Magic Carb Bullets – Cauliflower Rice – Konac Noodles

One of my main issues is carbs, we all love them, they love us, but we don’t like how they look on our butts, hips, ect!

So I have moved to Cauliflower rice and Konac noodles….WARNING…. use for lunch or dinner only for a while, using them for both meals will leave you….hmmmm……how can I say this…… Airry?…. if you get my drift, your tummy will be talking to ya if you do that.

Another good thing about them, (when used in moderation) is my husband can cook a main dish that we both eat, just using separate noodles or rice. Makes it easier at dinner time.

I get my cali rice at costco, big bag for not a lot of money, and I got my noodles off of amazon because they were the best price with a combo of noodles I could find.

Small changes make for big results, don’t have to starve yourself to get back to a healthy weight.

WW Beyond Body Mash-Up

So incase you didn’t see the prior post, I stopped the WW app for a while and used the Beyond Body app and book, I found out that I am not good at following exactly what is given to me ….. 😉 I did like that it scheduled me 5 meals a day, it did help my stomach issues, so I am going to try and follow as much as I can.

So while I liked it some what, I have moved back to WW, it is just easier for me overall, however I am using the BB Book as a guideline.

Here is an example

Snack was to be mushrooms and cauliflower heated with a little bit of oil

I used rice cauliflower I put it in with a little bit of butter, garlic, added mushrooms and some chicken broth, plus some asaparagus and made a mushroom cauliflower asparagas risotto 🙂 Cost was 3ww points for the butter only. It is was yummy! Used xanth gum to thicken it a little.

I find following it with some tweaks has cut my snacking & sweets craving down. Not completely but so much more managable.

Plus I have gone back to yoga twice a week and trying to walk the dogs everyday.

It is super easy to fall out of good habits and sooooo much harder to get back to them!

Finally life is back to normal (kinda)

So my mom is doing good, the baby was born and doing good, my youngest went to NZ.. for a job and school….aaaaaggggghhhhh, but other then that we can get back to semi-normal, I have never claimed to be “normal” 🙂

So as you know, I am not really good at following directions, gotta healthify when I can 🙂

So anywho, I stopped my WW subscription for a while and tried the Beyond Body, while I like it, I am not very good at following a strict diet of what they showed, that’s on me, not them. I did do their exercises, really like it in the app with everything else and I did lose a few pounds, but I have gone back to WW, but I am using the book I got as a guide line.

I will be trying to post more regular again since life has gotten a little less crazy still got 2 dogs, 1 cat and a Hubby that keeps me on my toes 🙂

For all the Solar users out there….

Do your chores during the sunlight hours, yes I know that Electricity goes up during “prime” hours, but as long as the sun is shining you are using your solar, n/c, only when it gets dark early, then you wait, doing it this way means I never have a balance due at the end of my year.

If possible, when I can, I skip the dryer and hang them outside to dry and just do them in dryer last 15 or so, nice, clean fresh smelling clothes, let the sun do the work for you for free!

Damn electric rates keep going, here in CA it is….wait for it…… .50kw on peak and .25 off peak, and they basically have most of the day on peak…..so glad we got Solar when we moved.

OMG….Covid….Just my luck!

So as you all know, I have been working with my mom since she had her open heart surgery. She is doing very well. But of course, just as she is getting better we get hit with Covid, and HARD. It took 12 days to test negative, worse week of my life, slept thru 2 days of it at least.

And to add insult to injury, we were completely vaccinated AND had a booster….uuugghhhhh!

Fingers crossed it is all good from here out!

When you get mushy hemp hearts make pancakes!

So I tried to make hemp heart oatmeal, it is mushy and not for me, so instead of throwing it away I thought..hmmmm, kinda like grain, so I made low carb hemp heart pancakes, only 3pts each on WW

So first I made the mushy stuff, 1/4 cup hemp hearts, 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal, 1/2 cup 2% milk, cooked it, put it to the side,

Then I got out the carbquick, added 1 cup + 1 egg + the hemp mush and some water to make it a thinner batter, it came out better then expected, got 8 decent size pancakes that were actually quite light and fluffy.

It was either that or throw out the hemp and you know how much I HATE to waste food!

Recovery…ongoing

So we brought her back to our house for a few days, but she was unable to sleep in the bed because she couldn’t get herself out of it, so after sleeping on the couch a few days, we took her back to her house that has an adjustable bed.

However, she was still having issues getting out of bed so we added a rail she could grab onto, but between her sciatica acting up again…OMG….and her shoulder hurting she is back on the couch at her house.

I am hoping she can get a shot for her arm and back as she isn’t walking and doing as much because of that pain, yes, she is healing fine from the heart surgery, brain fog, dizzy spells, shortness of breath and chest pain all gone, but hip and arm pain keeping her from full recovery.

So we have been trying to get her a dr. appt. took 2 days to get an appt, we get there and they are like “the dr. called out sick, we need to get you a new appt”….WTF people, you couldn’t have called, “oh and we can’t get you in today, it will be tomorrow”….aauugghh

So the freaking saga continues….oh wait, I forgot, so while this is happening, my grandson who is watched by his other grandpa, needed to be watched because his other grandpa was having surgery, so for a whole week I got up at 6am went to watch him, when one of his parents got home I went over to my mom’s and helped her, then I went home. I needed to do it because my son stated his NEW job that week, and his wife is pregnant and is high risk and working part-time.

At least we finally took her dog back, thank gawd, that is a whole ‘nother story!

Release from Hospital

So we finally brought my mom home…..omg….another freaking fiasco….So I called to make sure she could come home, because she thought she could 2 other times and she had to stay. The nurse said yes, I told him I had to get some meds, so I would come down, give her some clothes, and go get the meds, once I had the meds I would call him and he would bring her down to me.

So we get there, I give her the clothes, while she was going over the release forms, then I went to wait for her meds, I waited at LEAST 45 min, and while there my phone wasn’t working….so while I am bored out of my head waiting for the meds…guess what happens?

The Nurse got tired of waiting, and since they couldn’t get a hold of me (my phone not working) they brought my mom down and took her outside to wait, when my mom couldn’t get a hold of me, she called my husband, (who pas parked, and waiting for me to call him) he came and picked her up and then freaked out because they didn’t know where I was (I was waiting in the pharmacy!) and he ran in and was like yelling “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” and I am like “dude, it never rang, jeesh!” I think he freaked some people out because he was scared, loud and 6′ 2″. and to top this off I STILL didn’t have the meds!

He was like, “why didn’t you text it was taking so long?” I showed him my phone and said “I DID!”, because I had, it just never went through. He went back to the car and I waiting for the meds and once they were ready went out to the car.

So just some background, the hospital in LA isn’t in a really good area, and I am 5′ and dumb ass has been watching lots of crime programs where people (usually women) get taken and he freaked out when no one seemed to have seen me….I told him no more of the movies for him!!

OMG….what a couple of months!

I didn’t ignore you all on purpose…..ugghh….my mom is 79….she is in pretty good health overall, she was walking almost 4 miles a day and the dr. told her to cut it down a little, but overall doing good.

So she had a flair up of sciatica so she couldn’t walk as much, but she was still ok, complaining about the back leg pain, but doing ok, I had to take her in for a foot checkup and on the way there, she is like, “I haven’t been feeling well, I get winded real quick and sometimes some pain when I go uphill” , I am like “why haven’t you made a dr. appt??”, she is all well, “I am just getting old and I didn’t want to bother anyone”……OMG…..palm smack….So I said well we need to make an appt for you, she is like ok.

She went for her foot appt and while there told the nurse the other problems she was having and she was told to go to urgent care to get it check out….so we tried but the urgent care wait was 5 hours….FIVE hours, she can’t sit and wait that long so we made an appt for the next day.

I take her to the appt, I am waiting in the waiting room and the nurse comes and gets me and is like “you mom had a bad EKG, she has to the ER now, you can take her or you can wait for an ambulance” I asked “how long before the ambulance can get here” and they are like “it could be hours” , so I said I would take her, they called the ER to let them know she was coming, gave me a copy of the EKG they did and off we went.

Luckily, since we had it all done, we didn’t have to wait in the ER, she was admitted right away, they verified the bad EKG and said they needed to do more tests, after a day of tests they said she has a bad valve and it needs to be replaced, but they have a new less invasive procedure, and after some tests that was they way to go. BuuuuuTTTT, she needed to go the hospital in LA which is between 1 1/2 and 2 hours from where we live to get it all done. By this time I was home and they took her by ambulance at 10pm.

The next day they did a bunch of test and …….ugghh…..nope can’t do the less invasive surgery because…..all her arteries are clogged and they have to do 4 bypass PLUS the valve replacement!!

Of course all my mom is doing is complaining about the back and hip pain and the dr. is like “mam, why don’t we worry about might what kill you, not about the sciatica?!?” you could tell he was at his wits end, because she really didn’t have any chest pain.

So you would think ok, they figured it out, next is surgery and recovery, but wait….it gets better….after being there about 5 days, and us spending 6 hours a day to go up, see her and go home, and finally get a surgery date, it gets postponed because 3 of the doctors get COVID!!

She finally gets the surgery, she came out fine, and because she didn’t have a stroke or heart attack, which is because the sciatica which is causing her pain, probably saved her life, because it made her slow down and not walk so much, she doesn’t have any damage to the heart.

However, she ended up in the hospital extra days because the pain in her back and hip made it hard for her to get out of bed to do the walking they wanted her to do before she could come home.

And all this time we have her 16 yr old, half blind and deaf poodle with us, in addition to our 2 dogs and 1 cat……yeah life has been a little crazy!

I love Cereal as a Snack – Magic Spoon to the rescue

So I like cereal as a snack, but even it is sooo high in carbs, and I want to eat it at night while watching movies. So I decided to try the Magic Spoon Cereal. I got the 4 pack to try, Coco, PB, Frosted & Fruity.

I have opened the Coco and Pb and it is ok, not great, but I mix the two together and 1 cup is only….wait for it 4pt on WW and has 4 carbs, so boooyaaaah!

I am hoping the fruity and frosted may taste a little better. The PB tastes better then the Coco, it is hard to do fake chocolate. The good thing is there is no after taste and they may taste better if eaten with milk.

I will keep you posted on the other flavors once I try them.

I prepackage them into 1 cup snacks that I can grab when I need a snack.