I fell off the wagon and need to jump back on, questions

[farmwife]

Originally Posted by imagood1

The shakes aren't allowed on induction -- they should ONLY be used during extreme emergencies when you don't have anything else to eat.



Farmwife - here are the OWL rungs - the only nuts I've been able to find that I can eat are no salt sunflower seeds - I think the reason is because you can have so many of them that it really seems like you are getting more than you actually are. http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...te-ladder.html (The OWL Carbohydrate Ladder).

I fix 3 meals a day for my mother, my husband and myself. I start with the meat then figure out what they are going to have and what I am going to have -- I've been doing this since January, so I know it can be done. The first few days it was difficult to sit at the same table with them, but I'd rather eat with them as opposed to making myself feel like I don't deserve to sit at the table with other people. I pass their food back and forth and have no problem with it. Actually I'd rather eat the delicious food I eat as opposed to the starches they are eating.

I've even found several recipes we can all eat (check the stuffed green peppers, mock-a-foni & cheese). Everyone can have eggs & bacon for any meal....no need to make it tougher on yourself than you need to.

Make sure you are only eating the amount of cheese & olives we're allowed to have.....cheese is another food people overeat on.

Good luck

Thanks for the encouragement. I made hamburger soup for lunch today. The kids decided they would just eat bread instead.

I'll just keep trying.

I'll check out those stuffed peppers and mock-a-foni & cheese.

Breakfast is no problem. I LOVE eggs, besides we have our own chilckens!

[Julie in CA]

Originally Posted by farmwife

Another problem is that I couldn't eat with my family, except breakfast. We have a large family and we eat every meal together, even snacks.

I need to find more family friendly atkins meals. Any ideas about that?

Hi Farmwife!
I'm very new here, so I don't know that my advice will be very helpful...
My dh and I have 5 children (well, 4 of them are teenagers now!), and my dh is *very* set in his ways regarding meals. We are a farm family, and I teach my children at home, so we eat almost all meals together too. It felt really really difficult at first to eat what I was supposed to while still eating the same basic meal as the rest of the family. What I did was sit down and make a list of all of the meals my family would regularly eat. I examined each meal, and checked to see if it would be okay for me. If the meal was okay, I left it "as is". If the meal would be okay with a few changes, I made a note of necessary changes and left that meal on the list too. A few of the meals, I had to completely cross off, because I couldn't figure out a way to make them work for me.

One meal I had to toss out for example, was spaghetti & garlic bread. There was no way for me to make that acceptable. The pasta and the tomato sauce were both a no-no, and the garlic bread...well, let's not even go there!

A lot of the family meals were fine, with a little adaptation. We're in California, and my family loves mexican food, especially tacos. I still make taco dinner, but I season the taco meat with individual spices rather than taco seasoning (which often has sugar). Rather than a regular taco shell, I wrap my taco fillings in a large leaf of romaine lettuce. Amazingly, because the romaine has a bit of crunch, and because I'd ordinarily put lettuce on my taco, I don't mind the substitution. The rest of my family still gets their old-favorite meal, and none of us much notice that mine is wrapped in lettuce instead.

For enchiladas, I make them with corn tortillas for my family, but I set aside some of the meat/cheese filling and bake it in a ramekin and top it with a bit of salsa or hot sauce (sugar-free) for me. It bakes in the oven right alongside the family-version, mine just doesn't have the tortilla.

A lot of things my family would eat for dinner regularly are still fine for me. Dh is a meat & potatoes guy, so I just make more pot roast (or whatever) and I skip the potato. I have added small salads to almost every dinner though. It's healthier for my family anyway, and then I don't have to think so much about a side-dish substitution for myself.

Here are some of the dinners that are on my list:
grilled steak
grilled chicken
pot roast
kabobs
parmesan crusted chicken
cheeseburgers
pork chops/pork roast
chicken cordon-bleu (not breaded, though)
tacos
nachos
taco salad
cobb salad
enchiladas
philly cheesesteak (I don't use a bun)
taco soup
beef-vegetable soup
broiled chicken topped with sauteed mushrooms, bacon, & cheese
chicken thighs with pan-gravy

For lunch, we sometimes do hard-boiled eggs (family makes egg salad, etc), fresh veggies & dip. Most of the time, we do lunchmeat sandwiches, but I wrap my lunchmeat around a pickle, while my family has theirs on bread. Yes, you have to search high and low to find lunchmeat that's ok, but it's worth it.

For a little while, I missed not the baked potato I'd regularly have with dinner, but the *gravy* that I might have on it. Now I don't thicken gravy with a roux, but I remove the meat from the pan, reduce the broth in the pan over high heat, and then add a little slosh of cream and cook another minute for a really delicious pan-gravy. I pour that over my meat, to give it a little bit of flavor and moisture. I don't really miss the potato now.

I did miss mac & cheese, but the cauliflower version really sends me over the top with joy, so I eat that when my kids have the dreaded "blue box" of Atkins doom.

'Ya know, I didn't set out to write you a book! I'm not even sure that any of this will fit your lifestyle or your situation, but I wanted to encourage you along the way and let you know that you will find ways to make this work with your family, and it will probably be easier than you thought to do so! (just give it a little thought and planning).

[farmwife]

Hi Julie-
WOW! Thank you so much! We have 5 children as well and we also home educate them too! It's fun, fun, fun!

I love your ideas! I was able to make a couple meals that my dh actually liked. He has to have meat at every meal so that helps!

I think this is going to be a new challenge to find meals that fit.

I am going to try tacos with the cheese shells! That should be fun.

I think I'm going to take out a roast for tomorrow.

One nice thing about farming and atkins is that the freezer is always full of meat!

[Julie in CA]

Originally Posted by farmwife

Hi Julie-
WOW! Thank you so much! We have 5 children as well and we also home educate them too! It's fun, fun, fun!
It *IS* fun! Are your kiddos young? Mine are aged 11-18. I have actually graduated the oldest, and he's moved on to college.


I am going to try tacos with the cheese shells! That should be fun.
The cheese shells sound good, but I tend to overdo the cheese. That's why I stick with the romaine. I'm afraid if I tried the cheese shells, it'd put me waaaay over on cheese.


One nice thing about farming and atkins is that the freezer is always full of meat!
Amen to that, sister! I love the luxury of always having my choice of beef in the freezer...makes it hard for me to justify buying chicken or fish, tho!

-Julie
Hey, I sent you a P.M. just for fun...