Bacon & Cupcakes

Tuesday 7 February 2012

bacon - the king of meat

07:40 - There's just something about bacon. I awoke this morning to the sound of my 6 year old daughter crying as she's getting ready for Kindergarten and the wonderful delicious smell of bacon. It seems my 8 year daughter won't get up and tighten the adjustment straps on my 6 year old's new jeans so they fit better. The house smells like bacon as I get up and walk to their bedroom to take my older daughter's temperature. She's sick - 103F - no school today for her.

My Kindergartner will be going to Kindergarten with jeans that fit a little loose because I can't figure out how to adjust the straps to make them tighter around the waist. I can't think straight with the smell of bacon in the air. My stomach is rumbling and my mouth starts watering. I love bacon. I love the smell of bacon. That wonderful bacon smell is permeating the entire house and when I go downstairs to get breakfast ready for my 5 year old daughter that wonderful bacon smell starts an even stronger more sensuous massaging of the inside of my nostrils. I am in a trance. I love bacon.

08:32 - Snick. Beep. 102 mg/dL. Better but still not great. It is so hard to be under 100 mg/dL in the morning. I drove my 5 year old to Kindergarten a bit ago and in my bacon trance I continued right on over to Maverick just like my 3 year old son told me to. I am a creature of habit and I've been on the wienie wrap diet for a while now and in my haze of bacon smell induced delirium what else could I do? When I got out of the van the crispy-cold morning air hit me and it kind of cleared my head a bit as it cleaned the bacon smell out of my nostrils. Inside the Maverick I grabbed two wienie wraps. Then I put one back. Lifestyle remember? I was thinking straight enough to put one back and only got one instead of two like I normally would.

c'mon back! beep beep beep beep

Back home, another injection of NovoLog insulin, this time 4 units, completed my wienie wrap breakfast as I sat in the dining room bathed in the lingering molecules of bacon essence that saturate the air in my house. I am back in the bacon trance. I love bacon. Where are those two leftover pieces of bacon from the circus waffle, scrambled egg and bacon dinner from two nights ago? It takes me a while as I find just about every conceivable leftover I have in the fridge but I finally find those two little slices of bacon hiding in a baggie underneath the jar of mayonnaise and I'm eating them now too.

There's only one thing better than cold leftover bacon and that's hot bacon right out of the skillet. I love bacon. There's only one thing better than hot bacon right out of the skillet and that's chocolate covered bacon. No carbs in bacon. There's only one thing better than chocolate covered bacon and that's bacon cupcakes. I love cupcakes too. Bacon and cupcakes. My two favorite food groups. Whenever I'm around one or the other or both, I usually eat them until they're gone. And that brings me to:

Fitness Rule #3 - Eat Less.

Wow! Really? Yes. If you want to loose weight, eat less. It sounds so easy. Thank goodness there were only two slices of bacon in the house this morning because I really love my bacon portions to be super-sized. And that's the problem with a lot of us. We live in an imaginary place called Super-Sized Land and we eat way more than we really need to. Eat less sounds easy. Unfortunately it is not easy. It is hard. Eating less is hard but let me bottom line it for you. If you want to loose weight you must eat less food.

How much food do we need? Really need? That is a different answer for everyone and I will leave you to figure that out. It will help you if you think of and see food for what it actually is. Food is nutrition for your body. Food is fuel. That is all it is and the reality of the situation is that if you are not at or near your ideal body weight you have taken food beyond what it is. You have been eating too much. You can try to justify it and rationalize it all you want but you are doing it wrong. You are consuming too many calories. If you need to lose weight you have been eating too much and you need to eat less. So remember: food is nutrition for your body and that is all it is.

really? really!

Now that you know it, how do you do it? I'm going to give you some pointers here. For something to work it has to be easy. Counting calories is not easy. Food exchanges are not easy. Points are not easy. Eating weird stuff is not easy. Meal plans are not that easy. There's a lot of stuff about eating and food and trying to loose weight that is not easy and I like easy. Loosing weight is not easy. These pointers should, however, make it easier.

Use a smaller plate - You need a lot less food than you think you do. Restaurant portions are monstrous. Restaurant portions are out of control and your portions at home probably are too. Instead of your normal plate, use a smaller one, and make sure that you can see at least a quarter inch of plate edge all around that smaller plate. Make it a challenge to see how small a plate you really need. Bonus for you if you use chopsticks instead of a shovel. You are just nutrifying your body. Giving your body a little bit of fuel. You've only got to make it through another few hours so take it easy. Food is not scarce anymore and you need much less than you think to get you through to the next smaller plate meal. Eat less.

Weigh your food once in a while - This should be fun. What exactly is a portion anyway? For every 14 carbs I eat, I have to inject a unit of NovoLog insulin. I have to know how many carbs are in my food so it's a little harder for me. I want you to weigh your food every once in a while. Just every so often so you can see what a portion really looks like. You might be surprised.

Mr. Bacon

I had some baby carrots yesterday. The bag said a portion was 85 grams and in that portion there were 8 carbs. The bag also said 85 grams was about 10 baby carrots. Well I weighed out 85 grams of baby carrots and found out that a portion was actually 7 baby carrots. It seems it would be 10 carrots only if I wanted to live in Super-Sized Land and I didn't want to live in Super-Sized Land yesterday.

When I got out of the hospital a little over two years ago, I wanted to have some ice cream. Just like the baby carrots a portion of ice cream was 85 grams. So my wife weighed me out 85 grams of ice cream. What the heck? Do you know how small 85 grams of ice cream is? Tiny small. Nothing like the "portion" of ice cream I was used to eating.

A portion of meat is a deck of cards right? A portion of meat fits in the palm of your hand right? Whatever. Get the scale out and weigh yourself out 4 or 5 ounces every so often so you know what it really looks like. After all, you might play with a pretty big deck of cards and when you want to, you can probably fit a lot of meat in the palm of your hand.

Weigh your food every once in a while and you will educate yourself about eating less.

Portion your smaller plate like a peace sign - If you want to loose weight do this:

• Red = a nice green vegetable. I recommend a lot of broccoli or brussel sprouts or zucchini or something similar. Eat what you like here in the red section but make it a good vegetable.
• Yellow = another nice vegetable of some type. I recommend carrots or cauliflower or squash or a salad or something similar. Eat what you like here in the yellow section but make it another good vegetable.
• Blue = protein. This is where your meat, or other protein, should fit. I recommend salmon or chicken or pork or beef or bacon or something similar. If you're not sure what it is or what it's made of, it probably shouldn't be in this section. 4 to 5 ounces is really all you need here in the blue section. Trust me it will fit.
• Green = starch (if you can't possibly live without it). This is where you put "THE WHITE DEATH." Things like rice, potatoes, breads, pastas and pretty much anything that comes in a box or wrapper. I want you to really think about that - box or wrapper - think about that for a minute. If you're going to shovel garbage into your body that you really don't need and will contribute to making you fat, put it here in the green section. If you're going to have dessert, it goes here. Even if it's bacon. Even if it's fruit. Bonus for you if using this space for fruit instead of starch. Double bonus if that fruit is avocado. Triple bonus if you substitute yet another vegetable.

Think about it - Make this a game. Find those "ghost calories" that you really don't need. Eat less. Think about what you put in or on or with your food. Did you really need all that cheese in that recipe? Probably not. See how much you can scale that back without sacrifice. Do you really need that half a cup of barbecue sauce to dip your bacon into? Probably not.

this will give you a smile!

Look at the label and see how many calories you can save your love handles. Need that ketchup? That much salad dressing? Two slices of cheese instead of one? All that chocolate sauce on your ice cream? All that chocolate sauce on your bacon? All that chocolate covered bacon on your ice cream? That soda? 72 ounces of that soda? Remember that food is nutrition for your body. Do you really need any of those "ghost calories" to do that? If you think about it, it will be easier to eat less.

You don't NEED snacks - Hard to believe, I know. The experts have been telling us for years that a little healthy snack between meals is good for us and will help regulate our glucose and insulin levels and help us loose weight. Unfortunately that's a load of crap. Snacks are nothing more than a load of crap too. They are a load of crap that we have been backing up to our mouth in dump trucks, dumping into our mouths in the name of eating right, while wondering why we're getting love handles on our spare tires. C'mon back! Beep beep beep.

hoink!

Let me set the record straight. You don't need snacks. You don't need snacks. You don't need snacks. You don't need snacks. You don't need snacks. You need don't snacks. You that read wrong. You read that wrong too. Don't be fooled with all the feel good talk about snacks. The bottom line is that snacks are calories you don't need. If you eat too much you will get fat. Eating snacks is one of the surest ways to eat too much. Eat less.

Take off the blinders and think about snacks for a moment. Do you really need that snack? You have to make it, what, another three to five hours before your next nutritious peace sign on a smaller plate meal? Sorry to break the good news to you but you don't need a snack. Investigate the portions on snacks. Look at the calories. If you use the peace sign, you won't have glucose and insulin spikes to worry about. And it doesn't matter what the snack is. That 300 calorie vegan protein energy bar with chia and hemp is basically just a dump truck of extra love handleage backing up to your mouth. C'mon back! Beep beep beep.

game's so fun it'll give you pig snorts

 If you use the peace sign to nutrify your body, you won't need a snack to help you make it through the next little while. Drink a glass of water or go for a walk instead. Or suck on a chewable vitamin C, which is what I do, or a whole clove. If you use a smaller plate and know what portions really look like and use the peace sign and really think about what you're doing you will be fine. Losing weight will be easier. Every time you are lifting your hand to your mouth I want you to hear that dump truck full of crap backing up to your mouth. C'mon back. Beep beep beep beep beep beeeep. Eat less.

12:48 - Snick. Beep. 105 gm/dL. Later I'm planning to work out so for lunch I eat more carbs (64g) than I normally would. Lunch includes a microwaved frozen burrito, a corn dog baked in the toaster oven and only half a portion of steamed frozen peas. Ironically enough, a portion of peas is 2/3 cup or 85 grams. There's that 85 grams again. Have you ever seen 85 grams of frozen peas? I love peas but that's a lot of peas and well more than I need.

Does any of this lunch sound like a diet. Probably not. Diets don't work. Lifestyle maybe. Let's call this a lifestyle lunch. I could eat burritos and corn dogs the rest of my life for sure. After all, the only way to make them better is to wrap them in bacon. But let me go over this with you. All of this lifestyle lunch fit on the tiniest plate I could find. I didn't really use the peace sign unless you count the corn in corn dog and maybe consider the beans in the burrito a vegetable. But I did think about what I was doing and that's were I really hit the payoff.

there should always be bacon in the fridge

Usually I would have had at least 2 corn dogs with the burrito and perhaps a second burrito. I dipped my corn dog in zero calorie mustard instead of sugary calorie laden ketchup or barbecue sauce. Normally I would cover each burrito with at least 2 Tbsp of sour cream, 2 or 3 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese and a Tbsp or two of salsa - all extra food that I didn't really need today. Did I enjoy my lunch any less? No. I didn't hear the dump truck backing up to my mouth either. A little plus a little. I ate less.

17:03 - I just spent 30 minutes spinning tempo with my bike on the trainer. My body is warmed up and I am sweating like a pig. Pulse is 120. Now it's time to work out. I think you will be amazed at how long this takes me. Actually, how short an amount of time it takes me is a more accurate way to put it. And we will cover that part of fitness and weight loss later in the week. That is another Fitness Rule. Fitness Rule #5 actually.

17:14 - I'm done working out. I'm three times sweatier than before and my pulse is 156. I'm going to be sore tomorrow and right now my hands are shaky. I need to check my blood glucose and it's time for a quick shower before work. I've got to go upstairs.

147! what the heck just happened in my mitochondria???

Snick. Beep. 67 mg/dL. That's too low, or "a low" as diabetics say. Two quick creme sandwich cookies and a quick shower. Snick. Beep. 82 mg/dL. Normal. That's where a normal persons blood glucose would be. My arms and hands are still shaking and my legs are a bit wobbly from working out. I will definitely be sore tomorrow.

19:08 - Snick. Beep. 147 mg/dL. Seems my blood glucose has bounced back. A little too much. Oops. Looks like one cookie might have done the trick not two. Eat less remember? Dinner is a 4.4 ounce portion of low-carb diabetic loaf of meat covered with 2 Tbsp of salsa, a cup of steamed broccoli and 7 baby carrots. 4 Units of NovoLog insulin should do the trick. Later tonight when I'm done working I'll inject my 15 units of Lantis insulin then I'm going to sleep and dream about bacon and cupcakes. I will see you in the morning for breakfast.