Sunday is for meal planning and grocery shopping

OK, Its 10:30 a.m. and I am starving because I slept in, and haven't eaten breakfast yet. We are sitting here meal planning and getting shopping list together. I guess this is one of those days we will be fasting for breakfast and then eating brunch??? According to keto guidelines you should fast intermittently, so I guess this morning is our fasting time. So for those of you who don't know me well, meal planning for the week is nothing new for my lovely bearded hubby and I. We have been doing this since we started Paleo over 4 years ago. I found this great meal plan/shopping list at Target once and so that is what we used to decide on meals for the week and then make a grocery list for the week. It is super handy. Now days its easy to find printable versions of this notepad on some Paleo websites. I think Nom Nom Paleo has one. You can find lots of meal planning printable here and here.

In the beginning of our Paleo journey we were on a strict budget, so we purchased 2 good Paleo cookbooks and would search the Google for more ideas. Then on Friday or Saturday we would go out to eat and would bring our books and notes with us and sit and look up recipes and decide which ones to try and then we would make our shopping list so we were ready to go on Sunday for shopping. People looked at us so strange when we pulled out cookbooks at the table in a restaurant. But I think they were pleasantly surprised when they realized what we were doing with those books and notepad. It also helps a lot that my husband is completely on board with eating Paleo and now eating Keto. I don't have to explain to him my issues with gluten causing joint pains and stomach issues. I don't have to try to explain to him that milk products of any kind give me migraines, and then sinus infections and horrible heart burn. He believes me. He gets it and he doesn't question it. It is also nice that he shares in my successes and failures.
Like this morning, brunch/lunch was a total failure! We decided to go to this taco place that has great tacos and see if we could create a keto meal here. FAIL! ha ha ha! We ordered the Migas Royale Plate. Then the poor guy behind the counter had to completely modify my plate. First, no tortillas, then there were 3 kinds of cheese we had to eliminate on the plate, then potatoes gotta go too. Then added some bacon for extra protein and fat. When our plates came out, the eggs had tortilla strips cooked into them. Duh... Migas! Oh well. We did the best we could to pick the tortillas out of the migas. At least we tried. Guess we should strike this place off the list for places we can eat Keto for now.
Eating out is so difficult sometimes. We have had to sacrifice so much when it comes to eating out and enjoying our time doing things outside the house. I am tired of being "that person" at restaurants who has to pick apart the menu to find foods I can eat. But it is our life and we are getting better. I have to say, living where we live we have a lot of great options and its nice that the Paleo craze is really starting to influence the types of new restaurants opening up in big cities. I have to say the hardest thing about living gluten free and dairy free is when we travel on road trips. But we are learning more and more each time we travel. Going home to see family we know that my Mom will have a pantry full of GF pancake mix for breakfast and maybe some GF cookie mix and GF cornbread mix. She doesn't understand all the Paleo stuff, but at least she understands the gluten free issues and how important that is for us. There is a new Whole Foods and Trader Joes just on the edge of her neighborhood, so I can easily run to the store to grab DF milk or other items we might need while we are there. Bonus, my Mom is an excellent cook and a healthy cook, so there are always lots of options for us to eat without feeling left out at any meal in her home.
When we went to Colorado for a road trip a year and a half ago, we planned ahead. We took a huge cooler packed with DF milk, GF cereal for breakfasts, GF bread and about 6 large Gourmaleo Paleo pre-made meals, fruit, snacks and a bunch of other stuff I cant remember. We were going to be getting up early and spending entire days at The Tiny House Jamboree with friends, so even though we didn't keep to a strict Paleo diet the entire time we were on vacation, we were fine with eating a little of the rails. It was also very budget friendly for us to bring more then half of our meals with us. We always get back on track when we get home from any trip.

So anyways, we have our shopping done for today. And we have taken our walk before cooking dinner. 1.15 miles this evening around the hood. Dinner was a pretty good success, and the awesome bearded hubby is now washing dishes while I finish up this blog early so I can get to bed on time tonight. Although, it really doesn't matter much if I go to bed now or in 3 hours, because inevitably I will still hit the snooze button 10 times and roll out of bet about 5 minutes before I should leave for work. Maybe I should go ahead and take my shower tonight, so that's one less thing to think about in the morning...

OK, before I go I will share with you our Dinner menu for the week.
Sunday - Skillet Chicken Sausage and Vegetables
Monday - Cobb Salad
Tuesday - Garlic Shrimp and Zoodles
Wednesday - Sheet Pan Pork Chops
Thursday - Burger Bowls
Friday - Chicken Enchilada Bowl (same as last week, yummy!)
Saturday - Date Night for our Anniversary at Feed Company

Good night y'all. Thank you for reading. Thank you for your support. God bless you all.
Cece

This was meal prep for tonights dinner. I am still learning how to add photos. So hopefully I will be able to add some more in my next blog posts. 

Being accountable to myself

So this is where I start to get serious about being accountable to myself. I am going to log some of my meals, some of my stats for fats/proteins/carbs, and report on the challenges and successes of eating out while eating Keto. Not sure yet what my organization is going to be for this, or weather I will stick with the same thing from week to week. We will just have to see how this evolves. 

So my start to Keto was this week, Monday 3/19/2018. My nutritionist asked me to start keeping a food diary. Are you serious??? I couldn't even keep up with my little Anne Frank Diary with the little lock on it when I was 8 years old, and now I have to keep a food diary??? Well, I wont bore you with every single day and every single meal... but I will do my best to give a good idea of what I am doing and if its working or not. Please, if you are more experienced with Keto, feel free to leave me suggestions and comments. But please remember, I am under a nutritionists guidance for this, and she has her own way of doing things. Also, be nice. If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all. I am by no means an expert at this or many other things in life. There is enough hate and bullying in the world. I would like this to be a positive place for me and others. So here we go...

Monday

• Breakfast: 1 cup almond milk, 1 scoop Slim & Sassy V Shake from Doterra, 1 Scoop Intest Restore Vanilla from Energy Health, scrambled egg. 

This went pretty well, although I need to use more almond milk in my shake and I am not sure about the scrambled egg. I only ate half because I was just not hungry for it. But I need to get some more fat into this breakfast. I included the link for the Doterra V Shake. I am a Doterra consultant, so I would love if you purchased from me, however you can order from whomever you like. This just happens to be the protein powder I had in my pantry this week and next week might be something totally different. According to my nutritionist, the macros for this particular shake were ok for what she is wanting me to consume, so I thought it was a good opportunity to use it up. If your curious about essential oils in general or Doterra, feel free to ask me questions or shoot me an email.

• Lunch: Chicken Swedish Meatballs from Ikea (don't laugh, its what was left over from dinner this weekend and not a normal item for us), roasted sliced zucchini,  sweet potato tots (again, leftovers gotta eat them), 1cup blueberries raw, 1 cup green tea.

This went pretty well. I know sweet potatoes are not on the menu for Keto, but they were left over in the fridge and we were trying to finish them off. 

• Dinner: Home made cobb salad, with paleo dressing. mixed greens, bacon, hard boiled eggs, chicken fingers seasoned and cooked in skillet, chopped red pepper and avocado. Here is the link for the Whole30 Paleo Cobb Salad recipe with dressing too.

This went well. I will try to find the link for this salad and post it here for you. We use Primal Kitchen Mayo which is paleo friendly. For all you taking Metformin out there, my mom says mayo gives her tummy troubles, but this mayo doesn't seem to do the same to me. It seems to be pretty safe. 

• Snacks: I had a handful of dry roasted and salted sunflower seeds when I got home from work, as well as 1cup almond milk with 1 scoop of Collagen Fuel Chocolate Coconut flavored.  (this was mostly because I was starving and didn't snack well today. The collagen fuel makes a nice sweet snack. This may become a staple in the cabinet from now on.)

So my first day went well, but of course there were things I need to work on. This was also the first day using the My Fitness Pal app to track all my foods. It was surprisingly easy to enter foods. After playing around with the app I decided to do the 30 day trial for the full version to see if it would help with measuring protein, fat and carb content in my meals. OMG, its totally worth the upgrade! I will post some screen shots here to show you how awesome it is. I love the graphs, and the macros that it shoes me. I am still learning how to use the app, but its really helpful. 
So as the week went on, my breakfast is pretty much the same. I think I ate an egg on Tuesday as well before drinking my smoothie. However, on Thursday and Friday, I opted to add a spoonful of almond butter to my smoothie instead of eating an egg. I am super sleepy in the mornings. No matter how well I sleep, I have a lot of trouble getting out of bed. So I need my breakfast during the week to be super easy and fast, otherwise my husband will have to take over making breakfast for me and he already does most of the house work and chores, so I feel bad making him get up early to make me breakfast too. 
I am a super lucky girl. I really don't deserve my husband. He is amazing and I am beyond grateful that he has joined me on this journey. What I eat, he eats. Although he does not need to loose as much weight as me, so his snacks and breakfasts may look a tad different then mine. 

I wont bore you with every detail of every day of my meals. Breakfast is mostly the same for me as stated previously, my lazy ass is still half asleep while making breakfast in the mornings. Lunches most days will be left overs from the night before. Although this week was a little different. I did eat out a couple of times for lunch and made a few mistakes in ordering, but I didn't beat myself up about it, because what is life without mistakes. Life is messy and I won't allow myself to feel guilty or unsuccessful for making one mistake or 10 mistakes on this meal plan. If you allow yourself to feel guilty every time you make a mistake while trying to make dramatic changes to your eating habits, you are setting yourself up for failure in my opinion. This is where the door opens to say to yourself, "well I messed up again, I can't do this. May as well eat that piece of cake I wanted." 
Well, that's not how I roll. I don't dwell on the mistakes. I pick myself up each time and get back on the horse immediately so to speak. That is how I learn from my mistakes and move forward. 
So here goes the rest of the week in a nutshell:

Tuesday

• Dinner: burger bowls. Simple paleo meal. Make hamburger patties, toss on your favorite salad and dress it anyway you see fit within the guidelines of paleo/keto. 

Wednesday

• Dinner: I was at a friends house working on a super secret crafty quilting and crochet project for super special new mom. So we were working late and went to dinner at one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants. I ordered what is essentially a Korean beef Bolgogi bowl (no clue if I am even spelling that correctly). I had them hold the rice and give extra veggies. This was not the worst but also not the best meal for me for 2 reasons. 1. there were carrots in the veggies which is not really a compliant food for keto and 2. the meat is prepared in an Asian sauce that I believe has some soy sauce which resulted in my feet swelling to the point I had cankles by the time I got home. Opps. Live and learn. But darn it if I don't love that menu item!

Thursday

• Lunch: crazy work day, so I ate at the same restaurant as dinner last night. I ordered the orange chicken bowl this time no carrots, no rice, add extra chicken and a fried egg. This was a way better meal for me, although the sauce is still pretty sweet tasting so probably not the most compliant thing for Keto. Again, live and learn. 
• Dinner: Keto Tuscan Chicken substitute the cream and Parmesan cheese for dairy free equivalents. This recipe is awesome!

Friday

• Dinner: Keto Chicken Enchilada Bowl This recipe was super easy and fast to make and ridiculously yummy! OMG, this recipe reminds me of my days in West Texas eating real Mexican border food! We even fried up a couple of eggs real quick to throw on top just like my friend Michelle taught me one night in her kitchen making real traditional enchiladas. This recipe won't disappoint if your looking for a good compliant Mexican dish!

Saturday

• Lunch: There is a nice new little eatery that opened up about 1 block from my house. So I ran down there to catch up with a friend who checked in there at lunch. I didn't anticipate eating there, but as I watched their food come out I decided I could make a keto meal there. This place is called Grassroots Kitchen and Oh my gerd! Its good stuff. I love that one of the chef's is also GF and DF do she understands my dietary issues. I ordered brisket, hold the corn bread, hold the sauce. Sides included collards and sauteed spinach with garlic. I could have also gotten cole slaw, but I figured most cole slaw has a spoon full of sugar in the dressing, so I opted for the safer spinach. I had a lovely lunch catching up with my former co-worker and her family and also with the chef's of this tiny neighborhood restaurant. 
• Dinner: My lovely bearded husband was busy working hard on finishing our fence all day. So by the time I got home from a fundraising party for the lovely Winker couple and their Mission trip, It was after 6pm and no one felt like cooking. So we went to eat at one of our favorite dinner spots, Mudhen. Its a locally owned farm to table restaurant. We both had the Loco Moco which is basically a burger bowl, but somehow always tastes better when someone else prepares it. 

So that's about it for today. I started out this journey at 280# about a month ago. And as of Friday morning the scale read 268.5# I know that number will fluctuate a little more before we see it stay below 270, but I am pretty happy about this baby step. If you have read this far, then I hope you will read again soon. Thank you for following me on this journey. Thank you for your support and positive encouragement. I hope you have a wonderful evening. 

God bless you and goodnight. 

Cece

I have never really done a blog. I have never even been able to keep a diary or journal. I don't know why. I am just not good or consistent with such things. But somehow now it seems that this may be the most important time in my life to try to be consistent at keeping a blog. So I am going to do it here. In public. Where the whole world can see. Maybe I will even get a follower, or two. Maybe that will help me be more accountable to myself and therefore more motivated to keep up with this. So let's begin...

Age: 41 years 11 months

Weight: 280# as of February 2018

Size 18-20 in pants and 2X tops

Mood: grumpy

Sleep: I feel like no matter how much I sleep its never enough. 

Motivation: very little

So not sure where to start, but I will give the shortest version I can on where the PCOS part comes together for me. I started my cycle at or around 11 years old. From the moment it started, I was never regular. I always suffered very heavy and painful cycles. Although, my mom suffered way worse, so in her eyes, my cycles looked normal to her. I was also always a little fluffy. Never the skinny fit girl. Never athletic. 

Fast forward many years more of the same. My weight in high school was around 160# when I had Mononucleosis and was terribly ill. I ended high school around 180# and fluctuated from 180 - 200# throughout college. During Graduate school I became very very ill almost from the start. I had migraines weekly, and lots of sinus infections (which was the norm for me growing up as well). I felt sick and dragging all the time. At one point we discovered the apartment I lived in had some significant mold issues, so I moved to a cleaner safer apartment. That was when I was so ill, no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me. 

So during college I became pregnant. No babies... Still, no doctors ever considered that my cycles, weight gain, and miscarriage could be related. 

Over the years I took birth control to regulate my periods, but they still were not normal. Some pills were better then others. But I still got pregnant while taking the pill. Looking back now, I can see that the reason I got pregnant was because the pills raised my progesterone so that I could ovulate. Unfortunately, it was not enough to keep me pregnant. 

So about 2 years ago I went to a new doctor since I was living in new city. He was the first person to ask me (without prompting) if I had ever been diagnosed with PCOS. He ordered blood work and an internal ultrasound on day 21 to see if I had any cysts on my ovaries. Well it took more then 6 months to get the results. This doctor never followed up with me. I finally walked into the office to track down my own results. They confirmed cysts on one ovary and evidence of burst cysts on the other. Awesome! Finally a diagnosis... or so I thought. The doctors notes still indicated he didn't think that I had PCOS. I walked out and never looked back. So here we are today. Last month I finally took a chance and went to a new doctor/nurse practitioner. She comes recommended by many who have PCOS. So I took a chance. OMG! I love her. She ran blood work and listened to my entire medical history and she confirmed that I do actually have PCOS! Thank you sweet baby Jesus! 

Verdict: PCOS, Hypothyroid (low T3), Significant Vitamin D deficiency and mild Vitamin B12 deficiency (I have MTFHR genetic mutation) and of course... I am obese. Big fat freaking surprise there!

So let me back up a tiny bit and give you a 10 year condensed update: I figured out through trial and error and some natural practitioners advice that I am/was/aways have been allergic to milk and eliminated 90% of milk from my diet 10 years ago and 100% 5 years ago. I also had a little birdy, aka mentor/friend telling me to go gluten free. I finally listened to her 10 years ago and was 90% gluten free 10 years ago. About 6 years ago went 100% gluten free. About 5 years ago earlier this month, I met my future husband. He had recently begun a gluten free diet as well and had huge benefits. We discussed and agreed that as soon as we moved in together (3 months later) we would live, eat and breathe a Paleo diet. We were very successful and worked well meal planning, packing lunches and sticking to 80/20 paleo diet. We have even completed a couple of Whole30 cycles in the last 5 years. None of these diet changes ever resulted in me loosing weight... I repeat. None of these diet changes resulted in loosing weight!

Back to 2018 and today. The plan. 

First my Nurse practitioner started me on some supplements and prescriptions:

Formin (aka Natrual Metformin) 2 pills with breakfast, 1 pill with dinner

2 Vitamin D supplements 4x per week

Vitamin B complex 2 pills Daily

Cytomel (aka Liothyronine) 1pill 2x per day for thyroid function

Progesterone (natrual RX) days 10-28 of cycle at night

Last week I went to the Functional Medicine/Nutritionist practitioner that my nurse practitioner referred me to see. Conveniently, they are in the same office. This nutritionist actually has an incredible understanding of PCOS and the body and how it functions! OMG! I love this lady! 

So adding to the above plan and long story short. Keto diet is recommended and the most ideal diet for almost all with PCOS to loose weight. Makes sense... probably the only time I have intentionally lost weight was when I did South Beach Diet phase 1 (which is basically Keto). But the rest of South Beach did not do anything for me. 

So here I am. Week one Keto. Its been an adventurous week. Not too difficult since the hubs and I already eat Paleo and we have absolutely no junk food in the house. We are only having to give up a few of our favorite foods like sweet potatoes, and white potatoes. We have a few favorite restaurants that have gluten free bread or dairy free gluten free deserts, so we indulge from time to time. So this week has been a learning experience. We have had some successes and some failures. I will sum it up with this: Keto when our allergic to diary is a little more difficult, but not impossible; protein smoothies and other keto smoothies are your friend and will definitely help with the sweets cravings; Fitness Pal app is worth the investment to pay for the full version so you can set your daily intake goals, track your food and it shows you graphs that help people like me visualize the successes and failures daily. 

This may be a little abrupt, but I am going to stop here for tonight and hopefully this weekend I will get back on with a little more details on how we started figuring out how to eat on Keto and I will be using this as a way to help me do some of my diet tracking. 

If you have read all the way to this point, I'm shocked and a little excited that my little journal has intrigued you this much. 

ta ta for now,

Cece