November Newsletter

I'm so happy to announce that I have completed the training and passed the test with flying colors and can officially say that I am a Certified Autism Travel Professional.   What does this mean?   It means that I have successfully fulfilled the requirements and can provide support and travel related services to an individual on the autism spectrum as well as their family.   With my background in teaching special education this certification means the world to me.  Unfortunately there are not an over-abundance of certified resorts and hotels but the list is growing!   Please spread the word to anyone who may need this specific service.   

Turns out the rest of this newsletter is mostly about food.   ha!   We visited Chicago in October for a Chaine Grand Chapitre so I guess the food theme makes sense.   Here is the link to my YouTube Video.  https://youtu.be/GsiR6BNL1VY   Please be sure to like the video and subscribe to the YouTube Channel.  It helps get the word out.  

How is that for a quote?   Life is too short not to drink well.  :)     However, let's start with eating well.   I'd like to first talk about one of our first foods and really really tasty.  It was at Michael Jordan's restaurant in our hotel, the Intercontinental Hotel.   (Click the link to see my photos of the hotel room)  On to the food.  It was at the bar and simply named "garlic bread".   The description:  Wisconsin Roth Kase blue cheese fondue.   It is a MUST eat item.

Our trip is well documented in the YouTube video but I'll discuss a few highlights here.  We had lunch at a place called Eataly (where I took the photo of the quote up above) and we participated in a cheese making class.   Serious fun stuff!   Who knew how easy it was to make mozzarella balls from curds?   

Eataly is a strange mix of shopping and restaurants.    Look at the one of the produce departments!  

Another great experience that is now in my repertoire for guests heading to Chicago is a visit and tour of West Loop Salumi.  Greg Laketek is the owner and he trained in Italy under the famous Massimo Spigaroli only to keep to his Italian roots and the salumi traditions and open his place in Chicago. Our visit with Greg was really a highlight of our trip.  He's such an amazing and inspiring entrepreneur. 

On the recommendation of Greg and several others we went to Scofflaw in search of good gin.   I can highly recommend this little establishment even if it is a bit off the main beaten path.  

We tasted so many gins and of course I had to try one of their homemade bloody mary's.   So good.   What a fun time we had drinking and chatting with a few of the locals.   

Now...I know you're wondering and yes we did try traditional Chicago foods.   I'm happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised by 'deep dish'.  Normally I'm a crispy, thin crust kind of girl but Giordano's totally won me over!   OMGosh!   It can be best described as cheese pie.  Here are two photos that cannot possibly capture the greatness that is deep dish.   Note the second photo...the crust is -not- thick at all.   

Finally!   We had to try a Chicago Style Dog.  

Again, I was surprised that I enjoyed this hot dog as much as I did.  

Not to be outdone in the cities of food, I had the opportunity to visit the new NOPSI Hotel in New Orleans.    It opened in July 2017 and is the old public service incorporated building. I think they did a great job of keeping the history of the building. The floors in the lobby are original to the building. It's a Salamander Hotel. 217 total guest rooms with 76 suites.   The clientele is eclectic from locals to tourists and business people. One pool and no spa but they have a company they partner with to do in room services. About 30 minute drive from the airport and about a 15 minute walk to Jackson Square in the French Quarter.  It's a really great property.  Here is a link to my photos of the property.

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.