1-Point LARGE Cafe Latte!

Unsweetened vanilla almond milk and Golden monkfruit sweetener

When I got home from an appointment earlier today, I wanted a latte or macchiato; I needed an early afternoon energy boost. I started to make a caramel macchiato but then noticed that the jar of sugar-free caramel had “Refrigerate after opening” on it. It has been sitting next to my espresso machine for a couple months. I tossed it in the trash.

With no caramel (except full sugar – which would add 6 points for 2 tablespoons – and I would want more than 2 tablespoons!), I decided to go with a latte instead.

I got a large glass and filled it with ice. Then I poured 4 ounces of espresso over the ice. And since I REALLY like my coffee drinks sweet, and since I had just bought a bag of golden monkfruit sweetener, I added 1 1/2 Tablespoons of it to my latte.  I finished filling up the glass with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and stirred it.

The golden monkfruit sweetener is a brown sugar replacement. So it gave the latte a caramel-y flavor – which I loved.

Weight Watchers points? The only ingredient with points is the almond milk – and it’s 1 point for 1 cup. I used less than a cup, but will count a full point anyway. It is delicious! Just imagine: a large coffee drink for 1 point! I will be making these more often!

Get Outside! An Atomic Habit

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by [James Clear]Sometimes we come across a book that actually changes our lives. That happened to me a couple years ago when I read a book titled Atomic Habits by James Clear.  The basic premise is that if we set big goals, we often set ourselves up for defeat since big and perfect goals take so much time and effort. However, if we work on small habits – 3 minutes of exercise each morning, cutting out one teaspoon of sugar in our coffee, writing one thank you note each week, making two business calls before lunch – then it becomes like compound interest. The benefits snowball over time.

Back in March when this pandemic isolation began, I decided that one atomic habit I wanted to develop was getting outside for just a few minutes each day.  Here is a video I made on today’s walk. Excuse the breathlessness! I had just walked up a hill. I could’ve waited till I caught my breath to start the video, but this is calling “Living Real with Carol!” and the reality was that I was a little breathless at the moment.

7-Point Pizza (WW Blue)

I made personal pizzas tonight – one for my husband and one for me.  Pizza is one of my all time favorite dishes!  The last time we had pizza was during the summer when I ordered one from Domino’s Pizza, and it was less than delicious. It was so bad, in fact, that it turned me off from wanting pizza for a couple months.  However, lately after eating so much chicken and tuna and lean beef, I have yearned for something a little more indulgent.

After reading about 2-ingredient dough, and then researching and finding an even better (supposedly) dough recipe, I decided to give home-made pizza another try.

First the dough. I got the recipe from My Bizzy Kitchen. Here’s that recipe:

Dough:

2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon yeast

1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup Fage Fat Free Greek Yogurt

1/2 – 3/4 cup warm water

  • Heat oven to 450 (see notes).
  • In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and yeast together. Stir in the yogurt and mix until it starts to combine. Start with 1/2 a cup of water and see how the dough comes together. If there is still a bit of loose flour in the bowl, add a couple tablespoons of water at a time, until it forms a ball.
  • This dough can be used within an hour of making, but truth be told, I normally don’t use it until day 2 or 3. On the first day I let it rise in my microwave all day, then store it in a ziplock bag.
  • On the day of baking, add a tablespoon of flour on your counter. Wet your hands and grab desired amount of dough for your pizza. Most of my individual pizzas are 5 ounces. Top with desired toppings and bake for 10 minutes, or until desired doneness.

I didn’t  put my dough in the microwave to rise. As a matter of fact, I didn’t let it rise at all because we were making pizza right away.

I divided the dough into four equal parts. We used two of those for our two individual pizzas tonight. I put the other two parts in a Ziplock bag in the refrigerator for pizza later this week. (Note added: We used the extra dough three days later for another two pizzas, and it was perfect! So it keeps well in the fridge for at least three days). The flour is the only ingredient with points. So each of the four parts contain 1/2 cup self-rising flour – which is 5 points on WW Blue Plan.

The photo above shows our two pizzas ready to go in the oven. That’s mine on the bottom – and Ron’s at the top. He added additional sauce on top of his other ingredients. It looks like a barbecue pizza, but it isn’t – just lots of pizza sauce! That’s because he doesn’t usually each much pizza crust because of his blood sugar. Thus, he wanted to be sure he had plenty of the toppings.

In the photo above, the pizzas are on a pizza stone that I bought from Pampered Chef years ago. I had put the pizza stone in the oven while I made the dough. So it was piping hot when we put the dough on it.

I sprayed my hands with butter flavored Pam to smooth out the dough on the pizza stone. Then once we had it spread out, my husband and I added our favorite toppings.

Toppings

These are the toppings I put on my pizza:

Onion, finely chopped (0 points)

fresh spinach, torn into small pieces (0 points)

fresh chopped tomatoes (0 points)

Ragu Homemade style Pizza Sauce (1 point for 1/4 cup)

Sargento Light mozzarella string cheese (1 point per stick), cut crossways into thin circles. In the photo above, you can see the small circles of mozzarella.

3/8 oz Cabot Cheese, Sharp Cheddar, 75% Reduced Fat (0 points for 3/8 oz.)

At the top of this post is a photo of my baked and ready-to-eat pizza. I forgot to take a photo until I had cut it and put the pieces on a plate.  It was delicious! The crust has a little bit of a tangy taste from the yogurt. I really liked it. One great thing about this recipe is that the dough took only a few minutes to put together. And, of course, the toppings were delicious.

And the best thing of all is that the whole pizza is only 7 points. My first pizza in over two months. And I still have 5 points left for today!

When Problems Become Idols

I was reading a devotional book the other day, and it talked about how sometimes we let problems and worries take over; they become idols to us. It was a different way of looking at things we tend to obsess over, and it made me realize that my weight issues have become like an idol to me.

Commitment versus Motivation/Willpower

I am a member of many Weight Watchers groups on Facebook. One frequent comment that is posted numerous times a day by many different people is something along these lines:

I lost my motivation. What can I do to get it back?

I do really well all day, but then at night I lose all my willpower!

I keep forgetting to log my food, and by the time I remember I’m already over my points for the day, and I just give up! What can I do to get the motivation to get back on track?

Recently I read that the difference between succeeding or failing is in whether we rely on motivation/willpower or we rely on commitment.  Motivation and willpower are hard to pinpoint. They’re often intangible and vague, whereas a commitment is a concrete thing,

Back in July when I MADE THE COMMITMENT to start WW again, I knew that this time was different. I wasn’t going on a diet. I wasn’t going to “try” this and see if it would work. I was committed to a different way of living for the rest of my life.

As I write this, it is 10:30 in the evening. Awhile ago, I heard the Baked Cheetos in my pantry calling my name. I’ve used all my daily points, I have only 7 weekly points left, and I still have two more full days before my points re-set for a new week.  I craved those salty, cheesy, and crispy Cheetos. However, I reminded myself of my commitment to REAL change. And real change is learning to say no to those cravings. The more I give in, the more I give in. The more I resist, the more I resist. I know I’m not hungry. I had a healthy dinner and I had some grapes for an after-dinner snack. I’ve had more than enough food today. So I bypassed the pantry and wrote this post instead.

Then I thought of the quote above: Commitment strengthens over time but begins with a single decision. Next time those Cheetos call my name, it will be easier to decide to forego them. The only way to stop eating late in the evening is to stop eating late in the evening. Each single decision I make that supports my commitment makes me a stronger and better person.

Recipe Fail: Chocolate Muffins

My experiment today was to make chocolate muffins without a sugar free cake mix as the base.  I wanted to develop my own recipe. It sounded so simple. However, I found that I greatly over-estimated my creative baking skills.  It was such a disaster that I won’t even list the recipe, but here are the ingredients I used:

They looked so nice in the pan and cooked up beautifully.  I couldn’t wait to taste them.

I took one bite of the warm muffin – and promptly spit it out into a napkin!  There was no sweetness at all – it actually kinda set my teeth on edge. All 12 muffins (minus that one bite) went right into the “chicken bowl” that we keep in the kitchen for scraps to feed the chickens. 

I decided to give it another try immediately. I decided to add some monkfruit sweetener, vanilla extract, and a little Fage nonfat Greek yogurt. Surely those additions would make the muffins wonderful – or at least palatable.

So I made a second batch with those modifications. Again, I was eager to try them out. They looked and smelled wonderful. This time I got 2-3 bites down before tossing all the rest into the chicken bowl.  The second batch didn’t set my teeth on edge, but they simply didn’t taste good.  Sigh.

I have to say – those sugar-free cake mixes are looking a lot more appealing at this point! I’ve run out of muffin-making steam for today, but maybe tomorrow I will be go back to the original sugar-free cake mix chocolate muffin recipe!

Eating well and losing weight affects one’s blood pressure

Today I have not been feeling well – headache and a little light-headed. Oh great, I thought, I’m coming down with Covid-19. However, one of my sisters advised that I take my blood pressure since a low BP could cause one to feel light-headed. So I did – four times over the course of about 30 minutes because I’m compulsive like that. Here are the readings:

117/58       98/57       110/58      110/59

It’s a fairly consistent reading – especially for the second number.  And all four are too low. That could easily account for the light-headed feeling I’ve had – and maybe for the headache, too.

I take BP meds each evening. It’s a fairly low dose, but I’m thinking that with my healthy eating the past 7 weeks, plus losing some weight, that it has affected my BP.  So tonight I will cut my dose in half. I will continue to monitor my BP, and hopefully it will be better after a day or two.

Thursday Morning Thoughts

Just a quick thought for this morning. I’m becoming a little fixated on the scale. I’ve been weighing every morning. Two days ago I was up. Yesterday I was down. I recognize this pattern from all the dieting I’ve done over the years – and it’s not a healthy pattern. I become obsessed with my weight, and that’s not what I want for myself.

So a new resolution: I will weigh ONLY on Friday mornings, That’s it.  No in-between. I’ve got to end this obsession before it derails me!

One other observation: I’m still doing “secret eating.” Yesterday I had the house to myself for several hours. What’s the first thing I did? I ate FOUR Rice Krispies treats – which was 14 points. I logged them and counted the points, but WHY? I didn’t really want four Rice Krispies treats – but it was like I suddenly had the freedom to eat whatever I wanted. That’s not healthy thinking. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want – as long as I track it and stay within my points.  There’s no need to binge.

This lifestyle is a different way of thinking, and changing long-held practices takes time. However, I am committed to this!

Tomorrow’s weigh-in will be interesting. I have used up all my daily and weekly points last week and this week. Supposedly I should still lose weight. Last week I gained. Hopefully tomorrow I will have lost.