A New "Dieting" Adventure

Tim is switching his diet to more of an Adkins type of diet.  Since we know that sugar is the/a food that cancer feeds on, we want to "starve" the cancer, or at least put some stress on it!  So, beginning yesterday, WE have begun a low carb diet.  The object is to decrease the carbs that our bodies are currently using as energy and switch it to burning fat instead!

Tim has said to me over and over that he does not want me to have to do this diet with him, but I have several reasons for doing it with him. 

The first is found in a couple of Bible verses from our Good Morning Girls Bible study this week that I am using as my "motto" for this challenge:  Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10 - "9.  Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor.  10.  For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up."

2.   I am NOT ready to turn the love of my life over to God yet!  :D  If he is fighting, I'm right there beside him!  (Hence, the Bible verses.)

3.  I figure it can't hurt!  The only thing we are giving up is sugar and starch!  :D

4.  I need an incentive for losing weight, anyway!  And, since his goal is not to lose weight, but keep track of all the Fats, Proteins and Carbs he eats, I figure eating what he eats will help me to get down to the weight he is maintaining!  I'm not good when it comes to "tracking" stuff, and since I'm eating what he is eating, why "reinvent the wheel" so to speak!  :D

OK, so we started yesterday.  Yesterday we were up at 5 a.m. because we had to drive to WV for a funeral.  While I took my shower, Tim fixed breakfast.....ham and scrambled eggs.  So, we were eating that at 5:30 a.m., give or take a few minutes.

The visitation was from 11-1 and the funeral was from 1-2 and then we went to the graveside service.  We didn't get to spend any time with Liz afterwards (we did get to see her and Abby for a few minutes before the funeral), so we headed home, but stopped in Teays Valley at Bob Evans to eat.  We both had their Cobb Salad with Ranch Dressing.  I gave him my cherry tomatoes and neither of us ate the Blue cheese they gave on the side.  We both drank unsweetened tea with "splenda."

Believe it or not, that is ALL we ate all day long!  Not even any snacking before bed for me, which is a HUGE deal for me!  Snacking after Tim goes to bed, since I am a night owl, is a downfall area for me!  Except that I went to bed at the same time as him since we got up so early!  :D

Anyway, I wanted to share with you what I have eaten today.  I made some tuna salad for lunch.  The "bread" in this picture is a "minute muffin" made from 1/4 cup milled Flax seed, 2 tablespoons real butter, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1 egg.  Tim melted the butter in a huge mug which I poured the batter into and microwaved it on high for 1 minute.  Flipped it out onto a wire rack to cool and then sliced it into 4 slices.  He used 2 of the slices with his breakfast this morning and I used the other 2 with 1/4 cup of the tuna salad on each.  I toasted the "bread" just a bit.  I have to say that it was pretty tasty!  The only thing I don't like about tuna is the after taste!  YUCK!

Final Day

Sunday Sunrise at approx 7:15.  Not sure if that is a cruise ship to the right or not.

I enjoyed watching this black bird picking jelly and butter from the containers on the table behind us.  He took one jelly, pecked a hole in it then left it.  Then he chose some butter and carried off.  In a few minutes he was back trying to scrap the butter off of his beak onto the table leg before hopping up and grabbing another butter and carrying it into the greenery next to the hut.

Tim enjoyed some yogurt, granola, toast and coffee today while I enjoyed (and shared)......

a bowl of fresh pineapple and cantaloupe and orange juice.  After eating cashews and croutons in the last couple of evening meals, my tooth is touchy today!  I am praying it won't cause too much trouble before I can get it taken care of on Wednesday when we get home.

It was very enjoyable listening to the gurgling of the water fall right next to the hut.

A quick "selfie" before leaving for church.  I gave up on trying to keep my hair from curling and frizzing by spending tons of time on straightening and shaping it.....this morning I dried it and let it go.  Tim does not like it like this.  I'll work on it after we get home! 

Notice how puffy Tim's right cheek is?  He work up on Friday with it looking like this and he says it is sore.  The lump that the doctor could not find on his own and Tim had to direct his hand to find is spreading down under his cheek.  Sure praying these next treatments are going to be what the Lord used to heal him of the cancer that is spreading rapidly!

A kind old gentleman offered to take this picture of us when he saw me holding the camera out at arm's length.  Beautiful day today!  It rained during church, but quit before church was over.

Enjoying the water on our feet.

Looking out over the ocean.

Sea weed washed up this morning.

His desire.....to walk the beach and hold hands and try to forget the cancer for awhile.

Not sure what the ship is.  I was trying to capture the sea gull zoomed in.  They are quick!

We noticed it looked like it was raining or brewing up a rain in the distance.

We decided to sit and relax in one of the pool chairs.....since we were paying $10 a day for them, even though this is the only day we or anyone else has been in them since we got here on Thursday.  When we came back to the room from breakfast someone new was "moving in."  I told Tim I wished we were just getting there.....again!  :D

Nice and relaxing with the sea breezes blowing!

Here's my treasures for the day.

When we left church we ate at Panera Bread.  Tim said he wanted to eat in the room tomorrow morning before leaving around 7:30, so we got a couple of HUGE cinnamon rolls.  The pecan roll and bear claw were for dessert today!  :D

So pretty!

We found a church who hasn't closed because of the Super Bowl.  Tim is napping while I type this up.  I need to get the sand washed off and dressed for church as we will leave in about an hour.  When we leave tomorrow, we will travel about half way to home, stopping over in Georgia for the night and then on into home on Tuesday.

Sun Up to Sun Down

Well, today turned out to be a looooooooong day! 

The plan.....Go to Miami to the Everglades Adventure Park to do some air boat riding, see some gators, etc.  Before we left the hotel at around 9:30, I called to make reservations for a dinner cruise on the Jungle Queen that would launch at 6 p.m. from not too far from the hotel here.  Well, on the way to Miami, we saw a sign for Key West.  Tim said he wished we had a couple more days so we could go to Key West.  I said, let's go Monday after we leave the hotel.  He said, no, we need to stay on schedule for getting back home.  I said, well, let's go there today and he said, no, you want to do the dinner cruise.  I said I wanted to do it because it was something we hadn't done before but we don't have to do it.  So he agreed and instead of doing the Everglades activity we headed to Key West.

We found another Butterfly activity to do and planned to visit the Southernmost point of the US and to visit the Truman Little White House.  The people were ALL over the place and the traffic was HORRIBLE and the parking was non-existent!  We did manage to find a parking spot pretty close to the Butterflies.  Then we went around the corner to the Southernmost Point but the line to get their pictures taken by the Point was too long so we got back in the car to go to Truman's Little White House.  We could not find parking, the one way streets and the people and traffic finally chased us away!  We headed back.

Our GPS took us the Florida Turnpike on the way down, but somehow we are going to be charged by the license plate of our car that pictures were taken of as we passed the no cash payment cameras.  However, we have a rental car, so we totally do not know what is going to happen with that because the license plate for the car we rented from Enterprise is a Texas license plate.  You can't make something like that up, LOL!  Soooooooooooo we avoided the turnpike on the trip back and stayed on US1 til we could get to I95.  On the way there (which took FOREVER!) Tim said he was in the mood for spaghetti, so we found an Olive Garden and ate.  We finally got back after 9 p.m.

Here are a few pictures from the day, starting with a sunrise picture.

These are from the Butterfly and Nature Conservatory in Key West.  Within a minute or 2 of walking into the Conservatory a butterfly landed on Tim and as I tried to get my camera ready to get a picture the butterfly left Tim and landed on me.

Didn't really see any butterflies that we hadn't seen at Butterfly World on Thursday but the foliage and flowers seemed to be prettier at this one.

There were several of these dishes of cut fruit around.  The butterflies here are Monarchs and I don't know what kind of bird that is but isn't it beautiful?!  I thought it very interesting that the underside of the Monarchs wings are so different compared to the upper side of blue and black.

There were some little quails running around at Butterfly World and there were some here, too.

More beautiful plants.

We had to wait about 20 minutes at Olive Garden, so we waited outside.

Tim found a Baptist church for us to attend tomorrow.  It is just a couple of miles away.  It must be off of our beaten path as, for the most part, the only thing we have seen are Catholic churches.

Hard to believe tomorrow is our last day here already!  sigh!