Recipe – Thanksgiving Meals – Dukan – Paleo – Gluten-Free

Posted on November 14, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’m going to post some of my favorite Dukan friendly meals that are PERFECT for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, over the course of the next few days. My son-in-law said to me the other day that there would be “no dieting” next Thursday, sigh, my family still doesn’t get that I #1 DIDN’T DIET and #2 You don’t have to eat wheat ladened crap to have an amazing meal 😀

So… here’s recipe #1… it’s a simple one. My turkey is the moistest, yummiest turkey I eat. Why? I don’t do much to it.

TURKEY

Serves: A lot of people

Ingredients:
One big turkey
1 large green apple (or red, but the granny smith’s are yummier) chopped
1 large pear, chopped
1 large red or yellow onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
8-10 garlic cloves, mashed
1/4 c olive or coconut oil
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 325 F

Rinse your turkey.
Stuff turkey with the veggies.
Put him in the pan breast side down.
With your fingers, cover the turkey with oil. Make sure you get in all the nooks and crannies!
Generously salt and pepper.
Stick in the oven 20 minutes for every pound. So if it’s a 10 pound turkey 200 minutes (or 3 hours 20 minutes)
Let set for 30 minutes before carving.
Eat.

Easy peasy! Don’t be covering up the bits with aluminum, don’t be puttin’ that turkey in a bag! Just cook the darn thing… PERFECTION, I’m telling you 😀

Mmmmm!

Here’s a link from last year’s Thanksgiving dinner, where I had the pleasure of introducing my Turkey Day culture to a family in Hangzhou.

https://flamidwyfe.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/dukan-day-99/

Dukan – Day 160 – Awesome Vacation and I still have a week!

Posted on October 14, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Cleaning up the blog and finding posts that never posted…. This one from January 2012. Update this afternoon, I promise 🙂
Sandi

Friday was a PV day 🙂

Daily weight loss: 1.3 lb/0.6 kg
Total weight loss: Will update when back in China on MY scale and with my progress sheet.

So to update everyone from the past week…
Wednesday…
The walk that I went on was at Devil’s Millhopper sinkhole in Gainesville. I went with my friend Mary and it was great! It is 220 stairs down to the bottom. So we walked to the bottom and then back again and hiked the rim twice. Nice morning for walking. Then off for lunch in Ocala with an old friend. Then out to Bronson to say Happy Birthday to my niece Tasha and meet her 3 year old, Abigail. Too stinkin’ cute! Then back to cook dinner for my mom.

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs and a slice of turkey
Lunch: 6 oz sirloin and asparagus
Dinner: Turkey sausage with onions
Snack: FF yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal

Thursday…
An early morning start at 555 am back to south Florida for a dental cleaning appt at 10. Got there with 5 minutes to share 🙂 A nice visit with my daughter, Jenni at Panero’s, then a long 2.5 hour hike with my friend Jamie in Johnathan Dickenson State Park. Saw an alligator, literally 2 feet away, in a retention pond very cool, but scary 😀 then met the crazy friends at Kona’s for Jammin’ Jensen.

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs
Lunch: Turkey slices and 2 small pieces of nearly fat free (1.5g) of sharp cheddar.
Dinner: Seared tuna on a stick and grilled pompano with mixed steamed veggies.
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal

Friday: up early, long walk through Stuart, across the bridges, down by the river walk, all before the sun comes up! Then I drove up to Melborne to visit my son. An evening visit with my friend, Tammy then to bed early.

Breakfast: 2 hard fried eggs and bacon
Lunch: turkey slices and a couple of small pieces of nearly fat free cheese
Dinner: chicken sausage (spicy and not, out of the cases), stir fried in a small amount of olive oil, with cumin, cinnamon, mushrooms, diced tomatoes and chilis. Then had 4 bites of bacon wrapped cobia nuggets at Tammy’s… Could not resist!
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal.

So, I’m apparently eating fine, since I’m losing. Still holding off on a total weight loss until I get home to my scale and progress sheet. I’m having a great vacation and nothing can beat that!

Ciao!

Quote of day: If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.

~ Virginia Woolf ~

Devil’s Millhopper

Me and Tasha

Abby

Dukan – My Last Walk to Work

Posted on September 19, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Today marks the end of my contract here in Hangzhou, China AND my last day of work. I fly home to the U.S. tomorrow and I am more than ready and SO excited!

I took the east sidewalk today… I would say that 80% of the time I take the west side. It depends a lot on the traffic lights 🙂 The darker tile is the Blind Person walkway, it is on every sidewalk in China that I’ve walked on. And the lane next to the sidewalk is the bicycle, e-bike, scooter lane. They have their own lane separated from the car traffic.

Last year I walked on my first day of work. I was a month into the Dukan Diet and I weighed 236 lbs/107.5 kgs. I was walking every day in Abu Dhabi for the prescribed 30 minutes. On that walk to work which is 1.5 kms/0.92 miles I decided that I was going to walk to and from work EVERY SINGLE DAY for the whole year of my contract. AND DAMMIT… I DID! I walked every single day to work for 12 months. My estimate (taking into consideration vacations and trips to work in other cities, where I also walked to work) is that here in Hangzhou I walked to work approximately 200 times. That’s 200 miles! Woot!

I have to admit that there were days that I was SO tempted to hail a cab or take the bus (it’s a .35 km walk to the bus stop, then it’s just one bus stop up)… there were 7 weeks in February and March where EVERY SINGLE DAY it was 41F and raining and it sucked… but I walked, because you set goals and you reach them and you feel like I do right this minute! 😀

I also walked home 90% of those days. The only days I didn’t was days that I was going into the city for groceries or dinner and caught a cab or bus. So my best guess is that I probably walked to and from work about 380+ miles over the course of this past year.

Did you get in your 30 minutes of movement today???

Ciao!

Recipe – Paleo – Coconut Flaxseed Bread Tweaked

Posted on September 17, 2012 by flamidwyfe

So I tweaked this recipe to make it even better. Well, actually, at first because I didn’t have enough of the original ingredients AND I had coconut milk that I wanted to use this week, since I’m moving back to the States on Thursday (WOO HOO!!!). Tatiana came to dinner and had the first batch and said this was, “MUCH BETTER!”… Sweeter and moister. So here goes:

COCONUT FLAXSEED BREAD – IMPROVED

COCONUT FLAXSEED BREAD
Serves: 8
1 serving = 1 slice

Ingredients:
3 Tbs coconut creme powder or coconut flour
12 Tbs flaxseed, ground
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
6 pkts of Splenda (or 6 tsp of your favorite sweetner)
5 eggs
1/4 c coconut oil
1/8 c coconut milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (not quite sure that’s what I used, lol… this is China, had to guess at it in the little store)

Preheat the oven (in my case the toaster oven) to 350 F.
Grease up a loaf pan with coconut oil.
Mix the dry stuff together, Mix the wet stuff together, Mix the dry and wet together 🙂
Pour into the pan.
Bake for 40 minutes.
Loaf is done when you stick in a chop stick (hey! I live in China!) comes out clean!
Enjoy!

This loaf came out browner, sweeter and moister than the last loaf.

dukan bread, paleo bread, low carb bread, atkins bread

Coconut Flaxseed Bread

Nutrition info per serving: Calories 150, Protein 5.5g, Fat 13.8g,
Total Carb 2.8g, Net Carb 0.4g

Dukan – Sunday Celebration and weekly wrap-up!

Posted on September 17, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Consolidation Phase Day 128 of 500!
Weekly Weight: 146-149
Goal Weight: 155
So Consolidation DOES work 🙂 I can’t believe it’s been 128 days since I met my goal weight! This summer has flown by! I am very consistent with my weight, still weighing every morning and still VERY happy with the results!

This past week has been busy! I am moving back to the States on Thursday after living abroad for 4 years. I have been packed for over a month 🙂 I know, a bit OCD, but what to say. I’ve got 2 large suitcases and a large box as checked luggage (things I didn’t want to risk never seeing again if my shipped boxes disappear into the stratosphere or something.) It’ll be worth paying extra for the peace of mind.

Exercise this past week included running 4-5K 3 times. Walking 4-5K the other 4 nights. I also did 30-45 minutes of yoga 4 times the past week. I hiked the mountain 1 time this past week and hope to do it Tuesday morning as one last hurrah 🙂

I met Hanna and Diana and Jacob (next photo) on the street a couple of weeks ago. They are from Sweden and here to attend the University just down the block from my flat. Jacob had on a Miami Dolphins hat, so of course I stopped them 🙂 They’ve been to dinner a few times and I wish I had met them sooner!

Jacob

The weather in Hangzhou has been PERFECT this past 4 days. Sunny and a cool breeze. I’ve had the flat windows opened and the whole place is fresh. The summer heat was oppressive! So it’s a nice break.

Let’s see… what did I eat this week. Lots of tea eggs, as per usual. Lunches consisted of leftover roasts (both pork and beef), salad, cheddar cheese and almonds. Dinners were steak stir fry, pork roast, beef roast, shrimp stir fry and my new favorite way to cook veggies; veggies (broccoli, asparagus, carrots and garlic stems) steamed in coconut milk… OH MY you have no idea how good THAT is… a must try! I also had a dinner out with friends at a local sushi restaurant and a hot pot dinner… guests for dinner almost nightly, trying to cook up all the food in the freezer AND say good bye to friends, new and not so new.

Pork roast… Mmm!

Out for sushi with Baby Milva!

Out for dinner with Joe, Chiara and baby Nunu!

You throw in the meat and veggies and it cooks in the hot pot… the liquid on the left is spicy, spicy!!! Mmmmmm!

And I did my last water birth lecture in front of a hundred people or so in a nearby town. I hope my message got across to some folks and they have gentler births!

Me and Liang… on our way to my last water birth lecture. She’s the lead midwife supporting water birth at Hangzhou AIMA.

So, that’s my wrap up! How did your week go? Is it cooling down where you live?

Ciao!

Recipe – Low Carb – Roast Dinner

Posted on September 10, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Last week I met 3 Swedish students that are here in Hangzhou to study a semester at the local university. I’m an extrovert (I’m sure most of you figured THAT out by now!) and the young man in the group was wearing a Miami Dolphins cap, so of course, being the Dolfan that I am, I said hello! By the end of the conversation I had invited Jacob, Diana and Hanna to my flat for dinner on Friday. Tatiana, one of my colleagues, also joined us.

On the menu:
Roast (this one was a prime rib hunk of love!)
Spaghetti squash (that turned out to be pumpkin, lol!)
Roasted vegetables – Onions, yam (which ended up being Taro) and carrots **TARO IS *NOT* LOW CARB… just so you know.
Fresh salad

I cooked the roast for 3.5 hours in the toaster oven and it was PERFECT… I had to fight the urge to not consume it before the guests arrived! The meat fell apart with the fork. In the container with the roast I added the onions, taro and carrots.

I also put the “spaghetti” squash I cut in half, cut size down in a different pan and added the balance of the onions, taro and carrots and baked in the toaster oven (after the roast was done) for 50 minutes. This is when I realized that the “spaghetti” squash wasn’t and went to plan B 😀

Plan B was removing the flesh from the pumpkin, mashing it, adding in 4 pkts of Splenda, a Tbs of ghee and a tsp of cinnamon… OH MY GOODNESS was this yummy!

I threw the salad together and welcomed my guests… we had a lovely dinner! Here’s the pics!

After everyone left I did a quick clean up and then went for a short 3 km run around the block… perfect way to end the evening!

Hunk of prime rib love… Mmm! You should always brown each side of the meat before roasting in the oven.

Just browning this made the house smell delish!

Carrots, celery, taro and onion… perfect compliments to a roast!

Seasonings… keep it simple!

Taro in all it’s purply glory… It’s quite starchy, but has a lot of bang for it’s buck… it’s full of fiber and tastes a bit nutty.

Ready for the toaster oven!

My Un-spaghetti squash… it was yummy anyways!

Falling apart with a fork!

The veggies after I removed from the roasting pan… Nom!

Making Mashed Pumpkin

Mixed Salad… I love adding purple cabbage for color and taste!

Dinner ready for the guests!

Hanna, Tatiana, Diana and Me… Lovely dinner companions!

One of the awesome things about living abroad is the people you meet. We have choices in life. We can go about our business and walk around with our eyes averted or we can keep our eyes open and look for new friendships. I choose the latter. I have met so many amazing people from all over the world these past 4 years living abroad… treasures, every one of them and lots of stories I have of my journey, as I head back home for good in 10 days.

Do you extend yourself to strangers?

Ciao!

p.s. added a pic of my Blue Sparkly Notebook to the last post 🙂

Dukan – Celebration Sunday & Mountain Hike

Posted on September 3, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was Consolidation Day 114 of 500.
Today’s Weight: 145
Goal Weight: 155

Sunday is my Celebration Sunday day on Dukan. When you enter the third phase of Dukan, the Consolidation Phase, you get one celebration meal a week. You can eat whatever you want. This is in the first half of Consolidation (mine is 500 days long and the rule applies until I hit day 250). In the second half you can have 2 celebration meals a week.

I’ve chosen to remain wheat, gluten and sugar free, so my celebration meals usually include something like french fries (i’m not eating white potatoes) or lots of fruit! That was the case today.

I started the morning out with a 2 egg omelet with onion, asparagus and garlic. I then went on a 5.59 km mountain hike with my friend Tatiana. This is the trail that I try to hike every Sunday morning when I’m in Hangzhou. I have to say that during yesterday’s hike up I realized that I was really going to miss this part of living in China. Moving back to Florida (which I love more than any place in the world) won’t include mountain hiking!

Burned off breakfast and then some!

runkeeper, mountain hike, hangzhou, china

286 meter = 938 feet… not a bad climb 🙂

Tatiana

mountain hike, west lake, hangzhou, china

And I wore shorts… in public. You can see West Lake in the background. It’s a beautiful view from the top of this mountain!

And this was my reward… a fruit salad for lunch, along with a iced cafe latte with Splenda and a TON of water… like 2 liters.

I shared this delicious fruit platter with Tatiana. So fresh and cool after a long hike in the heat.

My driver Jerry met us at the restaurant and took us to the wet market. I’m going to have to go back and get pictures… I’m always so busy picking out my stuff that I don’t pull out the iPhone and take pics! The wet market has the freshest veggies, fruits, meats and live poultry and fish to choose from. I get my veggies, pork and beef there. The stands that I purchase my pork and beef from both have range free farms. The meat is butchered the day before and I can pick my cuts. Tatiana picked out a 1/2 kilo of live jumbo shrimp to make us a late afternoon snack.

We got home, I separated out all the meat and spent time reading for a while. Around 4 Tatiana simmered the shrimp with fresh ginger, sea salt and pepper corns. I made a wasabi & tamari mix and we had some yummy shrimp!!!

Didn’t have dinner, as I was stuffed. I had a couple of bites of cheese and a handful of almonds to round out my evening.

What did you do on Sunday? Were you active?

Ciao!

Dukan Diet – Pure Protein Thursday

Posted on August 31, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Thursday is alway a Pure Protein Day. This Thursday was Consolidation Day 112 🙂 Dr. Dukan recommends that followers of the program in Consolidation pick Thursday as the one day a week you have a pure protein day and for the most part, I have.
Today’s weight: 147
Goal weight: 155

Before I could eat, I had my annual physical at work. It included blood work, EKG, chest X-ray, breast thermography (instead of mammogram, no radiation), ultrasound of my liver (no longer fatty… Yay!!!), pancreas, kidneys and spleen and a look over by the TCM doc. Waiting on the blood results, but everything else was perfect! It took less than 40 minutes for everything and cost $0! How awesome is that?

Breakfast: 2 Tea Eggs from the shop downstairs…

Lunch: A small plate of roast beef

Afternoon Snack: A tea egg

Dinner: 1 Chicken breast, roasted in that toaster oven, with a roasted 1/2 red onion. I marinated the chicken in 1 Tbs coconut oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp cumin and a dash of salt for 30 minutes in the fridge. Shook the container up and put it on the pizza pan to cook, pouring the marinade over it and the onion. Cooked in oven for 40 mins at 350 degrees F.

I then went for a 4K run and finished with about 20 minutes of stretches and yoga.

Bedtime Snack: Fat free Greek yogurt with 1 Tbs flaxseed meal and Splenda

What did you eat on Thursday?

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 108

Posted on August 28, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Monday was Consolidation Day 108 🙂

Today’s Weight: 146
Goal Weight: 155
Still lovin’ that 🙂

Back to work in Hangzhou. Kind of a frustrating day. Went to the bank to make a deposit and they wouldn’t let me because I didn’t have my passport… to make a deposit… sigh. Then I went to the post office to ship off the last 4 boxes to the States and the guy went through all my stuff to make sure it was packed well enough to not break anything and DROPS the package with my Chinese china!!!! Breathe IN, Breathe OUT… I flew off the handle… I couldn’t help it… I am not perfect, I threw a tantrum. They quickly finished me up, I apologized a million times to my driver, Jerry, who is the most patient person in the world (besides Kitty)… he smoothed things over and got me the hell out of there before, well before I got into trouble!

My granddaughter Sadie represents the 3rd generation of epic tantrum throwers 🙂
My daughter Jenni, however, was the Queen of them!

Then back to work where I managed to upset the apple cart by providing a not so glowing audit about hand washing that had the doctors doing better than the nurses. I was on a roll!

Went home and had me some dinner and felt better 🙂 I also am tutoring a Chinese midwife in Medical English and passing the NCLEX-RN exam. So we worked on that last night.

Sunday I got in a 5K run in under 40 minutes after not running for 9 days due to my bout of food poisoning, but I pushed myself and did it… which makes me feel so good 🙂 I then went up to my flat and did 30 minutes of stretching, yoga and exercise bands. I have SO much energy when I’m done running… it’s amazing!

I also got a few pictures from Rose, my personal assistant in Guangzhou from my multiple stays there this past 5 months. Here’s a couple I want to share:

Water birth training in April 2012. Guangzhou.

Grand Opening of the Water Delivery Center in Guangzhou Elizabeth Women’s Hospital – April 2012

I’ve been saying that I haven’t felt like I accomplished much in the past year. Maybe I set my expectations too high for myself… I’m a perfectionist. But when I look at these pictures I do realize that I’ve accomplished quite a bit. The hospitals keep referring to me as their International Water Birth Expert… and I’ve come to realize, I really am! I mean who better to be called that than someone who has delivered hundreds of babies in the water (all over the world, including on 4 continents!) and has taught water birth all over the world? The 5 hospitals here in China that I’ve done the water birth trainings in have collectively performed over 100 water births in the past year! I am proud of their accomplishments and that the midwives and doctors at these 5 hospitals have accepted water birth as a “normal” way for women to deliver their babies. And delighted for the women and babies who have experienced this amazing way of birthing!

Breakfast: 2 slices of bacon and 2 tea eggs
Snack: FF Greek yogurt with Splenda and flaxseed meal
Lunch: 3 ham slices with 3 slices of Pepper Jack cheddar… Mmmm!!
Dinner: Stir-fry pork with onions and asparagus (cooked in coconut oil).
Snack: Beef jerky… eeek that out a couple little pieces at a time to make it stretch (thanks, Suzanne for bringing me the 3 bags!!) ** Kira… Titters LOVES jerky!

I hope everyone is having a great week! I have 23 days until I fly home… for good… or for now… LOL
What type of exercise or movement did you do on Monday??

Ciao!

Recipe – Dukan & Paleo – Coconut Flaxseed Bread

Posted on August 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I tried to find a recipe with the ingredients that I had on hand, but couldn’t. So I took a bit from a few of them and tried this out. It turned out pretty well. It’s very moist. I think the next time I might add a couple of packets of Splenda to it. This is my very first piece of bread in over a year!!!

COCONUT FLAXSEED BREAD
Serves: 8
1 serving = 1 slice

Ingredients:
1/2 c coconut creme powder
1/2 c flaxseed, ground
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
5 eggs
1/4 c coconut oil
1/8 c water
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (not quite sure that’s what I used, lol… this is China, had to guess at it in the little store)

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease a loaf pan with coconut oil.
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl.
Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, mixing well.
Pour into loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes.