Vanilla Dreams Do Come True

I love candy.

No, I mean, I looooove candy.

Especially chocolate. And, lately, especially white chocolate, which I've never really been a fan of. It seems I've acquired a taste for it. (That and blue cheese. I looooove blue cheese.)

Anyway, it started with a "white" party that was held in The Hotel. Everything was covered in white. Including the deserts. Brownies, cheesecake, pretzels, cookies, etc... all covered in white chocolate. Oh. My. God. It. Was. Amazing. And. I. Think. I. Am. Going. To. Finish. Writing. This. Post. Just. Like. This.

But seriously, the deserts were incredible.

Then I had a bite of a white chocolate Nestle Crunch Bar and I said, that's it. I'm gettin' me some white chocolate.

But when I went to the store (okay, two stores) there was none to be found. Oh, sure, I could find white chocolate covered pretzels and white chocolate KitKats, but I really just wanted a good solid piece of white chocolate.

The forces of nature were against me that night and I went home, empty-handed, left to cry alone into my pillow.

At work yesterday, the craving was still unbearably strong. I went on another search and finally, finally, God smiled down upon me and put in my path a bag of Ghiradelli Vanilla Dreams. White chocolate squares with vanilla beans.

And holy crap, were they amazing! And totally worth the wait.

Amen and thank you for listening.

Weight Loss

I know that my weigh in isn't until Wednesday, but I am feeling a bit frustrated. For the last three weeks I haven't really lost any weight, I haven't gained any either. As of today, I haven't lost any this week. Arg. This is really hard! I think that you should be able to lose weight as fast as you can gain it. It only seems fair.

So, I am going to start writing down everything I eat again. I want to make sure that I am making the right decisions. If I am not, at least I will see where I am screwing it up, you know?

Yesterday, I found a recipe for a granola. It has no oats. It was very yummy. I am going to tweak it a bit more to see where I can cut out some of the fat.

Flax Seed and Nut Granola

(from www.mrbreakfast.com)

1 cup flax seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped almonds
1 stick of butter -- melted [Next time I am going to cut the butter down to either 3/4 of a stick or 1/2 of a stick]
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla powder (sugar and alcohol-free)[This was a little expensive. From what I have read, you can sustitute extract for powder equally.]
3 packets of Splenda (or other sugar alternative) [This time I used 1/4 C. of honey. Next time I will try it with a sugar substitute for hubby.]

In a large roasting pan, mix together flax seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut and nuts. Drizzle with melted butter. Stir in cinnamon, vanilla power and sugar substitute. Toast in the oven at 325 degees for a half hour, stiring every 5 or 10 minutes.
[I ended up roasting it all in a pan on the stove. I melted the butter and the honey together and then added the spices. I then dumped the nuts and the coconut into the mixture and coated everything really well. I stirred constantly until everything was starting to get all golden.]





We then added the final product to yogurt. It was fantastic. All the kids love it and are asking for more to munch on through out the day.

*Update*

I got the chinese food.

Chinese Food

I LOVE CHINESE FOOD.



I wish my dad would get me some. But he's too lazy and won't go up and get it for me. But I guess I'm not one to talk because he said that he'd drive me up there and I can run in and get it. But I didn't want to. Not because I'd have to run in and get it, but because I was just too lazy to go. Even though I really want it. Really bad. But laziness won me over this time, which rarely happens. Mmm.. chinese food.

I also wish my mom would get me Chinese food. But she's in Tustin. I texted her and said,"Mom I'm dying I need chinese food?" exactly like that. Yes, it was supposed to be a question. And no, she didn't respond.

Chinese food was most likely invented by the Chinese. I'm almost 100% sure. And you know what? I have Chinese friends. Chinese food is great.

In-N-Out Burger

Is my favorite! I have missed them sorely since I left California almost 6 years ago. It is so hard to find a good burger. Everytime we go to Vegas, which is only 1 1/2 hours away, or to So. Cal. to visit family we stop at In-N-Out at least once.

I can order a burger however I want, including with no bread. They call it Protein style and they wrap your burger in lettuce. It's very nice.

Well, we just got an In-N-Out. I will admit that people in this town have way to much time on their hands. The line for In-N-Out has been a 45min. - 1hr. wait since it opened last week. I did happen to get there at the perfect time the other night. My wait was 15 minutes and that includes getting my food.

Everytime a restaurant opens around here, people flock to it. I live in the most beautiful place and there is tons of hiking and outdoorsy stuff, but watch out! When a restaurant opens, people flock to it in droves. It's kinda weird. Let's just hope that I don't turn into one of them.

Minimizing the Wrong Carbs

My husband has Type 1 Diabetes. For those of you that don't know, Type 1 Diabetes is not brought on by food like Type 2 is. Type 1 is where the pancreas completely stops producing insulin. There is no way to stop it from happening, where as Type 2 doesn't have to happen. If people quit eating crap and started light exercise, they wouldn't get it.

Refined sugars and flours are horrible on our bodies. When someone with diabetes eats flours, sugar, grains, beans, and/or potatoes the amount of insulin that they need to do to compensate is astonishing. My husband has to do almost double the amount to make up for it. My father-in-law has dedicated his life to sharing his knowledge of the damage that these types of carbs can do to our bodies.

On French Fries:
"The carbs release insulin which shuts down fat burning. I would guess the high fat load and high blood sugar that result becomes a heavy sludge in the blood stream, bruising the epithelium and stressing the vessel. The high insulin opens the epithelium to the intrusion of fats. The fats are oxidized, driven by the inflammatory response to the high blood glucose; oxidizing fat on a stream of glucose mediated free radicals inflames the vasculature promoting cardiovascular disease."


More on Carbs:
"...frequency of carbohydrate ingestion is also a contributor to insulin resistance." (Which will eventually cause type 2 diabetes.)

And:
"...exercise increase insulin sensitivity and, therefore, reduces the amount of insulin circulating in the body, which, in turn, directs nutrients to muscle and organs rather than fat."

There is a lot of information on his blog.

About 3 1/2 weeks ago, Hubby came to me and asked if we could change our diet as a family. I said Yes. It was really hard for the first two weeks. The kids whined a lot. Now, it is getting easier. It is nice to see my kids asking for fruit instead of ice cream after dinner. My baby eats all types of vegetables, which OCD and The Attorney saw when we were there. And it feels good to me that I am no longer feeding my children crap. I will keep trying new foods and I will post them here when I find good ones. I will even include pictures.

Being good and eating right

Teeter and her family have cut out bread and pasta from their diet. There is a really good reason for this, according to Art DeVany (see link on the right side of the page to Art's website). Basically, flour isn't good for you. It ages you and can cause you to get fat. There's more to it than that, but I've decided to get on the bandwagon. Seriously, if you want to lose weight, you can do it by cutting out flour.

Today's lunch:



This doesn't look as good as some of the plates I've seen on Art's webpage, but this is a big improvement over what I usually eat.

I grilled extra fish on the barbeque last night and brought that in for lunch. It's dry, so I have to figure out how to cook it or what to put on it to make it less dry. Not bad, though, because it has a barbeque taste.

What's really good are the green beans. I hope my method of cooking them isn't bad for you.

I put a wok on the stove and put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in it and added about a tablespoon of chopped garlic, which I stirred for a couple of minutes, and then I added the green beans. While I stir-fried the green beans, I added some soy sauce. Maybe a teaspoon or two.

It came out really good! It kind of offsets the dry salmon.

I also rode my bike to work this morning. I bought a used bike yesterday, a "SR Semi Pro" that was made by a company that no longer makes them, they only make components now. The bike feels like it weighs about 15 lbs, which is really, really cool.



The components are all original Shimano parts. I think it was made back in the early '80's.



It's a road bike and I bought it so that I can go for long rides. Yesterday, I rode from the Huntington Beach pier to my home in Tustin. This coming Saturday, I'm planning to ride to Laguna.

Only mistake I have made so far is the way I sat on the seat for most of the ride yesterday. It killed my butt.