I've decided that my scale is conspiring against me.  You see, all week my numbers were way down.  Last Thursday I was down 5 lbs.  Then comes "official" weigh in day, and my weight jumps back up.  I believe I heard my scale maliciously giggling as I stepped upon it.

So, only a 1 lb official loss this week.  I'm actually feeling really bloated and rather ill today, so that might have something to do with it.  I'm slightly worried about swine flu symptoms.  I pretty much have all the symptoms, but I really don't think I feel THAT bad.  Then again, I'm very good at thinking I'm not really feeling "that" bad then ending up in the hospital over something or another.    I'm trying to be better about that sort of thing.  I'll see how I feel in the morning, but I might be dialing into work.

Only a couple more weeks until my next doctor's appointment.  I'm really interested to see how my labs turn out.

We bought a Wii last night, and I've been pretty much enamored with it ever since.  Of course, I bought the Wii Fit Plus with the balance board, as a main goal of the purchase was to get my rear in gear as far as exercising goes.  I've had 3 back surgeries in the past 10 years, and my last bout of physical therapy included a lot of work with a balance board.  My therapist said that the very act of balancing helps strengthen the otherwise difficult to work back muscles.  The Wii seemed like a good solution for me to help strengthen my back and increase my general activity level.

The game came with Wii Sports, and we also purchased Wii Sports Resort.  We have played through most of the mini-games in both packages, and I have to say they are really fun.  My favorite so far is probably table tennis, and I was quite surprised by how well I did with basketball.  The great thing is that while you are having all sorts of fun with these games, I believe you are also getting a decent workout.  I could definitely feel the muscles in my arms protesting.

After a short break and some lunch, I whipped out my Wii Fit Plus.  It was quite distressing to see my little persona get alarmingly fat after the body test.  This basically measures your weight, and you input your height and age, then it calculates your BMI.  I don't take much stock in the BMI measurement, and even the manual tells you not to distress if you're muscular and the BMI indicates you're fat.  Of course, I am fat and hardly muscular, so the fat little bobblehead representation of myself is unfortunately fairly accurate.

The initial balance tests indicated that my balance pretty much stinks.  I lean to the left and back and its a major effort for me to not do it.  I have some nerve damage in my right leg from my initial back surgery (my sciatic nerve was damaged pretty badly before the surgery and I never recovered all of the feeling in that leg), which causes that leg some discomfort.  I'm sure that is why I lean to the left, even though I don't think I have any major strength issues with the leg. 

I went though all of the balance games at least once just to see how I fared.  About the only one I did well on was the one where you sit still for as long as possible.  I'm a real pro at sitting still!  The most difficult were the skiing and snow boarding games.  It was a little frustrating just how bad I was, but I look forward to improving.

I did a few of the aerobic exercises.  Let me just say that I'm thankful that Better Half was napping during the hula hoop game, because I'm sure I looked utterly ridiculous, but I did manage to at least get 2 stars!  The basic step routine was fairly easy for me to do, and I could definitely feel the hips getting a workout there.  The game I fared best on was the rhythmic marching game.  This brought back fond memories of my high school marching band experience.  It was the only game where I managed to unlock the advanced level.  I was always good at marching.

The Wii Fit program reported that I burned approximately 160 calories today.  I figure that combined with the sports games gave me more exercise than I've had in a long while.  All while having a relatively good time!

It will be interesting to see how this improves my diet success and blood sugar numbers.

Nothing too thrilling to report this week.  I didn't lose any weight, didn't gain any weight.  I've had a bit of a cold and my blood sugars have been a little demented, higher after some meals then rebounding to near hypoglycemic levels (70s).

I did make an excellent Asian inspired peanut butter beef stir fry and also made some pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes.  I'll try to get the recipes up some time this week.

In the mean time, I'll continue to stay the course...

Be careful of pants that no longer fit and want to slide down to your ankles while walking in public!

Okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but I had to keep tugging my pants back up while walking to lunch the other day.  When I got home, I finally became brave enough to pull out the pants in my closet that are a size lower, and lo and behold they fit!  And they fit nicely, not tight or anything, even the ones with buttons and zippers in lieu of stretchy elastic. 

Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm forced to purchase new clothes due to my shrinking waistline. :)

I think my mom came up with this recipe because she had a bunch of mushrooms she needed to use before they went bad.  This probably isn't her exact recipe but is fairly close (I lost the email she sent with the recipe when my computer died).  My mom and I are not very good at measuring when we come up with recipes.  We generally throw in a little of this, a bunch of that, a smidge of this, etc.  It's been an effort for me to actually pay attention to how much of everything I throw into a new dish, both for the sake of sharing my recipes and also logging them accurately into my diet software. 

This soup was nice and hearty and made a very filling meal all by itself.  I estimated it at 4 servings, which turned out to be pretty nice sized bowls.  If you are only eating it as a side to a meal, you should divide it into smaller portions.

Mom's Mushroom Clam Chowder
1/2 small onion
1 stalk of celery
4 oz mushrooms (I used 1/2 portabella and 1/2 button)
2 cloves of garlic
4 slices bacon
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup clam juice (1 bottle was 1 cup)
2 10z cans of clams (I used 1 can chopped and 1 can whole baby clams)
2 tsp celery salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg or allspice (Mom's secret ingredient)
pinch of cayenne pepper
low carb thickener of choice (guar gum, xanthum gum, Thicken Thin-Not Starch)

1) Chop onions, celery and mushrooms into chunks.  The size of the chunks is really up to you.  I diced my celery and onions fairly fine and left the mushrooms a bit chunkier.
2) Dice garlic.
2) Slice bacon into chunks.
3) Toss bacon into the bottom of your soup pot and fry until crisp.  Remove with a slotted spoon to a paper towel.
4) Toss the celery, onions and mushrooms into the pot and saute in the bacon fat. 
5) Once veggies are soft, toss the garlic in and cook for a few minutes.
6) Add cream, clam juice, spices and bacon.  Stir and heat on medium heat.
7) Once the soup is warm, use thickener of choice to thicken the soup.  The best way to do this is to add a little bit of thickener at a time (I put mine in a salt shaker), whisk and wait a minute.  Repeat until the soup is the desired thickness.  It's best to be patient adding the thickener, because if you add too much it'll become gummy and nasty.
8) Simmer for about a 1/2 hour then serve and enjoy.

Nutrition Information per serving (as calculated by DietPower):
Assuming 4 servings:
Calories 413, Carbohydrates 7.79 g (Fiber 1.72 g, Sugars 1.15 g), Fat 37.2 g (Saturated 21.7 g, Polyunsaturated 1.83 g, Monounsaturated 11.1 g, Trans 0 g), Protein 14.9 g, Cholesterol 157 mg, Sodium 400 mg, Potassium 526 mg

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I really decided to take control of my health again.  I've had a few slips along the way, but nothing disastrous that I couldn't recover from.  I've learned so much that in many ways I feel completely overwhelmed.  I went from believing that taking insulin meant that I was doomed and my life would be over to seriously considering asking my doctor to start using it.  I know I want to stop taking Januvia.  Too many studies are coming out linking it to complications, such as permanent sinusitis (I already had problems there and they've since become worse), pancreatitis (I've had a couple bouts of that), and CANCER!  If that doesn't make you want to run for the hills gibbering, I don't know what will.  I stopped taking the Actos my doctor had prescribed a while back, since I've since learned it reduces blood sugar by making even more fat cells to push the glucose into.  Yuck.  I really don't need my insulin to be even more efficient at storing fat--it does a good enough job at that as it is.

Some of the sites that have really helped me the last couple months are Blood Sugar 101 (and her associated Diabetes Update Blog), Dr. Bernstein's book and website, the Eades' website and blogs,  Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low-Carb site (especially the forums), as well as The Bionic Broad's Low-Carb blog.

As for the weekly update:  I only lost 1 lb this week, but I'm not stressing about it.  Aunt Flo is visiting, which always causes me to gain a few pounds anyway.  I was actually able to stay off the scale most of the week, so I didn't see any of the daily fluctuations to know if I was trending up or down.  I have lost 2 inches on my waist and hips in the last 2 weeks!  I took my A1C yesterday, and it came in at a 7.0%.  That's far from my goal, but a drop of 1% in 1 month seems like great progress.  My biggest issue with blood sugar control remains Dawn Phenomenon.  I just can't predict what will happen with my morning blood sugars, and it's really frustrating.

On another note, related to the pcos--my periods seem to have normalized.  I had started right before I began this blog and have started exactly each 4 weeks since.  Granted, 3 normal periods in 2 months is not a large number of samples, but I was going 4-5 months between periods before.  I had never heard of a connection between regular menstruation and blood sugar control, but I'm going to start researching it now.  Pcos has been linked to insulin resistance, but it would be wonderful to learn that regulating my blood sugar might also help regulate my female issues.

I have an appointment with my doctor early next month, so hopefully I will go in armed with enough information to get what I want.

I do  have several new recipes to post in the next few days, so keep checking back!

I apologize for the belated week 7 results.  Both of my main computers are down right now due to hard drive failures (strange that both pcs have the same problem at the same time--I think it's gremlins or I'm emanating a weird electromagnetic field of some sort).  I also had jury duty this week so was in court the last 3 days.  Thankfully, the courthouse had a decent salad bar, so I was able to keep on track with my diet for the most part (the dressings were a little higher than I like but all in all not bad).

Anyway, for week 7 I lost 3 lbs!  Yay!  Unfortunately, I ran out of egg protein powder, so I have been off the Eades' plan for a couple of days.  I know it will work now, so I'm going to buy much more powder and restart on Monday (just to align it to my weekly updates). 

Next week, I will be doing a home A1C test again.  All I have to say is it BETTER be better! 

No new recipes for now.  The only new thing that I tried was an Asian slow cooker beef recipe that really turned out horribly.  My mom did mention that she made my crab cake recipe with 2 cans of tuna and it turned out really well (I think she said she added some diced celery and lemon juice as well).  I might be trying that myself for dinner.

For those who have asked how the egg protein powder is working out with the Eades' 6 Week Cure Diet:  It is working wonderfully!

I am not having any big blood sugar spikes from the shakes at all.  In fact, I actually entered 'hypo' range yesterday with a reading of 70!  This was my reading right before eating lunch, so I didn't have to worry about it dropping too low right then, but it's definitely something to keep my eye on.

My weight was down 5 lbs yesterday morning, but it doesn't count until Monday. It is definitely encouraging though.  I didn't weigh myself today (my morning routine is non-existent on the weekends, which includes hopping on the scale right before my shower).

I am still having terrible trouble with Dawn Phenomenon.  I'm going to ask my doctor about possibly switching to a time release Glucophage that I can take before bed to help cover the morning hours.

The question now is, what the heck am I going to do with this jumbo container of whey protein powder I have!?

I was craving chicken nuggets and came up with this recipe.  It's nothing extraordinary and others have probably come up with similar recipes.  However, they turned out pretty good, were very filling and satisfied my craving.

Low Carb Chicken Nuggets
1 package chicken tenders (approx 1 lb)
2 eggs
1 cup almond flour (I used Bob's Redmill)
3 tbs herbs and spices (I used a garlic & onion blend)

1) Slightly beat eggs in a decent sized bowl (I used a big square shaped tupperware container).
2) Mix together almond flour, herbs and spices in a big mixing bowl.
3) Rinse tenders under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.
4) Cut tenders into nugget sized chunks.
-- Do the following 2 steps in a few batches
5) Dredge the nuggets in the egg.
6) Throw the dredged nuggets in the almond flour mixture and toss until the nuggets are evenly coated.
7) Place coated nuggets into a big Ziploc bag and put in the refigerator for at least an hour.
8) When ready to fry, heat the oil to about 350 degrees.  You can either deep fry or pan fry, just until the centers are no longer pink.  It only take a few minutes.  To test, fish the biggest chunk out of the oil and cut into it.

This made about 4 10 piece servings.  When I first made them, I made an initial batch immediately and put the rest in the refrigerator.  While the first batch turned out decent, the ones that I made later from the refrigerated nuggets were much better.  I used peanut oil and deep fried them.  I'm beginning to learn that peanut oil is not a great oil to use (high O6 content), but I'm not sure what to use as an adequate O3 substitute yet.

I used ranch dressing as a dipping sauce.  Next time I'm going to make a lemon pepper version.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll have to come up with my own lemon pepper spice mixture, because all of the commercial brands I've seen are loaded with sugar!


The nutritional information is a rough estimate of using 1/2 the egg mixture and 1/2 the almond mixture, not including the oil used for frying:
Calories 189, Carbohydrates 3.1 (Fiber 1.5 g, Sugars .596 g), Fat 8.74 g, Protein 26.6 g.