Week 2 The Meat and Caulitoes of Life

Recipes Below!!

Learning is a never ending part of life; at least it should be. There are so many wonderful and interesting things to learn about. For me this week has been a journey into internet marketing, video editing, and blog maintnence. Needless to say I drove my husband, son, and myself crazy, buuuut I learned so much!

I’m also learning how this broken body is reacting to living the Keto lifestyle. This mama has been freezing ALL week! Everyday as we gathered around the school table, I would bundle up in a sweatshirt, and even draped a blanket over my legs a couple of times. Being cold is a rare occurrence for me. This article was helpful https://www.theartofketo.com/does-ketosis-make-you-feel-cold/. The body is truly an amazing machine.

The Good: Fat people victories –  when your skin starts to look shriveled and sag, you know that you’re going in the right direction!! This mama belly has been stretched out so many times (10 babies!) that there’s no way it’ll ever go back to its original shape. (Can you say, tummy tuck😉) As my fat starts burning my tummy starts sagging, but I am going to call that a non-scale victory!!

I also absolutely love the fact that I don’t feel bloated and nauseous. I felt sick for so long and I would just gorge myself until it was almost unbearable.

The Bad:
Hormones have been my enemy this week, and as a result I’ve had insomnia and major inflammation. I was already tired from surgery recovery, so this week I was a mombie, and a rather grumpy one at that😩. Achiness seemed to plague me and that made the exhaustion worse. Thankfully, I know that this coming week will be much better as my hormones level out a bit. Tired, grumpy mom + cranky, rambunctious kids = a miserable week. Thank God for a fresh week and the grace to move forward.

Wednesday brought brain fog, which was not exactly helpful when I was trying to teach, so I made myself a Pumpkin Steamer and that helped immensely. (Victory for the healthy fat!)

Thursday I woke up and had strong to desire to just EAT! I wasn’t hungry and there was no need to eat, so I resisted the urge and moved on with my day. By lunch time I was able to eat a decent sized meal and felt wonderful. As a binge eater/snacker extraordinaire it’s truly a struggle when the urge to eat, eat, eat hits. Thankfully, the frequency of those moments is diminishing. Since binge eating is a big thing for me, I’ve decided to read Brain Over Binge. I’m not even halfway though and I’ve learned so much about binge eating and how to deal with it. I look forward to the information to come.

The Ugly: When your body doesn’t want to cooperate with your health plan it stinks! Let’s talk exercise. Exercise is not for weightloss, but since my goal is to heal myself, getting strong is essential. Now unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with mild to severe foot pain for about the last 18 months. Just doing light house hold chores or grocery shopping makes me hobble like a 90 year old👵, and not one of those super fit 90 year olds you see online💪. I’ve lost a lot of muscle tone and I’m quite stiff. After jumping down a medical rabbit hole and being misdiagnosed several times, I now have an answer. I have a combination of fasciitis and achilles tendinitis in both feet and metatarsal bursitis and a neuroma in the left foot.

Well, I can just stay sedentary and continue to turn into a pile of mush or get creative. I’ve discovered a wonderful YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/fabulous50s/featured) that my kids affectionately call  “mom’s old lady exercises.”  I’m only 39, but why not dance….er….exercise to the beat of my own drum, right🪘? They good-naturedly make fun of my old lady exercises, but this lady puts out high quality videos, makes it fun, and has several chair routines that give you a great workout without being on your feet (some of my kiddos even join in and do it with me). She has fun workout videos for people who are more mobile, too. I also put together a Pilates mat routine for myself that I can do in 20 min and really get my muscles working.

Since having surgery I haven’t really exercised, but this coming week I’m going to add it back in. The silver lining to this situation is creativity and perseverance have been my friends.

Friday things definitely got ugly. I threw a bit of a tantrum, because I was just done tracking macros and I wanted to eat my darn meatzza and not worry about going over. (https://cronometer.com/ macros tracking app) So, I ate my meal in rebellion and at the very end, this rule following, firstborn sat and tracked every . single . maco …. sigh.

I had a coffee date scheduled for Saturday morning and as I sat in the couch after dinner I’m afraid I had a mini break down. Out of nowhere I burst into tears and cried, “I can’t even have a muffin with my tea tomorrow! ” I was legit weeping over a muffin🤦. My poor husband didn’t quite know what to do.

Let’s talk food.

Now I would never claim to be a great cook, that talent belongs to my husband and son, but when they’re working I need to be able to make delicious (ok, maybe passable😕) meals for my family of 12. This week I took a package of 2 pork butts🐷 out of the freezer. Bulk cooking was my mission and I would say it was a success (if you’re curious 2 PB provides meat for approx. 6 meals in our large household). I made one PB into carnitas (pretty hard to mess that up) and the other into a pork roast that I served with caulitatoes. Goodness gracious, talk about fabuloso. These are both easy meals to prepare and can be eaten low-carb for those of us who need it or add some respective carbs for the kids (potatoes, tortillas, bean, etc). Both of these are easy to make in large quantities and prepackage for meals for the week or a freezer meal for later.

Eating Keto when your kids aren’t eating low-carb is very challenging. Meal planning requires creativity and planning. Making a main dish that we can all have, and sides for the LC people and non-LC people can be overwhelming. Most nights of the week we make a ton of meat and veggie sides; I’ll add potatoes or beans for kids.

One of the biggest challenges I personally face is transforming my whole way of eating while homeschooling, running to appointments ( they just never end), and grocery shopping. I have never been one to handle stress well, so this is really a growing experience.

I need this transformation to happen. I need to feel healthy and strong to take care of my family well. I don’t just want to survive anymore; I want to thrive.