KETO KISS

While I wish the first rule of Keto was that you don’t talk about Keto, it seems like we do the opposite of that on every social media site known to man. Add to that the fact that Keto is just so hot right now…so fetch right now… is anyone picking up what I’m putting down here…that we seem compelled to discuss it. Anyway, movie quotes aside, the first rule of starting Keto is actually an easy one…

Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.

I love cooking. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I love food. Good food. And in order to satisfy that craving within my budget and in a healthy manner I have to cook. So I tolerate cooking as a means to an end. Over the past few years I’ve gotten pretty ok at it too. (I mean no one has died yet, or even gotten sick from my cooking) When I started Keto I made the mistake of attempting to “keto-up” complicated recipes and I ended up with dishes loaded with surprise carbohydrates. It was so frustrating. In the second week I decide to drop back and punt and instead of focusing on my favorite recipes I focused on creating three meals that worked with my macros. This meant creating simple recipes that almost always consisted of a protein, veggie, and sauce or cheese.

Step one for me was taking time on Saturday and Sunday to meal plan and meal prep. For the past month, every Saturday we write our grocery list, choose our dinners, and then hit the grocery stores. On Sunday we cook.

My grocery list almost always looks the same:

Spinach
Cucumbers
Iceberg Lettuce
Broccoli
Chicken breasts
Eggs
Almond milk creamer
Heavy Whipping Cream
Various cheeses
Cream Cheese
Thin sirloin steaks
Asparagus
93/7 Ground Beef

I will add or subtract this as needed, but those items are almost always on every list I make. Remember, I started by keeping it simple so we repeat a lot of the recipes we like and know work with our macros.

Mi Pueblo Mexican Restaurant, Italian Surprise with no macaroni.

My first week of full-on Keto looked like this:

Monday	B: bulletproof coffee	This was a whole lot of trial and error for us. Most sites I’ve found suggest 1-3 tablespoons of MCT Oil and 1-3 tablespoons of butter. I can’t do it. My compromise is 1/2 tbsp MCT Oil and .1 ounce (just a sliver) of unsalted Kerry gold butter in 4 cups of coffee. I fill my cat periodic table 24 oz Tervis tumbler halfway with coffee, add the MCT oil and butter and use my stick blender to blend it really well. We tried doing this in a blender and in a Ninja and both times it separated and was like an oil slick on top. The immersion blender gives it that creamy, latte consistency you so often hear about when people discuss bulletproof coffee. I also add a splash of almond milk creamer by blue diamond.
	L: taco salad	I make all of these on Sunday. I brown 2 lbs of 93/7 ground beef and season it with chili powder, adobo seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, and smoked paprika. In each bowl I put 2 ounces of iceberg lettuce, 1 ounce of cucumber, 1 tbsp of cilantro, 2 tbsp of salsa, 1 ounce of Monterey jack cheese and a slight drizzle of Ken’s Steakhouse Buttermilk Ranch Dressing. I also pack a mini Good Foods Guacamole pack to eat with it.
	D: Chorizo and Spinach stuffed bell peppers with a Cali’flour Foods flatbread tostada	I browned 10 ounces of Hatfield ground Chorizo sausage in my cast iron. While it was cooking, I halved 2 red bell peppers and removed the seeds. When the chorizo was cooked I added 6 ounces of fresh spinach, 2 ounces of extra sharp cheddar cheese, and 1 ounce of cream cheese to the pan. I mixed it to combine and let the spinach wilt. I divided the mixture evenly between the four pepper halves and topped with a sprinkle of cotija cheese before baking in the oven at 350 degrees until the peppers softened to my liking. For the tostado I took two Cali’flour Foods flatbreads and heated them in my toaster oven. I topped them each with one ounce of sharp cheese, a sprinkle of cotija, iceberg lettuce, and one container of GoodFoods tableside guacamole. I served this with two ounces of Daisy sour cream.
Tuesday	B: bulletproof coffee
	L: taco salad
	D: Grilled steaks, portobello mushroom and asparagus	I marinated bottom round steak (thin sliced) in a McCormick Brazilian Steakhouse marinade (I’m still ridding my cupboard of some things). I like to skewer the thin steaks accordion style and grill quickly on both sides. While the steak was cooking I quickly cooked a portobello mushroom cap I had rubbed with EVOO and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I cook the asparagus in a cast iron skillet with some EVOO and butter, seasoning with salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder.
Wednesday	B: bulletproof coffee
	L: taco salad
	D: The Defined Dish Stir Fried Chicken and Baby Bok Choy	I modify this recipe by removing the water chestnuts and onions. I also do not use the arrowroot powder. If you do want something to thicken your sauces, try a 1/2 tsp. of xantham gum. I served this over Skinny Pasta’s Noodle Shape Konjac Pasta.
Thursday	B: bulletproof coffee
	L: taco salad
	D: Cali’flour Foods pizza	I cook two Cali’flour Foods pizza crusts on parchment paper until I decide they are done…I find the instructions on their box are more like guidelines. I topped each crust with 2 tbsp of Bertolli Alfredo Sauce, 2 ounces of mozzarella cheese. I topped once pizza with Riserva hard salami by Fiorucci and one with Choriza by Solera.
Friday	B: bulletproof coffee
	L: taco salad
	D: Mi Pueblo Mexican Restaurant	I order one of two things there. Either the ACP Supremo with no A or the Italian Surprise that is just chicken, cheese, and broccoli. We tell them we do not need chips when they seat us.
Saturday	B: bulletproof coffee
	L: Charcuterie board	We shared an assortment of Palmetto jalepeño pimento cheese, cut cheeses, salamis, cucumbers and broccoli.
	D: Steak night!	We grilled to very nice NY Strips, I made my take on Outback’s Tiger Dill Sauce (3 tsp prepared horseradish, 4 tbsp Daisy sour cream, 1/2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp dill weed) and a spinach salad with some bacon, parmigiano reggiano and Ken’s Garlic Parmesan dressing.
Sunday	B: bulletproof coffee
	L: taco salad
	D: Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo	Season chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Sauté chicken breasts in EVOO until done. Add 100 grams of broccoli and 2 cups of spinach. Cook until spinach is wilted and broccoli is softening. Add 2.5 servings of Bertolli Alfredo sauce and Konjac noodles by Skinny Pasta. Cook until warm. You can serve with a salad if hungry.

I was able to eat like this all week and stay under 20 grams of net carbs each day, while managing to feel full, satisfied, and not deprived of anything!

Cali’flour Foods Italian Herb pizza crust

My Keto Adventure…the beginning…

Thirty-three days and 19.5 pounds ago I decided to try the Keto diet to see if I would have better results on it than I had on everything else I had tried.

I’ll be honest, I’m pretty convinced. I drank the Kool-aid and I’m digging it. In the process I’ve joined several online Keto sites for beginners and one thing that seems to be pretty common is no one seems to no where to start or what exactly a Keto diet is. So not being an expert on Keto or a blogger by trade, I thought “what the heck, I’m going to blog about my misadventures on Keto” and here we are.

To educate myself on Keto I took to the interwebs and my good friend Google. There is literally an infinite number of Keto Websites, Pinterest Boards, and online communities available to you! These are few of the sites I found that were helpful and seemingly free of B.S, I’ve listed them below for your reading pleasure.

• Healthline
• Diet Doctor
• BulletProof
• Well and Good

So first things first, what is Keto? I’ll be honest, when my husband first suggested we try Keto I was dubious. I didn’t want to spend my days eating burgers, pork rinds, bacon, and cheese. Not that I don’t like those things, but I also don’t want to die of a heart attack at 41. I’ve since learned that Keto is not a burger and bacon diet. If you’re doing that, you’re not doing Keto and your cholesterol is potentially skyrocketing, so be careful. I like this article from Harvard because it pretty accurately sums up Keto in terms of benefits and dangers. To summarize:

Keto is a high fat, low carb, and moderate protein diet. In order to achieve “ketosis”, the state where your body begins burning fat rather than sugar (carbohydrates) you have to eat between 20 to 50 grams of net carbs a day (I’ll explain net carbs later).

A couple of important things to note with the whole “high fat, low carb, and moderate protein” aspect of keto. One, this is not Atkins. It is more restrictive than Atkins and requires you to eat less carbs. That being said, generally on Keto people only count net carbs. You can calculate your net carbs by subtracting the total grams of fiber from the total number of carbs in a food. Some people will tell you not to count the carbs in your veggies, but I disagree with that as well because a carb is a carb is a carb in my book. Two, not all fats are created equally. This diet is not license to eat as many bun-less double bacon cheeseburgers as you can. The goal is to eat healthy sources of fat such as salmon, avocado, eggs, nuts, and chia seeds. Three, you have to eat your veggies! Cruciferous veggies are best when attempting the Keto diet. These include broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, kale, spinach, etc. The whole point of Keto is eliminate sugars, processed foods, and “bad” carbohydrates (those that have a huge impact on your glycemic index and trigger a rapid insulin response) and begin eating a balanced diet of whole foods, healthy meats, and green vegetables!

A lot of people suggest when starting Keto to ease into it. Start by tracking and logging your food, then slowly ween yourself off carbs and off of sugar. I took a more direct, rip the bandaid off, cold-turkey approach and woke up on a Saturday with the goal of eating no more than 20 net carbs. In the end, you have to do you. I decided that if I didn’t just do it, I would probably never do it. I also didn’t think it was that bad. I wasn’t hangry, I wasn’t craving sugar, I never got the Keto flu…sure I was bummed at times when there was pizza, or cake, but I just got to the point where I was so tired of being fat that I convinced myself a moment of fleeting satisfaction isn’t worth sabotaging my ultimate goal.

In order to keep track of what I eat and my macros (macro-nutrients) I downloaded the app Carb Manger. I used to use My Fitness Pal, but have replaced it because Carb Manager is specific to Keto. Currently my macros are set at 5% carbs, 25% protein, and 70% fat. In other words, 5% of the calories I eat come from carbs, 25% from protein, and 70% from fat. Based on a 1400 calorie diet this would equal roughly 21 grams of net carbs, 87 grams of protein, and 107 grams of fat. A lot of people say that calories don’t matter when you are doing Keto and to just eat until you are full. I politely disagree, Keto or not, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie and if you want to lose weight, you need to maintain a calorie deficit. Right now I try to eat about 1200 calories a day. One side effect of ketosis is feeling fuller longer, which means many days I’m not hungry, but I eat regardless because if I don’t my body will store food rather than burn it, plus your body likes consistency so eating the same number (roughly) of calories each day creates a good foundation for weight loss. For more information on calorie intake and deficits you can read this article from WebMD.

So to finish this entry I’ll leave you with my top five pieces of advice for starting Keto…

1.  Set a goal and make it visible. I actually set multiple goals, incremental weight loss with rewards at each one. My final reward, if I lose 50 pounds is HUGE, something I would never spend money on, but something I have always wanted. If I get there, you bet your bottom I’ll be sporting Louboutin heels the next week at work.
2. Track and log everything. Before it goes in your mouth, it goes in Carb Manager or MFP. I was shocked on several occasions after making what I thought was a low carb/keto meal, only to realize it had over 20 carbs in it.
3. Learn to read labels. So many foods have hidden carbs in them. The basic rule is, “food doesn’t have ingredients, it is an ingredient”.
4. Avoid sugar substitutes as much as possible. There are so many recipes out there for Keto desserts that use Stevia, erythritol or monk fruit. While these are good in small quantities, you don’t want to become dependent on them when the goal is to be eating healthy, non-processed, whole foods.
5. Don’t cheat! I can’t stress this enough. It takes a few days to weeks to get in ketosis and only a few hours to get out of it. My advice would be to not allow a cheat day in the first six weeks of the diet. This is supposed to be a way of eating and living, if you cheat constantly it sort of becomes a pointless exercise in futility.

Good luck!

 

 

Carb Cycling: The good, the bad, the ugly

I have been MIA for a while now. I just can’t seem to find the time to write. Which is terrible because it’s something I really enjoy. I have finally started to take my diet seriously. I’m going to the beach Memorial Day weekend, which is like 45 days away, and Peru in June/July (74 days away) so I’ve got this goal in my head that I’m going to be the skinniest me I can be by June so that I look amazing in my pictures. With that goal in mind I set out to find something I could do that would essentially jump start my weight loss and create better habits.

I decided to try carb cycling. This decision was based solely on a quiz I took on Facebook from a sponsored ad by HIITBURN. I found out that I’m an endomorph, defined as,

The endomorphic body type is the complete opposite of an ectomorph. This individual will usually be larger in appearance with heavier fat accumulation and little muscle definition. They find it hard to drop the weight even though they try several diets or workout programs.

This of course was sort of earth shattering yet not surprising. I have in my lifetime tried everything to lose weight and while I’ve had the occasional successes, they never seem to last. I’m not convinced carb cycling will last either, but I’m trying it regardless in an attempt to drop some weight, have some success, feel a bit better about myself, and thus continue the struggle so that by June I am Peru ready. I wound up buying a 3-1-2-1 program from HIITBURN for $17.99. They tried to sell me a whole bunch of other shit I didn’t want, but in the end I got my packet and started planning. The process took me about 2 weeks to begin. First, I had to read the packets, then I had to prep some meals, then I had to experiment with food and MFP.

I started my pre-carb cycle on a Monday, failed miserably when I realized at the end of the day I had eaten 120 grams of carbs. Tried again Tuesday and did better, staying around 50 grams. Talked to a friend who told me that anything under 50 is good, and tried again Wednesday, this time staying well below 50 grams. By Sunday, the day I was supposed to start, I felt I was ready to go and already had 3-4 low carb days under my belt and had lost almost 5 pounds. I figured if I started on Sunday, I would have a high carb day Wednesday and a flex (cheat) day Saturday. It seemed like a good plan of attack and I was ready to go. With week one in the books here are a few things I’ve learned about carb cycling that may help you if you decide to try it….

---

The Good: 
It really does work. In about a week and a half I lost around 6 pounds and an inch. Every morning I got on the scale and I was just a little bit lighter. It was super exciting. For someone who rarely sees the scale move and who struggles to accept that “it’s not all about the number”, while desperately wishing that number would move, this was AMAZING. I felt successful. I felt empowered. I felt like I was accomplishing something. I felt hopeful.

It’s not all that difficult once you have a plan. I actually find this easier than eating macros. The reason is because it’s not so much about balancing as just making choices to either eat it or not eat it. Knowing I have to stay under a certain number of carbs, while getting a certain amount of protein and fat made my choices for me. It was also nice to be able to eat certain foods that were once “off limits” to me while focusing only on macros. For example, cheese is back on the menu, which if you know me, you know that makes me extremely happy. I was also able to eat my Tessamae dressings again because on a low carb day I am supposed to eat high fat, so that was also a win!

It has taught me to be really conscious of what I am eating. I never really cared as long as the macros were good at the end of the day, I wasn’t a “good macro for every meal” person. Now I can tell you all about the foods I eat. It’s also made me very strategic in my eating. I know that I can have half a Quest bar on cardio days so I can take some ignite right before BBC. But I know if I do that I have to be careful with what I serve for dinner. It’s taken my meal planning up a notch.

---

The Bad:
While some foods are now back in my diet, it also manages to limit what you can eat quite a bit. For someone who loves food and loves to cook this has been a struggle. My experiment week was all about finding out what I could and could not eat in a day. I discovered that I could eat a lot of meat, but not a lot of veggies, and no fruit, yogurt, or Quest or Lara bars. Basically anything sweet went bye-bye and this left some serious cravings in it’s wake. There is no amount of cheese and meat you can eat that will ever take the place of the sweet, sweet taste of sugary goodness that can only be found in fruit and dark chocolate.

I basically have resigned myself to eating the same week over and over again for the length of this program. The lack of variety is slowly killing me and I’m getting sick of cheese, which I never thought would be possible, but there are only so many recipes one can make that involve meat with a side of meat.

---

The Ugly:
Carbs are in everything… I MEAN  ERRY’THING…
1 oz of English cucumber…1 carb…
2 cups of Romaine lettuce…3 carbs…
1 oz of mushrooms…1 carb…
1 serving of Alexa Parmesan Peas…16 grams of carbs…
Even the supplements I take have carbs in them. The gum I chew the hell out of to combat my cravings has carbs in it. And they add up, quickly. If I have a salad for lunch, I have to eat an all meat dinner. It’s infuriating and has led to many conversations with myself that go something like this, “4 grams of carbs in a packet of Truvia, F&#$ YOU TRUVIA!!!”… *drinks coffee black*

You get really tired sometimes and feel “fuzzy around the edges”. I don’t know how else to describe it. I think my brain must have run on carbs and on days when I don’t have them I feel all fuzzy and blurred and am pretty sure I’m not functioning on all cylinders. The first week it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t have the stamina I usually have at BBC but I got through the workouts without dying. The second week, I sat down on the couch on Monday before BBC and fell asleep, sitting up, I woke up at 5:31 and missed both afternoon classes. I’m also really hungry by Friday and not in the mood to eat anything, while simultaneously craving everything.

Carbs = Fiber…fiber makes you poo. You can figure out the rest of the equation. If you decide to carb cycle I highly suggest taking a fiber supplement (the bastards have carbs in them) and a probiotic (I use Align) to balance out the lack of fiber (and therefore poo) in your low carb lifestyle. Just trust me on this one…

---

I’m on Day 2 of Week 2 so we’ll see how that goes. I sort of epically failed at my flex day on Saturday and it rolled into Sunday because I didn’t have much energy or motivation to leave the couch. So I’m really rolling into Day 1 of Week 2, but am determined to get back on the horse and make it work. I didn’t meal prep yesterday but the week before I experimented with some apple pie protein powder muffins that aren’t too shabby so I’ll attach the recipe below for you.

Apple Pie Protein Powder Muffins

½ c + 2 tbsp coconut flour	Preheat oven to 425 degrees and spray muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray. (This recipe makes 10 muffins everything I do it) Whisk together the coconut flour, PP, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
1 scoop Dymatize ISO 100 Cinnamon Bun PP
1 scoop Dymatize ISO 100 Gourmet Vanilla PP
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted and cooled	Mix together the coconut oil, egg whites, and vanilla extract. Mix in the yogurt and stir until the mixture is smooth.
2 large egg whites, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ c nonfat Greek Yogurt (I used Dannon light and fit vanilla)
½ c + 2 tbsp cashew milk	Alternate between adding the coconut flour mixture and the cashew milk to the yogurt, oil, and egg mixture. Beginning and ending with the flour. It’s best to do this in equal parts, I usually do 3 flours and 2 milks. Stir until just mixed. Let the batter rest for about ten minutes.
1 c freshly grated apples (peeled first)	Gently fold in the grated apples and put the mixture evenly into the muffin tins. Bake for 8 minutes at 425. Without opening the oven door turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for another 10-15 minutes. They are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the muffin tins on a rack.

Ringing in the New Year

HNY everyone! It’s been awhile and for that I apologize. Thus far 2017 has been a bit of a shit show and I’m still trying to get my bearings. Between a lingering illness (just go away already), a sick cat, and a poor little adopted cat we had to give up I’m pretty much ready for 2018! That being said this will not be the blog that addresses resolutions or raising my bar, that will come, but enough is enough and it’s time to get on with it so here I am. Plus Jen is waiting for the buffalo chicken casserole recipe so I need to get my tuchas in gear.

For the menu this week I stuck to some tried and true favorites because it was easy and because I needed some comfort food in my life. I’ve included links to the recipes I borrowed below.

Monday	Steak with Trader Joe’s Garlic Coffee rub, sweet potato, and broccoli
Tuesday	Fajita chicken with peppers and onions, quinoa with green chilis, black beans, and roasted corn
Wednesday	Buffalo Chicken Casserole from paleomg.com
Thursday	Sweet Potato Bahn Mi bowls from paleomg.com
Friday	Mongolian Beef from fedandfit.com, brown rice, Szechuan broccoli
Saturday	Beef Stew
Sunday	Chili

With the exception of Friday, we ate pretty well this week. The coffee rub from Trader Joe’s was surprisingly delicious. If you are a meat eater I highly suggest you check out this rub, it was the perfect combination of sweet and savory. I said after almost every bite, “damn this stuff is good”. I’m really trying to find an excuse to have steak again this week so I can eat it one more time.

Dinner Tuesday was similar to something I featured in my first blog. The quinoa was the exact same, except I added some roasted corn from Trader Joe’s just because I had it and I could. The chicken and veggies were loaded with the Wildtree seasonings, chipotle lime, carne asada, and adobo, as well as some lime juice. I just threw it all in a pan with some avocado oil and voila, dinner.

The Bahn Mi bowl from http://www.paleomg.com is seriously one of my most favorite dishes. I could eat it daily. I’ve stopped using the white sweet potatoes, just because I can’t find them anywhere but Lowe’s and I don’t live near one, but the orange ones taste just as good in my opinion. One day I’ll feature this recipe, because it’s divine and complicated and I modify the hell out of it, but not today, today we are going to focus on another favorite of mine, the buffalo chicken casserole.

1 spaghetti squash	I slice mine in half, take the seeds out, and turn it upside on a baking sheet and bake at 400 for about 30 minutes, until it’s soft to the touch on the outside. When it’s done I take it out and let it cool so I don’t burn the hell out of my fingers when removing the threads. Once cooled I remove the threads and transfer them to a 9×13 baking dish.
1 tsp Ghee	Heat the ghee in a pan, add the chopped carrots, peppers, onions, celery, and garlic and sauté until the onion is tender.
6 oz baby carrots
1 cup red bell pepper
½ cup onion
2 stalks celery
3 tsp minced garlic
1 lbs ground chicken	Add the chicken and ranch seasoning to the pan and cook until no pink remains.
1/3 package ranch seasoning
1 cup hot sauce	Add the hot sauce, mayo, and cottage cheese and mix thoroughly.   After this is done mix the ingredients in the pan into the spaghetti squash noodles in the baking dish.
1 tbsp Mayo
¼ cup low fat cottage cheese
¾ cup egg whites	Add the egg whites to the pan and mix until you can’t see them. Pop it in the oven and bake at 350 for an hour until it is set.

The original recipe calls for a Dutch oven or an 8×8 pan. I found that I had too much food for an 8×8 and used the 9×13. Based on the size of the pan I wrote this up in MFP as 12 servings and usually eat two servings at dinner. I topped it with some Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt dressing and green onion. The macros are pictured here, too bad I can’t eat this daily, I’d never have to worry about having good macros again!!!

The upcoming weeks are going to be interesting. I was planning on “raising my bar” this Monday, but like I said above, SHIT SHOW. The new plan is to start this Monday and just hang on for dear life while we’re in Vegas for 5 days. I’m also supposed to start the Whole 30 the Monday after Vegas, my boss and coworker are also doing it so I’ll have that support and I asked T if he was interested. I figured he’d say no, as he loves beer, but he agreed and even sent me an email this am that said, “I’m drinking my coffee black today in preparation for this cult diet you are making me do”. My plan is to take the recipes I know and love and modify them again so that they meet the Whole 30 “rules”. I also plan on blogging about it, so be prepared for an angry and sugarfree Leanne in the upcoming weeks. I am already having nightmares about not having my dark chocolate fix at night.

A tip before I go and stare longingly out the window waiting for snow, I realized this Sunday while meal prepping that egg frittatas are a perfect way to use up old, leftover veggies in the fridge. This Sunday I had some spinach and mushrooms that were looking a little “sad”, not quite bad enough to be tossed out but not good enough I’d eat them in a salad with them looking at me, so instead of tossing them in the trash, I tossed them in my frittata. Problem solved, money saved, and breakfast made.

Bring it on down to Breakfastville…

Sorry, I’ve been watching a lot of the SNL Christmas specials and they’ve featured JT’s “bring it on down to whateverville” pretty heavily so that stuff is stuck in my brain…

I’m having a hard time engaging in meal prep and planning today. I usually do all of my planning on Sunday morning. Then I head to the store and spend Sunday in the kitchen while Tony screams at the Steelers in the living room. Today is just not my day though. The Steelers are playing like they enjoy losing and this constant changing weather is playing havoc with my sinuses. So basically I’m just a huge grumpapotamus at the moment.

The menu for this week is pretty simple. We leave Friday am to head to PA so I only have to plan dinner for Sunday through Thursday and I’m keeping it pretty simple. Tonight we’re having pot roast and exculpatory potatoes (scalloped potatoes…it’s a long story) for Tony’s birthday dinner. Because of that I thought I’d focus on what I eat for breakfast everyday since that doesn’t change that often and probably won’t be my focus when writing these.

Monday	Breakfast	1 Piece Simply Balanced Sprouted Grain Bread 1 slice egg white, sausage, mushroom, onion frittata 1/2 slice of laughing cow white cheddar  OR 0.4 oz of Thai fusion goat cheese from Publix 2 cups coffee ½ cup of cashew milk 1 scoop of Dymatize ISO 100 Cinnamon Bun Protein Powder
	Lunch	C&I Luncheon
	Dinner	Spaghetti and meatballs
Tuesday	Breakfast	Same
	Lunch	1 Elli Quark 1/2 cup of Daisy low fat cottage cheese 1/2 cup of pineapple 1/2 cup of cucumber salad 1/2 cup of green chili quinoa and black beans 1 grilled chicken breast
	Dinner	Roasted chicken with thyme gravy (Pg. 118) and green bean almandine (Pg. 212) from Against All Grain
Wednesday	Breakfast	Same
	Lunch	Same
	Dinner	One pot Thai Quinoa Bowl – with salt and wit (I am making this again this week because I want to try something with the recipe and make some serious modifications, I’ll share the final adjusted, better macro recipe later this week after I toy with it.)
Thursday	Breakfast	Same
	Lunch	Same
	Dinner	Easy Shredded beef from Paleomg.com

Honestly, I’ve never been much of a breakfast eater. I’m not a morning person and doing anything productive before noon is usually not very high on the old priorities list. That being said, I have come to firmly believe that a filling, balanced, and delicious breakfast is key when it comes to losing weight and maintaining a healthy diet. If I skip breakfast, and I do because I suck at mornings, my entire day is trashed. I am so hungry by lunch that I eat my lunch and snacks in one sitting and usually before noon. Then I wind up scavenging (this is my bad habit I plan on dropping week 4 of RTB) before BBC and again while making dinner because I’m HANGRY. Breakfast has seriously helped me control my afternoon fridge prowling and my during dinner prep nibbling. If I had any wisdom to share with you this funky Sunday it would be this, MAKE TIME FOR BREAKFAST.

Because I don’t do mornings I prepare everything I possibly can Sunday and lay out all of my clothes, I also pack my lunch the night before, that way I can just roll out in the morning. My go-to breakfast food is a frittata. I really have Jen Elden to thank for this. She shared a pic of one she made and I was hooked. Prior to making frittatas I did egg white muffins and froze them. But I found thawed in the microwave egg white muffins disgusting and not something I could enjoy every morning. I was basically forcing myself to eat them and gagging them down daily. I don’t freeze my frittatas and because it only makes four slices I don’t feel like I’m tempting the fates with food that has spoiled.

1 ½ cup Liquid Egg Whites	I use these because it’s easier. Today I didn’t have any egg whites and had already visited the store so I use real eggs and separate them. It took me 6 large eggs to make about 1 ¼ cup of egg whites.
1 large egg	You can leave this out if you want
¼ cup cashew milk	I like adding this because it makes it a bit fluffier. But French chefs will tell you, milk doesn’t belong in an omelet.
4 oz Jennie-o Lean turkey sausage (I add fennel, red pepper flakes, and garlic powder to this)	This is where you can get really creative. The potential for different types of flavors is infinite. Some varieties I like are: Zucchini, onion, and mushroom Spinach, tomato, and feta Canadian Bacon, red bell pepper, jalapeño, and taco seasoning Sausage, green pepper, and onion Sausage, jalapeño, mushroom, and onion
4 or 5 mushrooms
¼ cup chopped onions
Pepper, Salt, Garlic Powder
Preheat oven to 350. Cook sausage, adding fennel, red pepper flakes, and garlic powder. Add onions and mushrooms to pan. While sausage is browning, pour egg whites into a measuring cup, add whole egg, ‘milk’, seasonings and whisk until frothy. When sausage is done cooking add whisked eggs to the pan. Cook on stove top for a few minutes and then transfer to oven. Each one cooks differently for me so I just keep a close on eye on it and when the center is set I know it’s done.

I cook these in a 6 inch cast iron skillet I inherited from Tony’s mum. I pack 1/4 of the frittata for breakfast daily and on the fifth day eat an egg white patty from Good Food Made Simple that I buy at Harris Teeter. I eat my frittata on a piece of sprouted grain bread that I toast and either a laughing cow or goat cheese I spread on the toast. This meal is complimented with a protein powder coffee. I use Dymatize ISO 100 Cinnamon Bun and 1/2 cup of cashew milk to make the protein coffee. But I have heard that AfterBurn is also delicious in coffee. The nutritional information for the frittata is pictured on the right.

I hope you found some of this helpful. In the time it took to write it the Steelers managed to pull out a win over the Bengals and two people I have close contact with have texted me to tell me they have the flu. I guess I have to take the good with the bad. Have a great week and get those workouts in!!

A quick note about EZ bread. There are several options out there for you. My preference is the Target Simply Balanced brand. I’m including a breakdown of the three main brands we typically use at BBC below so you can see how they compare to each other. They are all pretty similar but when you are trying to nail those macros sometimes 1 or 2 grams of carbs can make a difference between perfect and almost there.

Ezekiel Bread (34 g)	80 calories .5 g fat 15 carbs 4 g protein
Target Simply Balanced Sprouted Grain Bread (28 g)	60 calories 0 g fat 10 carbs 3 g protein
Trader Joe’s Sprouted Grain Bread (28 g)	70 calories 0 g fat 16 carbs 3 g protein