Hollandaise Sauce Forever!

I love Hollandaise sauce.  It is high in fat and wonderful and my kind of ketogenic food.

It can be a bit of a pain to make.

Also I am lazy about separating eggs and making sure the egg whites get used.  I hate waste though...

I have been making Mayonnaise with my immersion blender, it takes about 60 seconds. I make it with a whole egg (see paragraph above) because it's easy although a less rich. I am willing to take that trade off.

It hit me like a bolt of lightning yesterday, if you can make mayo with a stick blender surely you can make Hollandaise sauce.

Yes you can. 

Melt a stick of good butter. (don't let it burn).
Remove from heat
Pop 2 egg yolks (or if lazy whole egg) in vessel with lemon juice.
Whir egg and lemon juice with blender.
Add melted butter in thin stream while blending.
30 seconds later you have your sauce.
Season as desired. -Pepper, cayenne, salt, 
tarragon (then it's simple Bearnais sauce)

This makes me so happy.  And full - very, very full.

Various victories

It's been an exciting week for my health journey. I don't know if I should attribute it to one specific thing. Maybe my body just realized it was time to let go? Perhaps the reason is that I keep hanging in there day after day always concentrating on keeping my insulin low almost all the time.

57 pounds gone so far. Not only is this great by itself it also came along with several other milestones.

I have now lost 25% of my starting body weight. 
My BMI is now under 30. 
(and my waist is still the same size, LOL)

Wow. I feel a bit stunned.

Fasting has been way easier this week. I am enjoying that. My food when I have been eating is wonderful.

I have not had any dairy for a few days.  Did this make a difference? Probably not, I have lost while eating dairy many times.

So I am concentrating on enjoying it even if I cannot pinpoint how to replicate it.

Weirdness of my tape measure

As part of my journey I take my measurements at waist, hip, bust, thigh and neck every once awhile.

I don't do it very often because it changes so slowly. For me the scale is what I monitor daily and it gives me way more encouragement. Still I have a goal to get my waist to height ratio under .5 as this is a good proxy for proper insulin sensitivity so I do check it.

My waist has been the same size since 12/29/18. But I am wearing a size smaller in slacks - so my waist is smaller.  It has to be but when I measure I still get the same number.

Somehow I am getting smaller without it 'showing' on my tape measure. It must be user error but I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong.

So weird. Well at least the scale moves.
New low today, 53.2 pounds gone!

Riding the energy train

When I started this stage of my health journey August 1, 2018 one of the my two primary goals was to have more energy.

I was determined to fully switch over to fat-burning mode (this has been accomplished) and possess the abundant energy people report in that state.

For the past month I have really noticed an increase in energy -- finally!

It's not all the time, I still deal with hormonal cycles, but I am sure that it has increased. Mentally and physically. I am really liking this and it is certainly a much longed for NSV.

Signs of Healing

Fasting has been a challenge for me this month. I think the weather and the disruption to my normal routines has been to blame. So I am always looking for the positive NSV to celebrate.

Yesterday for Valentine's dinner I had more carbs than usual. Which I had planned ahead of time. Gluten-free breaded fried chicken! Part of a yummy biscuit! Several pieces of toasted and buttered french bread with beef marrow and mushrooms - fabulous. And I know there were hidden sugars in some of the sauces/dressings. It was a great meal.

As expected my weight has shot up a few pounds, carbs make me hold onto water like crazy. But! Less than 12 hours after that meal I was in ketosis. A low level but still!  I am so pleased. This is a great sign of metabolic health and flexibility. NSV for sure.

I really think my cells are hitting their stride and using ketones/fat for fuel very readily. Yay cells!

Parties can be rough

Today was a wonderful birthday celebration for my mother-in-law.  I feel so blessed to have her in my life especially now that my own mum is gone. The party itself was really a mixed bag though.

There was food with sugar everywhere.  There were 2 cakes!  Tons of cookies. We actually forgot to serve the ice cream there was so much there. Things tasted weirdly sweet to me. My favorite grain free crackers were there.

I didn't want to eat at all but it was so hard being surrounded by all that food.  The smell of it. Since I was helping throw the party I could not simply go to a corner farthest from the food. I ended up snacking for 3 hours. When I wasn't hungry. I am not sure how many crackers I had. 6? 8? maybe 10 or 12? Ugh.

On the plus side, I did not have any sweets or breads. I ate a few plain shrimp and some almonds and brazil nuts. Some swiss cheese, a bit of chicken salad and olives and peapods. So mostly in plan. All of my ketogenic artichoke dip was eaten up. It was very popular. We have tons of olives left over. Which will not go to waste!

I am so glad it is done. I did pretty well all things considered and the birthday gal had a great time which was the goal. Now I need to figure out my game plan for the week with an early valentine's day restaurant meal on Wednesday.

The past 6 months

When I think about the past six months I feel a sense of pride. I made many changes some worked out and some did not. I am happy I have lost 52.5 pounds and have had so many non-scale victories. 

My lower inflammation levels have made many things better in my life. In general, I feel more confident about my health and future. I am also experiencing higher energy and that is wonderful. I am also seeing how weird the food-emotional connection can still be for me after all these years.

The past 6 months have certainly not been easy and some days it has been dreadful. But then some days have been fun and successful, so perhaps normal life has continued on...

I don't know if the goal I set last August 1, to lose 100#, is reasonable for me and my body but it should be interesting finding out. I have not been that small in 30+ years. Right now, I am doing my best to celebrate every victory, every good choice, keep moving and trying to not take anything personally. 

I am happy with right now and I am also looking forward to August and seeing where I am then.

A bit easier and updates

I think my fast this week was a bit easier. Yay! I went over half a week - 95 hours. I hit the official half week time at 5am and I wasn't going to eat then. I spent way more time at home near my kitchen due to the weather this week so the fact that it was easier at all is amazing.

Current goal is to eat just the right amount for me over the weekend. I had Himalayan for an early dinner. It was a big meal and had a few more carbs than I usually eat. I hope it doesn't spark cravings and I hope to relax into my eating.

I need to decide if next week I am going to do another half week fast or if I want to do a week of alternate day fasts. I wish we came with a guidebook so that I would know the 'right' thing to do for me.

I had a couple of new lows on the scale. 
Down 52.4 pounds!