You have decided why you are traveling, the next step is to determine when you will be going on vacation. For us, our travel is determined by the school calendar. If you are traveling with your family, this is the first thing to check when planning your vacation. As a teacher, it is next to impossible to plan any travel during the school days. First of all, I don’t want to use up my precious personal days for planned travel. Secondly, planning for a substitute takes almost as long as being out on a school day. Although the prices are higher when school is out, it is worth it for me to plan ahead around the school breaks.
Every year I have at least one or two students miss a week of school because of a cruise. As a parent, you must outweigh the costs of taking a cruise during school days. Your student will most likely have these days count against him/her as unexcused absences. He/she will be responsible for any missed work while you are on your cruise. Some assignments are simple to do ahead of time or upon your return. However, there are some that will require direct teaching to complete. Depending on the number of classes your student has, it could take weeks for him/her to get caught up on lessons missed, assignments, and tests. As a teacher, I ask you to please keep this in mind as you are planning when to cruise.
If you are planning a cruise vacation, the rates are lowest when the sailings are first announced. This means you may be booking 12-18 months before you actually embark on your ship. If your school calendar for the next year has not been published yet, it may be safer to book a week or so after you are sure school will be out for the summer. Many cruise lines run sales periodically that can make booking closer in more affordable. However, the cabin types may be more limited. Some cruise lines will even allow you to re-price your cruise during these sales. We were fortunate enough to book during one of these sales, so our cruise price was similar to an off-peak cruise sailing. Bottom line, book your cruise as early as possible, ask about the ability to re-price at a later date, and get busy planning!
Personally, I have wanted to go on a cruise over the past twenty years. Convincing my husband was the biggest obstacle I faced. I didn’t want to travel on my first cruise without my best friend. Sure, I’ve taken vacations without him with my children and my mother-in-law. We’ve traveled to Galveston several times for beach vacations. However, I wanted my first international trip to be with my husband.
I wish that I could say that I finally convinced him to take a cruise with me, but his employer takes the credit on this one. He was forced to go on a cruise for work. Of course, he felt guilty that I didn’t get to travel with him, so he booked a cruise for the two of us when he returned. I’m totally ok with my first cruise being a “guilt trip”. I’m just glad that he relaxed enough to realize that he could do it again.
I’ve had co-workers, friends, and family tell me about their cruises. Over the years, I have heard enough to know that I want to travel this way too.
Teaching is a stressful profession. I have found that sometimes just having a vacation planned is enough to keep me going when the stress gets to be too much.
Why are you traveling? Please share in the comments below.
As any teacher knows, the first week back after a long break is hectic, stressful, and exhausting. My week back after Christmas break was no exception. However, with my preparation and planning I was able to stay on plan during the week. That’s not to say that it went as planned. I had a weak moment Saturday night and had some sugary cereal while we were watching TV. I think it knocked me out of ketosis for a few days. I didn’t lose anything this week, but I maintained the 6.6 pound loss from the week before.
I had all of these plans and great recipes ready to go, but I forgot how tired I would be in the evenings. There were a couple of days that I was in bed by 7:30 pm! Since I had planned ahead and shopped for the Keto lifestyle (and not just this week’s plans) I was able to be flexible. I managed to keep under my carbohydrate target every day and realized that the Reese’s Puffs were not worth the stress they put me through this week.
My favorite meal was the Easy Keto Lasagna Bake. The Easy Keto Marinara Sauce was easy to make in the blender and made enough for two batches of the Lasagna Bake. I also made enough of the beef and sausage mixture to have a bag in the freezer as well. I didn’t miss the noodles at all. The ricotta and mozzarella created a noodle like texture. I had leftovers that I didn’t anticipate, so I got to eat it for two dinners and a lunch.
One night was breakfast for dinner and we just had eggs. The quickest dinner was the tilapia. I ended up not using the recipe that I had planned. When I realized that the blackened recipe I had picked out was higher in carbs, I decided to just use the blackened redfish seasoning I had in my spice cabinet. I served it with salad and had a quick dinner.
Although I had planned on leftovers for lunch all week, I had some dinners in the freezer just in case. Monday I did a salad with grilled chicken, cheese and ranch dressing. I did get to take the lasagna bake one day with a salad, but the rest of the week was frozen dinners. I found some yummy enchiladas with tortillas made from chicken and mozzarella at Wal-Mart by Real Good Foods Co. They are very filling and hold me until school is out. Their pizza snacks are a decent deal. There are two sets in each box.
Snacks
Most kids are hungry after school, so it’s no surprise that teachers are too. I keep some low carb snack bars in my desk drawer and some cheese sticks in the fridge. Sometimes I still crave the crunch of chips. I discovered that plain pork rinds dipped in guacamole makes a great substitute. I get the healthy fat and the satisfying crunch.
Lesson Learned
I feel much better eating the Ketogenic way. The extra carbs and sugar I had Saturday made me feel lethargic on Sunday and full of regret. In my past weight loss attempts, something like this would have kept me down. I would have told myself that I had already screwed up on Saturday, so I would just restart on Monday. Then I would eat whatever I liked on Sunday. Before I knew it I would have forgotten about my plan to restart and just stayed in my old habits.
This time, I kept my focus on my journey. I made Sunday a new day with a fresh start and I got right back on track.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably tried several ways to make hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel. I’ve seen a few articles about making eggs in the Instant Pot, but I’ve never tried it before today.
My sister-in-law told me at Christmas that she uses the 6-6-6 method to make her hard boiled eggs in her Instant Pot. I finally decided to try it today. I couldn’t remember exactly what she said to do other than the 6-6-6 part, so I did a quick Google search this morning.
The recipe that I found was 666 Hard Boiled Eggs on Big Oven. I don’t have a special egg tray or anything for my pot. I just used the little trivet that sets in the bottom of the tray. The eggs rolled around a little, so it helped to put a couple in together in the center before adding more. I made these for our breakfast this morning. They were so good that I made up a batch for my husband to take to work for his breakfasts this week. I’ll be heading back to the store today to get more eggs to do the same for myself.
The second time I did this I set a stopwatch timer on my smart phone to see how long this takes. As soon as I set the pot to fast cook, I set my stopwatch. When I finished peeling the eggs I stopped the timer. This took at total of 31 minutes for 8 eggs. Although this took a little longer than boiling them on the stove, the ease of peeling makes the time well worth it.
Since I have a lengthy commute to school (approx. 50 min.) every day, I tend to eat my breakfast in the car. These eggs will make a great option for me to grab on the way out of the house. I think I’ll put these in a snack size zipper bag with some cheese to make it even easier to grab from the fridge.
Update:
My third batch to make my own breakfasts didn’t go so well. I think either maybe the eggs were too cold when I put them in or my pot was too warm. I forgot to hit the cancel button so the pot stayed on keep warm until I got back from the store. When I started cracking them open they broke in half and didn’t peel. I put them in the microwave (yes I know that was a bad idea now) for a minute and a half. One of them exploded, but I was able to salvage a few. I at least have enough for one egg/cheese stick baggie for a few days.
Lesson Learned
It’s true what they say about not cooking eggs in the microwave (unless you’re doing scrambled in a cup, but that’s for another post). Never try to finish off or bake your hard boiled eggs in the microwave. The cleanup is not worth the eggs you may waste trying to get the perfect one.
I finished my first week on my own Ketogenic lifestyle journey. Drum roll please…I lost 6.6 pounds this week! Now from past experience, I know that some of this is water weight and this will not be my normal weekly loss. However, I also feel 100% better than I did this time two weeks ago. I did not even want to take a nap this week. Remember, that has been my favorite past time! I’ve had so much energy this week. I’ve done a lot of cleaning around the house, gone out to the movies, gone shopping, and even wanted to pull out my old Zumba videos and exercise (and did it!).
I did not stay at home every day. I went out to eat with friends at On the Border. Their Chicken Fajita Salad (without the roasted corn) and avocado ranch dressing was amazing and keto friendly (approximately 12 net carbs). I had to go to school one day and make copies, so I ended up stopping at Sonic on my way home. I brought a paper plate and a fork from my room so I could eat the bunless grilled chicken sandwich (2 net carbs) in my car.
I realized that I can fit Keto into my lifestyle with a little planning and tracking. So far, I’ve been tracking everything in my Carb Manager app. This has helped me remain accountable to myself. I found a quote in Suzanne Ryan’s book, Simply Keto that resonated with me this week. “Weight loss is mostly a mental battle.”
Planning for Success
I go back to school on Monday and I want to keep this momentum going. I know from my experience this fall that planning is the key. Wednesday, I sat down and looked through all of the keto-friendly recipes that I’ve already printed from the internet. Most of these I found through various Pinterest searches. I decided on these meals to base my weekly plan upon for this first stressful week back.
Keto Reuben Wraps – Badtuber – use leftovers from Saturday family dinner
Next, I made my shopping list of what items I needed to fix all of these recipes. I’ve been shopping with the Keto lifestyle in mind, so I actually had a lot of things already in my freezer/pantry/fridge. Since I had to travel to another city for some other errands, I decided to do my shopping at Kroger. I took a few minutes to check through their digital coupons on my Kroger app and created a shopping list on the app (it shows the aisle numbers to keep me on track in the store). I was able to avoid the random junk purchases that typically happen if I go up and down each aisle. By taking this extra time, I saved almost $19 in coupons and store specials.
If I am going to cook on a school night, I need it to be quick and easy. I looked through the recipes and figured out what I can cook up ahead of time.
Lasagna Bake – Marinara sauce, brown beef and sausage, make double meat for two meals
Chicken Enchilada – Chicken mixture (4 chicken breasts, enchilada sauce, green chilies, and onions prepared in either the slow cooker or instant pot)
Cheeseburger Helper – brown ground beef, shred cabbage
Reuben Wraps – shred leftover corned beef & put in freezer until needed in 12 oz. servings
It never hurts to have taco meat in the freezer for quick dinners if a plan doesn’t work out. I bought a three pound chub of ground turkey. I browned this and used McCormick’s Taco seasoning to make up three meals, one we ate Thursday night, and the other two I put up in ziplock bags for future meals. We always have salad, taco shells, low carb tortillas, etc. on hand since tacos are a family favorite. It makes a great backup meal or lunch plan.
Quick tip: When freezing ground meats (cooked or fresh), weigh/measure out in one pound servings, place in quart sized freezer zipper bags, and flatten the bag out before placing in the freezer (squeeze out the extra air). This makes defrosting much quicker. I prefer to brown the meat ahead of time rather than putting up fresh. This way, I can just pop the bag in the microwave for a couple of minutes and it’s ready to drop into the skillet for the recipe.
How do you start your day? Personally, I have to have my coffee in the mornings to feel human again after sleeping all night. If I’m on my game, I setup my coffee maker the night before and have it programmed to start brewing when my alarm goes off. I have a little coffee bar setup to make my mornings easy. The coffee pot sits under the counter that holds my coffee cups and plates (to hold my spoon and trash). Next to the pot resides the coffee filters, coffee grounds, sweetener packets, and sugar free flavoring syrups. My heavy whipping cream is in the door so it’s easy to grab. I can make coffee in my sleep (some mornings this is necessary). When I started Weight Watchers, I realized that my favorite non-dairy creamers were adding extra points every day. I looked for alternatives and discovered sugar free flavoring syrups. I could add skim milk with syrup and some Splenda and my coffee was “legal” again. Over the years, I’ve slowly drifted back to the non-dairy creamers (especially at school). In researching the Keto lifestyle, I discovered that these delicious flavorings are adding 5-10 carbs per cup of coffee! Like many teachers I work with, I could not survive without my morning dose of caffeine so I had to find an alternative. I already knew that the SF syrups were zero calorie, but the carb count in milk was too high. That’s where the heavy whipping cream comes in. I only needed two tablespoons instead of 1/4 cup of milk to get the same flavor. This comes in at just under one carb (0.8g according to Calorie King’s website).
I assumed that all stevia packets were zero carb sweeteners. I never really took the time to research this. I knew that stevia was a natural product compared with Equal, Sweet ‘n Low, and Splenda. I used to have to get this from a health food store (usually in a liquid form), but now there are many manufacturers that produce convenient packets of powdered sweeter. When I’m making my morning coffee, I’ve found that using a sweetener packet is much easier than trying to count out liquid drops into my cup.
I found a quick and easy recipe for Keto Hot Cocoa that used everything I already have in my kitchen. In the recipe notes, the author mentioned that one should use liquid stevia since the green packets have 2g of carbohydrates each. I was a little shocked by this. My green packet turned this one carb recipe into three! I decided to do some online research this morning.
I only looked at one website, but I was able to find nutritional information on seven different packages of stevia packets. I live and work in a rural area, so I focused my research on what I can find where I shop the most (Wal Mart). However, I believe that many of these brands are available at many grocery and discount stores. I don’t know about you, but when I want something I’d rather go the store and buy it today.
Unfortunately, the least expensive option is the highest in carbohydrates. The Great Value brand has two carbs per packet. The next two highest in carbohydrates were Stevia in the Raw and Pyure Organic Stevia with less than one gram per packet. If you only use one packet, these options would be fine. However, when you add up three or four packets a day, you would need to count the carbs. In fact, my Carb Manager app counts the Stevia in the Raw packet as one carb each.
There were two brands available in-store with zero net carbs each: Truvia and Splenda Naturals Stevia. Both of these contained 2 g of Erythritol which is subtracted from the 2 g of total carbohydrates. There were two other brands available online for pickup that also had zero net carbs: Now Foods Better Stevia Organic and Sweet Leaf Organic Stevia.
I’ve personally tried the Great Value, Stevia in the Raw and Truvia brands over the years. Since the green packets in my kitchen currently have two carbs, I will be shopping soon. I’ll post an update to compare the Truvia and Splenda Naturals Stevia soon. I believe I have seen both of these in our local grocery store as well.
Before you purchase your next package of stevia, be sure to look at the nutritional facts before you put it into your cart.
I decided to start this blog to keep track of my progress on the Ketogenic Diet, or Keto as it is also known. My sister-in-law, Dana, was my inspiration to try this lifestyle. We have both struggled with our weight over the years. I’ve tried most of the diet plans out there: Atkins, Weight Watchers, Low-Fat, Sugar Busters, calorie counting, and even a church support group. I’ve lost weight on many of these only to gain it all back and then some. Dana started this over the summer break and lost a considerable amount of weight before going back to school. I thought if she could do this, then so could I. I started researching this in late July on ruled.me and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, a try is all I seemed to accomplish. Once the kids came back to school, my plans derailed quickly.
Past Successes and Failures
My first reason to change my eating habits was the fact that I’m tired ALL OF THE TIME! My favorite past time on weekends and school breaks is taking a nap. I have no energy left after my school day ends. Once I drive home from school I don’t want to do anything in the evenings, including cooking dinner. I must confess that I have become a take out queen. I know that fast food isn’t good for you but it is too easy. We grab something on the way home (or I have something prepared in the freezer to heat up) several times during the week.
I think this is where I failed miserably this summer. When I started tracking my weight and progress again in July, I weighed 177 pounds. Yes, I just put that number on the internet. Ugh! The only good thing I can say about that number is that it is not the heaviest I have been. In August of 2016, I topped out at 194 pounds. A group of teachers at school were doing Weight Watchers Online, so I re-joined with them.
I knew from my past experience with Weight Watchers that their program works for me if I have support. I was a meetings member several years ago and had great success until WW closed our local meeting. I live in a rural area, so the nearest meeting was 30-45 minutes away from my home. I traveled for a while, but it became more difficult when school started to leave in enough time to drive an hour to my preferred meeting location, then another 30 minutes home after the meeting.
My fellow teachers and I shared foods, recipes, etc. over lunch time, but that just wasn’t the same as attending a WW meeting for me. I fell off the WW wagon, but maintained a modest loss of 15 pounds for a while. Even with that, I still felt tired all of the time. I know what I need to do, but finding the motivation and energy to do it is hard. I spend all day giving myself to my students, but I have nothing left for myself. I’m one of those people who goes all in to something new. I feel like I have to give it my all, and I give up on myself if I don’t make perfect progress.
When I saw my sister-in-law at Thanksgiving and Christmas, she was still losing. She felt good and felt good about herself. You could see it in her face. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t keep it up. I do pretty well in the mornings with my coffee. I still use heavy whipping cream and sugar free flavored syrups. I was eating a low carb breakfast on the way to school and trying to find low-carb options for lunches, but dinnertime is where it fell apart. Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas I just gave up. I ate most of the Christmas treats that students and teachers brought to school. By the time Christmas came around, I weighed over 180 pounds. I was well on my way to an early grave. My family has a history of heart disease on both sides. I’m not doing my body any favors by eating the way I did. I made a decision to go back to living a Ketogenic lifestyle. Notice that I did not say diet. I don’t want to diet, lose weight, and gain it all back again when I’ve nearly met my goal. I want to change the way I live and think about food.
I know that there are other teachers out there that are going through the same things that I am. I am writing this blog to help myself be accountable to myself, but if I can help even one other teacher out there I will feel like I have really accomplished something (without being selfish). Why do we feel selfish about taking care of ourselves? If we don’t take care of ourselves, how can we be effective in our classrooms? Our students deserve to have teachers who are well-adjusted, healthy, and happy.
I made a decision on Christmas Day 2018 to change the way I live and how I think about food in general. I already had some knowledge from my research in July. I discovered Suzanne Ryan’s website and YouTube channel Keto Karma this summer. Her journey is inspiring! She lost over 120 pounds following this lifestyle. She chronicled her progress on her YouTube channel. Her success and practical approach to led to her publishing her book Simply Keto. I set out to find my copy the day after Christmas. I had already tried several of the recipes she had posted on her website and liked what I tasted. Her success inspired me to start this blog.
Teachers depend upon planning on a daily basis. We plan our days, we plan our lessons, and we even plan when we go to the restroom. It should only be natural that we plan our meals, right!?! How many times have you stood in front of the refrigerator trying to decide what’s for dinner? If we don’t plan our meals, then we plan to fail. My goal this week is to plan and prepare at least a week’s worth of Keto-friendly dinners to put in the freezer for next week. The first week back after a long school break is often stressful. I want to reduce this stress as much as possible by having dinner ready to pop in the microwave, oven, or pressure cooker when I get home.
Tracking my progress…
I use a hybrid of analog and digital tracking. I use a bullet journal to plan out my weeks. I have posted some spreads on my Instagram page. I’ll try to keep this more up-to-date with my Keto progress as well. I plan on using this to plan out my weekly meal plans and grocery lists. There is something about writing down something on paper that just makes me feel good.
I’ve used My Fitness Pal (MFP) for tracking my weight loss, food and water intake, and fitness for many years. Their free version works well for me. I am able to link both my activity tracker and scale to keep everything in one place. I love my fitbit Charge 2, and their app tracks all of these items as well. However, the scale I already own is not compatible to link directly. MFP also acts as a bridge between my scale and my fitbit app to keep track of my weight loss. I primarily use the fitbit app to view my step progress and sleep log. I chose the Charge 2 because in addition to tracking my activity, it also registers heart rate and sleeping. Part of living a healthy lifestyle is getting enough sleep at night. I try to get at least 7 1/2 hours of sleep at night. I thought I needed more, but through trial and error I found that I feel good with this amount.
This summer, I decided to try the premium version of MFP. The free version allows you to set your goals by percentages. The premium version allows you to dial it down to the grams. You can also show your carbs, protein and fat by meal. After a while, I didn’t find this especially helpful, so I went back to the free version.
I also downloaded another free app called Carb Manager. Since I was already paying the premium subscription for MFP, I decided to only use the free version. The basic (free) version allows you to log your foods, exercise and weight, and allows you to add friends. The premium version allows you access to recipes, meal plans, shopping lists; tracking for glucose, ketones, sleep, fasting, and body measurements; as well as access to a variety of reporting and analysis. For my current tracking, I have decided to try the premium version. They have monthly, three-month, and annual billing options. I started with the monthly to see if it is worth the annual price. I will let you know next month whether I chose to stay with the Carb Manager premium, or go back to MFP.
I didn’t track my ketone levels this summer to determine when I was in Ketosis, so I’ve decided to track this as well. According to several sources (including Simply Keto), blood testing is the most accurate form of testing. I found a ketone meter that I could purchase with my flexible spending account card online, so I’m waiting for that to arrive. I have some urine test strips to get me started until they come in. This one wasn’t recommended by any of the blogs I read, but it was the only one I could find online that I could use my FSA card to purchase. I’ll let you know how it works. The meter itself was fairly inexpensive at $12.95, and the ketone strips (different from glucose strips) were under $13 for 10 strips.
Link Disclosure
I am not receiving any affiliate income for the links provided in this post. These are simply the things that I have used and liked.
