Low Carb Meals & Goodies For Busy Moms
I’ve just ordered myself a Fitbit! I’ve wanted one for awhile now and the time has come.
This is the version I ordered, it cost less than $60: Fitbit Zip Wireless Activity Tracker
Do you use a Fitbit or similar gadget to monitor your physical activity?
I plan to compete with friends on the number of steps I take each day in an effort to step it up!
I’ve officially low carbed more this year than not. Despite long periods of time spent off the wagon, I’m glad to look back and see nearly six months of successful low carbing in my history.
We’re over the hump in the 90 Day Low Carb Challenge. As of today we have 38 days left. Two big ‘eating’ holidays are behind us (Halloween and Thanksgiving) and two are get to come (Christmas and New Years). 38 days actually feels like a breeze in my mind… yet it isn’t always easy.
I’m doing well – I’m solidly into ketosis and my hunger is starting to drop again. I like that! At the same time, I have to report that I’m having some tough moods.
Take today for instance. I woke up feeling great. I woke up ahead of my alarm and ran to the store for a couple things. Not at all hungry, I had some coffee with HWC andworked for awhile. All was well and good, I had some eggs and bacon for lunch and didn’t feel like finishing it so I didn’t. I worked some more – all is good.
I’m bored. I’m antsy. I’m wishing I could have a whole can Pringles to distract myself from my own thoughts.
I’m sad. I’m lonely. I wish I were married. I hate my body.
There’s nothing to look forward to menu wise for over week – blah, blah and blah.
I decided to take a nap to refresh my head. I lay down and actually start to cry. Sheesh.
This has to be partly thyroid, partly female stuff, partly ‘letting go of old crap habits’… all normal things – but dang, it sucks.
So after a few minutes it occurs to me that I’m not tired. I actually feel a little hungry.
I decide it’s totally dumb to lay here feeling sorry for myself. I get up, get dressed and go have an early dinner at KFC.
Then I’m like ‘Man, I love chicken. I love green beans. I love this cole slaw!’
For someone who’s awfully deprived and apparently depressed - I sure am enjoying this food.
And there – the mood is gone.
I come back home full of energy and enthusiasm and get back to work 
Now I encourage myself, ‘Hey Kelly – you did good. You felt bad. You cried a little. You got up and did your thing. You can do this as many times as you have to.’
Here’s hoping 
The 90 Day Low Carb Challenge that began October 8 has been a welcomed home for low carb lovers to hang out. There are over 1,200 current members with new faces joining daily as the word continues to spread. It doesn’t matter if you are a low carb novice or a low carb connoisseur – everyone is welcome.
The inspiration behind this idea came from its creators Kelly McCausey of Low Carb Mom and Lynn Terry of Low Carb Traveler. They simply wanted to share their successes and love for the low carb lifestyle with others in a format that was both informative and motivating. Their focus and goal was to have a community of like-minded guys and gals to support each other through the upcoming holidays when temptations are at their peak.
When you join this group you are met with members sharing recipes, recommendations for swapping food choices, weigh-in successes (and occasional stalls), links to useful resources, and a positive atmosphere. You’ll be inspired to test out unfamiliar recipes and expand your knowledge of what it truly means to eat low carb daily.
As with any successful program though, there do come points of frustration from some members who need encouragement to hang in there. Sometimes setbacks will occur brought on by social events, office food, cooking for members of a family who don’t follow a low carb lifestyle, or failure to plan. Life simply gets in the way sometimes. This community understands that when a member’s weight loss slows or even stalls briefly, they are there to offer up advice and support to help a struggling member get over the hump. The key ingredient for the success of the group is not letting members dwell on personal setbacks.
Kelly and Lynn also do podcasts about low carb lifestyle challenges and benefits for members, sometimes interviewing other experts in the field. These podcasts are well received and appreciated by the members. You can subscribe to their podcasts in iTunes – just search for the 90 Day Low Carb Challenge under podcasts. You can also hear their podcasts on the 90 Day Low Carb Challenge website.
If you haven’t joined yet, there’s still plenty of time to do so. With the holiday season and all the bountiful food choices upon us, just having a support system backing you up will encourage you to make better, healthier decisions that you can take with you into 2013 with confidence.
For more information visit 90 Day Low Carb Challenge.
Lynn Terry of Low Carb Traveler and I are hosting a 90 Day Low Carb Challenge. It starts today and runs all the way through the holidays, ending on January 5th.
If you’ve been looking for some extra support and encouragement to make Low Carb really work for you, this is your chance.
There is a FB group to interact with others, a weekly podcast for extra encouragement and a mailing list if you want to make sure you don’t miss anything.
I’m excited. Low carb works for me and I feel great when I stick to it. Knowing that I’ve made a serious commitment to myself and others is going to help me hold on through all of the tantalizingly tempting holidays and lost a lot of weight!
My personal goal is to lose 35 pounds. My last weigh in was 295 so if I hit my goal I’ll be 260. I haven’t seen that number in a very, very long time.
Having a ‘double up’ day every great now and again is not going to interrupt my weight loss, not like going crazy and eating whatever I like. When you do that it takes at least two days to get back into the zone. It’s my goal to not take any days ‘off’ and stay in weight loss mode the entire 90 days.
Here I have this low carb blog and I keep falling off the wagon.
It’s embarrassing to fail so much.
I want to low carb! But oh – how the carbs call me.
I’ve been eating crap, gained a bunch of weight and feel pretty crappy again.
So thirty lashes to me.
Now, let’s move on.
I’m working today and my projects are very exciting. When I’m excited, I want to munch and crunch. As I sit here blogging, my hands want to reach for some chips or Oreos. I’d love to look up and see a full far of M&Ms on the shelf. But no.
Today I poured some soda into a box of leftover Fig Newtons. Throwing them out wouldn’t be enough – I had to make them inedible. If I didn’t, they’d probably be in my belly by now
There’s nothing to do but keep on keeping on. I’ve ate my fill of eggs, salad, string cheese and chicken today. It’s all delicious but it’s not what I really want. It’s always tough at first. I mourn the carbs and obsess about the sweets I’d be eating if I weren’t ‘being good’.
Thankfully it get’s easier. Soon I’ll be craving my low carb foods and not giving cookies or subs a second thought.
Hurry, hurry, taste buds. Godspeed to your attitude adjustment.
Looking for a weight loss strategy? Consider going low carb as an alternative to the more well-known popular diets advertised on TV and throughout the Internet. You may be surprised at not only the weight you lose but also by how good you’ll look and feel. But, you have to want to change what you are doing now that isn’t working for you. Sometimes that isn’t easy.
It’s easy to over-indulge with carbs. They’re practically in all food products we consume - and they are addicting.
Just the smell of bread and taste of ice cream fills my brain with thoughts of comfort. For me, that’s the problem. I associate carbs, mostly sweet and starchy carbs, with rewarding myself or just feeling good in general. Nearly every memorable event in my life is tied to food, and in some form or fashion carbs are my go-to favorites to eat. [Read more...]
I read Wheat Belly
I was looking for something to scare me straight. I only stuck with low carb for a week before falling off again and I stayed off for several weeks.
Last week I was feeling so terrible. I was tired, feeling a bit down, blah. My brain felt mushy most of the time. I was constantly hungry and always craving something sweet – preferably a donut- ok, four donuts.
When I’m on low carb I feel so good, so why am I so easily sucked into a carb crazy state? Well, Wheat Belly suggests that it’s because wheat is addictive – no news for me there – but he had a lot of scientific/medical mumbo jumbo information to drive it home.
It’s not a ‘low carb’ book. It’s a pretty deep dive into the world of wheat and gluten intolerance and his ideas about the long reaching consequences. It had some fascinating information about how the wheat we eat today is so different from the wheat of 100 years ago and explains why.
The book reminds me that eating a lot of carbs is the surest way to add fat to my body. (And give me diabetes – which I don’t have thank God.)
It did the trick, I was sufficiently motivated to get back on low carb – it’s the end of day three. I’m finally over the ‘gimme my crack’ phase again.
After the first day I get a quick boost of energy – I don’t get the ‘low carb flu’ that some people talk about. I wake up and stay awake – actually have some trouble going to sleep for a few days because I have so much energy. (Not a problem, my schedule is flexible.)
I’m glad to see the mushiness go away. Maybe if I read Wheat Belly again now it wouldn’t seem so overwhelming? LOL!
You can find Wheat Belly on Amazon
Well, a weekend off from Low Carb turned into several false starts and a loooong break from Low Carb. It has been almost two months since my last post here and over a month since I’ve been actively low carbing in a consistent way. Even as the days dragged on, I knew I’d eventually get back to it – and here I am!
I’ve just come home from a terrific online marketing event where I gave in to every craving – from fresh Belgian waffles to chocolate to sushi – yes, I had sushi three times in four days LOL! It was really fun eating whatever I wanted without thought for carb counts – but it led to massive sugar cravings. I could not get enough chocolate and my ‘munchy habit’ came back with a vengeance.
One of the things I like about low carbing is how my cravings even out and I feel more in control – so now it’s back to business. I gained about 15 pounds since I first started to cheat. I know half of that is probably water that will fall of pretty fast – I look forward to reporting back in a week or so
Four months into this low carb lifestyle and I’m still not bored I’m addicted to low carb blogs and haven’t come close to trying all of the cool low carb recipes out there. Even though I started this with little intention of making it a long term lifestyle I am starting to get a vision for it.
Do I still long for old favorites like fried fish and pizza? Sure I do! I enjoy some splurges now and then without guilt. So long as these splurges don’t run too close together I’m not worried about them.
I have 20 to 35 net carbs a day. I do weights a few times a week and shoot for 250 minutes of cardio. The combination is producing positive results on the scale…
My four month weigh in is 278. (37 pounds gone!)
