So here I am at day 9 of trying to commit to the OMAD lifestyle and abolishing heavy whip as a dietary cornerstone.
I have continued to be fine without the heavy whip, and I am grateful.
I have also learned that my daily coffee consumption is directly related to my heavy whip consumption, and I am down to about four cups a day from double that.
I have lost seven old pounds and am depuffing. Dairy is naturally inflammatory, so dumping it is always a great way to also get rid of body water. I have four old pounds to go before we get into new pounds territory, and last year when I decided to simply maintain my weight, I had eight pounds to go to get to my goal but was already at a healthy weight and great stats. I was in a safe zone to hang for awhile.
So we talked about fasting as a discipline, not as a punishment or as starvation. Starvation is when your body will eat your organs and muscles and has already eaten through its fat stores, and you have no nutrition happening. This isn't that. When you eat after your fast, you eat WELL and with nutrition as the focus.
I use my free Zero App to track my fasts and time between them to work on my eating windows, and this has been working really well.
I do weight myself and have a fancy Renpho scale that tracks everything, and I do believe in using scales. I also measure my chest, waist, hips, thighs, and left bicep as well, because when nothing is happening on the scale, a measuring tape will reveal activity you may feel in your clothes and see in the mirror.
I also use my free FatSecret app to design meals and track my macros. I don't love that it doesn't automatically subtract fiber and sugar alcohols from my daily totals, but it's been the best app I have found so far for my current needs. As a homeschool mom of two middle schoolers, I am doing math daily, so I am capable of subtracting those myself.
All that said, when you are eating keto, you are basically looking for a macronutrient profile of 70-75% healthy fats, 20-25% proteins (naturally fattier ones are best), and no more than 10% carbs (always subtract out any sugar alcohols and fiber). Even fewer total carbs is better, and if you are trying to lose, 20g of total carbs or less total carbs is the magic number.
OMAD is tricky in that you still need lots of calories within that one meal. If you cut too many calories, it will slow your metabolism down making it more difficult to lose weight. And because you are only eating one meal, the meal has to be very calorically and nutritionally dense. Hence, this is why I will sit and design my one meal, and even prep it, so that I am ready to nourish and satisfy my body when it's time to eat.
This is my favorite meal to break my fast:
3 Organic hard boiled eggs seasoned with pink Himalayan salt and pepper
204 cal. 0 carbs 18g protein 12 g fat
A whole medium avocado seasoned with pink Himalayan salt
260 cal. 12 g c/10g fiber. 2g protein. 24g fat
20 raw pecan halves
98 cal. 2 g c/1.4g fiber 1g protein. 10g fat
Nicole's Tomato Basil Soup
145 cal. 8g c/2g fiber/3g sugar. 10g protein. 8g fat
4 pieces of uncured bacon, oven baked
160 cal 0g c 10g protein. 14g fat
1 Nicole's keto no grain banana walnut muffin
242 cal. 10g c/4g fiber/3g sugar. 7g protein 20g fat
1 tbsp Kerrygold Irish butter
100 cal 0g c 0g protein 11g fat
___________________________________________________________________
1,111 cal. 32 c/7g sugar/16g fiber. 48g protein. 99g fat
I will also add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast and a teaspoon of organic flax seed into my soup, which has a base of bone broth, full fat organic unsweeted coconut milk, and is PACKED with spinach.
I may add a bell pepper to scoop up my avocado, and sometimes the eggs, bacon, and avocado will go into lettuce scoops to make "sandwiches" if I have them on hand.
The total net carbs above is 16g, which firmly places me losing, which is my current goal. When I want to stabilize my weight, I may add a meal, increase total calories and macros, and increase my total carbs, but not over 50 or so. It's usually in 30-40g range, and I will still track my macros, especially if the scale starts to move, and then make adjustments.
This is a very filling meal, and it's harder to get fiber into your meals than you may realize. The veggies, and in this case, spinach, don't have as much as you think but do have important nutrients your body needs.
The big winner is for fiber is the avocado, and when I do two meals, I will eat an entire avocado with both meals. One strategy to make the two avocado thing work is to add a second meal in a small eating window--I generally will use a 1-3 hour eating window depending on what is happening during my day--to get the extra calories and fiber in. If I can eat more, I do. It's how long I am fasting, what I am eating, and how often I am eating that tells my body what to burn for fuel and turns off fat burning. Doing a nutritionally dense meal like this is VERY filling.
We could get more technical about hormones being turned on and off by food and what all that means along with what is so great about eggs, bacon, bone broth, and avocados, or why spinach is a miracle when it comes to getting in the right amount of daily greens, but for today, I will just introduce the meal itself.
Simple, easy, filling, nutritionally dense, and very easy to enlarge if you are a bigger person or are still hungry simply by enlarging your portions of any item or all. This is all that fits for me without trying to add a second meal into the small eating window, and usually I am so full, I can't do it.
My FatSecret App, like I mentioned, will not subtract out fiber from total carbs, but my ratios are approximately 75%/20%/5%. It's one of the reasons this is a cornerstone meal for me right now: it's easy.
There is nothing wrong with easy, friends. That is why Slimfast is trying to sell you a keto bar. Please don't buy it and stick with real foods. What we are all really after is healthy, nutritious real foods in their whole state with nutrients that are naturally bioavailable without preservatives. That essentially eliminates anything prepackaged from Slimfast.
The soup and muffins are my own recipes modified out of other recipes, and at some future point, we can get into those too.
May your day be blessed and one meal less, Nicole
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Keen observations from someone who put her pants on backwards
I wanted to thrill you with my very keen observations today, but I discovered at the gym that I had put on my Adidas tights backwards, and then I thought if I am going down this road, I had better start with that information so that you will know that I can be just as deft.
That said, I have a pair of Apple earbuds my husband gave me as a gift, and I love using them at the gym with my Apple watch that has my playlist loaded on it so that I never have the hassle of carrying my enormous iPhone, which is the direct result of my age and needing reading glasses pretty much all the time. They earbuds are noise canceling, and truly, if you see them in my ears, I cannot read lips and cannot hear you.
Unless you happen to be the two ladies talking on the treadmills next to me on the elliptical this morning. Seriously, y'all: if I can hear you over my music with these in, you are being rudely loud. I am not the only one being bothered. I appreciate the desire to visit and share, and that there are no kids around. I am a mom of four, and no one appreciates the ability to visit with a female friend without the constant interruption of children like a homeschool mom, but the whole 'do unto your neighbor as you would yourself' still always applies, even during a conversation on the treadmills between moms.
I had considered asking them if they could talk a little quieter, but much like the speeders and stop sign ignorers I wrote about previously, I tend to think they don't care and would consider me to be the rude one.
I was glad when the 20 minute HIIT session was up.
Which leads to the matter of the hamster-wheel elliptical devotee.
Can I just help someone here?
In my former life before I was home full-time, I was a trainer of trainers, a trainer myself, and a group fitness instructor. I have even spoken on sports nutrition at an international conference in the absence of a scheduled physician. I don't know it all, but I do know at least a little to get to do that, especially when it comes to exercise.
I would love to lead with safety. If you aren't doing something in a safe manner when you are exercising, there is a good chance you will at some point sustain an injury. It's a great reason to hire a personal trainer to show you the ropes and design a program for you that targets your personal goals. It's an investment in yourself.
That said, let's move on to the hamster-wheel thing. This applies to anything, not just the elliptical: if you don't put some resistance on the machine, your body will not be doing enough work to be effective. It can also be very dangerous and cause an injury.
Even if you are a novice, this applies and should simply be adjusted accordingly so that movement is natural, but not easy. If your legs or arms are flying, you have no control over the equipment or yourself. I cannot explain how many times I have had to correct this when teaching instructors and students. When you train instructors, they may occasionally challenge something, but generally, they realize that the one teaching them has more experience, special training, and knowledge, and if something they have been doing needs to be adjusted, they will change it and be thankful for more information to help their clients. With students, you have to generally earn their trust first if they have been doing something the wrong way for a long time. I have never minded spending that time because who and what is more important than the client whom we are trying to serve? But it's also true that the more you incorrectly perform a movement, the harder it is to correct. This is again why you need to hire a great trainer who will make absolutely sure you understand and that they spend time working on your form and really watching you move.
Now that brings me to the hamster-wheel devotee.
I tend to just look away. I am there for my own workout.
There are personal trainers to hire employed where I work out, though I have never seen any of them address unsafe and ineffective things happening with anyone they are not directly working with paying them. I actually think that is a missed opportunity to develop a new client, but I digress.
I am not saying that I never butt in and offer some help. I have many times, but I have realized that it's not entirely appropriate for me to do this. I have no liability policy and don't represent the gym. It's a difficult position to be in trying to decide if I am compelled to help because I know how to or if I am compelled not to because they have someone for that, and it's not me. So with feet flying six feet away from me for years now, I am dying to help but won't. Instead I am writing this hoping to make some change in this world.
Maybe she will read this.
Maybe we can just all share the knowledge and somehow, it will make its way back.
Please: there is no such thing as a sprint without it being unsustainable due to speed or resistance resulting in your body forcing you to slow down and recover. You cannot deeply affect your muscle fibers without the strain. And while the next thing I would advise is to please do everything safely--it should never be so difficult that your movement isn't still smoothly done, even as you overcome the inertia of resistance. Let it be said if your feet are flying even with resistance, you didn't put enough on there. If you are in a class, like a Spin class, and you are told to sprint: 1) if you are new, you need a good solid base first. Give it a few weeks of consistent training, and you will be ready. and 2) there should also be instruction on loading up that flywheel so it's hard to get it going, but it should produce smooth pedal strokes, unattainable effort pretty quickly causing you to back off and need to recover. If that isn't what is going on, I would find a new instructor.
If you are looking for a great trainer for at least some basics, look for someone walking the walk and in great shape. Yep, I just said that. I cannot advise you to trust someone who isn't. Make sure you take classes from great instructors who keep your safety first and pay lots of attention to your form and make the class about you. It isn't their workout, and they should be there to lead the class and help individual students. You rarely ever get a group class that doesn't have a mix of experience levels.
And please, never any hamster-wheel legs.
Let's just not.
Maybe my next creative endeavor should be to create a heavier hamster wheel abolish stereotype and help hamsters everywhere exercise more effectively too.
May your day be blessed with quiet and enough resistance to make you stronger, Nicole
That said, I have a pair of Apple earbuds my husband gave me as a gift, and I love using them at the gym with my Apple watch that has my playlist loaded on it so that I never have the hassle of carrying my enormous iPhone, which is the direct result of my age and needing reading glasses pretty much all the time. They earbuds are noise canceling, and truly, if you see them in my ears, I cannot read lips and cannot hear you.
Unless you happen to be the two ladies talking on the treadmills next to me on the elliptical this morning. Seriously, y'all: if I can hear you over my music with these in, you are being rudely loud. I am not the only one being bothered. I appreciate the desire to visit and share, and that there are no kids around. I am a mom of four, and no one appreciates the ability to visit with a female friend without the constant interruption of children like a homeschool mom, but the whole 'do unto your neighbor as you would yourself' still always applies, even during a conversation on the treadmills between moms.
I had considered asking them if they could talk a little quieter, but much like the speeders and stop sign ignorers I wrote about previously, I tend to think they don't care and would consider me to be the rude one.
I was glad when the 20 minute HIIT session was up.
Which leads to the matter of the hamster-wheel elliptical devotee.
Can I just help someone here?
In my former life before I was home full-time, I was a trainer of trainers, a trainer myself, and a group fitness instructor. I have even spoken on sports nutrition at an international conference in the absence of a scheduled physician. I don't know it all, but I do know at least a little to get to do that, especially when it comes to exercise.
I would love to lead with safety. If you aren't doing something in a safe manner when you are exercising, there is a good chance you will at some point sustain an injury. It's a great reason to hire a personal trainer to show you the ropes and design a program for you that targets your personal goals. It's an investment in yourself.
That said, let's move on to the hamster-wheel thing. This applies to anything, not just the elliptical: if you don't put some resistance on the machine, your body will not be doing enough work to be effective. It can also be very dangerous and cause an injury.
Even if you are a novice, this applies and should simply be adjusted accordingly so that movement is natural, but not easy. If your legs or arms are flying, you have no control over the equipment or yourself. I cannot explain how many times I have had to correct this when teaching instructors and students. When you train instructors, they may occasionally challenge something, but generally, they realize that the one teaching them has more experience, special training, and knowledge, and if something they have been doing needs to be adjusted, they will change it and be thankful for more information to help their clients. With students, you have to generally earn their trust first if they have been doing something the wrong way for a long time. I have never minded spending that time because who and what is more important than the client whom we are trying to serve? But it's also true that the more you incorrectly perform a movement, the harder it is to correct. This is again why you need to hire a great trainer who will make absolutely sure you understand and that they spend time working on your form and really watching you move.
Now that brings me to the hamster-wheel devotee.
I tend to just look away. I am there for my own workout.
There are personal trainers to hire employed where I work out, though I have never seen any of them address unsafe and ineffective things happening with anyone they are not directly working with paying them. I actually think that is a missed opportunity to develop a new client, but I digress.
I am not saying that I never butt in and offer some help. I have many times, but I have realized that it's not entirely appropriate for me to do this. I have no liability policy and don't represent the gym. It's a difficult position to be in trying to decide if I am compelled to help because I know how to or if I am compelled not to because they have someone for that, and it's not me. So with feet flying six feet away from me for years now, I am dying to help but won't. Instead I am writing this hoping to make some change in this world.
Maybe she will read this.
Maybe we can just all share the knowledge and somehow, it will make its way back.
Please: there is no such thing as a sprint without it being unsustainable due to speed or resistance resulting in your body forcing you to slow down and recover. You cannot deeply affect your muscle fibers without the strain. And while the next thing I would advise is to please do everything safely--it should never be so difficult that your movement isn't still smoothly done, even as you overcome the inertia of resistance. Let it be said if your feet are flying even with resistance, you didn't put enough on there. If you are in a class, like a Spin class, and you are told to sprint: 1) if you are new, you need a good solid base first. Give it a few weeks of consistent training, and you will be ready. and 2) there should also be instruction on loading up that flywheel so it's hard to get it going, but it should produce smooth pedal strokes, unattainable effort pretty quickly causing you to back off and need to recover. If that isn't what is going on, I would find a new instructor.
If you are looking for a great trainer for at least some basics, look for someone walking the walk and in great shape. Yep, I just said that. I cannot advise you to trust someone who isn't. Make sure you take classes from great instructors who keep your safety first and pay lots of attention to your form and make the class about you. It isn't their workout, and they should be there to lead the class and help individual students. You rarely ever get a group class that doesn't have a mix of experience levels.
And please, never any hamster-wheel legs.
Let's just not.
Maybe my next creative endeavor should be to create a heavier hamster wheel abolish stereotype and help hamsters everywhere exercise more effectively too.
May your day be blessed with quiet and enough resistance to make you stronger, Nicole
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Fasting, but Not as in Speeding
You may be wondering if whip has broken me this week.
Or you may be wondering why I am not doing laundry instead of trying to engage in the daily discipline of writing because reading about my whip addiction was super lame.
I didn't publish yesterday after sitting down and writing. But it was on something technical, which took me down a rabbit hole. I realized my subject was important but needed quite a bit of time to organize and edit. I hit save and patted myself on the back for sitting down and doing the thing rather than whether I hit publish. That is my goal right now. Just sit down and write.
So it's Thursday, and I am happy to tell you that I am surviving the lack of heavy whipping cream just fine. I am also very thankful that the latest run into HEB with my husband didn't include him asking me if we needed to get whip and that he took me very seriously when I was very honest about how I was feeling physically and knew that I had a problem and needed to stop ingesting this.
It is a very powerful thing to have accountability, and when you are married, habits can be very intertwined. Having real support is important.
Now I also did something else a bit extreme the same day I gave up whip, which was I began fasting and accidentally did an almost 24 hour fast with a 1 hour eating window on Monday, and then I repeated this the last three days. When I do eat, I follow a healthy ketogenic plan that also always includes bone broth and tons of veggies. And no dairy.
Some of you eating the keto way may still be scratching your head over how to do this without dairy. I know those recipes have cheese on everything. It can be done. You just need some ideas. I promise to try to help with this.
One meal a day is also known as OMAD if you do any reading up on it and find the acronym and are wondering what it stands for. OMAD has always seemed a little elusive to me as a dedicated lifestyle, but I have to tell you that after you let a hunger pain wane, it will pass. I am actually having one right now as I am writing this, but I know it will leave eventually.
I was revisited the last few days with memories of when I began the Bone Broth Diet with its mini fast days full of cups of bone broth, which I could have now and probably should, but many times I am just doing stuff and don't think about it. It is an answer to the waves of hunger that is allowed and beneficial to health, but when I break my fasts, I am drinking my keto tomato Florentine soup which is made with bone broth, so I haven't worried too much.
Fasting has a lot of health benefits and is a powerful partner to ketogenic eating for health and weight loss and weight stability. I just want to say that if you go on the journey, it's one without end. You hear about the people who lost all kinds of weight on (any) diet only to gain it back: that is because they went back to eating the same things that got them into that mess to begin with. You can't do that, and it's not the diet's fault if that is what happens. It's YOURS. That is the cold, hard truth, and it's too important not to mention.
Now I do have this one friend whom I have known since the ninth grade, and she has always been and can still eat whatever she wants: she is an exception. And we can all be envious, but most of us can't do what she can, and that's okay.
I have never spent a day doing this that I felt hungry without being able to address it if I choose to in a healthy way. Fasting is not akin to suffering or starvation.
Fasting is very much about discipline, and honestly, if you can control what goes in your mouth (and what comes out!!) whether it's not eating OR what you do eat, that is a big deal. It means you can largely and positively impact your health.
So after three days of successful (if not accidental) OMAD, and my intent for now is to continue. If you have known me a long time, you might know I had 8 lbs left to lose last year when I stabilized and stopped working on dropping. We had a very stressful event happen in our family, and stress affects weight loss. We are in a much better place a year later, not stress free, but back to normal stress levels, and my goal has been to kick this process back off. My husband has a much easier time engaging in all this when I am leading the charge.
If you find yourself facing a major life event causing a lot of out of the ordinary stress, that is a time to dig into your routine, eat as healthy as you can, but not make losing weight the focus. Just stay stable and entrenched in your good habits. Don't start drinking heavy whip again like I did! Or whatever that thing is for you.
My husband and I both slide around on the scale in a window that gets really small--like 2 lbs--when we are very strict and expands to 5-7 pounds when we aren't. That is all water, friends. We don't sweat it. That isn't fat that is coming and going in what feels like a revolving door. Real losing is definitely an intensional process that involves a formula. Point: the scale didn't move the first day, but I dropped three pounds after the second day. I haven't weighed myself today yet and may not until tomorrow, but OMAD paired with keto should begin the loss process again. It really does work. And the first goal is to drop to the bottom of my window and then keep going onto new lost pounds.
So two more things and I will do something about the laundry:
When you do eat--anytime but especially with OMAD--your nutrition needs to be dense, high value foods with the correct macro ratios that look like 70-75% healthy fats, 20-25% protein, and 5% or less total carbohydrates to lose. If you are trying to be stable, you will need to work on how many carbs (total carbs - fiber) you can tolerate without gaining. I use my Fat Secret app to figure out what that one meal will be beforehand so that when it is time to eat, I go right to my fridge and know what I am pulling out. Planning is key, which leads me to my second point.
Your calories will naturally be reduced doing OMAD, but the goal is not really to go low calorie. The goal really is to get in 1200-1500 calories in that one meal, and it may take 1-2 hours to eat to get all of it in. I struggle with this part to get in enough calories, which is why I plan the meal beforehand. What you eat and how often will tell your body what fuel to burn, not just a lack of calories. I will review what I have been eating in a future post. Knowing what to eat to get your macros right takes practice! Use a tool like Fat Secret to help and take the guess work out of this part of the process.
Laundry calls, so may your day be blessed and one meal less, Nicole
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Drive Friendly
In lieu of my lack of decision making over the direction of my content, I have decided today to briefly discuss something that gets my goat and may get yours as well. Or maybe you are guilty.
Let's talk about speed limits or more specifically: SPEEDERS.
This has become a more troublesome personal issue since moving to our current home five years ago. We are in an acreage community with horses but no sidewalks. We have a really long driveway, so you can ride a bike on the driveway, but because of speeders, I have never felt comfortable letting our kids ride around the hood or even on just our road. I am sure you just rolled your eyes and thought, " Helicopter mom much?" But I promise it's worse than you can fathom.
No matter what you think about any posted speed limit, the thing is someone with the power to decide, who is not you, made a choice about that limit. They may have done something like a traffic study or considered what was on that road to determine the limit. The point is that YOU, the driver, don't get to choose what goes on the signs. Anywhere. And no one cares how you feel about it like if you feel that it should be greater because you feel like you should be able to go faster.
Now as far as speed limits go, I tend to go under them, and I have always been this way. Maybe my mom always drove this way as a role model, and I should ask her. I know that she taught me to never allow my gas tank to go under a quarter tank, which I have in turn taught my kids. And kids, if you are reading this and you run out of gas, it won't be because I didn't warn you. She also liked to use the word unsanitary, and I use that word in the same context she always did.
Now, just so we all know that I am not perfect, there was this one time that I did go 32 mph down the main drag in my hood like a year ago, and a neighbor lady walking down her long driveway to her mailbox KNEW I wasn't going 25 mph and took off screaming at me down her driveway. And I saw her, and I knew why. I felt overwhelmingly guilty, and obviously, I slowed down. I even considered going back and explaining to her in my own defense how I generally never speed and apologize, but then I wondered if that would be too weird. It certainly would have set one heck of an example to my kids who were in the car with me and probably would have been the first of its kind maybe in all world history for neighbor introductions. Instead of being really weird, I just went home and slowed down.
Anyway, back to speed limits: what I don't understand are people who just do this.
It's who they are. They don't care, and it doesn't bother them that this bothers me. They think I should speed up and shut up.
And I am not talking about folks who cruise three miles over the limit.
I am talking about the ones who are going 45 mph in a 25 mph for instance in under a quarter mile on a cul de sac street by the time they pass our driveway and are the reason I don't feel like I can let the kids ride there without risking their lives.
I am talking about the ones going 72 mph in a 60 mph zone.
And what I am saying is that these same people will speed regardless of whatever the posted limit is and wherever they are driving.
The reason that I don't understand is not because I generally don't speed, but because this person is making a deliberate choice that is an actual danger to others. It goes beyond a lack of manners. These folks are young and old, driving trucks and cars, male and female. We also have a chronic stop sign running issue that is even scarier in my hood, and despite laying on my horn every time I see it, what I know is I better completely stop myself because the person who runs the sign is usually the same person who is speeding, and they aren't looking for me as evidenced by blowing the sign.
Is this the genesis of generations of bad examples from parents? Is a lead foot genetic?
I don't really know how to find out the answers.
I have considered becoming an anti-speeding activist.
I could go out like Ray Comfort does, identify speeders, and ask them if they feel they are a good driver and then explain the dangers of their behavior and ask if they want to repent.
Alas, I don't think I have time to do this since I am a full time homeschooling mother who needs to go teach a middle school writing class to two of our kids, which leads me to the most obvious rally point to deal with this issue plaguing our society (or at least my hood): teach my own kids not to do this.
Maybe today, we will write a paper on ten reasons why we should obey driving rules and laws. I was looking for a subject.
Our pastor has quipped many times that we are sinners by nature and sinners by choice. So whether scientists ever identify a lead foot gene or we come to a consensus that everyone had one parent who caused the other parent constantly ask them to slow down, which causes kids to have to choose who to model, speeding is a choice, which means it's a behavior that can be changed. And that means I have to start with me and those in my house who will be taught to love Jesus and to show they at least see they have a neighbor who is also going somewhere by slowing down.
Either way, as we say in Texas: drive friendly!
Which means slow, if you aren't from Texas and needed a translation. We are our own country, after all. And if you are from Texas, we have the best of everything. Let's be the best drivers too, which are slower ones. Nonspeeders. Stop sign obeyers .Turn signal users.
I am sure you know where I am going with this, and please, if you are following, don't speed.
May your day be blessed and at least 3 mph under any posted speed limit, Nicole
Let's talk about speed limits or more specifically: SPEEDERS.
This has become a more troublesome personal issue since moving to our current home five years ago. We are in an acreage community with horses but no sidewalks. We have a really long driveway, so you can ride a bike on the driveway, but because of speeders, I have never felt comfortable letting our kids ride around the hood or even on just our road. I am sure you just rolled your eyes and thought, " Helicopter mom much?" But I promise it's worse than you can fathom.
No matter what you think about any posted speed limit, the thing is someone with the power to decide, who is not you, made a choice about that limit. They may have done something like a traffic study or considered what was on that road to determine the limit. The point is that YOU, the driver, don't get to choose what goes on the signs. Anywhere. And no one cares how you feel about it like if you feel that it should be greater because you feel like you should be able to go faster.
Now as far as speed limits go, I tend to go under them, and I have always been this way. Maybe my mom always drove this way as a role model, and I should ask her. I know that she taught me to never allow my gas tank to go under a quarter tank, which I have in turn taught my kids. And kids, if you are reading this and you run out of gas, it won't be because I didn't warn you. She also liked to use the word unsanitary, and I use that word in the same context she always did.
Now, just so we all know that I am not perfect, there was this one time that I did go 32 mph down the main drag in my hood like a year ago, and a neighbor lady walking down her long driveway to her mailbox KNEW I wasn't going 25 mph and took off screaming at me down her driveway. And I saw her, and I knew why. I felt overwhelmingly guilty, and obviously, I slowed down. I even considered going back and explaining to her in my own defense how I generally never speed and apologize, but then I wondered if that would be too weird. It certainly would have set one heck of an example to my kids who were in the car with me and probably would have been the first of its kind maybe in all world history for neighbor introductions. Instead of being really weird, I just went home and slowed down.
Anyway, back to speed limits: what I don't understand are people who just do this.
It's who they are. They don't care, and it doesn't bother them that this bothers me. They think I should speed up and shut up.
And I am not talking about folks who cruise three miles over the limit.
I am talking about the ones who are going 45 mph in a 25 mph for instance in under a quarter mile on a cul de sac street by the time they pass our driveway and are the reason I don't feel like I can let the kids ride there without risking their lives.
I am talking about the ones going 72 mph in a 60 mph zone.
And what I am saying is that these same people will speed regardless of whatever the posted limit is and wherever they are driving.
The reason that I don't understand is not because I generally don't speed, but because this person is making a deliberate choice that is an actual danger to others. It goes beyond a lack of manners. These folks are young and old, driving trucks and cars, male and female. We also have a chronic stop sign running issue that is even scarier in my hood, and despite laying on my horn every time I see it, what I know is I better completely stop myself because the person who runs the sign is usually the same person who is speeding, and they aren't looking for me as evidenced by blowing the sign.
Is this the genesis of generations of bad examples from parents? Is a lead foot genetic?
I don't really know how to find out the answers.
I have considered becoming an anti-speeding activist.
I could go out like Ray Comfort does, identify speeders, and ask them if they feel they are a good driver and then explain the dangers of their behavior and ask if they want to repent.
Alas, I don't think I have time to do this since I am a full time homeschooling mother who needs to go teach a middle school writing class to two of our kids, which leads me to the most obvious rally point to deal with this issue plaguing our society (or at least my hood): teach my own kids not to do this.
Maybe today, we will write a paper on ten reasons why we should obey driving rules and laws. I was looking for a subject.
Our pastor has quipped many times that we are sinners by nature and sinners by choice. So whether scientists ever identify a lead foot gene or we come to a consensus that everyone had one parent who caused the other parent constantly ask them to slow down, which causes kids to have to choose who to model, speeding is a choice, which means it's a behavior that can be changed. And that means I have to start with me and those in my house who will be taught to love Jesus and to show they at least see they have a neighbor who is also going somewhere by slowing down.
Either way, as we say in Texas: drive friendly!
Which means slow, if you aren't from Texas and needed a translation. We are our own country, after all. And if you are from Texas, we have the best of everything. Let's be the best drivers too, which are slower ones. Nonspeeders. Stop sign obeyers .Turn signal users.
I am sure you know where I am going with this, and please, if you are following, don't speed.
May your day be blessed and at least 3 mph under any posted speed limit, Nicole
Monday, October 21, 2019
Hello after Seven Years and the Dangers of Dairy
Hello!! I logged on and saw I had not written a blog post in SEVEN years. I was lucky that my computer had at some prior time recorded the password, or I would have had to start over again and rethink what to title my random thoughts.
I still don't know how to do anything but write. I may need to consult my 13 year old on how to make my blog more visually interesting. I am sorry it's just words for now because there is Instagram. I even have an account. I try to use it, but I am still a little lost.
But you should get proper punctuation and no homophone mix-ups here. I may still use subordinate clauses as if they are complete thoughts, but that is acceptable for bloggers to do this because it's cool to express things that way, or at least forgivable.
Now, I have written, but not here. And not like this. More along the lines of personal rants and cynical remarks. And this may turn out to be that too. We are only in the fourth paragraph.
But this is my last year in my forties, and I am realizing daily that today is all I really have, and my todays seem to be passing even faster as I celebrate birthdays. Maybe someone cares or maybe no one does about what I think, but if I don't begin, we won't know the answer to that.
When I began this blog in 2009, I wasn't sure about content past my daily life, hence its title. And guess what?! I have not evolved!
I am a very ordinary person. But maybe there is something even in the ordinary that could be shared which may be helpful or amusing or absolutely boring to someone else if we explore a little.
Starting with my top five life things going on today, let's see what we can sift out:
I am a homeschool mom in our tenth year.
I am fasting today for at least 20 hours. I am in hour 15 and feeling good.
I have finally restarted my commitment today to no dairy.
I have been eating a ketogenic diet for almost two years and lost more than 40 lbs WITH my husband who did the same.
I own a Newfoundland, which is more interesting than the fact that I also own two Corgis.
So let's do what we do when I work with my daughter to create synecdoches and understatements and choose one: let's look at #3 because its so disturbing.
Dairy is my nemesis. This is not a joke.
The worst is heavy whipping cream added to my coffee. I can easily skip any other form of dairy, but heavy whipping cream has my name written all over it.
It calls to me from the fridge when I make a cup of coffee, hence I have had to completely stop buying it, regardless of my daughter wanting some for her hot chocolate to make it creamier, so that when it calls to me, it's from the HEB fifteen minutes away, and I stand some small chance of using my willpower to drink my coffee black. My husband expresses no similar complaints, which is completely shocking, so I have been walking this particular road a-l-o-n-e. I have already explained to my daughter I am saving her from years of heart ache and regret.
Now, I don't hate black coffee because its coffee. But it's just so much better with Central Market Organics Heavy Whipping Cream.
And maybe a future blog will need to explore my relationship with coffee. But let's just battle one demon at a time, shall we?
I kicked this nasty heavy whip habit and then I fell back into it during a very sad trip about a year ago that involved a great deal of stress and deep grieving. It's important mention this in order to understand the trigger that turned my head and caused my downfall.
All dairy contains natural opioids which attach to the same receptors in our brains as heroin does. Yes, you read that right. Those receptors release dopamine, and it lies to you that you are feeling good. And if you cannot actually feel good, why not just add whip instead and embrace the lie?
An ounce of this in my coffee would give me a temporary fix.
I was hooked again, and it started another long downward spiral that involved me looking into the mirror wondering: who are you??
And that ends today.
Mostly because I am officially out of heavy whip. But to be very honest, I refused to stop drinking it until it was gone. My husband volunteered to help, and he made sure he added some to every cup until it was gone. Thank you, love. You are the most self-sacrificing husband on the planet! He actually is the best, but I am not sure this act is the best illustration.
So here is the thing: my body aches when I include any dairy. It magnifies any sort of negative effects of monthly hormonal shifts. It makes me feel tired. I can't stop at just one tablespoon in one cup. There are usually a handful of them through a typical day for me. These are the ugly truths after the dairy high wears off. I actually feel like garbage when I consume it.
I personally found that kicking all other starchy carbohydrates and sugar was easier than giving up my heavy whip. I really wanted cookies at the beginning of my keto journey and just really, really, really MISSED cookies.
Any cookies.
No cookies allowed in the house for anyone! EVER!
And I missed whip.
Forget the keto flu: that is over in a week! This is multidimensional and haunting.
Eventually, I stopped thinking about and missing cookies, but every time there was coffee, I could hear the pint calling my name wanting to be included in my beverage.
No one really tells you when you eat dairy that you may develop an addiction.
While not all ketogenic diets discourage dairy eating, my cornerstone (The Bone Broth Diet by Dr Kellyann Petrucci) does on the basis of all dairy being naturally inflammatory, which is at the heart of many health issues and excess weight. Dr Petrucci gave a small one sentence mention to the opioid thing, and I think that may have been in one of her other books. But honestly, I have spent almost two years battling this beast and feel all dairy should come with sort of warning label that consumption could be habit forming. Someone needs to blow this dairy situation wide open!
I think I could actually base my entire blog on battling dairy, but I am not sure I am clever enough to come up with a good name for it. You also would miss all the other misadventurous things going on in my life if I dedicated all my time to my dairy addiction and yours, which would be why you would read it religiously, but I digress. I wouldn't want to disappoint you that way.
If you find that you just reviewed all your eating habits after reading this and are so grateful the day I chose to come back is today while I am writing about whip and have found you are adding cheese to everything, you are in good company! There is a real dairy conspiracy going on out there! This battle is not for the weak!
I am also considering starting a dairy addicts support group. This blog post may not be enough for me to work through my own issues, much less for the many in the same boat who will read this and demand a safe space to talk about it.
May your day be blessed and dairy free, friends. Nicole
I still don't know how to do anything but write. I may need to consult my 13 year old on how to make my blog more visually interesting. I am sorry it's just words for now because there is Instagram. I even have an account. I try to use it, but I am still a little lost.
But you should get proper punctuation and no homophone mix-ups here. I may still use subordinate clauses as if they are complete thoughts, but that is acceptable for bloggers to do this because it's cool to express things that way, or at least forgivable.
Now, I have written, but not here. And not like this. More along the lines of personal rants and cynical remarks. And this may turn out to be that too. We are only in the fourth paragraph.
But this is my last year in my forties, and I am realizing daily that today is all I really have, and my todays seem to be passing even faster as I celebrate birthdays. Maybe someone cares or maybe no one does about what I think, but if I don't begin, we won't know the answer to that.
When I began this blog in 2009, I wasn't sure about content past my daily life, hence its title. And guess what?! I have not evolved!
I am a very ordinary person. But maybe there is something even in the ordinary that could be shared which may be helpful or amusing or absolutely boring to someone else if we explore a little.
Starting with my top five life things going on today, let's see what we can sift out:
I am a homeschool mom in our tenth year.
I am fasting today for at least 20 hours. I am in hour 15 and feeling good.
I have finally restarted my commitment today to no dairy.
I have been eating a ketogenic diet for almost two years and lost more than 40 lbs WITH my husband who did the same.
I own a Newfoundland, which is more interesting than the fact that I also own two Corgis.
So let's do what we do when I work with my daughter to create synecdoches and understatements and choose one: let's look at #3 because its so disturbing.
Dairy is my nemesis. This is not a joke.
The worst is heavy whipping cream added to my coffee. I can easily skip any other form of dairy, but heavy whipping cream has my name written all over it.
It calls to me from the fridge when I make a cup of coffee, hence I have had to completely stop buying it, regardless of my daughter wanting some for her hot chocolate to make it creamier, so that when it calls to me, it's from the HEB fifteen minutes away, and I stand some small chance of using my willpower to drink my coffee black. My husband expresses no similar complaints, which is completely shocking, so I have been walking this particular road a-l-o-n-e. I have already explained to my daughter I am saving her from years of heart ache and regret.
Now, I don't hate black coffee because its coffee. But it's just so much better with Central Market Organics Heavy Whipping Cream.
And maybe a future blog will need to explore my relationship with coffee. But let's just battle one demon at a time, shall we?
I kicked this nasty heavy whip habit and then I fell back into it during a very sad trip about a year ago that involved a great deal of stress and deep grieving. It's important mention this in order to understand the trigger that turned my head and caused my downfall.
All dairy contains natural opioids which attach to the same receptors in our brains as heroin does. Yes, you read that right. Those receptors release dopamine, and it lies to you that you are feeling good. And if you cannot actually feel good, why not just add whip instead and embrace the lie?
An ounce of this in my coffee would give me a temporary fix.
I was hooked again, and it started another long downward spiral that involved me looking into the mirror wondering: who are you??
And that ends today.
Mostly because I am officially out of heavy whip. But to be very honest, I refused to stop drinking it until it was gone. My husband volunteered to help, and he made sure he added some to every cup until it was gone. Thank you, love. You are the most self-sacrificing husband on the planet! He actually is the best, but I am not sure this act is the best illustration.
So here is the thing: my body aches when I include any dairy. It magnifies any sort of negative effects of monthly hormonal shifts. It makes me feel tired. I can't stop at just one tablespoon in one cup. There are usually a handful of them through a typical day for me. These are the ugly truths after the dairy high wears off. I actually feel like garbage when I consume it.
I personally found that kicking all other starchy carbohydrates and sugar was easier than giving up my heavy whip. I really wanted cookies at the beginning of my keto journey and just really, really, really MISSED cookies.
Any cookies.
No cookies allowed in the house for anyone! EVER!
And I missed whip.
Forget the keto flu: that is over in a week! This is multidimensional and haunting.
Eventually, I stopped thinking about and missing cookies, but every time there was coffee, I could hear the pint calling my name wanting to be included in my beverage.
No one really tells you when you eat dairy that you may develop an addiction.
While not all ketogenic diets discourage dairy eating, my cornerstone (The Bone Broth Diet by Dr Kellyann Petrucci) does on the basis of all dairy being naturally inflammatory, which is at the heart of many health issues and excess weight. Dr Petrucci gave a small one sentence mention to the opioid thing, and I think that may have been in one of her other books. But honestly, I have spent almost two years battling this beast and feel all dairy should come with sort of warning label that consumption could be habit forming. Someone needs to blow this dairy situation wide open!
I think I could actually base my entire blog on battling dairy, but I am not sure I am clever enough to come up with a good name for it. You also would miss all the other misadventurous things going on in my life if I dedicated all my time to my dairy addiction and yours, which would be why you would read it religiously, but I digress. I wouldn't want to disappoint you that way.
If you find that you just reviewed all your eating habits after reading this and are so grateful the day I chose to come back is today while I am writing about whip and have found you are adding cheese to everything, you are in good company! There is a real dairy conspiracy going on out there! This battle is not for the weak!
I am also considering starting a dairy addicts support group. This blog post may not be enough for me to work through my own issues, much less for the many in the same boat who will read this and demand a safe space to talk about it.
May your day be blessed and dairy free, friends. Nicole
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