My Weigh In December 2013

Last year was a crazy year all around. My weight and our health was no exception. When I started the year out I weighed between 201 to 205 pounds. I was wearing a size 12. I tend to look slimmer then the numbers on the scale. My eventual goal for 2013 was to finally get under 180 lbs. Then life happened.

The first problem was my job. I was working as an ABA therapist. Beyond the horrible logistics of having to leave your lunch in the car and eat it in between clients there were other factors to my weight gain. Stress. I was working with special needs children and then coming home to my own special needs children. Except that my children were being raised by a baby sitter because the hours that an ABA therapist works was not very conducive to single parenthood.

I am sure all of this helped contribute to the weight gain. However, the start of my downhill spiral was getting smashed in the face by a complete set of metal measuring spoons that were wound up like a softball pitch and crashed into my skull. Beyond the swollen face, black eye, and blood I gained over 20 lbs in a week. By the end of the month I had gained 40 lbs and none of my clothes came anywhere close to fitting. In a month I had gone up 6 sizes. At that point I succumbed to the stress and horrible eating habits.

While I understand that tracking weight loss is not necessarily the best indicator, it is one indicator that I have chosen to use. My starting point before going Paleo was 148.8 lbs and a size 18. At today's weigh in I am 238.8 and all my size 18s are falling off me and my size 16s either fit well or are only slightly snug. I am fairly consistently loosing about 2 lb a week.

Bread with Coconut Flour

I love the taste and the smooth texture of coconut flour. I also love how economical it is. Even after the cupcakes, christmas cooking, and bread we have not used more then 2.5 lb of flour. That being said, I am still getting used to cooking with it.

The nicest thing about the holiday break from school is that L has been home with me or her aunt and she has had to eat what I put in front of her. When she started having anxiety attacks nearly everyday I started using food as a reinforcer. If you transition from summer camp to the car I will give you root beer (full sugar root beer). If you do not run away you can get ice cream. L loves sugar, junk food, and even (gasp) McDonalds. Although, the McDonald's thing has been cured for a while since grandma snuck her it and she got sick.

As L eat worse everyone ate worse. S would steal her food and have a sugar meltdown. J was adamant that everyone be treated equally, so he deserved sugar as well. Our house was complete chaos, and I let it get to that point. The harder L falls into junk eating the harder it is to bring her back to eating healthy.

After a week at home she is eating full course meals again. Although, she is the only one in the family still eating peanut butter (I can not find a good enough reason to make her stop). I have even started getting some non liquified vegetables into her diet. Our rule is that you have to take at least three bits. Last week she would hide under the table or in her bed. Tonight she eat three bites of everything and finished off the parts she liked. She did not even ask for the bucket of raisins.

The two hardest parts for L has been the lack of bread and pizza. I was very excited to try my hand at the bread. The recipe originated in the book Coconut Flour Recipes: 40 Scrumptious Recipes For Celiac, Gluten free, And Paleo Diets (The Simple Recipe Series). I modified the recipe by using 12 whole eggs instead of 10 whole eggs and 2 egg whites. I also used coconut oil in place of the butter.

The bread turned out very tasty. L loved it. However, it is not something that would be very useful for sandwiches (that hunt still continues). We ended up cooking the bread for about 50 minutes and the center of the loaf was still a little soft. However, the outside was starting to burn so we took it out. When I cut the bread in slices the slices fell into pieces.

Overall I can see us making this again. L ate two whole pieces. She insists that it tastes better with agave nectar over the honey. I think that tomorrow we will try a piece with paleo whipped cream - almost like a shortbread. I love that it is filling and full of protein and fiber.

For next time, I think we will try a smaller loaf size. I doubled the recipe and then cooked them in a large loaf pan. I think it would be worth the try to put them in smaller loaf pans to get the center cooked better.

A Trip to Knot's Berry Farm

For Christmas we received season passes to Knot's Berry Farm. We were all very excited, but I must admit I was a bit uncertain as well. The last time we had been to an amusement park (DisneyLand) J was five, S was four, and L was one. We lasted less then four hours and S had multiple rages in that time. Thankfully, my sister, who purchased the tickets, was sick of DisneyLand anyway and had no problem going home early.

It was time for us to try the experience again. The nice aspect about season passes is there is no stress to do everything in one trip, and the novelty wears off after the first couple of trips. In our house novelty=meltdowns.

Food

I was very worried about eating at the park, or rather not having to eat at the park. We went to the park in the afternoon so we eat lunch before hand. The plan was that we would be home long before dinner. However, S can not handle the concept of not having food available at all times, and J is 13 and eats a ton. Bring snacks was a must!

I noticed some signs saying that you could not bring food into the park and I became concerned. I had packed carrots, dehydrated fruit, fruit strips, beef jerky, and water bottles in my backpack. In retrospect I think the signs were wording off coolers. When my bag was checked they did not even comment on the food.

It was a bit hard on my kids to see the mountains of ice cream and the hordes of funnel cake. However, they handled it with grace and even their cousins were happy with the bag of carrots.

We ended up staying until dinner time, and started to case the food joints. The wait for Johnny Rockets was over an hour long. There was another hamburger restaurant that I was happy to notice at least advertised a gluten free menu was available next to their typical menu. Thankfully all members of our party decided the price was ridicules - $17 for a combo meal and $6 for a hot dog! I ended up feeding all the kids the rest of the snacks and we ate eggs at home.

Next time I will pack some more food with us. We could have used more carrots and more lunch meat. Of course, we did end up feeding more then just the three kids as well.

Lines and Rides

When we first arrived in the park from one of the side entrances we decided to go straight to a ride. Partly I wanted to see how my kids did, but mostly it was to keep everyone with the group. An hour and a half later we ended up on the ride. By the end I was doing everything in my power to entertain L who was ready to give up to get out of the line. J was also not very thrilled. He hates being surrounded by that many people. So do I. No one in our family is very good at lines. But we made it and at the end was the water rapids ride. I am not sure how I would have helped all three kids into the ride by myself, however that thankfully wasn't an issue.

After the ride we made our way to the main entrance of the park. We had to get our official season passes. We also stopped off at the information center and picked up some passes. The system seems to work out pretty well. You get a blue card which allows four members to ride together - it makes it so I don't have to get a pass for each kid at least. You take the card to the exit section of the ride and they give you a time to come back to the ride. The best part is that they said they will give us the times for up to five rides when we first get the pass. This is perfect since I can't imagine we will ride much more then five rides in one visit.

We only ended up using the pass once - to get on the train. We got our time and then waited by the exit sign. The kids got to sit and chill and not have to worry about the large amount of bodies pressing in on them. Then we got to get on the ride away from the crowd as well.

We did not use the pass on the last ride as well. I was crazy to volunteer to go with the kids on the ride Wipeout. J opted out, however something my sister said convinced S to get on the ride. L did not need convincing, which is why I was going on the ride. There were also three other kids in our party that went. In the ride two benches face each other. Then the ride goes around in a circle while moving up and down and sideways. Just when you think it is going to get better it gets crazy in a different way.

L was sitting next to me. I had one hand wrapped around her so she would not freak out, or fall out. S was sitting across from me. During the ride L started screaming "I'm going to be nauseous" S just closed her eyes, put her head down and cried. I was trying to comfort both of them at the same time while dealing with the ride myself.

We only made it to three rides this trip.

Everything Else

Overall the park was crazy. We were there for seven hours and went on three rides and played at the arcade (overpriced!!!!). Everyone who had been their before said that this was an unusual amount of people, with the holidays I am not surprised. Even with the large amounts of people my kids made it seven hours at the amusement park! They are all happy to go back, and we plan to try and visit about once a month. By the end of the year we may have even done everything that we want to - no way is anyone in our family going on the rides that leave your feet dangling while you are upside down. Or the ride that drops you. Not when the Whiplash about did us in.

Fluffy Paleo Pancakes from The Paleo Kid

One of the joys of having time off work is being able to cook my kids breakfast in the morning, rather then the make ahead stuff we normally do. I was excited to try out the breakfast recipies in The Paleo Kid. I am a bit less excited by this prospect now. 

We first combined all the ingredients in our Ninja.

L pulsates them all together (she loves doing this).

Then I poured the batter on the pan to cook it. This is where the problems started. Even having greased the pan with coconut oil the pancakes would not flip. The bottoms were burning and the middle were still runny. They ended up scrambling every time I flipped them. To make it worse I ended up setting off our fire alarm trying to get just one normal looking pancake for a picture. Granted our fire alarm is more a disturbance in the force detector and goes off anytime we use our oven, we typically do not set it off when cooking eggs or pancakes. I did not even end up with a good picture.

The overal verdict - nope not even trying to cook these again.

Book Review - The Paleo Kid: 26 recipes that will transform your family

The Paleo Kid: 26 Recipes that will Transform your Family

by. Kate Evans Scott

Rating: ****(4 Stars)

 

This is one of those books that the rating will depend greatly on the reader. If you are a parent starting to transition your child to the Paleo diet then this book would be a great starting point. However, if you have been eating Paleo as a family for an extended period of time then there will be little new to discover in this cookbook.

The book starts with a brief introduction to the Paleo diet, including some shallow history of eating. It then continues to provide a list of food acceptable, unacceptable, and questionable while on the Paleo diet. Perhaps the most worth aspect of the introduction is the authors ideas on how to get your children involved in their diet change, as well as give them the skills to continue throughout their life. I have found that L is more likely to eat the new foods I have made if she helps me to cook them. 

The recipes are then divided into breakfast, lunch, dinner, desert and condiments. There is between five to seven recipes for each section except for condiments. The condiments section contains a recipe for catsup and honey mustard. Some of the recipes are very simplistic, such as poached eggs, omelets, or asparagus wrapped in lunch meat. 

However, other recipes are very useful. We are planning on using the almond cookie recipe for our Christmas cookies this year. L has also been asking for honey mustard, so I foresee me creating that soon as well. I am also excited about incorporating some new vegetables into our diet by using these child friendly recipes. It is a less daunting introduction for myself as well as my children.

Possibly the best part of this book is that the Kindle edition only costs $2.99 - well worth the recipes even if you don't use more then half of them.
 

Paleo Fudge!!!

The apple in the photo was J's artistic expression. I suppose he wanted the fudge to look healthier? 

I was amazed when I first saw the recipe for Paleo fudge. I was even more excited when I saw it used the slow cooker. While the recipe looked a bit daunting I decided I would try my luck. Imagine my surprise when it truly was even easier.

I threw two and a half bags of Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, Gluten, Dairy, nut & Soy Free, Mini Chips, 10-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6) and one can of Thai Kitchen Organic Coconut Milk Unsweetened , 13.66-Ounce (Pack of 6) in my 3 qt slow cooker. I left it alone for an hour where I briefly stirred it. Then an hour later I stirred it again and turned off the slow cooker. By this point it looked great, so I pored it into a container and set it to chill in the fridge.

This fudge topped the fudge I used to eat as a kid every time that we went to Yellowstone. It was that good! 

It also made a lot of fudge. Luckily it froze great so we could eat it later. We are going to make some more for our Christmas cooking.

 

You can also check out the original recipe at My Paleo Crockpot!