Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Howdy!

Heh, I looked at the date of my last post. It was September. I kind of figured it would coincide with the start of school. Here I am now, with 13 days left of school with the boys. We have visions of summer vacation dancing in our heads. I will try and do some updates and let you lovely people know what's going on with our diets.

We most definitely are still eating real food. Real good food, I might add. We all feel fabulous. We are looking much better and the best thing is that Connor's blood sugars are way more stabilized. So, this summer I will do some posts about how our diet has evolved in the last 9 months. I'll post some of our dinners and pictures of course.

So, if any of you are still out there, Hi! I'll be back soon. I promise.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Days 128-133

Hello all. I'm not as late this week. Progress. Baby steps. Every week I have full intentions to do this blog on Sunday. This time of year I don't think that will happen. You see, Sunday is football day. Our TV is tuned to the NFL Redzone. My laptop is flashing between NFL.com to watch the Bills games and our fantasy football team. Tim and I have a team this year and let me tell you, it has made football so much more fun. We are Bills fans (hanging head in shame). We rarely get to see their games here. We get the Eagles or Steelers (who I also like). The thing that is fun is the fact that we have assorted players on all the teams who we can watch and root for. Anyway, that is why the blog doesn't get worked on on Sunday. We can all blame football.

So, onto our week of meals. This was a low key week. We were all still getting over colds and not very hungry.

Sunday:
WINGS
no picture
Again, I'm a dork and forgot to take the picture of our wings. Sunday night is wings night in our home. We also eat a ton of celery so fret not, we are eating our veg as well.

Monday:
Taco Salad
Taco Salad

This is becoming a fave in our home. It's perfect because I can throw it together while Connor is at karate and it's all ready when he gets home. I love the chipolte salsa on mine

Tuesday:
Turkey Burgers with Creamed spinach
Turkey Burgers with creamed spinach

We love our turkey burgers now. They are so delicious and Aidan eats them most of the time. This time I didn't mince the green onions fine enough so he was able to see them and wasn't happy about it. Tim experimented with some creamed spinach. This wasn't a big hit with Aidan, but I will give him props for trying it. Connor on the other hand loved it. He ended up eating more than he was bolused for and we had to give him a little more insulin after the fact.

Wednesday:
Steak with whiskey cream sauce and brussel sprouts
Steak with whiskey cream sauce and brusssl sprouts

This was good. It was fun to make this one because we were in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm and I love myself some thunderstorms. I made a mistake and used a bunch of cubed up stew meat instead of steaks. We were out of steaks and I rarely make stews. The meat was a little tougher than normal but the amazing sauce made up for it. I also did the brussel sprouts differently and they weren't as good as when I roast them. They cooked in a little bacon fat and then I added some chicken broth and they basically cooked in the chicken broth. We all decided the butter garlic roasted ones are way better.

Thursday:
Slaw Dogs
Slaw Dogs

What? What's that? Is that a bun?! Oh yes it is. I love the internet because I can google something and find an answer. This amazing woman has an incredible blog chock full of recipes we can use. These buns are made out of egg whites beaten to within an inch of their lives and then egg yolks with some cream cheese. Throw it in the oven, bake, voila. One carb bun. Oh yeah. The slaw was also delicious. Instead of sugar, I just used stevia and I think I ate Aidan's weight of it. I seriously ate this for a couple of days. It was so good. Next time I think I'll dice up a dill pickle and add as well. Then I will disallow anyone touching it.

Friday:
Pizza!
Pizza!

Yes, we attempted pizza again. The crust was made out of eggs and cheese. I don't think we'll do it again. It was nice to have pizza again but the crust was just too much and not that easy to work with. I am thinking I'm going to try the same recipe I used for the buns and try that as a pizza crust. Otherwise, the toppings were delish! We enjoyed our pizza with a movie. Good times!

Saturday:
Pumpkin Pie Milkshake
Pumpkin Pie Milkshake

Tim roasted up another one of our pumpkins during the day and we all just wanted something light for dinner. So the milkshake was had. It's basically just cream, water, ice, protein powder, roasted pumpkin, some pumpkin pie spice and a packet of stevia. They were super duper filling and everyone was satisfied.

So, that wraps up another week. It was a good week. Connor had some blood drawn today for his endocrinologist appointment next week. We are pretty excited to see how this way of eating has affected his numbers. We've been doing this for just over a month and an HBA1C averages three months of sugars so he's still going to have a couple of months of not so great numbers to deal with...although I have read/heard that it mostly accounts for the past month. We shall see.

Have a great week!!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Days 121-127

Hello Mr. Procrastination, how nice of you to stop by.  So, I've been thinking about writing all week and haven't had the time or gumption to do so.  We've been busy and for part of the time sick so I have my reasons.  =)

Let's get to the meals.  I'm not going to have pictures for all of them because I'm a dork.

Sunday:
NO PICTURE
Wings
I am happy to report that wings have no carbs.  The sauces that we use have no carbs.  We may have lost our Friday night pizza night, but we've gained our Sunday Football Wings.  Tim fries them up for us.  We tried baking them once and they just turned out mushy and nasty.  When we fry them they get nice and crispy.  My wings I like to make a butter garlic sauce and I think next time I will put some fresh parmesain in the sauce as well.  We also like to use Frank's hot sauce because it has no carbs in it.  Aidan likes his honey mustard dressing for his wings.  He's the only one who still eats a little bit of carbs.  So, Sunday's meal was a win win for all.


Monday:
Taco Salad
Taco Salad

This is such an easy meal to throw together.  I just cook up some ground beef and mix in a taco seasoning packet.  I bought the Simply Organic taco seasoning blend and didn't think anything about there being carbs in it, but alas, there were 5 carbs per serving.  Huh?  How can spices have carbs?!  Because they also included potato starch.  Dang.  It did effect Connor's blood sugar even though we covered the carbs with insulin.  I'm going to just start making my own taco mix.

Tuesday:
Turkey Burger
Turkey Burger with Lettuce Buns

Oh yeah, we took care of the bun issue.  We used leaves of romaine.  We usually put lettuce on our burgers anyway.  This recipe is from Dr. B's book and is so tasty.  Aidan even liked it this time.  I put a little bit of blue cheese dressing on top of mine with a slice of tomato fresh out of our garden.  YUM.

Wednesday:
Quiche
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche

Yup, you've seen it before and you will see it again.  I think we've had this three or four weeks in a row now. This time we were starting to get tired of it, so you will not see it next week.  It will be in the mix again though in the future.  It's really easy to make and everyone loves it.  We just need a break after having it so much.

Thursday:
NO PICTURE
This was an interesting dinner.  I had made a fish chowder.  It looked good, but once it was done, it smelled too fishy for me.  Connor and Tim ate it and liked it.  Aidan and I opted to make "milkshakes" (protein shakes) and that is what we had for dinner.  Tim enjoyed a very large serving of leftovers the next day.  =)

Friday:
Local kielbasa with onions and peppers
Kielbasa with onions and peppers

Oh my, this was a tasty treat.  I found local kielbasa in our Wegmans and was happy to see it had no extra fillers like other kielbasas.  We fried that up with some peppers out of our garden and an onion.   No one even mentioned that it was pizza night.  We all snuggled on the couch and watched Wall-E and enjoyed our meal.

Saturday:
NO PICTURE
I am trying really hard to remember what we had for dinner on Saturday.  I can't remember.  I can't even really remember what we did.  I know this is the day that I started to come down with my cold.  I got the food shopping done in the afternoon (mental note...don't go to Wegmans on Saturday afternoon).  I came home and felt like crap.  Tim probably made dinner.  Oh yeah...now I remember.  We roasted one our pumpkins that we picked out of our garden.  Tim roasted it for an hour.  He then let it cool.  He made all of us pumpkin pie milkshakes.  It was a scoop of protein powder in a half cup of cream, half cup of water, 1/2 cup of pumpkin, a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice and a packet of stevia.  It tasted exactly like pumpkin pie.  It was a treat.  The kids loved it.  It's even better because pumpkin has a lot of vitamins and minerals in it and Aidan sucked it down.  Pumpkin is a little high in carbs, but Connor is allowed up to 12 carbs at dinner.  He rarely eats that many at dinner, unless there are brussel sprouts involved.  We all mentioned how it reminded us of Dairy Queen's Pumpkin Pie Blizzard.  At least this one was good for us.

Ok

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Days 114-120

Oh my. It's Tuesday already and I haven't posted yet. Sorry my faithful viewers (all three of you), it's been a busy weekend. We have officially been doing very low carb eating for one month now. This will be the fourth week with no sugar, no grains, no fruit, no carbs. The only carbs that we ingest are in the form of vegetables. We all feel fantastic. I'm not going to lie, it was rough the first week. Both Tim and I had our share of withdrawls and some pretty impressive fatigue. That is all behind us now. More importantly, Connor's blood sugars continue to be very good. We are having a bit of a problem with him having a low blood sugar once a day. The problem with that is that after his low, he usually rebounds with a higher number, although he doesn't rebound over 200 anymore. When he goes down and then swoops back up then I can't tell if his basal rates are ok or not. I finally called his nurse today and asked her if I should change his insulin sensitivity because I noticed that whenever we bolus a high (130--that's crazy that we consider that a high now) that within two to three hours he's low. She did indeed change his sensitivity and his carb ratio. His rates are dropping. He now needs less insulin to treat a high and less insulin for what carbs he does eat. We are THRILLED. I dropped his basal rates again today too. He's been such a trooper with us experimenting and his constant blood sugar checks, but he's also being rewarded so he doesn't really care.

So, now that I've rambled on about what most of you probably don't understand, let's get to the meals:

Sunday:
Roast Beef with Cabbage
Roast Beef with stir fried cabbage and tomato casserole

We decided to use some of the big roasts in our freezer this week because we are about to get another order of our grass fed beef. We are excited to watch our freezer fill up again and we are excited to go see Chris and Amanda out at their beautiful home. This was a pretty easy roast to do. I've never done a roast before so it was interesting. I looked up online how long to cook it and apparently had bad information. It had to cook an hour longer than I thought it would. It ended up being pretty good though. It also made for a lot of leftovers for the next couple of days.



Monday:
Scallops in Bacon and broccoli
Scallops wrapped in bacon with broccoli

Tim and I loved this dish, but the kids weren't as keen on it this week. They each had a couple of them and then claimed they weren't hungry. It was kind of a rushed dinner because we were so busy that day (Labor Day) that we had a late dinner and both of the kids wanted to squeeze in a Scotland Yard game before bed.


Tuesday:
Peanut Ginger Pork with bok choy
Peanut Ginger Pork Chop with Bok Choy

This was a new recipe and it was delicious. Three of the four of us loved it and the surprise was that Connor was the one who didn't like this one. Aidan loved it. I'm getting to where I really like marinated things early in the day and then all I have to do is cook it. Easy peasy. I'm not sure why Connor didn't like it, but he's not been as hungry as usual so we're not forcing him to eat it if he doesn't like it.


Wednesday:
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche with a salad

This meal is a three-peat for us. It's easy for me because I can throw it together while Connor is at karate and it's ready when he gets home. Everyone loves it and we always have enough left over for the kids to have a lunch the next day. You're probably going to get tired of seeing this meal, but we aren't tired of eating it yet.


Thursday:
40 Garlic Clove roast with Swiss Chard
40 clove Brisket with Swiss Chard

I'm not sure about this meal. For one thing, it was a pain in the arse to peel 40 cloves of garlic even though I have one of those little rubber roll garlic peelers. Again, I followed the internet for cooking times and this one was way off this time. I think I over-cooked it. It was still tasty, but the meat dried out a bit. The garlic was delicious though. We smooshed a bunch of them over our beef while we were eating. Connor ended up basically eating garlic. You probably could smell us from down the block.



Friday:
Bacon Feta Chicken with Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Bacon Feta Chicken with Garlic Roasted Brussel Sprouts

We really like this meal too. We've had this before. It's so painfully easy. You put a bunch of feta cheese on top of a chicken breast and then put a couple of pieces of bacon on top of that. Throw in in the oven and bake it....dinner done. We had this with roasted brussel sprouts. I think Connor has a serious addiction to brussel sprouts. Interestingly enough, they have a pretty high carb count for a vegetable. 2 brussel sprouts have 3 carbs in them. At most we allow him to have 12 carbs at a meal. He uses all of those carbs up on the sprouts.


Saturday:
Korean Beef with Stir-fried Cabbage
Korean Beef with Stir fried cabbage

Saturday was a treat for us because Tim's dad and most awesome step mom came into town to spend the day with us. We treated them to our way of eating. I hope they survived it. We made one of our faves. The Korean Beef and cabbage. Oh man, I can't get over how much flavor those little strips of steak have. They are so good. We had a lot of fun and I know Laurie had a lot of questions so when I have time to write I'll post some of the resources we've been using.

So there was our past week. We are starting to settle into certain meals each week. It's funny because in the past I used to get upset with us eating the same thing all the time. I would get bored. It's different now though because most of the time I'm not hungry and I don't crave anything anymore. We're basically eating to fuel ourselves now. Novel idea, right?

Well, I have to jet because I have two boys waiting for their hugs and kisses. Until next week (and hopefully on time) I hope everyone stays happy.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Days 107-113

Hello all. We are rocking the kitchen around here. We are in our third week of extremely low carb eating. I'm amazed at the changes in all of our moods, cravings, and eating patterns. Let's get to the meals.

Sunday:
Korean Beef and Cabbage
Korean Beef with Stir-fried Cabbage

Oh my. This meal was so flavorful and delicious. It made enough for dinner and two days worth of lunches. It was also insanely easy to throw together. Win win all around.

Monday:
Scallops wrapped in bacon and garlic roasted brussel sprouts
Scallops wrapped in bacon and garlic roasted brussel sprouts

This was a huge win with the whole family. Aidan wolfed these down and raved about them. That's a plus around here lately because Aidan is still not really liking the fact that his favorites are gone. At least he's not moaning about his lack of pizza, macaroni, and pasta as much.

Tuesday:
Turkey Marjoram burgers on spinach
Turkey Marjoram burgers on a bed of spinach

This recipe came out of Dr. Bernstein's book. It was delicious. Connor loved these. He wanted more when he was done. They were surprisingly moist. Turkey burgers in the past have always been on the dry side, but these were very good.

Wednesday:
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche with Zucchini fritters
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche with Zucchini fritters

This is a repeat from last week because Aidan loved it and when we find something he loves, we need to run with it. He even liked the zucchini fritters this time. This is an easy meal to throw together and the leftovers fed Connor for the next two lunches. It's nice to have something ready in the fridge come lunch time so I don't have to waste our hour lunch break making big lunches.

Thursday:
Steak with whiskey cream sauce and broccoli
Steak with whiskey cream sauce and broccoli with cheese sauce

Man, if I could marry this whiskey cream sauce I would. It is from The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook. I've made it before and since going no carb I haven't cracked the book open. I wanted to peek at the recipe again and see if it was ok for us. It is. The flavor of this sauce is so amazing. Tim and I had some of the extra sauce on our eggs the next morning too. I'm pondering keeping a container of this sauce in the refrigerator at all times. Of course, we've also been drinking our whiskey so I'm going to have to go get another bottle of it.

Friday:
Pizza
Pizza

What? Pizza? Yes, we did some experimenting. Instead of making my normal pizza dough recipe, Tim made a crust with soy flour. Soy flour has only 9 carbs per serving where normal white flour has 24 carbs per serving. The taste is a little different, but really all you need of the crust is to hold the toppings. Sadly, even the reduced amount of carbs had a huge effect on Connor's blood sugar. We're not sure if it's because of the flour or the pizza sauce. The pizza sauce was measured out and the carbs were covered, but he still had a rise in his sugars. It looks like we are going to need to find an alternative to our Friday night pizza night.

Saturday:
Crab Legs
Crab Legs
039
Steamed clams

This meal came about as a sudden craving I had. I hadn't planned anything for Saturday and we spent the day cleaning and hadn't really thought about dinner. Around 3 o'clock we were watching some pre-season football and I had the thought of crab legs pop into my head. Tim was a dear and went out and picked up a bunch of crab legs and while he was picking them up he got a big bag of Maine clams. Dinner solved. We cooked it all up, melted butter with garlic and set up the table outside. We enjoyed our dinner under fall looking clouds and cooler temps with Nancy. It was perfect.

So, that was our third week of eating nearly no carbs. The only carbs we are eating are basically from our vegetables. Connor's blood sugars continue to be level and his insulin usage is down. The first week we went no carb his sugars ran from 80 to 110 and then the second week he ran from 100-140. It was a little higher, but it was because of a growth spurt. This is interesting because usually his growth spurts run him with sugars between 200 and 300. So, while I was kind of bummed to see 100 to 140 I was thrilled it wasn't any higher. Right now his HBA1c will likely be 7.1 which is down from 8.1. The lowest we've ever had his HBA1c has been 7.4 and that was after having a lot of uncontrolled lows. Now, we're going to try and get it down to 6.1. I think within another month of eating this way and my messing around with his basal rates we can achieve that.

Well, that is about all I have for now. We're going to go enjoy our 68 degree weather and sunny skies. I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend!








Sunday, August 29, 2010

Days 101-106

Hello all. I hope everyone is doing ok. We had another great week of food here. We have gone 2 weeks in our home with no sugar, no flour, and very low carb intake. The only one who has had a problem with it is, of course, Aidan. He is/was a serious carboholic. I've had to supplement him a couple of times for lunch with some leftover Peanut Butter Puffins we had in the cupboard. I told him though that when they are gone, there will be no more cereal. There have also been a couple of meals where he has absolutely not liked it. I will give him props because he will at least try things, but if he doesn't like it, he won't eat it. I don't make him things eat things that he doesn't like. We have learned that lesson before and it involved broccoli and it wasn't pretty. In the past, I've fixed something different for him so he doesn't starve. That has changed though. If he doesn't like dinner, he's told that what's on the table is all we have and he doesn't have to eat it. It's made him a pretty big breakfast eater lately. =) I figure once he stops pining for all the things he can't have, he'll get used to it and start eating what the rest of us like. I also take note of what he actually likes and I'll make them again for him.

So, let's get to last weeks meals. I only have 6 days this week because Saturday night I went out with some good friends and Tim took care of their dinner. He didn't take a picture, but I'll let you know what he did.

Sunday:
Mexican Casserole
Mexican Casserole

This was basically a big taco salad. It was a layer of ground beef with taco seasoning and then cream cheese that had been softened. This added the refried bean texture without the carbs. Then it was just lettuce, tomato, onions, some grated cheddar and some salsa on top. It was delicious. I thought I would miss having tortilla chips with this but I didn't.

Monday:
Bacon Feta Chicken with Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Bacon Feta Chicken with Roasted Brussel Sprouts

This meal was enjoyed by all. Tim wasn't sure about the combination of feta cheese with the bacon but he really liked this one. Connor loved the brussel sprouts. He always does. These are roasted in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I have to figure out something else to roast them with because the balsamic effects his blood sugars because there is sugar in it.

Tuesday:
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche

This was one that Aidan loved. Instead of a pastry crust like a regular quiche, the crust is made of ground beef and crumbled bacon. Then it's topped with an egg mixture. This tasted really good and Aidan was able to have leftovers the next day for lunch. The tomatoes are fresh out of our garden and were so tasty.

Wednesday:
Lasagna
Lasagna

This was delicious too. Instead of noodles, I sliced zucchini into thin strips and made them look like noodles. I made the mistake of not peeling them though. Aidan loved the lasagna until he caught a glimpse of green and then he picked around the zucchini. I think if I had peeled the zukes then he wouldn't have noticed as quickly. He did eat some of the zucchini though. This made a ton and we all had a piece for lunch the next day. There was some other poor planning on my part. This has to do with Connor's karate. We are finding that after his one hour of activity in karate his blood sugars rise a little bit. The mistake I made was having something with a tomato sauce on karate night. His sugar did rise but I can't really pinpoint if it was the karate or if it was the spaghetti sauce. The sauce had no sugar in it at all, but some vegetables (I know tomatoes are officially a fruit) turn to sugar very fast in your system.

Thursday:
Creamy Southwestern Chicken with green beans
Creamy Southwestern Chicken

I laugh when I'm typing this because both boys had a very negative reaction to this meal. Connor accused me of trying to poison him and Aidan asked if I put vomit on a plate. Cute kids, right? Tim and I actually really liked this one. It was chicken breasts cut up into bite size pieces and then browned. I added a little cream and a small can of green chilies to it and then shredded in a tiny bit of Monterey jack cheese. It had a lot of flavor (which apparently the kids did not appreciate) and it was just creamy goodness. I'll be making this again for me just to have in the fridge to put on top of a salad or something. The boys did eat their green beans though.

Friday:
Pizza Bites
Pizza bites

I'm still trying to figure out a suitable replacement for our lost Friday night pizza night. I had hoped this would be it, but again, the boys did not like them. Mind you, they ate them all, but they said they didn't like them. These were pretty easy to make. The "crust" is a piece of pepperoni and then on top of that is a mixture of cream cheese, garlic, oregano and an egg. It was also supposed to have pizza sauce mixed in but I left that out to see what happened with Connor's blood sugar with no sauce. On top of each little bite I put toppings of choice. I had a bit of crumbled bacon. Tim had tiny little chopped up green peppers sprinkled on top and Connor had some prosciutto and basil. Aidan doesn't really like pepperoni so his was just a cheese bite basically. These were just ok. Pizza is a hard thing for us to give up. I love making the dough and rolling it out and making different kinds of pizzas and it has been a tradition in our home for a while. We'll figure something out and we'll survive. It's just going to take some time.

That brings us to Saturday. I went out with a few of my friends to a local bar and we just enjoyed some drinks and bar food. I had butter garlic wings. They were amazing. Aidan knew I was getting wings so he begged me to bring him some home too. Tim said he would experiment with a pizza crust and try to make pizzas for the boys. Soy flour has very little carbs and a lot of fiber so it's allowed by Dr Bernstien in small amounts. Tim just mixed some soy flour, an egg and a tablespoon of oil. It made three 7 inch crusts. Each of them had their own. They got to choose their toppings and they were thrilled. They saved me a tiny piece to try when I got home. I tasted it and it was pretty good. Our pizza night problem might be solved. Tim put pizza sauce on the pizzas (again a sauce with no sugar) and Connor's blood sugar rose a bit. He might be having white pizzas from now on but honestly he likes the toppings more than anything. I brought home the wings and all of the boys were eating wings at 9 pm. They were happy with them. As far as I know the wings had no carbs in them. They were not breaded. They were butter and garlic (a LOT of garlic) so we didn't bolus Connor any carbs for the wings. In the middle of the night his BS was pretty good. I think that if the wings did have carbs in them he would have been really high because of getting no insulin. He woke up Sunday morning with a high and it took him half a day to bring them back down to normal. Tim thinks it was just that his pump site was bad and changed it. So, again we have a night that we're not sure what made his sugars rise. It's been and will continue to be a grand experiment figuring out what foods do what to his sugars. I will say that last week his seven day BS average was 122. Pretty darn good. We're very happy with the results so far and will continue this, much to Aidan's dismay. Until next week, happy cooking!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Days 94-100

Look at that 100 days of real food! It can be done. It can be fun. It can be delicious. Now we are going to shoot for our next 100 days. We have made a bit of adjustment to our diet in this week. It's major for us but we are very happy with the results.

As most of you know, our son Connor is a type one diabetic. He's insulin dependent. He was diagnosed at the age of 3 and has lived with this disease for almost 7 years. November will be his 7th anniversary of diagnosis. In those seven years we've never really had a good control on his blood sugars. He might have one good day every few days but he's always had extreme highs and lows with no rhyme or reason. It's frustrating and it's worrisome because if his sugar is too high it's doing serious damage to his body and when he's too low he tends to have seizures.

A couple of weekends ago we went and hung out with a couple of friends who have been eating low carb and they looked fantastic. They both feel great and are dealing with their health problems better. In the past I've often pondered the whole carb issue and diabetes. If Connor eats carbs we have to cover it with insulin. The more carbs he eats, the more insulin he needs. Then you have the confusion of fast acting carbs and slow acting carbs. I had started doing some research about low carb diets for diabetics and found two things. The ADA is starting to realize that low carb diets might be a good way to deal with diabetes, but they won't endorse it. I'm guessing they are probably run by people who are funded by lobbyists. The second thing I found was Dr. Richard K Bernstein. He himself is a type one diabetic. He was diagnosed at the age of 12 and he's now in his 7o's. Through lots of experimentation on himself he figured out that by limiting his carb intake he was able to normalize his blood sugars. He doesn't have extreme highs or extreme lows. His blood sugar are usually around 80 to 90 which is what a normal, non-diabetic person has. He has no side effects that come to diabetics.

So, that brings us to what we did last week. We got rid of the carbs. It has been easier than I thought. We had our ups and downs. One thing we've noticed is that we aren't hungry at all. The kids haven't been bugging me for snacks. Connor used to be hungry all the time and in the last week he's pretty much done away with all snacking. He's just not hungry. No one is. The biggest and most rewarding thing we've seen is the insulin usage of Connor being cut in half. His blood sugars have been all within normal range. I don't think in the nearly 7 years of dealing with this disease have we ever had one full week of normal numbers. Friday night was tough and there was some moaning because, of course, that is our pizza night. It was tough, but we got through it and I really do think that in another week or two we won't miss it. Everyone feels great.

So, let's get to the meals:
Tequila Lime Chicken
Sunday was not an official "no carb" day for us but the meal was pretty good. I made tequila lime chicken and some homemade black bean refried beans. This meal was delicious and I can make the chicken again because there are little carbs in it.

Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Veg
Monday, we enjoyed Rosemary roasted chicken and vegetables. This was tasty. It was also the start to a long week of eating cauliflower. We're not big fans of cauliflower. It got comical towards the end of the week.

Cheese Pork Chops
Tuesday was a delicious pork chop covered with salsa and a cream cheese/shredded cheddar cheese mixture melted over it. Oh look, more cauliflower. This one was made like a potato salad except instead of potato it was cauliflower. Not a big fan.

Meatballs with Cauliflower Salad
Wednesday was a hit with the kids. Meatballs. I made a double batch of these meatballs and we had them for meals/snacks for the next two days. Yes, that's cauliflower you see again. This time it was in a salad with roasted red peppers and kalamata olives. We picked out all of the olives and red peppers and left most of the cauliflower.

Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Broccoli
Thursday was supposed to be a fish dish, but I didn't get to the store to get fresh fish. I pulled one of my packages of organic chicken breasts out of the freezer and made Parmesan crusted chicken and thank God, broccoli. I whipped up a cheese sauce to put over the broccoli to try and get Aidan to eat it, but it didn't work. He did love the chicken though and wants it put into weekly rotation.

Garlic Chicken Meatballs with Zucchini fritters
This brings us to Friday. We did not have pizza. We had to listen to the kids (Aidan mostly) whine about no pizza but it ended up being tasty. I made garlic chicken meatball and Tim was a genius and made zucchini fritters. Oh man, those were so good and we were fighting over them. Everyone, except Aidan. I think he was holding his own protest because there was no pizza. He's going to have to get over it.

Hot Dogs with Saurekraut
Saturday, Aidan was happier. We just had hot dogs on top of a bed of sauerkraut. A drizzle of mustard and it was good to go. I put a little bit of my sweet pickle relish on mine because I love that stuff.


That wraps up our week. It was new and interesting. It was hugely successful with regards to Connor and his diabetes. I can't wait until he goes back to his endocrinologist and will blow her away with his much improved numbers. I'm sure there will still be struggles as we adjust to this, but we'll do it to make sure Connor has a long healthy life.