HoldTheToast! by Dana Carpender Low Carbohydrate Blog and Books

Boy, you gotta love Memorial Day Weekend! Not only is it the official beginning of summer, not only will Miss Manners grant you permission to wear white shoes after this weekend, not only do most of us have a long weekend off, but it's a holiday that isn't centered around junk food. YIPPEE!!

I was at my pharmacy today, and spotted these on the shelf: Planter's Flavor Grove Skinless Almonds Chili Lime. I like almonds and I like hot food, so I thought I'd check 'em out.

The stats include 6 grams of carb per serving, with 3 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 3 grams; well and good. 6 grams of protein, too, and 15 grams of fat -- something the label actually boasts about, maybe we're making inroads. The ingredient list reads:

I am going to bum a lot of you out today, but it has to be done. A study has now been done, comparing the blood sugar impact of Dreamfield's pasta to the blood sugar impact of standard pasta. The blood sugar curves were essentially identical. Read it and weep.

Here's Science for Smart People, Tom Naughton's speech the low carb cruise. Hilarious stuff, and highly informative. And if you haven't yet watched Tom's documentary Fathead, you're seriously missing out.

Gang, I know I got back from the Low Carb Cruise less than a week ago, but truly, it's time to start thinking about the 2012 cruise NOW! Especially since we have learned that Gary Taubes will be coming along and speaking. I go all fan-girl at the very thought. And anyway, if your budget looks anything like my budget, you'll need that time to save your spare change to pay your fare. Worth it, worth it, worth it.

Ever wonder if liposuction might be the answer? Here, thanks to Dana Seilhan, aka Other Dana, of Low Carb Curmudgeon blog, is an article from the New York Times that points up one of the problems: You just gain the fat back somewhere else on your body.

After putting you all off regarding the Key Lime Cheesecake recipe, because it was promised for the cruisers, it turns out I got the recipes to Becky Gandy too late for them to go in the cruise program. So I can give you recipes without waiting till summer! Here's the Key Lime Cheesecake, and fabulous it is, if I do say so myself.

No-Bake Key Lime Cheesecake

After my most recent podcast, where I talked about Attention Deficit Disorder, and how it appears to be tied into every other health issue I have, including my lifetime struggle with obesity, sleep disorder, thyroid trouble, and seasonal affective disorder, I had an email from a listener asking for more info, since she had many of the same problems. Here's a quick list of some references:

ADD and circadian rhythm disorders

As I mentioned in the Ham and Mac-and-Cheese post, I baked a ham last weekend. We've been living off it all week, a great demonstration of how cooked meat in the refrigerator is super low-carb convenience food. Finally today I was down to a good meaty bone. Coincidentally, the weather was absolutely foul here in Southern Indiana, cold and rainy and bleak. What more reason could a girl need for making a pot of soup? I didn't measure, but here's what I did:

Found this in my inbox this morning:

Hi Dana,

One of the coolest things that happened during my brief time at the Nutrition and Metabolism Society Symposium last weekend is that I met Laura Dolson, who writes about low carb diets for About.com, and whose work I have long admired. She was there for the whole symposium, so I thought I'd link to her notes and comments on the subject.

We had ham and macaroni and cheese for supper tonight. I had a ham in the garage fridge; I'd bought it when it was on sale, and stashed it for future use. Unfortunately, the garage fridge has given up the ghost. (And it's maybe 7 or 8 years old. And it's already been repaired once. Hmmph. See if I buy a Maytag again.) So I needed to cook and eat the ham.

Had a liverwurst and tomato omelet for breakfast today; I'd been craving one, for some reason. Before I went low carb, one of my favorite sandwiches was liverwurst, lettuce, and tomato, with plenty of pepper, on a toasted whole wheat bagel. Omelets are at least as good!

I sliced the liverwurst fairly thin; I'm guessing I got about 2 ounces, and I used about 1/4 of a smallish tomato, and a couple of teaspoons of minced red onion. Cooked it in bacon grease. And what was the nutrition count on my omelet?

The American Society of Bariatric Physicians (doctors specializing in weight loss) annual conference was held in Baltimore last week. Excitingly, the last two days, Saturday and Sunday, consisted of a symposium presented by the Nutrition and Metabolism Society, covering many aspects of the benefits of low carbohydrate nutrition. Some of the biggest names in the field presented talks, including Dr. Eric Westman, Jeff Volek, PhD, Dr. Stephen Phinney, Dr. Mary Vernon, Dr. Eugene Fine, Richard Feinman, PhD, and Dr. Eric Kossoff.

So there we were, That Nice Boy I Married and I, in New Stanton, Pennsylvania, on our drive to my Mom's memorial service in New Jersey. We'd spent the night in Wheeling, West Virginia, and driven as far as New Stanton before stopping for breakfast.