All celebrations require food (and lots of it)

I sit here wondering why every event we celebrate involves food? Not "good for you" food, but high fat, high calorie, high sugar food. Of course I helped contribute to the "celebration" food. I baked up a storm again this year. Chocolate whoopie pies with kuhlua filling, rocky road tassies, cranberry almond bars, sugar cookies, spritzer cookies, red velvet whoopie pies with peppermint filling, chocolate mint-oreo bark, white chocolate peppermint bark, chex mix, and pig-in-the-blankets (I am sure I missed a thing or two there). Mind you this is scaled back from years past! The only difference was I ate zero, nadda, zelch, nothing, of the sweet stuff. I did indulge in the chex mix, which was high fat, but did have protein (nuts). I did eat exactly one pig-in-the-blanket, it just did not taste as good as it use to. Of course I was surrounded by temptation, but really it did not bother me at all. When I feel the urge to eat bad stuff I remind myself of the journey I am on, have far I have come, and the fact that I take ZERO meds, and am conquering my PCOS (it will never completely go away, but is such more more managable). I look back to when I was on weight watchers, and I still baked all this food for the Holidays, and I still lost weight. Christmas 2005 I lost 25lbs. between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That was after I had Kendall and still could succeed at losing weight. Wishing you all a blessed Christmas, enjoy your family!!!!!

Protein

Protein is so very important in our daily nuitrition, especially us WLS people. I am suppose to have 72 grams daily. At first I thought this may be tricky, but thanks to creative thinking and eggface (She's a blogger with super cool recipes). I eat tons of nuts, cheeses, and meat. I try and stay away from complex carbs, hardly ever eat breads, heck I don't have a lot of room for food anymore so I have to get the biggest bang for my buck!!! I basically live on a south beach type eating lifestyle (stage 2 & 3). I put protein powder in so many things!!! I make protein smoothies for breakfast with fresh fruit and fruit juices. I add protein powder to instant sugar free pudding, my favorite drink at Starbuck's is a sugar free vanilla protein latte. My new guilty pleasure is protein ice cream!!! I make several batches and flavors and then put them in my freezer in 1/2 cup containers. My most recent flavor is chocolate peanut butter, totally orgasmic!!! I use to love ice cream, a huge love/hate relationship. Well now I eat it almost every night and it is actually good for me. Anyone dieting should try it!!!!

Shelly's Peanut Butter Cup Protein Ice Cream

1 cup Milk (I use 2%)
2 scoops Chocolate Protein Powder
1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter, melted (I used Jif Creamy)
Optional: 3 or 4 Sugar Free Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, chopped

Nuke peanut butter for 25 seconds to thin. Mix together milk, protein & peanut butter. I used this gadget to mix it up. It makes it airy and lump free. Pour into ice cream maker. Follow your machine's instructions for freezing. 5 minutes before done add the optional chopped SF Reese's. You can eat it right away it is soft serve-ish but I like to put it in the freezer to set for an hour or so.

Check out her other flavors and other recipes, she is amazing!!!!
http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/