Low Carb Milk

We cannot obtain low carb cow’s milk in South Africa. No worries. Here is the recipe I use for my beloved tea. So quick & simple. I use about 50ml in a cup of tea. Never in coffee! For that I use Clover cream!

Camilla's Low Carb Milk

• Servings: 5 x 50ml
• Time: 3mins
• Difficulty: falling off a log
• Print

• 1/4 cup full cream milk
• 3/4 cup distilled water (I use bottled water too)
• 1 Tablespoon heavy cream (I just use Clover)
• dash of salt & sweetener to taste

Shake all ingredients together in a shaker and chill. This has 3.2 g carbohydrate; perfect for LCHF. If 1 cup of water is used, it takes more like skim milk.

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Baby steps nutrition.1

 

One of the things ‘they’ say is that Green Tea packs a power punch nutritionally. My daughter-in-law (Taiwanese born) has always stated that the green tea we get here in RSA is not the ‘real thing’.

She and I agree, though, that LIPTON CLEAR GREEN – MINT  is rather ‘lekker’! I confess to adding a sachet of Huletts Equisweet sucralose. (the green one). I also let the bag draw in the tea cup for quite a while and drink lukewarm-ish.

According to Diane Kress RD CDE, 2 cups of green tea per day is non-negotiable  

Reading : one of my favourite pastimes

I am a voracious reader. Have been since a very young age. Always will be. Come rain or shine, workday or holiday, I cannot live a day without reading something.

Am I talking Tolstoy? No, I have no conspicuous literary pretensions. I am a reader of washing machine manuals, cereal boxes, crime thrillers, craft & nutrition books by the dozen, cookbooks, biographies, business tomes, ‘pop psychology’, income tax and VAT manuals, – you name it, I read it. For my business and for my pleasure.

I love nothing better than curling up under a duvet with a good book and preferably a large slab of chocolate. Well, OK, the slab of chocolate has not happened for a very long time unfortunately. So I make do with 3 Provitas and hummus! Not quite the same but I am a hummus binger!

So, amidst all the very serious crashing computer issues I am dealing with at this time, I was thrilled with the arrival yesterday of  4 books I had ordered and eagerly awaited.

New editions of the SA GI & GL Guide and SA Edition of The Complete Kilojoule Carbohydrate and Fat Counter.

SA Cookbook for Diabetes & Insulin Resistance Book 2.

More Jewellery in a Jiffy.

No rocket science as you can see!

Interestingly, I see that the new edition of The Complete Kilojoule Carbohydrate and Fat counter now has nutrition software available as a companion resource. This is something new and I will be checking it out and will let you know what it’s all about.

Have a great day.

Weight loss – are you battling too?

Man alive, what a struggle I am having this winter with achieving a steady weight loss result every week. Although I do weigh in at Weigh-Less most Thursday mornings, my actual loss chart runs from Sunday am to Sunday am and that chart shows my struggles far too graphically!!

I had a ‘mini-breakthrough’ on the 2nd and since then have been fluctuating a bit down-a bit up-a bit down- you get the idea….

Causes of this? Ah, that part is easy. Not enough water; lax portion control especially with the winter ‘comfort’ foods; erratic mealtimes; eating at my office desk (toast with peanut butter in left hand and right hand still wielding the mouse!!); ‘illegal foods’; occasional piggy binges; not nearly enough physical activity; not enough ‘time out’ for extreme self care; the list goes on and on…

The whole odyssey is about the ‘extreme self care’ that Cheryl Richardson writes about so well. Although I am posting about weight loss today – which is the crucial self care bottom-line for most of us on the journey to best wellness- the other aspects must receive attention too. Serious attention.

OK, so the causes of poor weight loss, no weight loss and, yes, weight gain are no mystery to any of us.

One reason we must consider is this: What eating plan are we actually following? Low fat? Low carb? Atkins? Weigh-Less/Weight Watchers? Crash diet? 4-day ‘Heart Diets’? ‘3 days on/3 days’ off? Growth hormone injections? Considering bariatric surgery?

We HAVE to have a plan. A map. A route. A guide. A GPS. Call it what you will. That much I have learnt from over 4 decades of (often bitter) experience. I have spoken about this before but it does bear repeating!

In a nutshell then:

Where are you now? (Get your health status checked out. Know ALL your ‘numbers’.)

Where are you headed? (Goal weight. Healthy ‘numbers’.Physical fitness.)

How will you get there? (Lifestyle Plan. Write it all down. Get your support team together – appropriate health professionals; your family and/or friends; a mentor you know well and trust? Stop dreaming it. Just action it. Now!)

While facing often overwhelming odds as I do, one thing I know for sure (Oh God, I sound like Oprah) is that I have come this far and there is no turning back! And if the journey to my destination  takes longer than I would like, so. be. it. I am still learning all along the road.

(This post – in fact all my posts – with apologies to my English master Mr Graves who thought he had taught me perfect English grammar! )

Odyssey to wellness : a good software resource

Good morning everyone 🙂

Just a quickie post this morning about Benutriwise software. Priya Jaipal, the developer of this excellent resource, has just published her latest Health-e-news newsletter.

While the newsletter does happen to contain a rather disjointed review of the product written by yours truly, that is not the reason for this post.

Priya is offering a “ World Cup Special” of a huge discount on the price of this excellent tool. The price is only R200,00 and I do urge those of you that may have been hesitating about buying this software to download and buy it on-line.

Marketed as a calorie counting instrument, I do not only use the calorie count function. I am working on ways to track GI (Glycemic Index), GL (Glycemic Load)  as well as Weigh-Less portions on the system.

Have a great day.

Laziest cook on earth . 5 Divine soup to warm you up in this miserable weather.

If you live in Cape Town as I do you will be shivering in the current cold spell which is, I am sure, now here to stay for the winter. Cold, wet, windy with dark early mornings making the commute to work really miserable; with the same scenario when you travel home in the evening.

Makes me truly grateful that I can earn living from the comfort of my own home.

We love soup in the winter and we have a few favourites that we never get tired of. This is a recipe I discovered last winter and it is taken from the great book:-

South African Cookbook for Diabetes and Insulin Resistance.1 Second edition 2009. Tafelberg Publishers. Hilda Lategan  RD ( SA)

I started buying ‘ diabetic’ cookbooks years before I ever became diabetic/pre-diabetic. The recipes are always great and very healthy.

This soup is really delicious. The first time I made it, we sat down and finished the whole lot at one sitting!

Try it! I mean a portion – not the whole damn lot! 🙂

SAVOURY POTATO & SWEETCORN SOUP. Yield 1.25 litres (5 servings). Serving size 250ml.

500g (4-6) medium potatoes * 2 celery stalks with leaves, chopped (50g) * 1 small onion, peeled & chopped (50g) * 1 beef stock cube, crumbled * 500ml boiling water * 420g can cream style sweetcorn * 375ml low-fat milk * 100g lean ham, cubed * 25ml chopped parsley * salt to taste.

• Place the potatoes, celery, onion, beef stock cube and boiling water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender and cooked. Mash the potatoes. Stir the sweetcorn and milk into the mashed potatoes. Bring the mixture to the boil and cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
• Stir the ham and the parsley into the soup and season with salt, if desired. Serve warm.

Comments: The carbohydrate content of this soup is high and for this reason the soup usually replaces the portion of bread for that meal. Instead, depending on your dietary prescription, rather add more protein to the meal e.g. a slice of ham or a little grated cheese. The soup tastes best when freshly prepared but it can be cooled successfully for 48 hours and reheated. Freezing is not recommended.

250ml = 2 starch + 1 low-fat protein; Glycemic index: low (51); Glycemic load: 18

Per portion: Energy 921kJ;  CHO 34.8g; Protein 9.8g; Fat 2.9g; MUFA 1.0g; PUFA 0.3g; Chol. 15.5mg; Fibre 3.2g

Weight loss: we must know where we are headed

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.””

— Lewis Carroll, author

Reducing my weight and maintaining at goal weight is the single most important element of my journey to optimum wellness. With my weight at a normal level, the other ills I have will come right. Well, if not ‘come right’, they will certainly be the best results I can achieve given my specific circumstances.

Damn it all to hell! I have said it before and I will say it again. It’s all self inflicted. By upping the ante as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am placing a much higher value on self care.

By doing this, I will be better able to cope with a stressful, busy life and better plan for the more rounded lifestyle I yearn for.

The first thing I am doing, as of this morning, is re-looking at portion control. W & I have been eating far too much and this is one of the main reasons why our weight is not shifting as rapidly as it was. With W-L and the very comprehensive food list booklet they provide, I am able to instantly see what size my portions should be. So, I have no excuses. Period.

The other day, I saw a list of portion sizes compiled by Dr Ingrid van Heerden (DietDoc on Health 24.com). I am sure I made a copy of it. I’ll dig it out and post it later in the day.

Chow for now. Have a good one.

Laziest cook on earth. 4

In our days of being Rotarians, W & I enjoyed an active social life with much interaction with  fellow Rotarians and we did a lot of community service work which is what Rotary International is all about.

At the time, it was a males only organisation and one became a member by invitation only. The wives were called Rotary Anns and we dutifully played our part in the organisation which I see is still very active in community work today.

During our year as Rotary President and Rotary Ann President, we entertained a lot. We had a large double storey home, a full time domestic worker, my folks lived with us in the ‘granny flat’ and they were a wonderful support system with our teenage boys. W & I forged ahead with our respective banking careers and did our share of community work while having fun with good friends. It was a good life and we had marvellous support systems in place.

Things are somewhat different today.  We still live the good life, though in a very different way. We chose to re-locate to Cape Town and we chose to take our ‘retirement jobs’ (a bookkeeping practice) along with us.

There is little time left for entertaining and it is not easy to cater for numbers in our flat, spacious as these old apartments are. Later this year, we are re-locating (again!) to a spacious home in a leafy suburb which belongs to our middle son M. But I am getting horribly sidetracked here – that is a story for a later time.

This is the meal I threw together last night for 6 members of the family:

BUTTER CHICKEN : served with brown basmati rice, cauliflower with cheese sauce and a good tossed salad.

MIXED BERRIES DESSERT : Dessert was slightly defrosted mixed berries with a choice of diet ice cream and/or lite custard. Of course, we all chose ‘and’ and not ‘or’! Mix it all up in a purple mess in your pudding dish – divine, almost fat free and low GI.

Pretty good I would say and the scale showed no overnight weight gain at my ‘Sunday Morning Showdown’ this morning. I should have had broccoli with the cauliflower as lettuce does not count as a dark green veg. (Tabitha Hume!) Red, yellow as well as green pepper strips and home grown mung bean sprouts in the salad made up for it in a small way.

Butter Chicken!!! I hear you say. Yes, so simple really. Browned chicken thighs (bone in, skin off) in a little extra virgin olive oil, dumped them in a large casserole dish with lid and poured Denny Butter Chicken Curry Sauce over them. 20 mins with casserole lid on, 20mins with casserole lid off and left them to sit there until the Sharks had won their game against I don’t know who!

The latest Weigh Less magazine is out and included is a Coat and Cook in Sauces Guide. Get it and check it out!. It will inspire you to serve something new for your family while keeping those kilos in check! You can have a quarter of the packet of wet sauce – only 424kJ and 5.0g fat.

I was given a rice cooker recently (my slow cooker/Crockpot actually does the job just as well) and the berries I had bought in bulk out at Hillcrest Berry Orchards at the height of the berry season. I use them as a treat and am only sorry I did not buy many more kilograms of these wonderful fruits at that time. I will really stock up next year.

www.hillcrestberries.co.za

High Tea at the Nelly (Mount Nelson Hotel) is on my Bucket List but the High Tea served at Hillcrest Berry Orchards is really good. Situated in the magnificent Banhoek Valley outside Stellenbosch, this working farm is well worth the trip. Check it out. They also do B & B.

Hopefully, you are starting to see from my scribblings on this blog that we CAN eat delicious food while keeping to a healthy eating plan. With careful portion control we can still ‘have our cake and eat it’!

Food labelling – we have often been misled

Over time, I have become a consumer addicted to reading nutrition information labels on foodstuffs in my favoured food markets. In the early years it was for fat content, then it became the (often vain) hope that the GI value was quoted on breakfast cereals and now, finally, I can assess the info with some degree of intelligence.

With the advent in my life of the despised Metabolic Syndrome, I will not put a grocery item into my trolley without having read the nutritional information. I was so pleasantly surprised to see recently that a very dear friend with health issues to manage will also not purchase any item that would be detrimental to his health.

I am not for one minute saying that I am a Joan of Arc martyr to my health challenges nor a Paragon of Virtue as headmistress Reverend Mother Maria used to call me. (Poor misguided woman – luckily for me she did not deem it necessary to open nor censor my schoolgirl correspondence with a certain young gentleman at Kearsney College! Some of my Holy Family Convent school friends were not so fortunate)!

What I am saying – with much rambling, sorry – is that we need to become informed in our health choices. I ate a slice of Black Forrest cake this week – yeah horrors! – with no consequences on the scale nor my glucose readings. (Back to the comment about not being a Joan of Arc on my odyssey to health). An occasional ‘sin’ is not going to kill me as long as the ‘sins’ do not become a regular habit. Been there, done that. Never again in my lifetime. The ‘sins’ are what got me into my MS predicament in the first place.

No food is ‘bad’. All food has its place. The trick is to know which foods we must strictly limit to occasional treats and what foods are needed for vibrant health and energy.

New regulations for food labelling become mandatory in RSA from March 2011. Some retailers already have pretty good labelling on their products – PnP and Woolworths to name two.

Misleading labels will not be permitted. For example to be labelled low in kJ, a food will have to have less than 170kJ per 100g (solids) or 80kJ per 100ml (liquids). “Low fat” must contain less than 3g per 100g (solids) or 1,5g of total fat per 100ml liquids).

Don’t wait until March 2011 to start really examining what you permit down your throat! I haven’t.

This is the life people!…

A quick post from our holiday home at Pinnacle Point Golf & Beach Resort, Mossel Bay.

How lucky we are to have a freebie stay in this playground of the rich and famous. One person who has played golf here is Ronan Keeting; amongst many other celebrities. It is dead quiet here at this time; only the permanent residents – often Europeans who spend half of their year here and the other half back home in Europe. Ah, the lives of the wealthy!

What a place! Truly beautiful amidst carefully preserved wild fynbos and a stone’s throw from where we used to live at Dana Bay – the next delightful little bay just around the point. (Pinnacle Point – geddit?!!) We are slumming it in a 4-bed, 4-bath split level home overlooking the 16th hole. Cruising around the estate on our own golfcart is a huge fun activity; everybody from the gardeners, other residents and security staff gives a friendly wave and smile as we pass each other on the bricked roads and golfcart lanes. The rim flow pool on the big patio is icy cold and I doubt that we will spend much time in it.

What a privilege to share these happy times with our children and experience the easy camaraderie that exists in our family. A pity our eldest and his family cannot be with us as well; the last time the whole gang was together was in Mauritius in December 2007. Too long ago!

Keeping a level head regards eating choices when away on holiday is surely one of the most difficult things we have to contend with when on a weight loss, wellness journey. I think the best we can do is to try hard to curb over eating and UP the exercise!

I will post some pics later today that show the really serious exercise we embarked upon yesterday! Luckily the broadband in the quite remote estate is 3G/HSDPA – not surprising I suppose in this rich man’s playground!