Caroline's Keto Journey

It’s been almost a year since I’ve written for one reason or another, but I wanted to write today to give a bit of an update.

So admittedly, Bruce and I fell off the keto wagon toward the end of last year as it got closer to the holidays, and a lot was going on. Then we’d planned to start up again this year, but Covid knocked me out for several weeks, partly because I just didn’t feel good, but also because it’s left me with some weird random nerve spasms in my arms and legs so I’m a lot more hesitant to do a lot of stuff in the kitchen.

Back in late October or early November I got a new phone, which meant that I didn’t have my scale working for a while simply because I hadn’t taken the time to get it paired to the new phone. I’ve recently paired it again, and was really thrilled to step on and discover that between November and now, I only put back on about four pounds of what I’d lost. I knew I was still wearing all the smaller clothes that I’ve gotten, which is good since I’ve already given most of my larger stuff away. But, I’m still off insulin, although my numbers are definitely going in the wrong direction these days, so I’ll be working on that. What gets me every time though is when I go to look at clothes and try something on only to figure out that I need to try on a smaller size. I’ve discovered a clothing store here in Winnipeg, and the first time I went in I got myself some tops. The second time I went in, I got some really awesome pants. It is just so exciting to me that not only am I in smaller clothes, I’m in smaller clothes than I was when I graduated from high school over twenty-five years ago!

So, what’s next? I gained a lot from keto. I’ve seen the benefits, and it’s worked well for me. But sometimes it’s hard to stick to it. Maybe I’m out with a group of friends and there’s nothing I can eat, or someone brings us something as a treat. Or, maybe we just want something different. Starting on April 25th, I’ve signed up for a twelve-week plan by Gina Livy. Gina has a passion for helping people to lose weight, and struggled herself to lose weight, weighing in at 220 pounds. According to her web site, she’s lost over 100 pounds, and maintained that even after having four kids. As with keto, we’ve had Lisa take a look at it and she says to go for it, that it looks like a good option. Although I’m paying for it for just myself, Bruce will benefit as well since he’ll be following the foods and things. And we’ve started now working on coming up with ways to make this easier. And, the best part? We can, for the most part, continue to eat the foods we love. We’ll still need to watch our sugar intake and be careful with breads, potatoes, pasta, and rice, but we can still incorporate these things into our meals to a lesser degree. I don’t have a lot of information yet, and won’t until the session starts next month, but what I’ve read so far sounds really good. So, although this won’t be keto anymore, hopefully the results will turn out to be just as good.

I’ve got so many drafts from posts that I’ve started over the last several weeks and I just never finish them so let’s try once again. I’ve got several things to talk about.

First, although I’ve been bouncing around fairly close to the thirty-pound loss, this morning I officially hit it. So I can now say that I’m down thirty pounds! And, after talking with our favorite nurse, Jenny, she thinks that I may be able to adjust my final goal. Although nobody really wants to give me a nice round number, what she said is that people can still carry a bit of weight and still be very healthy. The key, of course, is not to let it get too out of hand. So, at this point, I think I could probably aim for another twenty pounds and consider it fairly good.

I’ve also reached the point where new clothes have pretty much become a necessity. It’s finally started to warm up here in Winnipeg, and sweat pants aren’t really an option for me in the heat unless I want to give myself a good case of heat stroke. So I went to put on a pair of shorts the other day and the only thing holding them up was my hip bones, and that’s still a really close thing. Although I have a belt, not all of my shorts have loops for a belt, and at this point there’s too much loose waste left over so it’s just not working well. So I went shopping over the weekend and picked up some new shorts. I’m right on the edge of the regular section and the plus size section in stores, and am finding that now I can actually find things that fit me in both. I’m also starting to fit into smaller tops too, so it’s about time for me to start going through the things that don’t fit and get them into the hands of someone who can benefit from them.

A few weeks ago now, in the same conversation I was having about the best weight for me, I asked our nurse about the different weight loss surgery options. I thought that given the effort I’ve put in on my own would show that I’m able to work toward the goal, and many diabetics who have had the surgery are able to get completely off their meds and are no longer considered diabetic. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I don’t qualify for the surgery. The minimum qualification is a BMI (body mass index), of forty. I’m right around thirty-two. Jenny called the clinic anyway to see if they might make an exception for me, but they absolutely won’t do it with anyone with a BMI under forty. So, although it’s truly exciting that I don’t actually meet the minimum requirements, it’s also a little bit sad. But, it also just confirms to me that what I’ve been able to do over these last nine months really is paying off.

I’ve signed up to do two 5K walks. One is this month, and it’s actually been done but I need to post my picture of me with my bib on, and the other one will be happening next month. I’ve got a solid five-week stretch of exercise days at this point, and most of them are at least three miles, with many being 3.2 or more since that’s the 5K distance.

I’m continuing my search for great meals and ways to make keto more fun and enjoyable. Yes, I’m putting those words into the same sentence as keto. I’ve discovered many new brands of bars that are really good, and I’ve also branched out quite a bit on the keto recipe blogs I follow. On one blog, I was following a rabbit trail of links as I often do, and came across a recipe for cucumber chips. I was intrigued, and had to give it a try. My first attempt was done in the oven, and wasn’t too bad. I used the little baby cucumbers though, and as they dried, they shriveled. So what I was left with kind of resembled the little foil tabs you pull off of pill bottles, and Bruce claims they have a very similar texture as well.

So, for my second attempt, I chose to do it in this food dehydrator. I used my electric salad shooter to slice the cucumbers, loaded up the trays, and within about seven hours I had what resembled tissue paper. It was amazingly tasty tissue paper however, so I consider it a success even if Bruce isn’t quite sold.

The other thing I’ve used the dehydrator for though is to make my own ground beef jerky. If you click on the link for the dehydrator, you’ll see that it came with a jerky gun. This is a device that resembles a cookie press. It came with three tips, two round ones and one flat one. For my first attempt I made nice flat jerky strips. All I can say is WOW!!!!! I will never be buying jerky from the store again. It’s expensive, and you get these tiny little packages that you have to chew and chew. Mine had so much more flavor, and were more tender. I think I need to make some again, but maybe this time I’ll try ground pork.

Although there are several other things I want to include in this post, I think I’ll link to one more recipe and call it good. Last week Bruce and I were talking about what we could have for meals for the week. We were thinking of lasagna, but I was trying to come up with a way to make the recipe I normally use a bit more substantial. So, good old Google to the rescue, and I found this keto lasagna recipe. It uses homemade “noodles”, made from eggs, cream cheese, and cheese, with other seasonings. We both absolutely loved it, and I’ve got some in the freezer for another meal. So, once again, I’ve proven that we can still have amazing food that tastes good, but also, (gasp), is good for us!

So, that’s where I think I’m going to leave it for this time, but I know it’s been a while since I’ve checked in, and wanted to actually send something off this time.

Okay, so I hit 175.2 pounds this morning, so technically I’m .2 pounds away from my first milestone goal, but I’m still going to celebrate this.

Back in 2015, I signed up for an account with MyFitnessPal and used it for a little while. Three weeks ago I logged back in and I’ve started using it along with my other fitness apps. Back in 2015 when I set up the account, I said that I weighed 176.0. So, for the first time this morning, the app is showing a loss since it’s using that old number.

This hasn’t always been easy, and my biggest problem is still portion control. It’s really a balancing act. If I make just enough for the two of us so that there are no leftovers, obviously I have to cook more often. But if I make enough for leftovers, I tend to eat more of it. I’ve gotten pretty lax about actually weighing food, and I’m sure I need to get back into doing that, or just really try to be more aware of how much I’m eating. My blood sugars are still doing well, so that’s good.

We haven’t been able to talk with Lisa in a couple of months. Many of the staff members have been redeployed to other places around the city at the moment, and apparently Lisa is one of those people. Hopefully she’ll be back soon.

Other than that, there’s really not a lot to report. I could probably go down another pant size at this point, but I’m going to stick with what I’ve got for now, although I really would love to try something on in a size 14 just to see if it would fit me.

It’s definitely been a while since I’ve updated. Since it’s the last day now of 2020, I wanted to make sure I put up a post. So, what’s new with me?

Not a huge amount of weight loss again, but I’m still seeing results. Since December is my birthday month, I got my birthday discount from Penningtons which is my favorite place to buy clothes. They’re not open at all right now for in-store shopping here in Winnipeg so I took a chance and ordered clothes online. This isn’t something that I like to do, but it worked out well this time. I got myself two tops, and two new pairs of jeans. The smaller size I got last time was starting to be a bit loose, so I ordered another size down, figuring that I’d be able to wear them fairly soon. When they arrived, I tried them on, and they fit! So, I’ve dropped from a size 20 to a 16 since this all started!

Since I started my regular exercise, I’ve only missed one day, and that was earlier this week. I had a headache that just wouldn’t go away, and I was really dizzy, so I decided that getting up and trying to jog probably wasn’t a good idea. I’m looking at getting another piece of exercise equipment sometime soon. It would give me an alternative if I wanted to exercise without having to stand up, and it would allow me to do exercise while participating in Zoom meetings or whatever. It’s called an exercise peddler, and apparently I can fold it up and put it away when I’m not using it.

This is a tough time of year with so many really tempting treats and things. I did give in a bit over the past couple of weeks, but as my blood sugar numbers started going quite a bit higher, I cut back because I just don’t want to get back into a bad place with that. So, I’ve signed up for a reset plan that starts tomorrow. It was free through the Wholesome Yum site, (link in the top menu), so I took it. I wish that things had been sent out before now though so I could have done a better job of grocery prep, but I’ll make it work.

Christmas dinner was definitely a bit of a cheat meal. I threw some ham steaks on the barbecue. Yes, even in snowy, wintery Winnipeg, I wanted to do a winter barbecue, which is something I’ve never actually done before. I also made mashed potatoes using Adora potatoes, that are low carb potatoes. I always thought these were local to Manitoba, but this link says they were started in the Netherlands. In any case, the food processor did such a great job with the potatoes, and these ended up being the creamiest mashed potatoes I’ve ever made. We also had corn, and a slice of pecan pie. So, a fair amount of carbs and sugar, but I haven’t really had a major cheat day since I started all this back in September, so I wanted to let myself have a few nice things.

For my birthday, I wanted food from Mongo’s Grill. It’s a Mongolian restaurant where you pick your ingredients and sauces and they grill it up for you. It’s not quite as good as my favorite place in Fargo, but it’s still pretty tasty. I had pasta, which brought my sugars up a bit again, but I did balance it out with six, (yes, I said six), kinds of veggies. Bruce loved it so much that we ended up doing it again yesterday. The good news is that I discovered that if I choose the no pasta option, what I get, even with the sauces, doesn’t do anything to my blood sugar, so this is exciting to know since I absolutely love this kind of thing. A wonderful friend also baked me this keto cake, and I just have to say, I wouldn’t hesitate to serve this up to anyone, keto or not. It was amazing, moist, and extremely tasty. I’d love to see a chocolate version of this though in the future.

Tonight was our annual new year’s eve tradition of pizza. Years ago we used to order the pizza and have it delivered at midnight, but that’s just not happening this year. We ordered from our favorite pizza place, Red Swan Pizza. They have my favorite keto pizza crust, and they also have a pizza sauce with no added sugar, which makes this place a really nice choice for me as well.

Bruce and I decided that for our dinner tomorrow, we want Farmer’s sausage with sweet and sour sauce. I’ll serve it with broccoli and either over cauliflower rice or the Miracle Noodle rice that I’ve mentioned here in a previous entry. I’m also looking at making some kind of breakfast casserole or something, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

So, that’s pretty much it for the end of the year. I’m looking forward to hitting my 175-pound mini goal, and continuing to make this work for me. I hope everyone has a very happy new year!

Sometimes, you mess up so completely that you just have to laugh at yourself. So, Bruce and I are laughing, but also kind of sad.

On Monday, I got a recipe in a newsletter for low carb keto cornbread. This is a different source and recipe from the cornbread I made for Thanksgiving last month. As I was reading through it, I thought it would be a nice addition to the taco casserole I was going to make that evening.

So, I got the ingredients together and made the batter. It was thick, almost more like a dough, so was nice and easy to get in the pan. I sampled the dough at one point. It tasted kind of salty, but I thought that maybe it would just fix itself while cooking. The bread came out of the oven, and it was perfect. It was nice and soft, the consistency was like actual cornbread, and it tasted … extremely salty. Other than the salt, it was absolutely incredible. Buttery, flavorful, … But that salt!

Last year sometime I got myself a really neat measuring spoon. This is one of those spoons that clicks, and each click is a different measurement. It’s great, especially for dry ingredients where you just want to be able to measure and pour. So for months I’ve been using this thing. I thought the measurements on it were ¼, 1/3, ½, and 1 teaspoon, and then 1 tablespoon. After the very salty cornbread, I had someone check the spoon. It turns out that the spoon starts off at 1 teaspoon, and goes up by ½ teaspoons each click, still ending up at 1 tablespoon. So, rather than a half teaspoon of salt, I ended up putting a teaspoon and a half into the recipe, not to mention a teaspoon of baking soda rather than a quarter teaspoon. So, needless to say, that’s something I won’t be doing again. I wish they had a similar spoon for the teaspoons, maybe something that starts off at an eighth of a teaspoon, and goes up in increments.

At least Bruce and I were able to laugh about it, but we were really sad too, because that would have been the perfect thing to go with our meal. Next time it’ll be better.

Weight: 184.8

Yes, I’m still here. And, as you can see, my weight plateau seems to have ended. For the past several days I’ve been dropping slightly but steadily. But I’ve been meaning to write for quite a while because I have new products and resources, and I’m excited about them.

First, as of Friday, I’ve officially started actually planned exercise. It’s all due to my purchase of a rebounder. This is a mini trampoline, and I made sure I got one with a bar. As a kid I had one of these and in the 70’s and 80’s as far as I know, there wasn’t such a thing as a bar to grab onto. Now though, I don’t think I’d get on this thing without it. This provides low impact exercise so it’s easy on my joints, but it gets my heartrate up and I can feel it making a difference in my leg muscles in particular. And, it’s obviously helping with the weight loss as well.

In other news, not too long ago I was having some spikes in my blood sugar, and I couldn’t figure out what was causing it to happen. I was still eating the same things, and as far as I knew, I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t be doing. Then I discovered that, yes, I actually was doing something wrong. I recently discovered Monster 0 Ultra, which, according to that link, is zero calories and zero sugar. So, in my mind, it was safe to drink. Bruce found this Healthline article that states:

…

2. Energy drinks

Energy drinks can be high in both caffeine and carbohydrates. Research has shown that energy drinks not only spike your blood sugar, but they may also cause insulin resistance. This can increase your risk for type 2 diabetes.

…

So, although I really found this stuff tasted great, I gave away my remaining supply last night. Since I stopped drinking it a little over a week ago, my numbers have gone back down to where they had been before I discovered Monster.

And, speaking of numbers, my next bit of news is about my A1C. For those who don’t know, the A1C measures the blood glucose over a longer period of time. In my case, the time between tests is usually three months. The number that indicates a person is diabetic is 6.5, and in a person without diabetes, the A1C is around 5.6 or below. A number between 5.7 and 6.4 indicates prediabetes. So, my last test was back in August. At that time, my number was 10.3. This was actually down quite a bit, and in the past I’ve been at 12 or 13. Last Monday I went in for bloodwork again and received my test results for the A1C on Friday. In three months, my number went from 10.3 down to 7.3. Lisa said that ideally, it would be good if my number was 7.0 or a little bit lower. So, yet another milestone for me, and something to be really excited about.

I’ll be adding another resource link to my links menu at the top of the page. But, of course, I have to write about it here too. I have thousands of recipes. Some are on my computer in Word or text files, some are in the body of email messages, and some are in links, partly organized, but not really. So when I want to make something, I have to remember where it’s stored, or locate a bookmark in the browser, or one of the many other ways I’ve saved links. It’s a total pain! A few weeks ago, I went on a search for a recipe program that would help me organize all my recipes and make them searchable. What I found is even better.

In an article I found, they were talking about the top five recipe organizers. They had free trials, so I went through many of them, only to discover that they weren’t friendly with my screen-reader. Then I came across Plan to Eat. It had two positive things going for it right from the start. A, it’s a web-based system, and B. they offered a full 30-day trial without requiring a credit card up front for trying it. So I started putting it through it’s paces.

With a very small amount of configuring, I was able to set up an applet that sits in my favorites bar of Edge. If I come across a recipe on a web site that I want to save, I just have to go to my favorites bar and select this applet. It opens a window at the bottom of the page, and imports the recipe into Plan to Eat. I can edit and make changes before saving, and then once I save, I just close the clipper and I’m back on my original page. Recipes are categorized, and I can adjust serving size when I’m ready to make something.

I can also import recipes. So I can take all these thousands of documents and copy and paste info into the correct edit fields, and it will import the recipe for me, just like the clipped recipes from the web. I can also choose whether I want to make these recipes public or private.

I’m not done though. In addition to saving all my recipes, I can create meal plans. When I’m viewing a recipe, there’s a plan button. So I choose that, and a calendar pops up. I choose what meal I want to use the recipe for, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack, and then choose the date when I want to have that meal. If it’s large enough, I can even say that I want to have leftovers on another day and it will put that on the planner.

But, it gets even better! Once I’ve created my meal plan, I can go to the shop tab, and it’s automatically created my grocery list for me. I can go through and remove items that I already have, and then there’s a staples list that I can add items to that aren’t part of the recipes. This way, when I’m at the store, I’ve got the list of only the items I actually need. I can print the list, share it with someone else, or, (and this is my favorite way), bring it to the store with the iOS or Android app. When you do this, you can shop in real time, and check off items from the list as you go through the aisles. The list is categorized by section, and you can further customize by store. And, best of all? This entire site and app is about 99.9 percent accessible with JAWS. And the part that isn’t totally accessible is easy enough to figure out, so I’m able to do this myself. When I open the page, my “recipe book” comes up. All of my recipes are shown, and I can search by word, recipes including that word or not including that word, so on and so forth, so I can quickly narrow down my search results and come up with what I want to cook. And these days, since I’m doing my grocery shopping in store with someone I know, I just turn speech off on my phone, and let them use my list to direct where we go. It really does simplify shopping. And, because we do have to be so much more organized with meals now, this helps me to be a bit more organized. I believe I paid about $37 or $39 to gain full access to this site, and that’s for a year. For me, this is extremely reasonable, and has made such a difference to me.

Well, I think this is finally the end of all I wanted to say today. I’ve been wanting to update for some time now, and just haven’t had the energy for it. I did a sleep study overnight on Friday, and will have the results on Tuesday, so I’m hoping this may help to explain why I just never seem to have enough energy.

It’s over, and it was a success. The kitchen is a complete disaster, but all the leftovers have been put away. And, about three hours after eating, my blood sugar is still within the normal range. This is one of the things that just blows my mind. I’m so used to eating and seeing my numbers go up into the teens or twenties, and I considered a number in the high teens to be pretty decent for me.

Before I get to the recipes, I’ve got a small observation. On Saturday I spent a few hours with a couple of friends. I had a taco salad, one small mixed drink, … And a very tiny piece of the world’s best cake. The cake, of course, wasn’t keto. Lisa has said that we can do this from time to time, and I felt like it was something I wanted to try. I had a brief spike in my sugar level, (around thirteen), in the evening, but by the time I went to bed it was almost back in the normal range. Yesterday it jumped around a fair bit, but now today I’m back in the normal range 100 percent of the time. So, this shows me a lot. I also felt absolutely lousy Saturday night because of the high sugar level. I’ve obviously adapted quickly to the lower levels, so the high really hit me hard. But, it was a learning experience for me. I’m learning what I can and can’t do, and the longer I do this, the better I’ll become at determining when to make concessions and when not to. So, this was a good experience for me.

And now, it’s recipe time! I said the other day that I’d post what I made after it was over because, although I had lots of plans, I honestly didn’t expect to get everything done. And, a year ago, I don’t think I would have. It took me two days this year, but I did it. And, not only did I get everything done I wanted to do, this was the first holiday meal I’ve ever done where nothing came out of a box. Bruce said that I opened a can of pumpkin puree, but I said it didn’t count. But, let’s take a look at our meal. I’ve even got some pictures if I can get them to post.

The typical Thanksgiving dinner, at least when I grew up, revolved around the turkey. This was only the second time I’ve ever done a full turkey, and last year doesn’t really count because it was a pre-stuffed turkey that didn’t require any defrosting or anything. So, this was the first time I did all the prep work. I set my alarm to wake me up at 2 AM this morning so I could brine the turkey. The recipe said to use a water brine, but I discovered too late that I didn’t have a big enough container that would fit the turkey and the water, so I did a dry brine with salt, and put it in the roasting pan covered in foil. After putting the rub under the skin and on the skin, I was dirty up to my elbows, and ended up taking a shower. But, the end result was so worth it! This turkey meat was moist and flavorful, and so tender. Whether you’re keto or not, you can’t go wrong with this recipe, and the guide for defrosting, preparing, and cooking is extremely comprehensive and made all the difference for me.

Another essential component of the dinner is the mashed potatoes. Of course, we had mashed cauliflower, which I’ve posted before, but posting again for completeness. This time came out even better than the first time because I processed the cauliflower longer, so it truly did have the consistency of mashed potatoes. No picture of this though because by the time I reheated them we were ready to eat and I didn’t stop to get the photo taken.

A problem I had was coming up with a way to make stuffing. There was a cauliflower stuffing recipe I could have done, but I was already having cauliflower in the potato, so didn’t want to do too much with it. So, I found this Southern Cornbread Dressing recipe. Okay, so it was gluten-free, and called for a box of gluten-free stuffing mix. I looked for that, but the ones I found had super high carb counts and I didn’t want to use up all our limited carbs on stuffing. So, after a bit more research, I found this keto cornbread recipe. So, I made that, and used it in place of the gluten-free boxed mix. Other than the turkey, Bruce said that this was his second-favorite part of the meal. The only thing I couldn’t find for the recipe was the sweet corn extract, but I used enough other seasonings in the stuffing itself that it didn’t matter. The cornbread texture was there, and it was moist and flavorful, so yet another winner.

What brings turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing together? It’s the gravy, of course. This was the only thing that I really was kind of disappointed in. The consolation I have though is that I could never make gravy before keto either, so at least I’m consistent.

Are you getting full yet? We were, but I’m still not quite done. No meal is complete without rolls. What can I say? These may look flat, but they are fabulous. And, believe it or not, they were even better cold. The yeast really made all the difference, and they tasted and felt just like real bread.

And finally, growing up in my house, a Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t complete without dessert. I’m one of those people who loves this time of year because, hello, pumpkin spice! Pumpkin anything, it’s all good, and I want it ALL! So, I was thrilled when I found this pumpkin pie. I got to have my favorite thing! I chose to make this crust instead of the one that’s linked to from the pie page. Again, it’s variety. I had almond flower in the rolls, so I went for the coconut flower crust. I also thought it would be sweeter, which is good for a pumpkin pie. I made the crust yesterday, and had it all mixed up and ready to go, and that’s when I realized I had no idea where my pie plate is. I know where I thought it was, but it wasn’t there. So I ended up using one of those disposable square cake pans. The crust fit, baked up nicely, and the filling fit. So maybe you could call it a pie cake? A cakey pie? Either way, the end result was great with a squirt of whipped cream on top. (Okay, so that was out of a can, I didn’t make that. I hereby claim that this doesn’t count either.

So that was our meal. Bruce had some baby carrots. I chose not to because of the sugar content, and I figured I was getting my vegetable from the cauliflower. But now, I’m exhausted, and ready to go to bed, so I’ll stop here. Hope the pictures upload with this post, and if not, I’ll go in and add them tomorrow.

Weight: 189!

Yes! I broke the 190 mark, for two days in a row now! I was looking back at my very first post, and although I didn’t include a benchmark goal of 190, I should have, so as far as I’m concerned, I’ve hit my first benchmark. Later on, I’ll come back to those goals, but first I want to tell a story. It’s been on my mind, and since this Thanksgiving is so different for everyone, I wanted to write it out.

It happened ten years ago while working at the Social Security Administration in Fargo, the day before US Thanksgiving. I was miserable. I wasn’t able to be with Bruce, and although I had plans for the holiday, there was a big snowstorm coming, and that would mean not being able to go. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the day alone. Then I got a call that changed everything.

The department I worked in handled hearings and appeals for people who were appealing the Social Security’s decision to grant them disability benefits. When this call came in, I thought it would just be another call where someone was asking for the status on their hearing. It was, but it was so much more. This lady was living on the street. I can’t remember if she had kids or not now, but overall that doesn’t matter. She had no money, and due to her disability, she was unable to find work.

As I sat there listening to her talk and tell me her story, my whole attitude changed. I realized just how fortunate I really was. Sure, I was going to spend the holiday alone, but I had a roof over my head, a steady full-time job to pay for both that roof and for meals that kept me fed, and people to talk with, even if they weren’t with me in person.

In the event that my plans did get canceled, (which they did in the end), I’d ordered a prepared Thanksgiving meal from my local grocery store. All I had to do was heat things up. I had leftovers for months, but it was worth it.

So let’s have a look now at some of the goals I set for myself back on September 6th:

• A target weight of 130 pounds, with benchmarks at 175, 150, and 140 pounds

• The unwritten benchmark of 190 has been reached and exceeded

A much lower A1C level, although I don’t know at the moment what my doctor would like that to be yet

• I’ll be getting my A1C checked later next month, but my blood sugar levels typically average between 5 and 6 now, so there’s definitely going to be major improvement

To feel better overall

• Still working on this one

Hopefully to have less joint pain and be able to move a bit easier

• Maybe there’s some improvement, but it’s still a little hard to tell

To maybe be able to decrease or get off of some of my diabetes medications

• Met and then some! I’ve now been insulin-free for an entire week, and am only taking one diabetes medication at this point

So, not even counting family and friends, I’ve got a heck of a lot to be thankful for this year. If I chose to start listing other things I’d probably never get this posted, so I’ll stick with keto things.

But, the point that I wanted to make here is that I learned so much from that call ten years ago, and now, although it’s not always easy, I’m really trying to be grateful for the things I have rather than the things I don’t have. This year I’m planning a turkey dinner with rolls, stuffing, and more. (I’ll post links to the recipes after the holiday and after I’ve made my final decisions on some things.) Even more, we’re going to have someone join us for the meal, so we’re able to make it possible for someone who would otherwise most likely be alone have a place to go. To me, these are the things worth celebrating.

I thought it was time to give another update. There really hasn’t been all that much, but now I’ve got a few things to talk about, mostly, of course, about food. I’m learning a lot, and finding so many ways to make things more like what we enjoy, while still keeping within the keto guidelines.

First, let’s talk rice and pasta. These things are not part of the keto plan. Too many carbs! Yet, this week, Bruce and I had spaghetti, and we had rice with our butter chicken. Thanks to Miracle Noodles, we got to enjoy pasta and rice that felt pretty much exactly like what it was supposed to be. Mixed with sauce, or even on their own, they tasted great, too. You can read more yourself on the site, but one small quote taken from the page says:

Miracle Noodles and rice are approved for these special diets: Keto, Paleo, Certified Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Soy-Free, Certified Vegan, Certified Kosher, Blood Sugar-Friendly.

They’re naturally low in carbs and calories, Certified Non-GMO, contain no additives, and are made from the Konjac plant.

I found these completely on accident in the natural foods aisle at Walmart, and picked up a few different packets to try because they were inexpensive, and I’m not interested in zoodles. They have a decent variety too, so the next ones I’ll be trying are the fettuccine noodles with this alfredo sauce which should go really well with chicken and steamed broccoli. One-dish complete meal!

Tonight we’re having pork tenderloin, and, with Thanksgiving coming up in just over a week, it’s time to start looking at keto dishes that will be enjoyable for our non-keto guest who will be joining us. So, to go with the pork, I’ve just made mashed cauliflower. There were two different recipes and although I looked at this mashed cauliflower recipe first, I chose to go with the other option because, cream cheese! If anyone tries the one I did, be sure to read the tips she gives in the other recipe because she goes into more detail, and it’s that extra detail that made this turn out so well. I had no idea just how much liquid there is in cauliflower!

But now, for the biggest news! Unless things change, (and I’m doing my utmost to see that they don’t), I am completely off of my insulin! My last dose was Wednesday night. I was starting to have some really low sugars, so Lisa gave me permission to stop completely, especially since I’m keeping a very close watch on my numbers. Friday was a bit of a yoyo, but since then it’s really leveled out and I’m doing really well. I’m prepared to give myself a couple of units here or there if necessary, but I really am hoping that I’ve intentionally poked myself with a needle for the last time.

Bruce has really been missing toast, and he asked Lisa if he could have toast every once in a while. She said he could, so today for our one breakfast a week where we order in, we both got toast. It was wheat instead of white, which Lisa strongly recommended. That brought my level up to 9.8. Lisa said that if I go consistently above 10 then I should be doing the insulin. So, now I know that bread just doesn’t work well for me. And, I’m honestly okay with that. This surprises me, but as I think about it, I really do believe it. Bruce can have his toast on occasion. For me, I’m good without it. And this is the way we learn. I was curious, and now I know.

As far as my weight goes, my lowest was 190.0. Since then I’ve gone up and down, but not so much that I’m concerned. Overall, things are still going in the right direction, and I’ve lost ten pounds in total since August second. So I still see this as progress. Somedays I wish I’d see a bit more progress, but I also know this isn’t going to happen overnight. I have this little problem though where I want instant gratification. 😊

I still have little to no energy, and it’s really frustrating me. Of course this has gone on a lot longer than keto, but everyone always said that it would get better with keto. It hasn’t, which is the one really hard part of this. I’m trying so hard to make sure we get our meals every day, and that leaves me very little energy for anything else. I go out some days, and I feel like I spend most of that time in the grocery store. Grocery shopping online has gotten really difficult because now that I have to read labels, the info isn’t accessible to me most of the time, so I can’t get the nutritional info. I’m working with some truly fabulous people who make this part easier by reading the labels and things, but I loved online grocery shopping because I could do it whenever I wanted, and pick and choose on my own. So it kind of feels like that’s taken away a bit of my independence at a time when my independence is already being decreased because of Covid and not going out much anywhere alone now due to social distancing. So, by the end of the day, I’m pretty much done.

I said previously that Thanksgiving is coming up in a week. I’ve got the turkey, and yes, I’m actually doing a whole turkey this year again, although this time it’s not pre-stuffed. I haven’t found a keto stuffing recipe I like yet, so not totally sure what I’ll do about that. But, the potato-type dish is covered, and there was some kind of muffin or roll-like recipe that I found a while ago, but need to go searching for it again. I’ll also be making pumpkin pie since it’s October, and the time of pumpkin spice everything is here, and I just don’t want to miss out on it! But I’m still looking for one more side dish, and I’m not sure what it’s going to be. Squash is out, (yes, I know it’s like pumpkin, but it’s just not), and I’m also trying to come up with things that even non-keto people will appreciate. I want to make this gravy too, but I don’t have a very good track record with mixing this kind of thing without clumps. Normally I’d cheat and just buy a jar of gravy, but that’s not an option.

It’s time to make the pork now so I’ll stop here. I think that was about it anyway.

Weight: 190.2

Morning blood sugar: 4.5

Units of insulin taken last night: 5

So, given my number this morning, I’m going to try five units again tonight, but may need to decrease yet again. Does this disappoint me? Not in the least! I don’t have a problem with needles necessarily, but if I don’t have to poke myself with one daily it’s not going to break my heart.

The app I use for my scale is kind of neat. It plays a little tune when the weight has been recorded. This helps me to know when I can step off the scale. What’s kind of fun about it though is that if I hit a new low, it plays a different tune. So, this morning when I stepped on and got the loss tune, I was curious to see where I was. My previous low was 190.4, so 190.2 was a new low. I love these little things that make doing all this a little bit more fun.

Since we started this whole keto thing, I’ve read several times that pork rinds can be used to make a breading for meat. So this evening, I decided to try this pork chop recipe since I now have a super easy way to crush the pork rinds. A couple of seconds in the food processor not only crushed the pork rinds, but mixed the garlic, onion powder, and parmesan cheese, so I hardly had to do any of the work. I think next time I’m only going to use one egg for dipping because I found that two eggs was just too much so a lot got wasted. I’m also going to use a smaller amount of the crumb mixture so that if I don’t use it all I can hopefully store the rest of it to use on something else. I don’t know how long something like this would keep, but since I kept it all in the bowl, I won’t be able to find out since there’s now egg residue in there. But, the pork chops were great.

Yesterday Bruce and I also set up the next month of our plan. This time I was able to add him, so now I’m getting quantities for both of us. Looks like I’ve been practically starving poor Bruce the last three weeks. I was giving him more than I was giving myself, of course, but apparently not quite enough to meat his needs. So, now that I’m more aware of what he needs, he can actually have a bit more. The interesting thing is though, when we were talking about it yesterday, he said that it sounded like a lot of food. So, I’m obviously not going to force him to eat more than he wants to. But, it’s good to know on those days when he is hungrier exactly how much to give him.

Bruce also very kindly ordered me a new talking kitchen scale. My current one weighs in pounds, ounces and grams, while this new one weighs in pounds, ounces, grams, or milliliters. Although I still mostly find it easier to think in pounds and ounces, our meal plan gives weights mostly in grams and milliliters, so it’s actually really been helpful when it comes to weighing our food. I still use the scale pretty much daily.

The other tool that I don’t think I actually have mentioned yet is my talking cooking thermometer. This is something I’ve used for years, but it’s another gadget that I find myself using constantly.

Funnily enough, one of the biggest challenges I’m having at the moment is measuring butter. I used to buy I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter, partly because I liked the taste, but also because it stayed nice and soft, so it was easy to measure for cooking. Real butter is so much harder, and so often here I can only find it in a huge cube. I’ve heard that the wrapper has measuring lines on it to help people know where to cut it, but those aren’t any use to me. So, I find myself doing a lot of guessing. This is probably something I could weigh, but it’s a bit annoying to me. So, if anyone has any tips for measuring butter, other than leaving it out of the fridge so that it stays soft, I’d love to hear them.

Finally, one more product that has made Bruce very happy, and I enjoy it too, of course. It’s not something we’ll eat a lot, but I’m a member of a keto support group on Facebook, and I mentioned that Bruce really missed bread and sandwiches. Someone told me about these wraps from Walmart. They only have seven carbs per wrap, compared to about 23.5 carbs in two slices of wheat bread, or 25 grams of carbs in two slices of white bread. Plus, these wraps can be used for sandwiches, tacos, burritos, or even as a flatbread pizza crust. So, a bit of comfort food, and as long as we don’t go crazy with it, we can make it work for us.

Well, that’s about it for me for tonight. They’re doing a planned power cut here in the building overnight tonight, so I need to shut down before it happens.