Tag Archives: weight loss maintenance

Stack of pancakes and a fork

Low Carb Easy Recipe #2: Faux Pancakes

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If you’re eating a low-carb diet as part of your weight loss program, breakfast time can start to get a little boring after awhile. Many foods enjoyed during the first meal of the day are awfully high in carbohydrates – oatmeal, muffins, toast, cereal, waffles, pancakes – and the list goes on and on!

I’ve tried a lot of different ways to make breakfast interesting, but there are only so many ways you can make eggs or an omelet, and even Greek yogurt and fruit gets a bit boring after awhile. One Saturday morning, I woke up and just had to have something different for breakfast, something that really would satisfy a craving – I made pancakes.

Well, not genuine pancakes. “Faux pancakes” would be a more accurate description. In fact, they might be a little closer to a crepe, but they are quick and easy to make. Having a stack of silver dollar-sized faux pancakes with sugar-free maple syrup is a little touch of heaven when you’re eating as low-carb as possible! Here’s the low-carb easy recipe for my breakfast creation:

Mike’s Silver Dollar (Faux) Pancakes

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tbs. water
  • 1 tbs. soy flour
  • 1 tbs. almond flour
  • ½ tbs. artificial sweetener (I use Splenda, or you could use Stevia)
  • ½ tsp. baking powder
  • Non-stick low-calorie cooking spray

Instructions:

  1. Using two separate, small bowls, beat the two eggs and water together in one, and mix all the dry ingredients together in the other.
  2. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk for about 2 minutes or until most of the clumps disappear.
  3. Spray a non-stick pan or griddle, and heat it before cooking your pancakes. Use a large spoon to add the batter to the griddle to make the pancakes about 2” in diameter. Cook to your preference as you would any other standard pancake.

Yield: 1 serving (3-4 small pancakes)

Estimated Nutrition:

Calories: 233   Carbs: 5   Fat: 17   Protein: 17   Sodium: 380   Sugar: 1

You can easily double or quadruple the recipe to serve more diners as needed. The recipe is gluten-free, high in protein and low in carbs, which is perfect for my own high-protein, low-carb diet! Obviously, adding a little butter and sugar-free maple syrup will increase the calories a bit, but when you start off this low, the extras aren’t going to ruin this delicious low-carb breakfast treat!

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Low Carb Easy Recipe: Mole Chili Con Carne

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One of the most frustrating things we have to deal with during any diet is the feeling that you’re being deprived from eating good food. Depending on the type of diet you’re on, what we would typically consider really good tasting foods are now forbidden to us, while we watch family and friends happily enjoying them all around us.

When I started my current wellness plan, the limitations on sugar, carbohydrates and sodium prescribed by Dr. Sam felt like torment! So many foods were instantly removed from my list, and my list of potential ingredients seemed to dwindle every time I visited the grocery store.  What I really wanted was to make something that was great tasting and felt like it was off my diet, but it actually wasn’t.

I wanted a low carb easy recipe, so I started experimenting with what possible ingredients I could still use to make a really good pot of chili. Personally, I can eat chili year round, and it’s one of those meals that will have plenty of leftovers – a great thing if you’re trying to stretch your grocery dollars!

My final recipe draws elements of mole style cooking, combined with Texas style no-bean chili. Going bean-less really lowers the carbs!

Mike’s Mole Chili Con Carne

  • 2.5 pounds of lean ground sirloin (optionally, you can use a 50/50 combination of ground round and lean ground turkey)
  • 1 large green pepper – diced
  • 1 large yellow onion – diced
  • 4-6 oz. of fresh chili peppers – diced (I usually use a combination of 3 serranos, 2 jalapeños and one habenero – I like spicy!) Note: When dicing the chili peppers, latex gloves are recommended to avoid burnt fingertips.
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 1 large can of low sodium crushed tomatoes (28 oz.)
  • 1 large can of low sodium stewed diced tomatoes (28 oz.)
  • 2 cups of water

Spices:

  • 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (unsweetened)
  • 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
  • 4 tablespoons of chili powder
  • 3 tablespoons of ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon of black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of thyme (dried)
  • 1 teaspoon of oregano (dried)
  • 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of paprika
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar substitute

Preparation:

  • Brown the ground beef in a stew pot in the olive oil, breaking the meat up into fine pieces.
  • Add the diced onion and green pepper, cooking it in the meat until the onion starts to turn a little translucent.
  • Add the chili peppers and all the spices, mixing them into the meat/veggie mixture until everything is well coated with spices.
  • Stir in the canned tomatoes and crushed tomato, and then add the water, stirring everything together well and continuously until the pot comes to a light simmer.
  • Reduce heat to medium/low, and let it cook uncovered. Simmer the chili for 4-6 hours, stirring once every 30 minutes while the chili reduces.
  • Serve with shredded cheddar cheese on top.

Yields approximately eight 10-12 oz. servings.

Estimated Nutritional Statistics

Calories: 411 | Carbs: 29 | Fat: 18 | Protein: 34 | Sodium: 610 | Sugar: 14

I’ll be sharing more from my low carb easy recipe files in the near future!

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How to Manage Your Weight Loss With the Power of Negative Thinking

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We hear it all the time from friends, family and co-workers telling us there is power in “positive thinking.” And when you’re dieting and trying to reach your weight loss goal, thinking positive is great advice. It helps keep us upbeat when our goal seems far away and helps us to envision how good we’re going to feel when we reach a healthy weight.

Positive thinking leads to a positive attitude, and when making a major life change, we need to have a good mental outlook.

But you don’t hear much about how to manage your weight loss with “negative thinking.” This mindset can be a powerful tool in our weight loss arsenal to help keep us motivated and strong willed.

After I was diagnosed with non-diabetic insulin resistance as one of the main causes behind my trouble losing weight, I asked Dr. Sam what sort of diet I should be on. He gave me some fairly general guidelines, allowing me the latitude to make my own menus and food plans. But one guideline he gave me was the hardest to wrap my head around: No starches and no carb-heavy foods.

That meant I would have to give up bread, rice, potatoes, chips, pretzels, candy, sugary pop and a whole list of other foods that, let’s face it, are really great to eat and snack on. And the carbs I did allow myself to have had to come only from vegetables and low sugar fruits. But when you’re diagnosed with insulin resistance, high carb foods are completely counter to the medication you’re taking and will push back against all your diet and exercise plans.

The first few days after I gave up carbs were terrible! I felt deprived and angry. It felt unfair, especially watching other people around me enjoying “normal” foods without a care in the world.

But then I had a realization about how I needed to change my attitude about carbs, an attitude which would put some perspective on my new reality: an obese man with a dangerous disease that could kill me if left uncontrolled.

I needed to have a negative attitude about high carb foods and see them for what they truly were to me – TOXIC. I resolved to think about high-carb foods in exactly those terms.

From that point on, every time I saw a basket of bread, cake, pie or loaded baked potato, I thought to myself, “That’s toxic… if you eat that stuff, it’s as deadly to you as eating rat poison. Don’t do it!”

It may sound harsh to think like that, but it was also a very empowering. It allowed me to quickly push away temptations to snack on chips, or eat candy, or even think about making a sandwich with bread. It made those foods feel dangerous and risky to eat, which they are when you’re trying to control your blood sugar and insulin resistance.

Every meal I ate with no high carbs made it easier to eat my next meal without heavy starchy foods. Every day that went by that I succeeded in keeping my total carbs low, it became easier and easier, until I didn’t even think of carb-rich foods as anything I would want to eat regularly.

It’s not easy to live a low carb life in a world filled with high carb foods, but with the right negative attitude, you can put those carb-heavy foods in their place and give yourself the power to control what you eat and how you manage the food choices you make.

Have feedback or questions for me on how to manage your weight loss with negative thinking? Share in the comments.