What is the science behind 5:2?

Since I learned my valuable lesson, I've been thinking about tweaking my 5:2 diet regimen.  My fast days are on Wednesday and Saturday.  (I know!   Saturday you say?   yes.  I get to sleep late, we generally stay in and my kids are often at my mom's so I go to bed early and feel like I'm only fasting for half the time)  However, for the next couple of weeks, I have things to do on my fasting Saturdays as well as I'll be out of town for two separate weeks Wed - Sun which covers both of my fasting days!

What's a girl to do?  Of course this got me to (over)thinking my upcoming dilemma.  What is it exactly about the 5:2?   Is it simply calories in vs calories out?   Is it the act of fasting that is burning the extra fat?   Is it the act of shocking the system?   What makes this WOE work?  

Here is my thinking.  My TDEE is 1427.  So my total caloric intake for the week including my two fast days is 1427 * 5 = 7135 + 400 + 400 = 7935.  Because of my TDEE, my fast days are around 350 but I even up to 400.    So now, let's take the weekly caloric intake of 7935 / 7 which gives me 1133 calories a day.  If I only allow myself 1133 calories a day and do not fast, will I still loose weight?   This would be the calories in vs calories out method of thinking.

With that way of thinking though, I'm not actually fasting, so I'm not sure it would work.  Do I need to do the 1133 calories in the 16:8 window so that my body has time to burn all that extra fat?

I tried to discuss this with my husband, but he believes that it is shocking the system that is working in our favor so he doesn't think much of the calories in / calories out method.

Certainly I do not want to count calories every day for the rest of my life which is why 16:8 doesn't overly appeal to me.  16:8 is your TDEE - 20%.  I could however do it for a couple weeks because of my upcoming Saturdays.  As for my upcoming trips, I'll have to swap my days for Tues and then Mon.  My trips are only a week apart, so this could get tricky but I do not want to worry about what I'm eating while I'm on vacation.

If anyone can make the 5:2 diet complicated, it would be me.

To count or not to count on feast days?

To count on feast days or not to count.  That is the question.

The first week I started on 5:2 I wasn't watching what I was eating on my feast days and still lost weight.  Then in my second week, I started counting on feast days too just to have an idea of the calories I was taking in.  While I did keep track, I wasn't overly strict about it.

While this was going on I was also a part of a 5:2 group on facebook that consists of 12K people at the moment.  There is much debate on where one should count calories on feast days.  So, like any normal person who wants to stuff their face with as much food as possible while still loosing weight, I gave up the counting.  See if you can see where I did this in my chart below:

Did you see that little blip over on the right side?   Yep...that is the week that I stopped keeping track of my calories on feast days.  Probably, you can also notice when I started keeping track again.

What did this tell me?   Well, it tells me, that for me personally, I need to keep track obviously.  I don't think that I go crazy on feast days, but what I do when I'm keeping track is that I'll swap stuff out.  For example, if I feel like a glass of wine after dinner, I might forgo the pasta and have extra broccoli.

So my little experiment set me back 2 weeks in my weight loss, but I learned a valuable lesson.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

SOUP!   I love soup but I really love cream soup which is one of the reasons that I stuck with Atkins for so long.  Cream soups and bacon...yeah Atkins!

Alas, at some point Atkins stopped working for me and I've switched to 5:2 with good success, but I'm having to relearn how to cook some of my favorite dishes with lower calorie options.

In my quest for lower calories I was lamenting my love of cream soups.  What can I substitute for HWC (heavy whipping cream)?  Plain yogurt or sour cream or almond milk?     I did some experimenting and while sour cream works ok it isn't really "low cal".  Yogurt sort of separated with the heat and almond milk just didn't work.  While I really like almond milk, I don't think it works in soups but I do use the heck out of it in coffee.

Enter fat free half and half.  Who even knew there was such a thing????    Here is my Cream of Mushroom soup recipe which has 2 cups per service and 133 calories.



Cream of Mushroom Soup:

Chicken Broth
Yellow Onion
Fat Free Half and Half
Mushrooms

Cooking for an army?   Yep!   That's me.  My freezer is my friend in that I made a giant pot of this and froze individual bags so that I can just defrost one on a fast day.

The easy way:   Chop the onion and heat it with the chicken broth.  Throw in some chopped mushrooms.  Cook until tasty and then pour in the half and half until heated.  That's it.

The harder way to make this soup:  I pour the soup into a blender to really mix it up.  Be careful if you do this when it is hot as your blender is likely to explode via the top from the heat build up.  I save a little chicken broth and put that in the blender with the chopped mushrooms then pour that into the broth / onion mixture that is already heating.

When I put it into the bowl I put a few chopped green onion tops just to add some color.  Honestly, the mushrooms combined with the cream make this soup an unappealing grey color but it is very tasty.

Play around with it and let me know how you liked it and what spin you put on it to make it your own.
Calorie Breakdown:

Diet Coke Poke Cake 232 Calories

Admittedly, I don't spend much time on pinterest.  However(!) several of my good friends do and they post most of their pins to facebook.  While I'm quickly scrolling down my news feed to find out what's going on in the realm of my facebook friends, I see all these delicious things that grab my eye.  One of them happened to be a poke cake.  The original recipe wasn't appetizing to me as it called for banana jello.  Blech!   But an idea was born.

Chocolate Diet Coke with Butterscotch Pudding Poke Cake

Ingredients:

• Diet coke (or diet sprite if you're using yellow or white cake mix)
• Cake Mix
• Instant Pudding (careful they aren't kidding!)
• Cool Whip

Now you can play around with different variations in as far as flavors but you can also check nutrition labels and have this for way less calories than you might think.

My cake part is a diet coke cake (DCC), so I used no eggs and no oil.  If you are unfamiliar with a diet coke cake, it is just cake mix and a can of diet coke mixed together.  I know you will be skeptical but trust me.  Just dry cake mix and diet coke.  (Those who are already familiar with the DCC are shaking their heads in agreement)

Pour into a baking pan and follow the baking directions on the box based on your pan.   I used a 13 x 9 pan and instead of greasing it as suggested, I just sprayed some non calorie spray.  

Once your cake is done (toothpick comes out clean) then it is time to take it out and poke some holes.  You can use anything the size of a wooden spoon, ie you want your holes to be rather large so the pudding can get in there.  I used the end of a Sharpie.  (Yes, I did wash it before I did this)

The DCC is amazing by itself but let's take it a step further and add pudding after it is baked!  Now here is where I messed up by my messup will be a learning experience for you.   I made the instant pudding and waited 2 minutes for it to set.  Now, the box says 5 minutes so I figured I was safe with 2.5 minutes but after 1 minute I turned around and had PUDDING!  So here is my hint to you, use a little more milk or watch that sucker like a hawk.  You don't want to pour it on while it is just pure liquid but full fledge pudding won't drip into the holes so you want a nice middle ground.

Spread the pudding around evenly and refrigerate until set.  Then just top with cool whip and wallah!

Here is the nutritional breakdown and how I got it down to 232 calories per slice.  The cake is so moist and delicious and really hits the spot for a sweet craving.  Also, as you can see, it is extremely easy to make.

Tea-Smoked Chicken and Fish

Smoked meat with tea?   Come on!   I saw this recipe with smoked shrimp and thought more about it.  We have plenty of tea in my house so the girls and I set to work with a little help from Kitten.

We decided on Organic Golden Sunrise by Heavenly Tea.  The loose tea leaves are beautiful colors and smell slightly sweet and definite hints of floral tones.  (I know...I sound like once of those wine people!)

The smoking pouch.  1/4 Cup of each:   raw rice, brown sugar (I used a brown sugar blend because that's all I had in the house) and the loose tea of course.  Double the tin foil and dump it all in the middle and mix it up with your hands.  My kids LOVED this part.   :)   Then just lightly fold it.  Remember you want the smoke to come out.

Here is our packet (prior to mixing):

The packet goes directly on the fire, underneath the grate whether you are using a gas grill or a charcoal grill.  Put the items to be smoked off to the other side as you want them infused with the delicate smoke flavor and not right above the burning packet.

We did chicken thighs and fish.   There was a definite smoke flavor but it was delicate and had a flavor that you couldn't quite place.  Both kids and the Hubby loved it.  The plated version:

This whole meal with the broccoli was 260 calories.  I think this is a great way to infuse some extra flavor into chicken or fish without the added calories of a marinade or sauce.

We'll be Tea-Smoking much more in the future.

Feast Day - Lime Pickle and Sriracha Butter OH MY!

Today is a feast day for me, so I ate something that I've been wanting to eat.  Popcorn with butter.  Now, I do generally have a bowl of air popped popcorn (4 tbsp for 160 calories) on fast days, but I popped this batch in OIL and I made a bowl of melted butter so I could dip each individual piece of popcorn.  Divine!

My family says that my taste buds are broken as I can't taste spiciness from sriracha unfortunately.  I have googled this phenomenon and it seems that I have just sort of built up my tolerance.  Unfortunate for me.  Getting back to my popcorn butter...today I added some lime pickle and some sriracha to the butter.

This was FABULOUS!  Alas, I still couldn't taste the heat.

CauliFried Rice - 106 without chicken or 176 with chicken

While doing Atkins I made a lot of CauliFried rice.  My kids LOVE it which is a plus.  Surprisingly, if I keep the meat to a minimum this recipe works well for the 5:2 as well.

Start with some riced cauliflower (you can grate it or throw it in the chopper then toss it in the  microwave for a few minutes)
green onion
soy sauce
garlic
eggbeaters (optional)

You can add meat or other veggies as you like.  I also add a little cilantro.

Chop up the garlic and green onion.  I use several cloves (around 6) and several stalks of green onion (4).  Normally I'd saute' this with olive oil but since I'm keeping calories to a minimum I just put a tbsp of soy sauce in the hot pan and used that to saute'.

Once the onion and garlic have cooked a bit I add in 3 tbsp of eggbeaters.  Once the egg is cooked, I add the riced cauliflower and a few more tbsp of soy sauce.  Saute' everything for a few minutes stirring often so that the cauliflower doesn't steam and get mushy.

You can add in chicken or pork or shrimp or whatever protein you want.  Just be sure to count your calories.

I saved half the riced cauliflower (before putting in the microwave) for a different meal and made the caulifried rice with half a head of cauliflower.  I ate half of that...so a forth of a head of cauliflower. Here is the calorie breakdown as taken from myfitnesspal.  Note:  image above includes chicken which was 70 calories in addition to the ingredients below.

Getting back with it

I've been away from blogging (at least out in the open) for a while.  I was turned off when my shrimp recipe started making the rounds on facebook but all the people trying to get likes and shares.  They were sharing my shrimp recipe as their own!   Now I don't get anything from posting on this blog and it annoyed me that they didn't give credit so I just made all my posts after that "private".

What have I been up to in the mean time?   You didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway.  After traveling a lot during the first half of the year I seemed to have put on about 10 lbs.  YIKES!   Also, in Jan I was put on Synthroid for a thyroid deficiency and a side effect of that is weight gain.  Between the Synthroid and the traveling (ie not doing low-carb when not home) I put on 10 lbs.

Another problem I was having was that when I would go off of Atkins I'd swell something fierce.  To me, I looked almost unrecognizable.  It was awful.  Not like running over a kitten awful, but proportionally awful for me.   The carbs were shocking my system and I wasn't sure how to get around it as for me personally, being away from home made low-carbing way harder.

In July we traveled to London where I read about the 5:2 diet   We got back and I figured I'd give it a try.  The premise is that you fast for two days and eat normally for 5 days.  The two days do not have to be consecutive.    The fast days are not truly fasting as you are allowed 500 calories.  So, I could eat carbs and potentially loose weight?   Would this stop my swelling?   Would the change in diet shock my system and could I see the scale go down?  

What I was doing wasn't working so I thought I'd give it a try.  Told Hubby about it and he thought I was nuts, but he had gained 20 lbs since the end of last year so he was game to try too.

I'm only telling you all of this in case you follow my blog looking for low-carb recipes.  I'm now watching calories only.

Having been doing 5:2 way of eating since August 8th 2013, I have done 6 fasts over 2.5 weeks and have lost about 3 lbs.  I'm ok with slowly loosing as long as the scale is moving in the downward direction.  

Who Thought up Mother's Day?

I try to be a positive person.  My husband is a negative nelly and generally I have a different view than him but IMO Mother's Day sucks!   It sucks the big one!

I'm a home body and Mother's Day just sets everyone up for failure.  It is hyped up and touted and everyone goes crazy promoting it and yet....it is just another day.

• Do I do what I want to do or do I do what my mom wants to do?   
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• Do I  do what I want to do or do I do what my kids want me to do?   
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• Do I do what I want to do or do I do what my husband wants me to do?   
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• Do I do what I want to do or do I do what society thinks I should do?

I like my life so frankly, I'd be happy to just hang around the house and knit or play the wii with the kids or watch a movie with the family while I'm knitting.  The pressure to make this day great really gets to me.  Today I woke up at 6:20 and hubby slept late so I'm already mad at him.  Unreasonably.

What do I do once I'm up?  I wait and wait and wait and no one can bring me breakfast in bed because I was the first one up and no one thinks to cook me breakfast.  So what do I do?   I cook bacon for an hour because I'm freaking Starving!  Can't just cook bacon for myself...I have to cook it for everyone.

Hubby gets up after sleeping in and sits at his computer playing video games....while I'm cooking bacon.  I'm in the process of cooking everyone breakfast and start the 7 loads of laundry I have to do today.  While the laundry is laundrying, I empty the dishwasher.  NOW he says "Oh, they are clean?  I'll get to them".

So I was up early, fed the cats, cooked everyone breakfast, did the laundry, emptied the dishwasher, prepared tonights dinner last night and did side dishes while my husband grilled.

Called my mom to wish her a great day and my grandmother answers.  I chat with her and say "I'd wish you a happy mother's day but you aren't my mother....but I hope you have a good day too" and then I get a lecture from her about how she created my mother ........

Just a regular day for me, however it is MOTHER'S DAY and I feel like I wasn't pampered like the ads say I should be.  Why should I be pampered for doing what I choose to do?   I love being a mom.  The reason is because Hallmark made this a *od Damed holiday to sell cards and now there is so much pressure that no one can live up to that!

My 7 year old harassed the shit out of my husband until he ordered me flowers.  She circled what she wanted to get me on a post card and she left him sticky notes all over the house...daily.  A beautiful bouquet of flowers showed up Friday because my husband was strong armed by the 7 year old!

I'm a crappy mother because I didn't go out to lunch with my family, I'm a crappy wife because...well I don't know...but I'm sure there is a reason and I'm a crappy daughter because I didn't go to my mom's house to deliver her presents.

Great holiday.  F U Hallmark or whoever invented this holiday.

Who taught her how to read?

The 7 year old has been sick for about a year.  She starts with the drip, then the cough and then the infection and ... and... and...

PED sent us to an ENT and she in turn sent us to an allergist.

We go to the allergist who does the skin test in her office and when she comes back to check my daughter's tiny back she says "the good news is that nothing popped...the bad news is that neither did the control".  :(    Not enough room to redo the test on her back...home we go.

Child gets sick a few days later so back to the ENT we go.  She prescribes a couple different meds including prevacid!?!?!?!?  I call the allergist and she bows to my craziness and says she'll do the bloodtest on her.

Hubby is in London and of course I make the executive decision that he should be the one to take her to get her blood drawn.   He's not pleased, but he's out of town 3 of the 5 weeks so he agrees.

I tell her that her Daddy is picking her up because she needs "further allergy testing".  Pretty general I thought and genius on my part.  yeah me!

He picks her up from school and they go to the office.  He not only acts *SHOCKED* that they are sticking a needle half way up her arm BUT he blames me!   He says that "mama didn't tell them that she was getting a blood test!"

Blames me!   Threw me under the freaking bus he did.

So when I see her I have no choice but to act *SHOCKED* that they took her blood.  I make over her and act surprised.

A few days later she's sitting on my lap while I'm looking at my calendar.  She pipes up with "YOU KNEW ABOUT THE BLOOD TEST??????"   What?   What?   No!   I thought it was a scratch test...I told you that.  She says:  "then why does your calendar say 3:00 Zoey's blood test"????

.............

Ummmm....remind me again why we thought it was a good idea that she learn to read?

Ugh...Bacon!

I eat a lot of bacon.  Generally speaking this is my breakfast.  I swap between microwave and stove top.  Here is the problem...the microwave makes it too crispy or not done enough and the stove top takes longer, needs constant supervision and makes a huge mess.  My dog actually prefers the stove top method because then he gets to lick the varnish off the floor trying to get to all the grease splatters.

Here is a different method of cooking it in the oven!   (I might add that my oven is self cleaning but I haven't noticed a large amount of grease in there.)

I line a cookie sheet with tin foil to make clean up a breeze!   (Y'all know I'm all about the easy)

Oven temps vary so this will be trial and error but start off with a cold oven, set to 400 degrees and try it for about 20 minutes.  Shorter if your bacon is thin.  

Now, blot on a paper towel and enjoy.  When breakfast is over, crumple up the tin foil and toss.  No more grease holding jars or spilling grease everywhere while you try to pour grease into said container.  

Easy Crispy Low Carb Chicken

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Checken thighs WITH skins
Butter
Your favorite seasoning
Rosemary

Layer chicken in 13 x 9 pan, cut up butter and place all over, sprinkle seasoning and rosemary.

Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until juices run clear.  Always check with a thermometer and the done degree is 165.