Day 6 - Recovering

I ate well yesterday (<1000 calories) and exercised, 15 minutes on the elliptical, 10 minutes on the treadmill and then some weight lifting, but this morning's weight, at 257.2 is basically the same as yesterday, and 2 pounds UP from the other day.  I didn't binge.  It's just normal fluctuation for me.  It highlights that I can't take one day's weight as gospel.  A month ago I was going back and forth around 262 and now I'm going back and forth around 258, so that's progress in the right direction.  By the end of the year, I want to be going around 235, not by dieting, so much as by changing the way I live.

I figured out what my BMR would be if I weighed 169, and it's about 1450 calories a day, compared to now it's 1850 calories per day.  If I want to weigh 169 pounds, I'll have to eat like a 169-pounder!  Less calories for the rest of my life! I gotta get used to it!  Some days will be 2000 cals and some will be 1000, but it has to average out to less than 1500.

Anyway - today I want to talk about my yogurt maker.  I bought it last winter.  I was looking for full fat yogurt (because it satisfies me much better than lowfat) and I don't like the taste of Plain yogurt, but all the grocery store yogurt was low fat.  So I figured I'd have to make my own!

I did a bunch of research on how to make homemade yogurt, and you don't need a yogurt maker.  (You just need to keep the temperature around 100 degrees for 8 or so hours.  You can use a slow cooker or a styrofoam cooler, or stove top over a pilot light or anything, really, that keeps the mix at the right temp.)  I was uncomfortable trying any of those ways, so I bought a yogurt maker. 

One of the great things about homemade yogurt is that you can flavor it any way you want.  My favorite is honey that a friend of mine gave me from her bees.  I've also used  peach and rhubarb/strawberry flavored jams.  One key for me (since I don't love plain yogurt), is using a yogurt culture that makes a sweeter yogurt.  You can use a few tablespoons of yogurt to make more yogurt, but I chose to buy culture instead and start with milk.  This little container will make 50+ batches, and it has a very smooth taste.

The other thing that's neat about making your own yogurt is that you can use any kind of millk you want!  I wanted higher fat, so I tried some combinations of whole milk mixed with cream.  There are some farms around here, so I've tried raw milk, and also coconut milk.  Some batches were more successful than others!  These days, for a 42 ounce batch in 7 jars, I'm using 3 cups of whole milk and 2-1/4 cups of light cream.  When I use heavy cream it's thicker (and richer).  You could use skim milk if you wanted, but then you'd have to add powdered milk to get it to thicken.

I brought a jar of homemade yogurt to work today.  It's perfect for the late morning to get me through the lunchtime workout until I can eat my salad in the afternoon.  I feel good knowing that I'm giving my GI tract some good bugs and some energy to get me through the workout without crashing.

Have a good day all!  Take care of yourselves!