Wow. It has been a long time. My 16 year old bottomless pit is now 19 and still a bottomless pit. His biological sister and her husband have "joined" our family, in heart if not by law. And my new "son-in-law" is trained in the culinary arts. So cool. I have learned so much and he says he has also learned from me. So that is exciting.
Something else that happened that is both exciting and sucks at the same time is that I discovered some allergies. Sucks because it really really limits what I can eat, but it is exciting because after more illnesses and way more weight gain, I have found that these "allergies" are a large contributing factor. I am allergic to all things soy. xantham gum (I thought I needed to be wheat free so I ate a lot of gluten free products in place of wheat and guess what is in gluten free products as a thickener and to hold the product together... yep, xantham gum. It is also in most processed foods and sauces and condiments). I am also allergic to aspartame and seasonings popular in jerky and curries. And just lately, by accident, we discovered that I may have some kind of issue with olive oil. *sigh* When I go back to my naturopath I will take in the oils I use for cooking and have them all tested for allergies. I am hoping it was just a bad batch or something. But we will find out for sure. I will not rest until I know if my oil is causing me distress!
The other thing I have done is take on my chiropractor's advice and sort of follow a diet he promotes called the Ideal Protein diet. I did my research and I cannot purchase many of their meals. Most of them contain either soy or xantham gum, of course. But the idea of eating fewer than 9 grams of carbs a day is a good one for me. And I lost 16 lbs the first month I was on it. It is hard to only have 9 grams of carbs a day, though and I went off of it for the month of May. Too many celebrations in May this year. And I gained back 14 lbs. But then the first week back on the low carb thing and I dropped 8 lbs again. I have not gotten back to the 9 grams a day, but getting there. Anyway, I do end up taking more supplements but it is really doing a good thing getting rid of my edema and some of the fat too. And I feel much better on lower carbs.
So all of that means my cooking has changed. I still will cook carbohydrates for my husband and bottomless pit, but not many sauces or anything. I make my salad dressings, sauces, and marinades from scratch. When I first started the ideal protein diet I was also still doing an antifungal diet as well and that really limited me because I couldn't use vinegars or anything. Only lemon juice and oils for my dressings and marinades. I have since gone off of that and it has opened up all the different vinegars for me now. But then I thought, others may need very low carbs, so perhaps some of my concoctions should be blogged about. So this is why I have resurrected this blog. Most of the recipes I share now will be geared toward very low or no carb meals.
So if you are interested in low and no carb eating, even if only for the odd meal... follow along! I will be aiming for at least one post a week. :) In the meantime, Ciao for now!!
