Nothing much to up-date. My weight stays stable...... whether I like it or not 
Yesterday was an 'almost fast.'
Keto Coffee reigned for the morning. I had a cup of chicken broth early afternoon. Tere was a small serve of meatballs in maranara sauce left after John had eaten all he could manage so I cleaned that up.
I made some Fat Fast fudge similar to one by Maria Emerich http://mariamindbodyhealth.com/keto-fudge/ and ate a small piece along with a couple of almonds and a macadamia nut. That's about it.
My nutritionals came out looking something like this...
Calories:- 840 + chicken broth
15 gm/7% Carb: 19 gm/9.5% Protein: 79 gm/83.5% Fat
I seem to really struggle to pull my carbs much lower. Of course the maranara sauce had an impact on these numbers.
Today is a normal food day and we have pork chops for dinner. Looking forward to them.
We have had a great day. We left home before 9 am. 1 hour 20 minutes to the retirement home where I visited my friend Enid. we spent over an hour chatting with my special friend who will have her 90th birthday next week.
In Thames we went to a different place for lunch. We had vouchers for the Junction Hotel, an historic hotel dating from Gold Rush days. They had a modern bar and diner. We were surprised to have such a good meal. John and I both had scallops wrapped in bacon with salad and caper flavoured crisps. The scallops were huge and juicy, 4 to a kebab stick, the garden salad was delicious and finished off with crunchy potato crisps which could only have been made in their own kitchen. The coffee was good too.
John saw the skin specialist, 40 minutes waiting then in and out. He couldn't have been more than 5 minutes and was told it was nothing to be concerned with but to check in with his GP, (General Practitioner or family doctor), in 6 months. The sore spot on his lip has completely healed after months. Wouldn't you know it! Still better to be safe than sorry especially as he was a fairly heavy smoker from 18-50 years old. Lip cancers can have a shocking outcome.
We did a little shopping spending a small fortune on essential supplements and groceries. I'd like to think that's all we'll spend for the next two weeks. I was able to get 1 litre of high quality coconut oil, expensive but a better buy than my usual shop.
A beautiful drive back home, walking in the door in time to turn on the 6 o'clock TV news. I was so tired, maybe slightly car sick from our windy roads, that I couldn't eat anything. I've just had coffee and cream and I might have some plain yoghurt later.
Tomorrow is my 'almost' fast day.
Bummer that today my weight jumped up a pound though. Just as well I am mature enough to see the bigger, overall picture ..... Well I try to be.
I am making Monday my normal measuring day, ketones, waist and weight, But that doesn't mean I won't peep in between. Thursday is my fast or very low calorie day as close tozero carb as I can go. I'm finding a workable pattern I want to stick with.You and Sue had chicken and broccoli with or without cheese soup yesterday and I had what should have been broccoli and chicken stirfry topped with cheese which came out a bit like soup because I used too much liquid trying to get the broccoli to cook. I've made bone broth with the carcass so no problem thinking what to have for dinner tomorrow when we get back from Thames.Yesterday I had my usual keto coffee, celery stuffed with blue vein cheese and topped with thinly sliced radish I also ate a small piece of cheddar and had the aforementioned chicken and broccoli dinner. I snacked on an HB egg and a few almonds so it was a very cheesy day.Calorie on the button at 120214 gm/ 5% carbs: 64 gm/ 21%Protein: 99 gm/ 74%FatToday I am thinking about making a bolognese sauce which I'll have with a spinach salad and John will have mashed potatoes. We have never been great fans of pasta so that's not an issue for us.I've been thinking about a couple of things that relate to abundance and how I respond. We have a good number of foods in the house that allow me a wide choice for my lunches. Once I would have had to eat all the perishables to prevent waste. Now I don't worry and fortunately John is eating more of them than he once did. I do so hate wasting good food so I would eat rather than leave to be thrown away when spoiled. Maybe I have a habit of buying more than we really need.Same thing is happening with my clothes. They are not wearing out the way they did when I was younger. I don't know what has changed but I seem to have accumulated more clothes than I can wear. Not that I have a lot, it's just that they are mostly in pretty good condition. I have taken to wearing tidy clothes rather than shabby or well worn clothes at home. For the first time in years I have clothes that I am not going to be able to wear out. I only expect to drop 2 more dress sizes. How long will that take? Maybe 12 -18 months. Different problems but a similar mindset. I hate to throw out good clothes even when I know I can send them to the Op Shop to be found by someone who might need them. I'm trying to make the most of wearing things I like as frequently as possible.Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the abundance. That's weird because compared with many people we don't really have all that much. An equal abundance of cash would be a fine thing
Hi everyone.
Julia mentioned the new to her idea of using blue vein cheese with cauliflower. The blue vein cheese was quite strong, maybe a little too strong for cauliflower but it made a nice change since I had no cream cheese in the fridge. I really like blue vein cheese with celery. that is Yumm. But our celery seems very stringy at present so I am peeling it. Seems such a waste to see all the green stuff thrown out but I have never liked stringy stuff.
I don't find it too difficult to eat healthy food. It's quantity that I get caught out on. I can eat steak till the cows come home. I really do have to monitor my portions in spite of what is said about eating enough fat to be satiated. Sometimes ..... most of the time my off switch does not work. I'm OK till I put food in my mouth and then I just want to keep on eating. That's why I am being so strict with counting at present.
I'm not always like this so my guess is that I have been eating freely for a while and it's taking a while to adjust.
I blew my personal limit of 1200 calories yesterday.
Calories 1680
Carbs 60gm/ 12.5%
Protein 80 gm/ 19%
Fat 127 gm/68.5%
No weight change. Ketones 1.4 ...... Now that surprised me after my higher than normal carbs yesterday.
What I consumed. keto coffee x 2. Lunch was a cheesy muffin made with coconut flour and flaxseed, 1/2 my normal berry smoothie mix. For dinner we had a garden salad tossed with leftover steak, balsamic vdressing, piece of broccoli topped with cheese. Then came the snacks. A well buttered muffin, many almonds and two prunes.
Today I have a chicken to roast for dinner. That will be a nice change. I need to keep away from those muffins.They may not have starches but I find them too moorish to stop at one.
Recipe ..... CHEESE MUFFINS
They make a decent alternative to bread rolls. I also find the measurements very forgiving Sometimes I play around with changing the 'flours' by reducing the flaxseed and using cornflour or tapioca too. The amounts are so small I don't let it worry me so long as it's gluten free. I haven't done so yet but I bet they would be really good with diced bacon, ham or salami added.
I could make these nearly every day, they are so quick to assemble. They only take a couple of minutes so easy to make at the last minute when you can't make up your mind what to eat. Yesterday they got the seal of approval from my son who wants to be healthy but ...... has a long way to go.
Heat oven to 175'F or 350'C
Prepare a 6 hole muffin pan
30 gm/ 1 oz coconut four
30 gm/ 1 oz ground flaxseed
2 teaspoons baking powder
100 gm/ 3.5 oz plain Greek Yoghurt
4 eggs
50 gm/ 1.75 oz diced or grated cheddar cheese
optional extras include, smoked paprika, mustard, pepper and salt, fine herbs such as thyme, parsley, chives, green onions and etc.
Mix all together with a whisk.
Spoon evenly into 6 muffin cases ... I use silicone and also rub a little butter around them too. Cleaning up is a breeze.
Bake 15 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly pressed.
Don't eat them all in one go.
Hi to all my other lovely readers. I forgot about mustard. I like curry and parsley too but I overcooked my eggs and they needed moisture. Thanks I will remember this next time.
Wow another kg down the tubes. I only have 1 more to lose and I will be where I want to be right now.
Yesterday I relaxed quite a lot. Keto coffee x 2. I made a kind of bread with eggs, flax seed and coconut flour, cooked in the microwave, and had it with a little lettuce, cheese and celery for lunch. Dinner was steak and cauliflower mashed with a knob of blue vein cheese then I snacked on some almonds a couple of prunes later in the evening.
I couldn't resist testing ketones so about 2 hours or more after dinner I recorded 0.7. Not great but I'm happy with that, providing I don't go any lower.
The prunes are a little too high in sugar but I need something to keep me regular and this works. Providing I don't get carried away they do not make too much difference regarding ketosis.
Yesterday's carb count was incredibly high, for me, so I'll need to pull my head in today.Calories 1250Carbs 48 gm - 15.3%Protein 83 gm - 26.7%Fat 81 gm - 58%
Today I will have a berry smoothie for lunch. This gets me back into daily cod liver oil but the way I make it also bumps up my carbs so I will need to keep track there.
We have a very cool morning with a cold wind, lovely blue sky and sunshine between showers so I won't be doing anything outside. I hope the surgery on my eyelid comes up soon. I won't know myself when I can blink again. Who knew that such a small thing as blinking would affect my whole body and general well-being so much? None of the eyedrops, which I hate using, compare with the natural action of being able to blink.
Trusting we all will make the best possible choices today.
Thanks Sonny. New Zealand is a beautiful place to live with loads of photo ops at any moment. I'm waiting for the equinox winds to calm down so I can enjoy outdoor walks again.
Hi Karen. I'm still 2 kg or 5 lbs heavier than 6 weeks ago and it doesn't feel good. This surprises me because no-one would detect the difference since it is a tiny amount compared to the 20 kg/45 pounds I need to lose to be a more reasonable weight.
I did manage to shed another kilogram yesterday with my fat fast. I have decided to do this once a week. This is similar to the http://www.lindora.com/I was so successful on some years ago. The main difference is that now I know I cannot eat wheat, ie ordinary bread, and fat is good.
Lean for Life is a low carb, low fat program from the Lindora Clinics. On that plan you ate a low carb, low fat, moderate protein diet for 4 weeks followed by a slightly higher carb, non ketogenic diet for 2 weeks which was called metabolic adjustment. It was important to stay with a couple of pounds of you current weight as in maintenance. The 6 week cycle worked well for me although as I said I was still eating wheat and that became my downfall. I never fully subscribed to the low fat side as I always eat the fat on my steak and never ate low fat dairy.
Back in the day I used keto sticks to test for urine ketones which apparently are different and not as conclusively helpful as blood ketones. The diet still worked for me but it was A Diet not a lifestyle. I don't know that the metabolic adjustment period did me much good so I'm going for the lifestyle and it is HFLC with one day a week fat fasting just as I did yesterday.
My ketones went from 0.3 in the morning to 0.9 in the evening. I am not measuring today. I know I am in ketosis and I have decided to use my ketone sticks sparingly from now on. Maybe twice a week, but that will be worked out as I go along.
I had keto coffee twice, and ate 2 HB eggs, the first mashed with butter, pepper and salt and the second chopped with celery and ranch dressing
The addition of the ranch dressing sent my calories way over my limit but the ratios were good.
Calories 1085
Carbs 1.8%; Protein; 7.9%; Fat 90.3%
Today I will not be Fat Fasting but I am still restricting calories to under 1200.
I will give this a good go for the next month and if my weight loss remains abysmal I will possibly take out some of the fat I have added into my diet this year. I want to stay in nutritional ketosis but just maybe I am overdoing the fat since most of the time I am between 15 and 30 gm carb.
On with the tweaked plan
