Intermittant Sanity

When I first began serious lowcarb -- devoid of much info about nutrition or what ought to qualify as 'real food' vs. 'that will probably kill you too' but at least it was low on carbohydrates -- I wanted to try Intermittant Fasting.

I had protein requirements, at the time. As I mentioned in Don't Have A Cow, Man!, they were pretty significant. And as I sadly concluded in IF only I could do IF and still get enough protein, it just wasn't working for me trying to do "induction" and at the same time get "enough" nutrients and at the same time only eat once a day.

Over the last few years I've been through so many variants I'm totally losing track. High protein! High fat! Carb Cycling! VLC! ZC! LC with fruit! with grains! with legumes! Go Team Go!

All of these work for people. Nearly every imaginable variant of eating plan appears to be working for at least someone, and often many someones, and often those someones have lost a LOT of weight and have kept it off a long time and their health markers are great -- so who can argue with success?

Pesto Salad v1.0

When finished, it looks attractively like glop.
Tastes good, though.

If it's fast and tasty, it's my kind o' food.

This is just a simple thing I threw together that I thought was yummy. Kid doesn't like pesto. I have been eating once a day separately from her so it's a chance for me to eat the things I like that she doesn't (read: that's nearly everything).

dairy-free, gluten-free, high-protein, high-fat

6 hard boiled eggs
6oz cooked chicken breast, diced (you could probably use shrimp if you prefer)
6 scallions, diced
7 oz pesto
1 small jalapeno pepper, diced
~1/3 large red bell pepper, diced

Mix it together. Eat it. This is cooking at my level for sure!.

Servings:
normal world: 6
my normal world: 4

Click the numbers image to pop up one large enough to read.

Food versus "Food" for Breakfast

Low-carb seems pretty reasonable, healthy and do-able until you are wrangling with a 14 year old 8 minutes before she's got to be out the door to school.

Much of the time I make her a scramble, or an omelette. She doesn't like eggs much and tends to not eat more than a bite, sadly, to make me feel better. Sometimes I make grilled sliced kosher dogs or gourmet sausages (the apple-gouda or jalapeno-jack or chili or cheddar types). She doesn't really like that either. (Had I put them in a bready bun with ketchup and mustard, ok, but sliced and grilled, no.)

Cooking Ahead

I felt like such a whiner after my last post. I nearly deleted it but it had already hit RSS and feedburner so I didn't bother. Many thanks to the commenters for being so kind and supportive. Actually, I have to say the lowcarb community is probably the most friendly genre of the several I've been in online over the last 17 years!

F O O D F O O D F O O D

So after thinking about it I decided the first and primary problem is that if I get lazy or work too much so I'm not prepared, I end up running out of food that is decent to eat or that doesn't take eons. Worse, it only takes going without food for awhile or even worse eating badly, to ensure I have no energy for a major cooking job anyway. I know what I can do, should do, I know a whole list of steps that are ideal for making this sort of thing easier, but following them is another story!

The Cook-Ahead Plan: