Re-inventing a Life - Low Carb Camps and Other Cheap Retreats

Kayaking Lopez Lake

Recently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the next journey in my life.  I'm asking myself how do I want to spend the next 15 years?  What do I love!?  What could I easily spend hours on hours doing without noticing a minute go by?

I enjoy writing the blog and helping others help themselves through a low-carb lifestyle.  I'm a sharer by nature.   What I miss are the people, the community of doing something inspiring and productive.   I'm just 1 person behind a blog, spouting off ingredients and saying - go out there...walk, do something active and eat low carb....it worked for me!

A year and a half a ago, I did something which changed my life that wasn't the low carb diet.  I moved to someplace similar to a community in which I grew up.  Now, people who know where I grew up would scoff...HA! That's not true!  I grew up on a farm, 18 miles from the town where I graduated from high school. There were at least 14 miles of dirt road we had to travel in order to hit the blacktop.  I was isolated, I had my thoughts, I had my animals and I had time.

I didn't move to a farm, but I did move to a much more spacious environment.  My city is actually referred to as a colony and is in the central coast of California.  A planned community which is a haven to those who are more agriculturally and artistically minded.

My husband and I chose a property near the historic center of town and easy walking distance to everything....grocery, entertainment, restaurants, hiking trails, school, church, doctor, community center with meeting room space and still on a relatively large lot by city standards, almost an acre.   One of the benefits of the property is that we could keep and use our travel trailer.

View of city from Pine Mountain hiking trail

In August, I moved another RV to the property that I had kept in our old city and decided to try to sell it from here versus there.   However, before I did that, I put it up on Airbnb just to see if anyone would want to come stay in it.  I was pleasantly surprised, people do come and they loved the area and they love the RV.

More importantly, I love having them come.  I am filled with anticipation over each visitor.  I am intrigued with where they came from and where they are going or what they are doing.  How I can help them, what I can recommend them to do.   It's been easy!!  In just a month We've had visitors from the Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, UK, Belgium, India and of course,  California.  I have now thought, I could do something unique and affordable for many!  I could offer cheap retreats.

I could offer a low carb camp - where people could come spend a few or several days with me.  We could hike, kayak, golf, tour sites like historic lighthouses, Hearst Castle, Elephant Seals, hike along Highway 1 parks, go zip lining, farmers market like the world famous San Luis Obispo market not to mention the wineries... and make plans to help them kick start a low carb lifestyle.  For others, I could offer them the ability to host their own retreat from an affordable "camping" approach but still be near to so many amenities.

Morro Rock - from kayaking trip in Morro Bay

What do you think?  Would you come?  I would love to know if I have something here, if I could make this happen.  Let me know by sending me an email with your interest to thecarbometer@gmail.com.

If you want to check out our Airbnb offerings, go to www.airbnb.com and search to visit Atascadero, CA and look for Urban Camping and Urban Camping 2.

Low Carb update - 3 lbs from goal.  Made an awesome cauliflower soup that I'll share in my next blog.  I've got to get out and hit the trail now...happy carb counting.

A Year In....and a 41 lb. Weight Loss

On Sept. 9, 2013, I began to change my eating habits for the good based on a recommendation from my doctor.  I have been sporadically keeping this blog to illustrate my path and share what works for me.

After several weeks of trying to determine how many carbs I was able to eat that would continually have me lose weight, I found for myself that between 30 - 50 carbs was the way I had to go.  That is not a lot of carbs!  The average person consumes 370 carbs a day.  Both my parents have adult onset diabetes and I do believe that is where I was heading if I did not get my weight and my health under control.

On Sept. 11, 2014, I visited the same doctor and pleasantly surprised her with my 41 lb. weight loss.  She was thrilled for me.   I thought...this deserves a bit of before and after right.....

Before I started the low carb diet  May 2013

On the low carb diet - August 2014

My upper body is almost unrecognizable.   From the waist down, I'm certainly slimmer but I am still wearing the same pants, they are just pretty big but my hips hold them up so I'm not really out looking for a new wardrobe.  

I'm still not at my goal weight, I'm very close at 3 - 5 lbs away on any given day now for a week.   I'm starting to get back into my walking regime and making every effort to make my own food which I think is so important to losing weight.  It's almost impossible to lose weight while having 1 - 2 meals out a day.....even a week.   My method of counting the carbs helped me to reduce the processed foods and sugars because....they are all high in carbs.  When you count carbs you eat less naturally, so I did not count calories. 

Today, I ventured away from tried and true salads and omelettes to soup!  I have lined up several low carb soups I'll be trying.  

Today was a spinach broccoli soup!

Ingredients and carb counts:

Green onions - scant

Butter - 0 carbs

Spinach - 2 carbs

Broccoli spears - 2 carbs

Chicken Broth - 1 carb

Cornstarch - 2 carbs

Half and Half -  2 carbs

Carbometer: 9 carbs

Hope you enjoy reading about my low carb journey....here's to happy carb counting.

The LAST 10

Apologies, I haven't updated the blog.  I do have a progress report though.  I've kept with the low carb diet.  It has taken two full months to lose 10 lbs.  I think any doctor would argue that is healthy weight loss, nothing gimmicking or quick about it.  The good news is....here it is...I'm in the final stretch, I'm down to the last 10.  Maybe by July?  Maybe August?

Did the supplements work from my last posting? I don't think so.  Don't waste your money.

For those out there who have been reading...and I just looked there are a lot who read the first post, don't give up if you are trying to lose weight.

The Wildflower Hike

Wildflowers in the distance

Lately it has been a challenge to keep my exercise schedule. I'm now trying to squeeze as much time as there is to make sure I'm getting in at least 10,000 steps on my pedometer.   One of my favorite hikes is the one near my house.  The area in nice and steep and makes for a great natural stair climber like workout.

Yellow trumpet flowers

Wild daisy

I haven't been able to do the hike for over a week so yesterday, I left for the hike at first light!  It was foggy and amazing.  While I was away, the wildflowers bloomed.   I've seen wildflowers before but usually only one or two kinds, not the varied mixture I saw on this hike.  Good thing, I had my phone so I snapped  few shots.

Ronnoculus like flower

I'm not a photographer, nor a botanist, but seriously, I think people with that background should seriously document what is up there on that hike.  Hopefully my pictures will inspire some of my friends who are one or both of those professions to come and do justice for these blooms.   I also saw a lot of poison oak...it's thriving as well.

Cone like purple flowers on bush

As for my early results with the supplement garcinia cambogia extract, it's too early to tell. I've taken the supplement now for two days and there is no additional weight loss.  I actually don't like it, if there isn't any progress after a week, I'll likely stop taking it.   Some of the side effects are likely it actually working.  You take it 30 minutes before eating with an 8 oz glass of water.  This leaves you with a bit of a bloated feeling (or fullness feeling) likely to keep you from overeating or eating at all.

Beautiful pink flower!

My largest meals are breakfast and lunch.  So I thought I would take the supplement at those times.  I have moved to breakfast and dinner because the lunch time weird feeling was too distracting and I found myself putting off lunch, which isn't what I want to do.  Eating less at dinner is a lot easier for me and helps me not want to have something sweet as the evening wears on.

Dark purple trumpet like flowers

I'm going to the happiest place on earth with my kids today...getting ready to leave.  I likely won't be near a scale for some time, so hopefully after some days away and A LOT of walking ahead of me, I'll see some significant changes.

Have a happy carb counting day!

To Supplement or Not

Actually effective or not?  We'll see.

Welcome back to me!  I've been out of the office working a lot and haven't had time to work on the blog and magically, I haven't had the chance to exercise either!  I've been thinking of giving myself a little boost.   It is hard to look at the scale each morning and see the slow progress.   I know these last pounds were not going to fly off and I even joked it may take till Thanksgiving this year to be rid of them...if ever.

It's a Tuesday and it's progress report update. It's been a whole week since I have written a blog posting and I missed the progress report update for this last Saturday which would have been a broken record or a slight loss.   Regardless, my week was not as dreary as I'm projecting, I saw some of my very favorite folks and even was able to reconnect with one of my childhood best friends so all in all a fantastic week.

I must pat myself on the back, I did well on the diet and keeping the carbs low, only splurging on Friday night for an amazing few bites of a flourless chocolate cake.   What I have now before me is a shiny bottle of Garcinia Cambogia Extract.   Yes!  I have fallen into the pit of gimmick.  Will it help or not...well, let's give it a month and see.

From the reports I've read about some famous faces is that it works.  The other advice I found is that you need to make sure you are using the right dosage and that there is a tremendous amount of supplements that are just peppering you with a sprinkle of the stuff and then fillers which actually counteract the effects.  What do I know...literally nothing but I tried to be careful in my selection and chose Research Verified's mixture.  I'm to take 2 pills a day 1600 mg of this supposed slimming snake oil.

It has the hydroxycitric acid in it, which makes me think of those diet supplements I see in the grocery stores - hydroxycut is what I think it's called.   So let's embark on another adventure and see if this will matter in my quest to be my ideal weight.   I'm staying with the low carb diet and the exercise plan of walking a lot.

Progress report:  I have lost 1 more pound since the last report. 12 pounds to go.  If this little bottle lives up to it's reputation I should be able to see up to 7 lbs a week drop...I don't think that would be possible for me so I'd be happy if it were 2 lbs a week. If that were the case, in six weeks, I may be at my target weight.

Go ahead...flog me, don't worry if I feel bad at all, I'll stop.

Have a happy carb counting day!

The Color Run/Walk

Effects of the Color Run

My daughter and I did a color run this weekend. She was so excited about this concept of being covered in color by the end of the run that she recruited two friends to join her.  We had a wonderful time and I believe the color definitely brought the fun to this event.

The color run was a fundraiser for an elementary school about 30 miles away from my home, but still in our county.  It was an area I was familiar with because my daughter does horseback riding camp in the area.  I was surprised by how many people recognized her from horse camp at the school.

The parents organization should be commended, they had signage up in the surrounding communities, posted the event to the Active network and leveraged several service organizations like the boy scouts and the high school leadership group to help out.  They had other community safety organizations on hand to help support and bring information to the participants.

Freshly Powdered Runners

A wildlife conservationist was there, the Fire and Rescue team from the area with a truck and a local organization did a tri tip bbq.  Breakfast was provided for the 5K participants.  There were unofficial timers to let people know how long their 5K took them.  

Our 5K took it's time, but we did the whole race.   The girls ran at least the first full mile which was
actually a nice up and down course so it certainly was not a flat loop.  The trail went through the vineyard that surrounds the school.  It was a really cool school, set in the country.

At about every 1/4 mile increment, you were splashed with a color that had been prepared in what looked like ketchup and mustard containers you'd see at a restaurant, the ones with the long tip.  There were four people stationed on the path at each 1/4 mile marker that squirted color on you.  I think it was just cornstarch dyed with food coloring.  You looked like an easter egg by the time it was done, but the powder just shook off.  

If you wanted to preserve your powder, I was told to just add a little vinegar to the washing water and it would keep some color, or they had a tie dye station that you could go to for a little more money and tie dye your shirt.   We did that.

It was an awesome day!  We arrived when they opened their gates and they basically had to start tearing down in front of us for the girls to want to go home.  

All of this happened EARLY in the morning. I was a bit worried for the organization that this was a Sunday, that maybe they wouldn't have such a great turnout.  But they did!  The race started at 8:30 and was over by 9:30, their was a little kid race at 10:00 and they served the tri-tip at 11:00.  The event was over at 11:30.  For most who had church service to go to, they still had the opportunity, for those who needed to make a 11:00 or 11:30 service could have just forgone the lunch.

Most organizations would do this on a Saturday and compete with other youth organized sports.  Doing it on a Saturday bypassed that.  I could also see trying to do this on a Friday evening when it starts to get cool or on a Saturday evening if you have a location with lighting.  But it was perfect. I felt like I had a lot of time still left in my day after it.  I would definitely want to do another one of these events.

Progress report: Plateaued again, still 13 lbs to go.

Rain! Rain!

My First Rose of Spring

Where I am right now is being rained on quite frequently and I'm not complaining.  We are in the midst of a drought that will likely only get worse so we'll literally take what ever water comes our way.  The rain does make it challenging to hike and I'll have to use the elliptical at the gym today.  I joined Active.com which is a network that lists out the different runs and marathons happening by regions.  It also lists the walks and fun runs.

Being that San Luis Obispo county is home to a lot of athletes, there are a lot of choices.  I am thinking of doing a Color Run with my daughter.  It's this weekend and it looks like fun.  It's for a good cause, a school in the county and I think it may be a good fundraising idea for our school so I'm going to go ahead and register us.  We are also going to do another 5K at the end of the month.  I'll walk...quickly in these, I'm not a runner.

Over the last few days I have managed an average of 7 - 8 miles a day.  Of course with the rain, I haven't.   This week is challenging for me to do any exercise due to my schedule and my daughter being on half days for testing at her school and the rain.  I also had a fleeting moment where I thought I could trick everyone and say I had made my goal!  But then I thought...no, I had best just avoid April Fool's Day.

Anyway...off to make some eggs and spinach.  As of Tuesday, I did lose another .5 lbs so now I have 13 lbs to go.