First I want to thank those of you that have reached out to see how we are doing.  It really warms my heart to know I have such great family and friends that care as you do.  It was you that prompted me to write this post to share with all of you.

As I’m sure most of the US has heard that Texas is in the middle of a hard winter storm.  I know a lot of you are probably thinking we need to suck it up and rub a little dirt on it, and I don’t blame you.  As a Wisconsin native, I know cold and yeah, we never dropped below zero, so it’s not it’s-so-cold-it-hurts-to-breath cold, but it’s well below freezing and cold enough.

The issue isn’t so much that it is cold, or even that there is a nice layer of snow on the ground that we cannot clear because we don’t have the equipment, the real issue is the power.  Power outages are all over the state and especially in our area.  We’ve had infrastructure failures and coupled with a huge increase in demand have caused wide spread <finger quote>rolling</finger quote> blackouts.  I quote “rolling” because they were only supposed to shut down sections for an hour or so, but instead millions of homes have been without power for almost 2 days at the time of this writing.  No power means no heat.  No heat means frozen pipes, or even worse, broken pipes, so no water.  One more layer to add to this is that none of the roads are plowed, so grocery stores are pretty much out of food with waiting lines hours long (in the cold) to be limited to 10 items of non-perishable goods, because that is all that is left.

Is it cold enough for you yet?

Now that you understand what is going on in my section of the world, I will tell you that Sofia and I are fine.  For some unknown reason, God has blessed us immensely and has spared us the power outage, so we have heat, water and all the, well, comforts of home.  The only real bummer is that I work from home, so, no snow days for me.  Sofia had today off and will not be going in tomorrow either. 

Some of our friends and family have not fared as well.  Yesterday, in the span of 2 short hours, our little family of two became a family of 6 adults, 3 dogs, 2 cats and some unknown number of plants.  Both couples had been without power since the very early morning hours. One couple (large dog and 2 cats) did get some brief relief, only to lose it again shortly after and then had a water pipe burst in their ceiling causing it to completely collapse in a room that housed a lot of computer equipment and important documents.  There are not many words you do not want to hear on the phone that are worse that hearing someone you love saying, “we don’t know what to do.”

So, we’re blessed again.  Food is a little tight, but we’re all fine.  No one has gone hungry and I don’t think any of us will.  Sofia and I stocked up some before the storm hit and our guests have also brought some things they had, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.  I was a bit (a lot) worried about the dogs but once they all had a chance to get used to their new surroundings, they all seem to be doing quite well.  I even saw a cat peek into my office today but unfortunately I couldn’t coax it to come in.  As some of you know, we put our last cat, Kitty, down the day before Thanksgiving of last year at the ripe age of 20 and I kind of liked the idea of having an office mate again, if only for a few minutes.

As for the Humans, we’re all doing well.  Some of us are COVID concerned, so spending most of the social time with a mask, while other are less and that’s OK.  The house is big enough where everyone at least has some sort of bed to sleep on, the guest bathroom seems to be holding up under the extra usage and there’s enough space for everyone to get a little privacy now and then, even if it’s only for a little while.

So, there you have it.  Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers and please, keep them coming.  Pray first for those that do not have heat, or water, or food, or even a roof over their heads.  Pray the weather warms up soon and melts the snow so the trucks can return to their scheduled deliveries.  Pray for those who have had damage to their homes that God will provide them with the means to restore their lives back to normal.  Finally, pray for us, that God will continue to keep the power on here and we can continue sharing that blessing as best we can.

Oh, before I forget, the plants all seem to be doing fine.

As I recently posted on Facebook, I found a diet online that is supposed to reverse Type 2 Diabetes by removing the fat around the liver and pancreas. To produce the desired results, you have to “faux-fast” for 5 days, by eating less than 800 calories per day, once a month for 3 months.

To her credit, Sofia (God bless her!) decided to join my on this diet even though she is not diabetic. I can’t tell you how thankful I was for that because without her support, I’m not sure I would have made it through.

Oddly, I actually found the diet part of it relatively easy to keep. 800 calories is not a lot, but if you eat right, you really can get quite a bit of food and not feel like you’re starving all the time. To help anyone else that might trying something similar to this (Larry), I’m posting a few of our tricks.

1. Buy a food scale.
The picture above is of the scale we bought at Walmart for <$20. You can get them for less, but we liked the look of this one and since we would be leaving it on the counter, we wanted something that looked nice. You’re going to need this to weigh pretty much everything you’re going to eat.

2. Know your calories.
This took a fair amount of work, but was well worth it. I created a nutrition guide of the foods we figured we would be eating. The foods are listed alphabetically and most of them are listed by their weight in ounces. Use this to calculate the total calories of a meal using the ingredients listed. Don’t worry if your ‘exact’ variety isn’t listed… the calorie count isn’t going to vary by very much.

3. Mixing eggs and egg whites
Most of your protein in eggs is in the egg whites. Most of your calories is in the yolk. Unfortunately, all of the flavor is also in the yolk. I found a happy medium by mixing every full egg with 1 egg white. For Extra-large eggs, this comes to ~100 calories vs. 80 for a full egg alone. Mix with a lot of mushrooms, jalapeños, etc. and divide into 2 meals for a low-calorie, high protein breakfast for two. (I suggest dividing the egg white first. This takes a little while and you’d hate to throw out a whole batch because you accidentally broke a shell into it.)

4. Lose the weight, not your muscle.
Make sure you get in a couple of work outs. No cardio, just strength training. Cardio is going to burn your calories and you won’t have any left. Lift some weights and follow up with a protein shake. I find the Chocolate flavored Muscle Milk tastes awesome and the 100 calorie version packs a full 20 grams of protein.

5. Drink Hot Tea
I’m not sure why, but hot tea tends to reduce my appetite. If you’re hungry, but you know you recently ate (Nutrition Guide

6. Salad Dressing
Yes, you’re going to eat a lot of salad. I don’t know about you, but plain veggies are not my cup of tea, so I need some flavor. Wishbone Fat Free Italian dressing is pretty good and only packs 15 calories per 2 tablespoons. You’re not going to come close to that with any of the other salad dressings we looked at, so make sure you keep plenty on hand.

Ok – so what are the results?

Sofia and I both lost about 5 lbs the first week. Now that we actually know what we’re putting into our bodies, we’ve been keeping tabs ever since and have lost about 10 lbs each after 3 weeks. (No, we’re not on the fast at this moment. We’re just keeping an eye on the calories.)

As for my blood sugars, well, things have changed. While I still need to do this diet 2 more times over the next 2 months, since the diet my fasting numbers are lower than I’ve ever seen.  I’ve had to cut back a bit on my meds and I’ve even had times where I’ll feel a little light headed during the day and will need to eat carbs because I’m too low (~70-90). Prior to the diet and even with meds, I was never below 130. Ever.

I hope this helps. I had to block comments on this site due to the spammers, but feel free to hit us up on facebook if you have any questions. Until then, happy dieting!