At the Low Carb Meet & Greet yesterday, we were talking about Fat Bombs - you know, those little treats we make ourselves for when we need a little extra fat. There are lots of recipes out there, and this one is mine:
These are the five ingredients for my Fat Bombs, which you stir together well:
Pour a scant 2 Tbs. into each of 24 candy or mini muffin molds. I use a silicone candy mold that I bought at Michael's Crafts. If you prefer, you can use those little paper mini muffin cups, lined up on a cookie sheet.
I place my candy mold on a small cookie sheet first, and then fill it, then put it in the freezer. If you try to put it in the freezer without first putting it on a cookie sheet, you'll be sorry.
Freeze for at least 30 minutes, then pop out the Fat Bombs and store them in a bag or other container in the freezer. You can keep them in the fridge, but as soon as you hold one with your hot little fingers, it will melt really fast. Frozen, it melts slower.
Nutritional info for one Fat Bomb:
145 calories
14.7g fat (91.2%)
1.53g protein (4.2%)
1.67g carbs (4.6%)
2nd Annual Low Carb Meet & Greet last year in 2011
Yesterday, I traveled four hours to the home of Dana Carpender for the 3rd Annual Low Carb Meet & Greet. After my drive through the record-breaking 100+ degree weather, I found that the party had been moved indoors, and what a relief that was! Even so, with fifty low carbers in Dana's house, it was still pretty warm, and I snagged the spot over the air conditioning vent more than once while I was there!
It was so fun to get to meet some of the movers and shakers of the low carb movement and get to ask questions about their views, their health and progress and the ways that their blogs, podcasts and websites are impacting the state of the health here in America and even around the world. They are such a fun group and so giving of their time to effect change for the good of all of us, healthy and struggling alike.
Me with Dana Carpender and That Nice Boy She Married, aka Eric Schmitz
You will recognize Dana Carpender from her website Hold the Toast. I added Dana to my blog roll last year and have learned so much about the low carb movement from her. I did have the chance to have a long discussion with her yesterday, and got to sample some of her favorite low carb dishes, too! What a neat thing to do to open her home each year to host a party like this.
Me with Jimmy Moore and his lovely wife, Christine
It almost seems silly to give Jimmy Moore any introduction at all, but in case you are new to low carbing, Jimmy is an American blogger and author who is best known for his Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb books and blog. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs promoting a high-fat, moderate protein, low carb diet plan. I had the honor of being a guest on his podcast in 2010 (which you can listen to here), as a result of being a "success story" in the newest Atkins book, The New Atkins For a New You, which was published that year. Jimmy is a hoot and it was so fun to finally meet him face to face.
Dana Carpender, Gracie the Incidental Beagle and Jimmy Moore
If you follow his blog, you will know that he has started a new n=1 experiment involving nutritional ketosis, which you can read about here. After losing almost two hundred pounds and then gaining a portion of it back, his struggles with trying to find "the magic bullet" that will take care of his weight problems in a permanent way have been well documented by Jimmy himself on his blog and in his podcasts. I admire his transparency in this matter, and I have always tried to emulate that honesty here in my blog. I must have done a good job of that, because my detractors seem to have memorized all of my failings!
I think that everyone there wanted to hear a first hand account of how his latest experiment is going, and I was no exception! Jimmy graciously took 15 or 20 minutes explaining to me what he is doing and how he has started losing weight again (yay!) as a result of tracking the ketone bodies in his blood with a specialized meter, similar to a blood glucose meter. After hearing more about it, I will be getting The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance, and trying out this experiment for myself to see if I can whittle off those last pesky 10 pounds! I am very anxiously awaiting Jimmy's next report of his progress. Onward and downward, Jimmy!
Me with Amy Dungan
A new person on my radar is Amy Dungan, the author of the Healthy Low-Carb Living blog. I had heard her name a few times, but just checked out her blog a few days ago. I added her to my blog roll (look right and scroll down) and I'm very interested to start trying to keep up with her and her posts. Like me, Amy has had her ups and downs with low carb living, and I admire her stick-to-itiveness and resolve to never give up. We also got to talk one on one for at least a half of an hour, as she shared her journey with me and the hopes she has for her blog. One fun thing - Amy looks so much like my daughter, Emily, and I could not resist telling her that and showing her Emily's senior portrait. Not only did Amy say there was a resemblance, but showed me photos of herself at a younger age to show how much she really did look like my daughter! (Amy's husband John was there, too, but was absent at picture-taking time.)
Andrew DiMino
As the party was winding down and most of the folks had departed for home or hotel, several of us lingered in the living room and chatted. There was a nice gentleman sitting in the chair next to me, and presently, he extended his hand to me and said, "I don't think we've met. I'm Andrew. And how do I know you?" I was so happy that I could at least say I was in the new Atkins book! And, lo and behold, he was none other than Andrew DiMino, president, founder and publisher of Carbsmart.com. He told me about how he started in the business, and how he has recently made the decision to discontinue the online store at CarbSmart and focus on the online magazine. We also got to share before and after photos of each other, which was fun. Of course, I had to show him my morphing weight loss video on youtube.
Andrew was very patient to listen to my woes concerning my struggles with my weight and the attacks I came under writing this blog, and encouraged me to press on. Thanks for that, Andrew! Here is a little funny thing - earlier that day, I needed to test my camera, so I pointed it at Andrew (whom I had not yet met) and asked if I could snap his picture. And then I ended up having a great conversation with him a few hours later.
I was wondering what was going to offered in the way of cold drinks at the party. I have been off of diet soda for a while (although, I must admit I have one rarely as a special treat), so I was thinking I would be drinking water all day. I was so pleased to find out that Zevia had sponsored the party, and provided a ton of free cans of their all natural soda. I sampled the grape, orange and dew flavors, and I really liked them! Learn more about Zevia here, and where to purchase it in your area.
All in all, it was a great time, and was surely worth the trip! I'm sure I will attend next year, if Dana and Eric decide to continue this tradition, and maybe I can find a friend to bring. Maybe my husband!
In closing, I want to share this photo I took of Amy and Jimmy. Amy found these shirts at Walmart and could not resist buying a couple for herself and Jimmy, and, of course, they had to model them and have their picture taken! Both Jimmy and Amy have their detractors, but have managed to keep a positive and upbeat spirit about the whole thing. Obviously!
My old blogger friend, Adam Kosloff, started a new blog last year called Caloriegate, and I poured through the whole thing in the past few days. It's all about a topic near and dear to my heart, which is calories and the "calories in calories out" theory. As usual, Adam has done a great job of making the science accessible to non-scientists, like myself, and the whole thing makes a lot of sense. I agree with what he imparts, and I would read his blog even if it didn't, because I love the illustrations! If you want to start reading his blog, I suggest you start at the beginning and work your way up to the present. Click here to jump over to Caloriegate.com.
I already have Adam's other website - Why Low Carb Diets Work - in my list of favorite websites, found in the right hand column here. I highly recommend that one, too.
Welcome to my blogroll, Adam, and I look forward to reading new posts as you write them! To find the blogs I follow, look right and scroll down.
Okay, so I dropped off the face of the blogosphere about nine months ago. I started this blog back in February of 2009, which was over three years ago. I used the blog as a place to record my personal stats, which I was very into at the time, and as a storehouse for all the great articles I was finding in my main area of interest, which was, and still is, nutrition. Low Carb High Fat nutrition, to be precise. And then, without an explanation, I disappeared, and no one knew where I was, just like my old friend, You-Know-Who:
(I would watch that show just to hear them sing! I'm really dating myself now!)
Everyone has had the following experience: Someone says something snarky (or downright mean) to you out of the blue, and you are so taken aback that you can think of nothing clever to say. Later, when it is much too late, you think of the perfectly scalding comeback that would have put that person in their place and elevated you to “most clever person ever”. I had one of those experiences back in August 2011 when a random stumbler stumbled across my blog and called me and my blog, well, stupid.
The comment posted by this anonymous person went something like this, as best as I can remember: “Your blog is so lame! Who cares about all your stuff? Why don’t you get a life?” and more along those lines. I posted back something like: “Oh, yeah?” I know. Not the height of cleverness. After I posted that brilliant response, I deleted both his (I don’t know why, but I always assumed it was a guy) and my comments so that no one else but me and that guy would see them. He never returned and it was a good thing, because I spent the next three days coming up with the most scathing comebacks I could think of, and I’m glad I never got the chance to use them. I did not want to go on record tearing some stranger a new one as if I cared about what he said. But I did care, and shortly after that, I stopped blogging. To you, Guy that Commented: I assume you will never read this, but you got your way. I realized that no one cared about all my stuff and I got a life. Not that I didn’t already have one, but you know what I mean…
I’m not sure what motivates a person to make a comment like Guy did. I tried to imagine myself visiting someone’s blog about, say, restoring classic cars, and leaving this comment: “Your blog is stupid! I don’t care about cars and neither should you! It’s a stupid hobby and a waste of money! You need to get out of the garage and get a life!” Nope, I don’t see me doing that. Because, at heart and on the surface, I’m a pretty nice guy.
Anyway, the stats I posted nine months ago were the last ones I recorded here, right before I stole away into the night like Carmen Sandiego. Not only did I stop recording them here, but I stopped in the real world, too. No more weighing and measuring of food, no more tracking of fat grams or any other kind of grams and no more weighing and measuring of my own body. Oh, I would hop on the scale every now and then (every few weeks, if I was looking fat), but those times were few and far between. My tape measure stayed in the drawer and my digital kitchen scale stayed in the cabinet.
I feel pretty confident that I am only talking to myself here, because any people who were following my blog have long since given up on me, I’ll bet. But if anyone is reading, the answer to “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (aka Rebecca Latham)?” is that I just hit the wall and could not stand having to micro-manage my food and activities for one more second! Being the anal retentive, perfectionist, obsessive compulsive person that I am (that last one has never been diagnosed), it was a hard thing to give up. My charts would be incomplete and I would not be able to look back to a certain date after August 24, 2011 and know what my thigh measured that morning or how many grams of carbs I had eaten that day and what percentage they had been of my total calories!!! Oh, the agony!
Long story short, I got over it, and I am much happier now. I have been sticking, mostly, to the low carb lifestyle. I have had times that I have gone completely off of it, like during the holidays, but it is now my default way of eating and I always come back to it. Over the past few months, I realized that I was getting too far away from what I knew to be the best for me and my chubby body and my chubby hubby. I was starting to do things like grabbing a bag of Peanut M&Ms when I was out and about and a little hungry, and ordering and eating a pizza (crust and all!) when I was too tired to cook. Lately, I put on about five pounds, and decided to get really serious about low carbing it again. Just to see where I was starting at, I dusted off the ol’ tape measure and measured neck, waist and hips, and found out that I was almost EXACTLY where I was, body-size-wise, back in August, within an eighth of an inch.
Here is what I learned (again, pretty sure I'm just talking to myself to solidify things in my mind and convictions) after my nine months off: Whether I obsess over it or not, it looks like this is the weight my body wants to be. All the many months and years I spent tracking everything and trying desperately to shed some more body fat were a waste of time and effort. I mean, hey! I did not track for the last nine months, and no harm done!
Having said that, I have made a new commitment to get really serious about low carbing and high fatting it again. I have decided that I am not going to eat candy and chips (did I forget to mention the Doritos that I was having with more and more frequency?) and I am not going to grab cookies at the bank (yes, my bank has a cookie jar and there are bowls of candy on every flat surface accessible to customers). For the past week or so, I am doing what I know is right and eating protein, fat and some veggies, no fruit save a few berries now and then, and drinking only water, tea and homemade lemonade sweetened with a little liquid Stevia. I am not measuring my food. I am eating what appears to be a reasonable amount. After all the measuring all these years, I guess I should have a handle on what that means without having to get out the dusty digital scale!
If I never decrease my weight from here on out, I am resolving to be content with that. In clothes, I look pretty good, and no one sees my secret love handles but me and my husband, and he’s not complaining. I have dropped a couple of pounds in the past week or so, and that’s nice.
I have spent the last several days shoring myself up with reading great nutrition articles on the internet and catching up with all my favorite low carb bloggers that I have ignored for nine months and finding a few new ones, too. I am rereading “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” by Volek and Phinney (two of my faves, who chose me to be a success story in “The New Atkins For A New You”, for which I will always be grateful), which was a gift from Karen Norris, my ol’ Atkins pal.
I will post again when I feel like I want to write something down in font, or when I find a great bit of information that I don’t want to lose track of.
Onward and Downward, as I always say, but even Onward and Straight Ahead can be a good thing!
(By the way, I have gotten back into quilting as a business, so if you want to visit my other blog on that subject and see photographs of my quilts, you can click here.
I finished my second week of increasing carbs from very low to moderate and decreasing fat. I tracked my food six days this past week on Fitday. Here are the averages of what I ate:
I take my full measurements every Sunday. In the past week:
I lost a total of 5/8", which includes:
I lost 0" around my neck
I lost 0" around my bicep
I lost 0" around my bust
I lost 1/8" around my midriff
I lost 0" around my waist
I lost 1/8" around my navel
I lost 1/8" around my hips
I lost 0" around my thigh
I lost 1/8" around my calf
Since I started increasing carbs and decreasing fat 2 weeks ago, I have:
Lost 1-5/8" total, which includes:
Lost 1/8" around my neck
Lost 0" around my biceps
Lost 0" around my bust
Lost 1/4" around my midriff
Lost 3/8" around my waist
Lost 1/4" around my navel
Lost 1/8" around my hips
Lost 1/8" around my thighs
Lost 1/8" around my calves
In the past week, I have:
Lost 0.000 points off my waist-to-height ratio
Gained 0.002 points onto my waist-to-hip ratio
Since I started increasing carbs and decreasing fat 2 weeks ago, I have:
Lost 0.006 points onto my waist-to-height ratio
Lost 0.007 points onto my waist-to-hip ratio
In the past week, I have:
Lost 0.2 points off my body fat percentage
Gained 0.2 points onto my lean body mass percentage
Since I started increasing carbs and decreasing fat 2 weeks ago, I have:
Lost 0.5 points off my body fat percentage
Gained 0.5 points onto my lean body mass percentage
In the past week, I have:
Lost 0.4 lbs. of body fat
Gained 0.2 lbs. of lean mass
Lost 0.2 lbs. on the scale
Since I started increasing carbs and decreasing fat 2 weeks ago, I have:
I tracked my food six days this past week on Fitday. Here are the averages of what I ate:
I take my full measurements every Sunday. In the past week:
I lost a total of 5/8", which includes:
I lost 0" around my neck
I lost 0" around my bicep
I lost 0" around my bust
I lost 1/8" around my midriff
I lost 0" around my waist
I lost 1/8" around my navel
I lost 1/8" around my hips
I lost 0" around my thigh
I lost 1/8" around my calf
Lost 0.000 points off my waist-to-height ratio
Gained 0.002 points onto my waist-to-hip ratio
Lost 0.2 points off my body fat percentage
Gained 0.2 points onto my lean body mass percentage
Lost 0.4 lbs. of body fat
Gained 0.2 lbs. of lean mass
Lost 0.2 lbs. on the scale
Here is what I have lost so far, since starting to lose weight in February 2009:
A total of 31", which includes:
Neck - 13.75" to 12.125" - down 1.625"
Bicep - 12.5" to 11.5" - down 1"
Bust - 39.5" to 36.5" - down 3"
Midriff - 33.75" to 31.25" - down 2.5"
Waist - 35" to 31.875" - down 3.125"
Navel - 41.75" to 36.375" - down 5.375"
Hips - 45.5" to 40.125" - down 5.375"
Thigh - 25.75" to 22.75" - down 3"
Calf - 15" to 14" - down 1"
BODY COMPOSITION
TODAY
12.125" neck
31.875" waist
40.125" hips
0.506 waist-to-height ratio
0.794 waist-to-hip ratio
35.7% body fat
AT THE BEGINNING OF WEIGHT LOSS 2/22/09
13.75" neck
35" waist
45.5" hips
0.556 waist-to-height ratio
0.769 waist-to-hip ratio
44.8% body fat
Since my heaviest weight in February 2009, I have lost 1.625" around my neck, 3.125" around my waist and 5.375" around my hips. I have lost 9.1 percentage points on my body fat.
ONE YEAR AGO
12.5" neck
31.25" waist
41" hips
0.496 waist-to-height ratio
0.762 waist-to-hip ratio
35.6% body fat
In the past year, I have lost 0.375" around my neck, I gained 0.625" around my waist and I lost 0.875" around my hips. I have gained 0.1 percentage point onto my body fat.
ONE MONTH AGO
12.125" neck
32.25" waist
40" hips
0.512 waist-to-height ratio
0.806 waist-to-hip ratio
36% body fat
In the past month, I have lost 0" around my neck, 0.375" around my waist and gained 0.125" around my hips. I have lost 0.3 percentage points on my body fat.
ONE WEEK AGO
12.125" neck
31.875" waist
40.25" hips
0.506 waist-to-height ratio
0.792 waist-to-hip ratio
35.9% body fat
In the past week, I have lost 0" around my neck, 0" around my waist and 0.125" around my hips. I have lost 0.2 percentage points onto my body fat.
MY NEXT GOAL
12.125" neck
31.5" waist
39.875" hips
0.500 waist-to-height ratio
0.790 waist-to-hip ratio
35% body fat
To achieve this, I need to lose 0.375" around my waist and 0.25" around my hips.
MY ULTIMATE DREAM GOAL
11.875" neck
26.125" waist
37.25" hips
0.415 waist-to-height ratio
0.701 waist-to-hip ratio
25% body fat
To achieve this, I need to lose another 0.25" around my neck, another 5.75" around my waist and another 2.875" around my hips.
If I reach this goal, I will have lost 1.875" around my neck, 8.875" around my waist and 8.25" around my hips since February 22, 2009.
