs, tacos, pizza by the slice! Even in the schools they have the school cafeteria and then they have the option of going to the snack bar and getting many of the foods I have just listed.

I remember my mom telling us to go outside after breakfast and not to come back in until we saw our dad's truck come home for lunch. Then we would come in and mom would have a lunch prepared and then back outside with instructions to not come in until Dad's truck was home for the evening.

So we rode our bikes, played with the neighbor kids outside, invented games, built forts, played school, threw rocks into the canals and just generally exercised the whole day away. On days we were at school, we had P.E. on a daily basis and then we also joined extracurricular activities like softball, volleyball, basketball, swimming and tennis. 

We ate well. We ate healthy. We didn't snack and we exercised regularly. I don't see that lifestyle with Millennials at all. Which is why we have an epidemic of obesity!

Many of the people that commented on the post mentioned the fact that it is cheaper to eat foods that are bad for you. You can go to almost any fast food restaurant and get 6 burgers and fries and drink combo meal cheaper than you can go to a store and purchase the ingredients. That may or may not be true, but it definitely is not better for your health. 

Many also mentioned the fact that it is hard to cook a meal everyday. It's so much easier to drive through a fast food place or place an order for pizza. Sure, cooking is hard, it's time consuming. But having high blood pressure, diabetes and/or heart disease is also hard. It's hard on the person that is ill and it's hard on the person that has to care for them. Pick your hard. Which would you pick on a daily basis?

It reminds me of a cartoon that my doctor has in her office...

I'm choosing to be healthier. I should have started sooner, but better late than never. I'm still on my low carb/high fat WOE and guess what? 17 pounds lighter today! I am so thrilled about that and it gives me all the incentive to continue. It hasn't been easy. I've had cravings and temptations, but I've managed to overcome them by taking it one day at a time!

 

I'm not Super Woman After All

I almost died last night! 

Ok, so I didn’t almost die, but I could have. The day started out like any other day. I got up, took the dogs out to say hello to the day and to pee of course. Came back in and dressed and did my Leslie Sansone walking video. I texted my sister that it was time for coffee and headed to the kitchen to make coffee. 

Lisa got there and we had coffee with mom. We showed Lisa all the treasures we had found the day before at the Goodwill and gave her a few surprises we had bought for her. Toward the end of the coffee klatch I started feeling a little bit dizzy. The room would spin and when I looked at my mom or Lisa they would kind of float left to right or right to left. I thought it was odd but put it to the side because I had a lot of stuff on my “to do” list. 

Lisa left and I put in a load of laundry and went outside and got the little step ladder because one of my “to do’s” for the day was to scrub the walls in the bathrooms. You know how they get icky after shower upon shower and then when the new cooler was installed a few weeks ago a lot of lint and other yuck got stuck and it was looking horrendous and I just can’t handle that. 

So I got up on the ladder with a warm bucket of soapy water and a dizzy head and fell to scrubbing and scrubbing. I was concerned about the dizziness but as women are wont to do I soldiered on because I’m an idiot! 

I finally got one bathroom done and then realized it was ridiculous to continue using a ladder due to the dizziness, so I put it away and told my mom I was done because I felt a little dizzy. She had made some breakfast burritos so I had one thinking maybe I was just hungry. Just so you know, I un-wrapped it and just ate the stuffing; the tortilla is not worth the carbs! 

As I sat there eating my burrito my right arm started hurting, aching. I thought that was weird because I had mainly used my left arm to scrub the walls but took an Aleve and tossed in another load of laundry. My arm started hurting more and more. So badly that I could find no position to place my arm in that did not give me unbearable pain and I started to get nauseous and had to throw up. 

So I did what I do anytime something is difficult in my life, I took a nap. It was hard finding a good position, but eventually I realized if I laid on my right side with my arm straight out and my head on my arm I was comfortable enough to sleep, so I did, for about an hour. 

When I awoke I immediately tried to get up and couldn’t! We have a bug in Arizona that we called a “pinacate”, also called a Desert Stink bug. When you turn this little bug on its back it struggles with its legs and arms flailing to turn itself over….and that is exactly how I felt, flailing with no results. I had to text my son to come and help me up. 

Up to now I had not told anyone how bad the pain was so he was shocked that I was holding my right arm to my chest and in tears. Then my sister called and I told her about the dizziness and the shakiness and the nausea and the pain in my arm and she immediately said it sounded like a heart attack. My sister…she always turns to the worst case scenario. I told her no, because it was my right arm, if it was a heart attack my left arm would hurt. 

We hung up and she called back immediately as she had consulted with Dr. Google and Dr. Google said heart attacks in women have different symptoms than heart attacks in men and she read me the symptoms which sounded exactly what my symptoms were. I told her we better head to the ER room.

Since I had planned to spend the day cleaning and doing laundry I had not bothered with make up or doing my hair and though I tried to “pretty up” it was a struggle just to brush my teeth. Mom had to make a ponytail for me. My mom had not made me a pony tail since I was a child. Needless to say she was out of practice! I cried while I changed into a clean shirt and shorts and just put on a ball cap! 

We headed to the ER. The great thing about thinking you are having a heart attack is that you become a priority in the ER. You don’t have to sit there with other sick people for hours. The bad thing is they quickly did an EKG and said it was not a heart attack, my blood pressure was great, and so they sat me on a bed in the ER room until they had a chance to take some x-rays to find out why my arm and shoulder hurt so badly. 

Another bad thing is x-rays, especially when you are in excruciating pain and you have to maneuver your arm in different angles to get a good view, but I’m a soldier and did what I had to do…and then we waited and waited and waited. The x-rays were taken at 5:27 pm and we didn’t get to speak with the doctor until 9:24 pm! 

While the results were not as horrible as a heart attack, it was still not great news to hear that I have Bursitis. Bursitis in my right shoulder and Sciatica in my left leg! I think it’s time to put this old horse down, I’m just a mess! 

They gave me a shot of Tramadol for the pain and some Prednisone tablets for the inflammation, and a prescription for some more meds. If you know me you know that I HATE to take meds. I have to be dying before I even will take Aleve, now I have more meds I will have to take daily. 

It sucks! It makes me realize I am getting old. I can remember my mom and dad sitting at the kitchen table on Sunday night sorting out their pills for the week in a little plastic box like this one. 

It’s just sad to realize I am at that point. It’s also sad to realize that I can’t just scrub walls like I did in my 20’s and 30’s, I have to slow down and some of the chores that need to be done will have to wait or just not get done at all. I’ve always hated to depend on anyone and preferred to do it “my way” before and now I will have to rely on someone else to help and to be happy with the way they do it. 

I know, look on the bright side and be happy it wasn’t something more serious like a heart attack, be happy that you didn’t fall off the ladder which you insisted getting on like a moron when you were dizzy, but it’s hard to realize that you’re human and that you’re body is going to start rebelling. In my mind I feel like I’m 22 but my body sure doesn’t feel that way!

 

How to Low Carb While Camping and Enjoying a Girl's Weekend

This weekend was a girl's camping weekend that had been planned for several months. 

I'll be honest...I had been dreading this weekend. Not because I didn't think I would have fun, oh I knew there would be lots of fun involved in a camping trip that included my sister Lisa and our friend Lupe. I was dreading trying to stick to a Low Carb/High Fat way of eating while not being at home where I have all my special foods and snacks available. 

But necessity is the mother of invention and I succeeded in making this a LCHF WOE weekend without too much of a struggle.

We left after work on Thursday evening and stopped at McDonald's before we got to the campsite. I had two McDoubles without bread or ketchup. Just the meat, cheese, pickles, onions and I added jalapeno because hot stuff is in my blood! We got to the campsite, unpacked, set up and then just talked girl talk until about 1 am.

Friday morning we awoke bright and early to the scent of the coffee my sister was brewing. Nothing better than the smell of coffee at the beach! Lupe had brought some Almond Biscotti to have with our coffee. 

I love Biscotti. Love how sweet and soft it gets when you dip it into your coffee. But just one Biscotti has 18 net carbs. I try to eat only between 20 to 24 carbs per day, so to eat one cookie that has 18 is just out of the question. Luckily the day before I had purchased a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Quest Bar. One whole bar has 3 net carbs. The WHOLE BAR has 3 net carbs. It was so rich and delicious that I cut that bar in three pieces and enjoyed for two mornings and one evening. Was it Biscotti? No. But was it enjoyable and satisfying? YES!

We had several errands to run so we got ready and headed out. We stopped for breakfast at a cute little coffee shop called The Pantry on Park in Santa Maria. I figured I would just have a couple of eggs and bacon. Easy-peasy. But I was intrigued by the sound of a Bell Pepper, Onion, Ham and Egg Scramble. 

I asked the waitress what I could have instead of the hash browns and toast. She offered sliced tomatoes, cottage cheese or fresh fruit. I opted for the tomatoes and the fruit which consisted of sliced bananas, pineapple, cantaloupe and strawberries. I took out all the strawberries and put them on my plate (strawberries are lower in sugar) and offered the rest of the fruit to my sister Lisa and Lupe to share. It was one of the best breakfasts I've had in a long time!

For dinner that night, Lisa and Lupe decided to have the Fish and Chips dinner at the clubhouse of the RV park we were camping at (yes, we were at a fabulously comfortable RV park in a beautiful RV home; that is as "roughing it" as I get).

Breaded Fish and French Fries are definitely not a low carb option. Luckily my beautiful, loving mother had packed us some of her homemade Chile Verde. She roasts Anaheim chile's and dices them very small with some tomato and salt, at this point we call it Chile Macho. Then she takes some steak and cuts it into bite-size pieces and browns it and then adds just a spoonful of flour to thicken and adds water and the Chile Macho and it turns into beautiful, delicious Chile Verde! 

Normally I would eat this with a tortilla, but again, those days are gone as I don't eat flour or wheat products. So instead I took about two cups of raw coleslaw mix, fresh out of the package and placed it in a bowl. Then I heated up the chile verde and poured it on top. The coleslaw gets a little softer but it's still crunchy and with the chile verde it tastes like a nice little vegetable soup. It was very filling and soothing and I didn't miss the fish and chips at all, even though they looked very good.

That night we headed over to a little club downtown where they have live music and dancing. We had a great time dancing and burned a lot of calories. All three of us love to dance! So ending this day I realized I had eaten some pretty great meals and stuck within my allowable carb count...not bad and so easy.

Saturday morning we had the same ritual of having coffee and I had another piece of my Quest Bar with my coffee. We had decided that Saturday was going to be a relaxing day. No plans. We played the game Sorry, we worked on a puzzle, we walked to the beach, we read our books and we talked. When I got hungry I boiled some eggs and made some guacamole. 

Lupe and Lisa joined me in eating eggs and while they had corn tortilla chips with their guacamole I had Mac's Salsa and Limon Pork Rinds with mine. They tasted it using my pork rinds and they both agreed that it actually tasted better than using the tortilla chips! I had also taken along a jar of green olives stuffed with jalapenos...like I said, hot stuff is in my blood!

We decided to play another game called Quarters. It's a drinking game. None of us are very big drinkers, but I had taken along a bottle of tequila so we bounced quarters into a shot glass and whoever got the quarter in the glass that person would choose who would take the shot. It was fun and after we started to get too giggly we decided to stop and take a walk instead. Well Lisa and Lupe took a walk, I did my favorite thing and took a nap...a well deserved nap!

Later that evening for dinner we all just wanted salad. We went over to the local Vons store and purchased some salad in a bag and some chicken breast from the deli and made the best Asian Chicken Salad that I have ever had. Or maybe it was the rough day of camping and drinking that made us so hungry, but it was delicious!

We had just what we wanted, a day of rest, relaxation and recharging! We had coffee late in the evening while we sat outside. Lisa and Lupe had purchased some cream cheese danish at Vons and I had bought some strawberries and cream cheese. I heated about 4 ounces of cream cheese in the microwave for about 20 seconds, added cinnamon and some Splenda and used it as a dip for the strawberries with my coffee. 

Sunday we awoke bright and early. I was all out of Quest Bar so I ate the rest of the strawberries with the cream cheese dip for breakfast with my coffee, it was so good! I warmed up the dip and it was like having strawberry cream of wheat, very soothing and satisfying.

We packed up all our stuff and remarked on how is it possible that we were taking more stuff home than what we brought with us? I think that's just how camping and/or vacations are. We were starving by the time we packed all our belongings and made the beds and prepared the RV for the RV fairies to come and take it away and place it back in storage. 

By the time we did all that we were hungry and I told the girls that we should go and eat at a cute little place on the pier at Avila Beach called Fat Cats Cafe. It's a cute little restaurant where you can look out at the ocean while you eat either inside or on their patio. We ate inside.

I had a Bacon and Avocado Omelette. It was served with hash browns and toast but my waitress was awesome and recommended again either cottage cheese or tomatoes and again I had the tomatoes. My omelette was so huge that I could only eat half and brought the other half home with me.

On the drive home we stopped at a convenience store for snacks. I bought some peppered beef jerky and sunflower seeds and that is what I ate on the road trip home.

I noticed that this weekend my sister Lisa and our friend Lupe joined me in eating low carb quite a bit. Maybe I have some low carb buddies in the making.

So...a trip that I was dreading because of my new Way of Eating turned out pretty great. We had fun together and I was able to eat LCHF. It took a little planning and having the courage to ask our server for other options. 

I'm glad we went, I'm glad that my sister and Lupe encouraged and supported me on my WOE and I'm glad that I didn't look at this as an excuse to cheat or to stray from my WOE. It gives me the strength and determination to continue on! Plus I had a fabulous time with Lisa and Lupe. Let's do it again real soon ladies!

                     

Low Carb - 3 Ingredient - Coconut Macaroons

Oh the sweet crunchiness of Coconut Macaroons! I have always loved them, but I've never made, let alone thought to see if they could be made low carb.

Most of the regular recipes I read said to use sweetened condensed milk, some called for honey, but both of those ingredients are packed with sugar. I found a great 2 ingredient recipe for Macaroons at the blog Rabbit Food For My Bunny Teeth. She used just sweetened coconut and egg white.

I just happened to have recently bought some unsweetened coconut and thought to try it with the egg white and add 1 more ingredient, Stevia sweetener. Because I was using the additional 1/2 cup of Stevia I used 2 egg whites instead of one. 

They came out amazing! Not as pretty as Rabbit Food's but still very light and fluffy and so sweet and crunchy!

Here's the nutrition facts for 24 servings. Very low in carbs! Yes!

I will definitely be making these again!

Recipe - 24 Servings

Ingredients:
2 egg whites
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup Stevia  ***see edit tip below***

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a cookie sheet. I lined it with foil and sprayed it with cooking spray, you could also use parchment paper.

Place egg whites in a bowl and whisk them until white and frothy, they don't have to form stiff peaks, they will still be liquid. Add the Stevia and Coconut and mix gently until completely blended.

Using a 1 teaspoon measuring spoon scoop out the mixture pressing against the side of the bowl to solidly pack the mixture then turn out on the cookie sheet. They don't expand so you don't have to leave a lot of room between them.

Bake for about 10 minutes. If you like you can place them under the broiler for a bit to darken the top but I rather like them light on top and browned on the bottom. Then enjoy!

**Editing Tip - Brought these to share with a co-worker and she told me the Stevia left a bad aftertaste. I did some research and some people do experience an aftertaste using Stevia. When I tried it last night I immediately brushed my teeth so didn't have the aftertaste experience. I ate one today and it wasn't pleasant. Next time I make these I will either completely use Splenda which makes each cookie about 1 carb or I will mix 1/2 Splenda and 1/2 Stevia and see how that is. ***

 

Lemon Almond Meal Shortbread

This is the 2nd post I wrote for the new blog that never was, Low Carb Thrills. It was a good idea, but just not for me. Enjoy!

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There are so many great cooks and bloggers out there that have jumped on the low carb wagon. So if you want to make something, just google that item as a low carb alternative and you will probably find something terrific.

I was hoping to find a great recipe for making Snickerdoodles so I searched my Sweets and Treats Pinterest Board and found 6 recipes for cookies. I read over each one and found that most of them use Almond Meal and fortunately I had some.

I combined several of the different ingredients and came up with a Lemon Almond Meal Shortbread.

Ingredients:
2 cups almond meal
1/2 cup granulated Stevia
1/2 cup of butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract (I added this at the last minute because I love the scent of lemon & vanilla together)


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
     I let the butter come to room temperature but you can place it in the microwave for a few seconds just to soften it, you don't want it totally melted. 
     In a medium sized bowl I combined the butter and the Stevia and creamed those together, then I added the almond meal and both the extracts and combined them until they formed a dough.

***Tip...At this point it would be a good idea to wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill for a few minutes. I didn't do this and it was difficult to roll out the dough.***

     Roll out the dough to amount 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a round cookie cutter or whatever shape floats your boat.
     Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet, I ended up with 20 cookies and bake for 10 minutes at 350. I broiled the tops of mine just to make them a bit crispier.
     These aren't very sweet and they are very crumbly, but they are a good little cookie to have when you get a sweet tooth. I placed mine in a plastic container in the fridge and I plan to take them with me on a camping weekend coming up.