How to Gain Pounds While Dieting!

Well, have you ever been REALLY trying to lose weight and then everyone else is sitting at the table having pizza from an Italian restaurant?  You're sitting there staring at your carb/sugar friendly pita pizza and WHAMMO!!!!!  You say, "Hey!  lemme have a slice of that and see if it's as good as looks."  Your family/friends say, 'uh...right...you're on a diet!  Wishful thinking!"     At that point, you're ready for a fight...and then you won and dug into that slice.  See that guy on the left?  That was me this past weekend (only I didn't eat the pizza!).

I mean, after all, how much could one slice of pizza hurt your diet when you haven't really been cheating, but ...  wow, it was some kinda good!  It's your FIRST real slice of pizza since you started the Belly Fat Cure!   Well, the next day, you're sitting at home and in comes someone with a bag of hamburgers and fries from your local Five Guys or one of your local burger joints. In MY part of the woods, FIVE GUYS is one of the most difficult places to avoid when it comes to the best burgers and by far the best fries in the country.   Well, back to my story, your family or friends (are they really friends after what they're about to do???)  give you one of the burgers and you pull it off the bun and eat it on your carb and sugar friendly Ezekiel English muffin.  Cool!  But those fries smell pretty durn good!  Your "friends" ask if you want to taste a few and you think, "a few won't hurt me. After all, I haven't really had any fries at all since I started the diet."  So you dig into bag and savor the incredible taste. Next thing you know everyone else is looking around for the French fries only to find out you've eaten all of them.  But what the heck? How much could it hurt?  First fries in three months.

This is how it starts up:.  "I haven't had any pizza in three months and it hasn't hurt.  I haven't had any fries in three months.  The fried chicken was incredible last night and it's the first in three months. Low and behold you get on the scale one morning and you just can't believe that you've put on 3 pounds!!!!  Now how the heck could that be?"

Well folks, I don't know about you, but this is definitely the way it has gotten started for me in the past (the start of putting pounds back on).   I believe in Jorge Cruise's Belly Fat Cure.  REALLY!  And I'm not trying to sell it to you, or getting anything in return.  Heck, the guy won't even acknowledge me on his Facebook page when I've said I've lost 35 pounds!  Whether you follow his plan, or Weight Watchers, South Beach, or any other of the healthy weight loss plans,  You gotta stick to it!  Most of these plans DO let you indulge yourself a bit.

SPEAKING OF INDULGING....

I went through the South Beach Diet Cookbook (The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook) to see if there was anything I could safely use for the Belly Fat Cure and lo and behold there was a mini cheesecake recipe I tried.  OK, I gotta be honest...it doesn't taste like REAL cheesecake, but it's OK ... not bad at all, when you consider there's no sugar and only 7 grams of carbs for each one.  Oh, and BTW, the end result doesn't look ANYTHING remotely close to the picture in the book!  But it does satisfy the sweet tooth.

Mini Cocoa Swirl Cheesecakes

6 oz reduced-fat creme cheese (I used regular)

1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

2 tablespoons granular sugar substitute

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1/2 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 6 muffin cups with paper or foil liners.

   Blend creme cheese and ricotta in a food processor until creamy.  Add sugar substitute, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla; process until smooth.

   Divide 1 cup of the batter among the muffin cups. Add the cocoa powder to the remaining batter and combine.  Drop a heaping tablespoon of the cocoa batter into each muffin cup and gently fold to form a swirl.

   Place the muffin tin in a large roasting pan and fill the pan with hot water to reach halfway up the tin.  Bake until the cakes are puffed and set, 18-20 minutes.  Remove from the water and cool at room temperature.

   Refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours.

Per serving: 130 calories, 8 g fat (if using reduced-fat creme cheese), 4.5 g saturated fat, 7 g protein, 7 g carb, 0 g, dietary fiber, 125 mg sodium

....And Speaking of saving money by making your own stuff...I made my own sugar free jam last night...

I have an order in to buy some more of the Nature's Hollow sugar free jams and I'm missing it big time!  WELL, while strolling around WalMart yesterday I happened to notice a box called Ball Fruit Jell Freezer Jam Pectin---No Cooking.   Wow, this might fit the bill!  Make my OWN sugar free jams!  Just so happens we had about 1/3 bag of frozen mixed berries (blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries) and about 1/4  bag of frozen small blueberries.  KEEP in mind this stuff is GOOD FOR YOU!!!  You can't eat much because of natural sugar content, but a little is good.  Full of antioxidants.     I bought the pectin, crushed the berries a  bit in the food processor and followed the incredible easy directions.

The recipe calls for 1-1/2 cups sugar, but I used a combination of sweeteners, the major one being powdered erythritol.  NOW, erythritol is not as sweet as sugar so you gotta use more of it.  I used 1-1/2 cups of the stuff and then added 1/4 cup Splenda and 1/4 cup xylitol.  OH, BIG, GREAT BIG note on xylitol...ya know the lady on TV who does the Pepto Bismal commercial about diarrhea?  Well, you'll need plenty of that pink stuff if you eat too much xylitol (or malitol).    Anyway, I totaled about 2 cups of sweetener all together....YOU can do this....so easy a caveman can do it.   Stir sweetener in with the pouch of pectin and mix really well. Stir in the fruit, Ladle jam into jars.  We happen to have these Ball Plastic 8 ounce jars with screw top lids.  This made 5, yes FIVE, which is over ONE QUART of  jam.  The end result is a bit more watery than I'd like, but that's prob. b/c I used the frozen fruit which was a lot more watery after it defrosted.

Consider the cost of Nature's Hollow jams.  A 10 oz. jar is about $6.00 from Amazon.com.  I made 40 ounces for about the same price.  Now THAT is how you save some moolah!!!!  Here's where you can order the makings for this stuff from Amazon if you can't find it locally (or don't want to bother):

Well, that's about it.  I guess looking back at this post, it may be WAY too long, so I hope it kept your attention OK.  If you didn't have patience to read it, let me know.  Well, I guess if you got bored reading it you would have stopped long before you got this part so how could you let me know?    :-(

               MORE FOOD JOKES FOR KIDS!!!              

Would you believe my Gmail inbox was full of requests for more jokes for kids? No?  Would you believe about 15 emails? Still don't believe me?  5 emails? NO?  Would you believe I gave each kid in the neighborhood $2.00 if they would send me an email asking for more jokes for kids?


What do cats call mice on skateboards?
"Meals on Wheels."

Why do you eat so fast?
I want to eat as much as possible before losing my appetite.

What did the mayonnaise say to the refrigerator?
Close the door, I'm dressing!

What did the left eye say to the right eye?
Between us, something smells.

Jack: Would you like some Egyptian Pie?
Jill: What's Egyptian pie?
Jack: You know, the kind mummy used to make.