Low Carb Food Ideas

Here are a few of my favorite products: 

These go great together in an omelet:

 Put ingredients in this nifty microwave pottery

Love portabella caps with Italian or Mexican cheese. I bake them in my toaster oven.

And I like to make these in the rice cooker

Made these low carb Ramen noodles with a Ramen broth packet and Sheritaki noodles




Made these cheesy ham sticks with light mozarella string cheese and Hormel (nitrate and nitrite free) smoked deli ham. I baked them in the toaster oven

 Some other great products:

Lentils & Walking

Yesterday I tried the lentils in the rice cooker. They turned out tasty with the organic chicken broth I bought from Costco. I did a 1:4 ratio for lentils:broth.

I'll edit to post pictures later. But I made myself some seaweed snacks in the oven and they turned out yummy enough to have eaten all ready. I also discovered this drink called Fuze with ten calories. It does have one sugar, but I want to see how it worked on my blood sugar with the Garcinia and the Chromium included in the drink.

I went on a walk with the family and that was nice. I still need to hydrate better from it as we walked a little over two miles.

Rice Cooker Book

So I bought this Kindle book to give me ideas of how to use my rice cooker in healthy ways (other than just cooking rice). I'll update how it goes and review the book. I'll tell you if I made any adjustments.

Still trying to keep my net carbs below 45g. Yesterday could have gone better, I hit around 50g. I can't have too many grain/legume servings, so I probably won't be using the cooker for more than one meal/day (especially not for the rice/noodle recipes).

Note:  I'm in no way affiliated with either Amazon or the publisher/author of the book, I promise to give an honest review of the recipes/charts I use.

Snack Ideas & Rice Cooker for More than Rice

Here are some snack ideas that work for me:

If you have a Rice Cooker you may want to try cooking the following foods in there. I'm still experimenting myself. You may use broth for the liquid. Let me know if these proportions work for you. I'll adjust/edit here as I try this myself. I always burn this kind of stuff when cooking on a burner, so the rice cooker is preferable.

Quinoa
1 part quinoa, rinsed
2 parts liquid

Steel Cut Oats
1 part steel cut oats
3 parts liquid

Lentils
1 cup lentils, rinsed
2 cups water

Pearl Barley
1 cup barley
2 cups water

I'm working with a small rice cooker like the one below, so it's not really fancy. I want to try beans, split peas (especially yellow split peas, because they're a true superfood).

Again, if you've ever tried a variety of different legumes, grains, or the like in a small rice cooker like this, please tell me how it worked out for you.

Carb Counting & Working Out

Limiting my carbs. Going to aim for <45/day and go from there. I'm working on getting my fasting glucose below 100.

I took a picture of my mid-section today.

Today I did the Jillian Michael's 6 Week Six Pack Ab Workout.

Hoping to bring both my weight and my blood sugars down. I will post a picture and weight update one day/week using the same clothing.

Today I weigh 152.

Edit: Though I don't want to obsess about weight and how I look, I recognize that this keeping track of progress in pictures and of the number on the scale once/week aids in weight loss. It was something I read about so I'm going with that idea and hope that it works since weight loss does have a direct affect on my glucose levels. It really is more about health for me. I'm only going to do that post once/week. Other than that, I shall post pictures of meal ideas and workout videos most other days.

Getting Back in Control

My life has been somewhat crazy the past few months. When I was back to school I let myself gain about 10-15 lbs. instead of losing the weight that I wanted to.

I'm working hard to get back in control.

I was reading what successful dieters had in common. Success being keeping the weight off after the diet.

Some things I want to note there is that I ought to keep averaging an hour a day of exercise. It really does make a difference. Exercise gives me more energy and motivates me to eat better. If I sit around and watch TV, I don't have any work to ruin. If I exercise though, I usually will think that "if I eat this then what was the point of that exercise today?" I realize that I'm just going to ruin the workout.

So for starters I want to make sure I do at least an hour of working out 6 days/week whether it be split up or in one chunk, or whether it just be walking or full on running. This is one easy goal I can handle. Other than that, I'm working on a low carb lifestyle and hoping to maintain that.

Sometimes life contains restarts. I just need to be okay with that and move on.

Amanda

Today's Plan

I get an A+ for keeping to yesterday's plan. This is what today's plan looks like:

1/4 cup oatmeal & 1 oz. Greek yogurt
1/4 cup walnuts
1 red delicious apple
1 black bean burger w/ hot sauce and avocado
1 Light string cheese
2 cups Jalapeno popcorn
Kidney bean salad w/ avocado
1/4 cup pistachios
Lemon tilapia w/ steamed veggies
2 servings of olives

I need a little bit of treat foods. I consider the popcorn and olives to be treat foods that help me through a calorie cut. Today my calories will run between 1300-1400.

Tomorrow I will plan on adding a piece of Lindor chocolate for a treat. I read about a study in which diabetics who allowed themselves an occasional planned treat did better at maintaining long term blood sugar levels. I think the key is to plan it so that the treat is given alongside low carb foods, but the treat itself should be small and not have above 5 grams of sugar. That is my personal opinion. I don't remember if there were actually recommendations in the study. I will need to locate the research article so that I can see how the planning worked. Meanwhile, there is what I do and this small treat allotment has worked pretty well for me so far.