Tag: ketogenic

Did I even spell that title correctly? Hmm…anyway. I’m all alone with my thoughts; for the past few hours. Jorge is working (yes, this late) and the kids aren’t here this weekend 🙁 but they’d probably be asleep by now anyway if they were. Briana, Mia, Joyce and the kids were here earlier, but they’ve since gone home 🙁 . My dinner ended up being an iced coffee from Starbucks, where I picked up a gift card earlier.

Anyway, we caught up and talked and I learned some annoying shit that’s happened recently, but it’s not my place to say anything about it. And I hate it. Because I want to scream and tell people off and just be a total bitch about these things I have no control over. The anger’s been festering in my gut for the past few hours that I feel nauseous and hungry all at the same time. I was going to get up and make an anger-filled chocolate mug cake, but I felt too lazy to. And then I thought I’d get a Carb Smart ice cream pop thing but that also required getting up from this chair and nah. But I also don’t feel hungry, which is progress for me in hindsight, since I would have devoured an entire box of Carb Smart in the past. Yay me.

I tried finishing my Calaca wreath but wasn’t into it. I started laundry, but haven’t put it in the dryer yet. I started browsing though job postings since I received an e-mail and I have A.D.D. but everything sucks. Started looking for that stupid book I need to study because my brain has forgotten everything it learned all these years (HOW was I valedictorian and salutatorian, HOW??), but I got distracted again and said, “Hmm, I haven’t blogged in a while…” 🙄

Can you believe I feel guilty for feeling angry? That’s what’s wrong with me: I can never just be MAD. I feel guilty and ungrateful for being angry. I had a great day of shopping (that’s what happens when Jorge leaves me alone too long) and not even that helped. Well, it did for a little bit, heh.

I used up coupons left and right and managed to find a black dress at Old Navy for our Annual Banquet. It was comfy and I liked it at the store, but in no way, shape, or form is it “cocktail attire”. Then I saw this other dress online just a while ago, but I’m sure it’s about $75 and I’m NOT paying that for a dress I’ll wear one time.

I also finally found my mustard-colored cardigan. I was really hoping to find one at Goodwill, or eBay, but no luck. So I paid $10 for a legit new one 😆 . Now I need to fix that blouse with the foxes on it that I absolutely had to have a mustard-colored cardigan for. I bought it in medium in March and now it’s huge. I literally wore it once. One of the negatives of dropping 2 sizes 😕 .

Which is why I’m scouring Goodwill and clearance racks for pants. All of my jeans, shorts and work pants are cinched at the waist with safety pins since losing weight, and it looks pretty bad because it clumps under my blouses. I got lucky last month when I found 2 red pants (one brand-new from Old Navy and brand-new Calvin Klein ones, both with tags). This month I found a denim jacket (in extra small, WHAT), 2 dresses (one from Gap with tags) and a cute sweater from Aeropostale. I think I spent $10 or less on all that!

Here’s one of the dresses and the jacket:

(Yes, my cats are indeed enormous!)

I realized today as Mom and I walked to the car from visiting Gramma that my thighs 100% don’t rub when I walk in a dress anymore! That’s a darn non-scale victory in itself! Oh! And I tried on pants at Kohl’s (I had Kohl’s cash, woo!), and I fit into a SIZE. 3. THREE. Tres. I haven’t been size 3 since I was 17!!! And I have a post all about my 5-month Keto experience and progress, but obviously I never finished it, but I seriously weigh the lowest as an adult, EVER. I seriously love Keto, no joke.

Ok. I should go check on the darn laundry. Or pay bills online. Or you know, wash my face, brush my teeth and go to bed? Meh.

I searched all over the place for a great, chocolatey low-carb, Keto-friendly mug cake recipe that didn’t taste like cardboard, and after trying tons of recipes on Pinterest I decided I probably had to make my own. So, after a lot of trials and errors (a lot. And I ate them, because I don’t like wasting ingredients 😳 !), I want to say I created a pretty darn good recipe! (And this is coming from a former sugar-obsessed, carb-aholic! So I know my desserts!) Without further ado, here’s my Low-Carb Chocolate Mug Cake With Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing.

For the Cake, You’ll Need:

A round mug, perhaps about 4 inches in diameter
2 tbls butter
2 tbls almond flour
1 tbls coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 pinch or 2 twists of freshed cracked sea salt (or Pink Himalayan Salt)
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 tsps heavy whipping cream
1 tbls Swerve sweetener
1 tbls Hershey’s Cocoa 100% Cacao Unsweetened Powder
1 tbls Lilly’s Dark Chocolate Chips, 55% Cocoa Stevia Sweetened
1 egg

For the Frosting, You’ll Need:

1 heaping tbls cream cheese
2 tsp Hershey’s Cocoa 100% Cacao Unsweetened Powder
1/2 tsp Swerve sweetener

Directions for Cake:

Melt your pat of butter in your round mug for 30 seconds (you can probably use any mug, but I find the rounder it is, the more evenly it bakes).

Mix your almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder and sea salt into your butter. Then add your vanilla extract, heavy whipping cream, Swerve, Hershey’s Cocoa Powder and your Lilly’s Chocolate Chips. 

In my experience, Swerve is the way to go with sweeteners. I’ve tried Stevia and Pure and they were just too bitter.

Stir until well combined, scraping the sides of your mug.In a separate bowl, whisk your egg, then stir it into your mug with your cake mixture until well-mixed, to avoid any white, eggy clumps.

Once it’s all nicely mixed, microwave for 90-100 seconds, depending on your microwave. I’d start with 90 seconds. Mine came out a little soft on one side, like a brownie consistency, but I love my cakes like that so it was perfect for me. Pop it in for 5-10 seconds at a time if you like a firmer cake. Once it’s done, flip your mug onto a plate or cutting board. A few good taps will pop it right out 🙂 .

Directions for Frosting:

In a bowl, mix your cream cheese, Hershey’s Cocoa Powder and Swerve until well-combined.

It took a little bit of elbow-grease to get it all mixed, but when it was done it was perfect. 

My girls said it was good, but needed to be chocolate-ier; I like to taste the cream cheese so it was good enough for me, but you can add more cocoa if you need to.

Wait for the cake to cool just a bit and carefully spread your frosting on your cake. As you can see, I was too much in a rush to wait 😆 !!

Please let me know if you try it out in the comments and if it needs any adjustments!!

I was having a bit of a woe-is-me type of day yesterday (I’ve been like this the past few days and it could be a few things: Shark Week coming up, not working out since last Thursday after doing so well, probably not fitting into my new bathing suit like I would have liked, and devouring 2 chocolate mug cakes in the span of a week and feeling guilt for it–someone has to taste-test the recipe! 🙄 ), AND it seemed like everything was going wrong regarding everything else in life, so I referred back to a few of my recent Instagram photos and posts on the blog to remind me that no matter how minuscule, I *have* been making progress with Keto, at least.

Weight

I weighed myself this morning on that horror of a scale and it read: 117.4 Which means that I’ve held steady, even though it *had* gone down to 115-116. And I need to realize that maintaining is GOOD. One of my main goals was to go under 119, which I hadn’t been able to do with exercising alone in about 4 years, and I have! So that’s a feat in itself!

It’s incredible how body dismorphia and anxiety always seem to creep their evil little heads out, no matter how well you’re doing. I hate it. They’ve been messing with me, like I said, and I need to kick them in the teeth!

Hair

In one of my posts in May I mentioned that I was in desperate need of a hair cut/style. Well, I finally made it out there (to Jorge’s relief 😆 ) and got it done with a new stylist! I never stray from my usual stylist because she’s the ONLY person who hasn’t screwed up my hair. Well, she was either nrver open, or had too many people ahead of me. My new girl is Marcy and her salon is Curl Up and Dye! I love the decor and the owner is just the sweetest and the best!

She made my hair feel so soft and smell so good!! Now, if I could just get my darn hair from FALLING OUT IN CLUMPS, that would be magical…

Work Outs, Goals & Acne

I’d mentioned that I never had time to work out, but for about 2-3 weeks I actually WAS working out. At…10:00pm or 10:30pm so I wouldn’t end my workouts till almost midnight! My energy levels were at an all-time high, thanks to Keto, but by the end of last week, I couldn’t get out of bed for my morning run on Saturday. It was really disappointing. Then I started helping Jorge out with some of his work, so there went the extra time to work out because by the time we got home, I was exhausted! Then on Sunday, I helped Jorge again and got home and got straight to doing laundry. It never ends!!

Plus, it’s been so dreadfully hot that even cleansing my face and wiping my sweat with a towel instead of the back of my hand caused me to get pimples (including a terrible cyst on my chin!!)! I was so upset–after going through Shark Week last month with very, very minimal new acne, something that I felt was making me feel (and look) so much better (P90X) was causing me grief!! I just can’t win! (Acne deserves a whole post of it’s own!) So, what I think I’m going to do is start working out inside the house, in the living room, instead of in the garage. Although, I will still have to do some exercises in the garage…like the chin-up bars/bands. Bleh!

My ultimate goal for working out was my new bathing suit Jorge bought me. I took “before” photos, and although I didn’t look too “bad,” I still needed to tone up a few areas (saddlebag area, belly, arms, back–the usual). But, since I haven’t worked out this week, I’m going to have to quit beating myself up and buy a cute cover-up. It’s not like it didn’t fit, and I am trying my best: simple as that!

Breakfast – Or Bulletproof Coffee

Staying up late and snoozing in the morning isn’t helping my situation. Well, maybe it is, since I’m sort of doing accidental “fasts.” I’m usually rushing out the door in the mornings so I decided to start making myself some Bulletproof Coffee, or Butter Coffee. I only tried BPC once back in 2013 when I’d first done Keto, and was just too put off by butter in my coffee that I didn’t continue making it. But I’ve done my research this time around (just Google “bulletproof coffee”). I don’t purchase anything from bulletproof.com, nor do I use MCT oil or coconut oil in my coffee (just yet; I’m thinking of using my organic coconut oil and I’d like to purchase collagen in the future, especially for the hair-falling-out-in-clumps problem) and I don’t purchase any newfangled accessories for my coffee in the shape of drops, Ketone powders or anything at all (way too expensive and pointless if you ask me! I haven’t really come by anyone who’s said “it’s life-changing!”). My recipe is pretty simple:

2 tbls. butter
1 tbls. heavy whipping cream (I love the creaminess!)
1.5 – 2 tbls. of syrup (either the Jordan S’mores or Torani Caramel)
And a 10oz.-12oz. K-cup of hot coffee

I toss everything into my Magic Bullet, blend and voila! A frothy, latte-like concoction that keeps me full till lunchtime! I have done the alternative: cinnamon and Stevia, but I much prefer the way I mention above.

Gramma’s Health

I worry about my Gramma a lot these days. Part of the reason my days run late is because I try my hardest to make it out to see her every day after work, especially after her episode with Bell’s Palsy and then later on the strange, irrational fear that she had daily. Well, it turns out the almost-hallucinating type fear of falling was due to a UTI. 2nd time that happens, you’d think we’d all figure it out, including her doctors 🙄 . I’m just glad she’s feeling more peace and that she’s getting the correct medications. It’s such a relief!

Lactose Intolerance

I mentioned back in my post Going Keto…Again that I was wary of Keto due to the “diet” including lots of cheese and dairy, and that I feared for my lactose intolerance problem getting worse. But after being “Keto” for over 3 months I can honestly say I think my lactose intolerance has been reversed, even when consuming large amounts of cheese, heavy whipping cream and the occasional Enlightened bar or Halo Top Ice Cream! Gone are the days of painful bloat all through the night due to having cheese on my burger or having a serving of ice cream. Keto’s been a God-send!

I’m anxious about my yearly exams next month! That means I get to do my cholesterol panel, and I’m really curious to know how it reads this time around. Keeping my fingers crossed that all is well and I don’t have to rely on genetics to determine my future.

There. Read it all back and I feel better already. Since I started this post, things have looked up in all areas. Just got to get the ball of positivity rolling yourself, I guess!