There is a site I go to often for ideas on what to cook that is low carb. I rather like this site because she does have several recipes for hamburger that I always think of Low Carb healty Hamburger Helper. I will post some of those in the future.

For today there is a recipe that everyone at my house liked and is just a baked chicken recipe and so easy to do. Here is the link: Houston Chicken

Here is the Recipe pretty much quoted from her site: Just for posterity. I hope she doesn't mind.

HOUSTON CHICKEN
1 boneless chicken breast
Salt, pepper and other seasonings, to taste
2 tablespoons Smoky Barbecue Sauce or other low carb barbecue sauce
2 slices bacon, cooked until not quite crisp
1 ounce cheddar cheese, shredded

Season and grill the chicken. Place in a baking dish, then top with the barbecue sauce, bacon slices and cheese. Broil to melt the cheese. Serve at once.

Makes 1 serving
Can be frozen

Per Serving: 349 Calories; 20g Fat; 39g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 2g Net Carbs

I just found this cool recipe at the Fat Head group on facebook

Here is the link.. this is definitely on my list of must try!

Cheesy eggs

With Noelie talking about a fat fast, I thought I would post one of my favorite egg recipes. Probably not something you would eat with a fat fast, but if you are looking to increase the fat in your diet, and need to cut on protein this is one that could be adaptable, but increasing egg yolk and decreasing the whites.

4 eggs

2 oz cream cheese cubed, (you could add more)

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

beat eggs, add cheeses

In a pan melt butter, you may sautée up a clove of garlic. Add eggs and cook, stirring occasionally until done. Use pepper to season.

Makes 2 servings

I have added green onion and mushrooms to the mix for variety. I often will use 5 eggs for the two of us. For me alone I use 2 to 3 depending on how hungry I am in the morning. This is very rich so often 2 is plenty.

I got the Recipe from The Schwarzbein Principle and it is the only one that I make consistently. Easy, quick, and very filling.

Kewl Products for Low Carbing!

I will admit that I have NOT used all that I will share here, and might not ever- this is due to the fact that I believe I really have to stay away from grains, and this includes some nifty things out there that are great ramp ups to finally eating really clean.

Also I will regularly post things that I find so that you can make your own determination. There are many wonderful regular foods too that I will post, like Olive Oil that you can look at.

Choices are what we should all have. Some of this might be for Tigersue or others that say "hmmm, I want to try this but I am afraid to give up etc. etc. etc.

So here we go:

Off of the Facebook group Fat Head (for that very nifty movie in answer to "SuperSize Me") a person shows these wraps made up of coconut. I would probably still just use some kind of lettuce. Lettuce is still my most available subsitute for any carb type party thing like the Nachos we had at my kids a couple of weeks ago. Lettuce for tortilla chips. Works good, but some folks just miss things at first and need a ramp up, so these might be excellent and I see good reviews of the flavor.

I confess I did have a sweet treat from a company with a great website a week ago I found because the owner of the company ENCOURAGES blood sugar testing for his products. Right there I couldn't help but like the guy. Somethings we know raise blood sugar even though they advertise as low carb. This man isn't afraid to put his products to the test. Still because I found this so delicious and want more, it's probably something I need to be careful with but their chocolate nut cluster mix is to die for, and I am assuming the chocolate frosting mix is the same. It was creamy with a lovely fudgy texture that I might get more for .. like say Christmas day.

Also of note is their liquid sweetener drops which I thought were quite good- no bitter aftertaste. What is additionally cool is they have a trial pack of many of their products so you can give them a try for yourself.

I can also recommend their pancake mix. My Hubby even felt like it might taste a bit better than his regular mix... jaw drop to the floor!

I will be getting more of their products in the future as the budget allows.

I think this is a good start. Remember when shopping 95 percent of what you should eat is usually sold in the perimeter of the store: produce, meat and cold case for dairy etc. It just makes your life so much easier!

Views on the Schwarzbein Principle

Noelie asked in the previous post if I would jump in. I figured I would. I do love The Schwarzbein Principle, it is rather easy for me most of the time. The nice thing is since doing the low carb stuff years ago, lower carb plans don't bother me either. I try to make my worst days Schwarzbein days, with how much I work out right now, averaging 2 1/2 to 3 hours a day, mostly walking, that can be 30 grams per meal. Honestly I don't even eat that much most of the time. Although I will say lately I'm off because of stress. I still haven't figured out how to deal with it like I should. I haven't been back on it long enough to make it work the way I should. I'm not sure I can manage it for another couple of months other than do my best, and each day be a new day.

The point I wanted to make was what I learned while pregnant, when I worked with a dietician that would throw a fit if I ate less that what she thought I should as far as grams of carbs went. Never mind that my BS were stable, not as low as Berstein would like but good enough, She didn't like it. I learned to fudge the numbers. That is I ate as high fiber stuff as I could, that it would be in the Schwarzbein range of 90 gms in a day, still less than the dietician wanted, much less, but I refused to go there, but the net grams was much less than that. It was closer to Atkins levels. I found that as much as Dr. Schwarbein hated diets like Atkins, thinking they were out of balance, the truth was since she didn't do net carbs, if you ate high fiber, you were doing the other plans. It was an ah, ha moment for me. So that is what I need to get back to doing. I'm trying to eat less protein but I still think my body craves it, so I don't avoid it either.

So even though I know I need to eat less, and probably stick to the 15 grams per meal, and I need to get better at snacks, and even better at eating 3 times a day. I know it can work for me if I'm patient. The problem is I'm not patient. It took a long time for me to loose 50 lbs before, a very long time, try 2 to 3 years. I'm hoping for better this time, but I am doing heavier weights right off, and walking lots more. So my advice is, if you are looking low carb, look at different plans, although they may have different focus in how to do it, they are pretty much the same particularly if you focus on good fats, good protein which includes animal fats, and lots and lots of vegetables, it is manageable. We don't need fruit but if you need to eat them with whole milk yogurt and nuts. That was my treat when pregnant. It can be done.

I had deleted this blog in favor of our wonderful (wonderful because of loving family support) blog about losing weight. It is truly everything I hoped for, but I think the message of what I believe is best for most of us to one DEGREE or another is about carbohydrate restriction.

I am extremely carbohydrate intolerant. I have family genetics against me and I did a turn believing in the rage of diets in the 1980's (Thanks Susan Powter ) that fat was making me fat and the bad dumb luck of losing a lot of weight on that diet the time I did it. I lasted a year. Just a year and my body and mind and soul were falling apart at the end of it. I also knew I could never, ever do it again once I was off of it. Before you say I wasn't make sure I was mixing my carbs to make a whole protein.. ah.. no. I was doing it fine. You know, wheat and beans and the whole nine yards.

Talking about the damage the sugar and yes folks carbs are sugar did to me is hard. It is personal. But I have things that will never fix because of it. If only-if only- if only, I could go back and be a smarter child and say no to the sugar sweets I loved, and no to the carbohydrate items like potatoes and corn I didn't care about. I can't. I can't make my children's lives better by giving them veggies with nice fatty home-made ranch dressing rather than chips or make sure they had cheese chunks, peanut butter on celery and other such treats to make sure they could snack often- my Jay might not be having the health problems he is currently struggling with if I could. I can't.

Then I looked at the REAL science behind carbohydrate restriction. You see people like Powter will quote the 9 calories per gram of fat until you are about choking on your dry cardboard toast. It would be okay if our bodies were machines like a car, but they are not. We need that fat. Our bodies use it for fuel and making important and critical hormones. Our brains actually run more efficiently on ketones than sugar. Insulin, which is raised higher and higher by all that carbohydrate makes sure that many of us are storing all of that carbohydrate as fat. The carbs for us is much higher fat than .. well fat.

Now here is what is important: I do NOT believe that going as low in carbohydrate as I need to go is appropriate for all. We are all different. And example: My son Sean and his gorgeous wife Brynn are slim and healthy. While I would certainly at times LOVE to be the nosey mom (only because I am nosey and not because they are doing anything wrong - in fact Brynn makes a great dill pickle dip I love with veggies great low carb treat for me and one they eat with chips!) and suggest a few things to them, but it would NEVER EVER be to cut carbs out of their life as low as I have to. And frankly as cute as they are it would be silly as I am the fat mom, and they are the healthy and active pair. If they wonder and ask I will suggest a few things, but until then I will respect them for the smart, wonderful adults they are.

Tigersue does the Schwarzbein Principle as much as she can. It's a great way to live in the world and try to plan eating around te different needs of her family.

My husband Randy has issues that I truly believe would improve dramatically if we could figure out how to help him go low carb. The hard part is that while he is not hard to feed- he just has very set ideas about what he wants to eat and different green veggies are just not on that list. I am still trying to work ideas, but it might come with time. I think some ideas will happen as I get healthier.

I started this last round of low carb in January- I wasn't too strict until March. This had in part due to a new position at work. When I wasn't on the phones all the time, I could start what seems to be necessary for me- exercise- and a little more emotional energy to try to deal with figuring out what would help me. I have had time to adjust what I am doing to actually lose weight, and I realized today that I have so much energy! I do stuff in the home that used to "hurt" without even giving it a thought. You know. like cleaning out a cupboard, or just putting away the dishes, or going up and down stairs. Exercise does help, but I also believe that ninety percent is the food.

I hope to presents ideas, studies, and other ideas here. I think..I hope Tigersue hops in as well.