Keto Chicken Parmesan

Keto can be so delicious. Keto can be so easy. When I came across this delicious and easy chicken parmesan recipe, I knew that it was another keto miracle waiting to happen. I had never been so right in my life.

http://www.mykitchenescapades.com/2012/07/parmesan-chicken-bake.html

When I tried it earlier this weekend, it was so unbelievably mouthgasmic that I made it again today, doubling the portions for my lunch this week. I will literally be eating this 7 days in a row and I don't anticipate getting bored of it.

I tweaked the recipe a bit, namely using 3 (gargantuan) chicken breasts pounded thin, and playing with the mayo:parmesan cheese ratio. The secret is to have more cheese than mayo, since it's the cheese that gets nice and baked into that beautiful golden crust.

The ingredients:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (roughly 2 lbs)
1/2 Cup Hellman's mayonaise
5/8 c shredded parmesan cheese
Garlic salt to taste

Optional:
3/4 cup Rao's Homemade Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce
6 oz Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

First I pounded the chicken breast with a meat mallet into thinner, and more even pieces (much to the bewilderment of my vegetarian roommate from India who couldn't fathom why you had to beat a piece of meat even after it's clearly dead.) 
Mix together the mayo, cheese, and salt and spread it evenly over the breasts in a baking pan

Bake at 390 for 40 minutes, longer if the breasts are thicker/not pounded thin. The chicken should be a glorious golden, cheesy color.

You can enjoy as is, but I topped each breast with 1/4 cup of marinara sauce, 2 oz of mozzarella cheese each, and broiled it (500) until the mozzarella was melted. 

The closest thing I've seen of proof that there is a God and that He loves us. He's also probably therefore Italian.

I had mine with a simple Caesar salad. So ridiculously easy, so ridiculously good. 

Each serving of chicken (half a breast) I calculated to be 427 calories and 1.6 net carbs!

Keto Goat Cheese Meatloaf

I don't think there's a better type of loaf out there than a loaf of meat. And goat cheese is one of the creamiest, most savory and rich types of cheese. Together it's a match made in meat heaven.

I use this blog's recipe except without the scallions, cayenne or rosemary:
http://www.wickedstuffed.com/keto-recipes/keto-meatloaf-stuffed-w-goat-cheese-spinach/

It makes a little more than 6 servings, each with around 550 calories and 7 net carbs.

The very easy ingredients:

• 2lbs of 80/20 ground beef 
• 2 whole raw eggs
• 1 large yellow onion (chopped)
• 3 cloves garlic (minced)
•  4 cups raw spinach
• 8 oz of goat cheese (get the long roll and you should be good!)
• 1 can tomato paste

Seasonings:

• Dried oregano
• Salt
• Pepper

First mix the ground beef with the raw eggs, then add the diced onions and garlic.

You can probably stand to use less onions but at this point I was like what's done is don(ion).

Then add the seasonings. I used pretty generous portions of dried oregano, salt, and pepper. 

Then put some plastic wrap down on the table and roll the meat mix out into a rectangular shape. 

Spread the spinach and goat cheese evenly out on top.

 After spreading everything out, use the plastic wrap to help you roll everything into a loaf shape before

spreading the tomato paste on top.

Sometimes it tends to fall apart but just pat everything firmly into place the best you can. The

taste will make up for how shitty it may look.

Bake it in the oven at 425 for a little less than an hour.

End product!

The savory meat is perfectly complemented by the creamy cheese and tangy tomato paste.

This was my whole week's lunch plus a dinner and I never got sick of it!

The Ketogenic Diet, An Introduction.

Its moniker should be "the magic diet" or "the closest thing we have to proof that God exists diet." I will swear on my life itself that this diet works and I am not sponsored by any company, I promise.

The goal of the keto diet is to eat as few carbs as possible, or maintain a high fat, moderate protein, low carb ratio. In a (high fat low carb) nutshell, your body generally uses carbs as its main fuel. Your brain, heart, kidneys, muscle all break down carbs into glucose/fructose which are broken down further to be converted into high energy particles to run on. However if your body doesn't have enough carbs, it will have to use something else to use as fuel. If you hadn't figured it out, that is fat. By restricting carbs, you basically forces your body to start breaking down fat into molecules called ketones to use as energy instead, and so you are preferentially losing fat on this diet. This is obviously psychologically very appealing, but personally I've found that the main way keto works is that by eating mainly protein and fat, I am able to stay full for much longer than from eating carbs, and end up very easily maintaining a caloric deficit. I get to eat delicious meat, vegetables, and other fatty foods, know that I'm burning fat for a fact, and feel fuller for much longer, thereby losing weight. It's nothing short of scientific magic.

As with all things in life that sound suspiciously too good to be true, there are some cons to this diet. First, you must be VERY strict. Eating just a few too many carbs will kick you out of ketosis (the state of breaking down fats into ketones) since your body sees the carbs and is like Oh so we're back in business with the getting carbs thing? Well fuck you, fat, this is much easier to use! And that's it, you're not on keto anymore. Staying strict is by far the hardest part; no bread, pasta, potatoes, cereal, or SUGAR of any kind. That also means no desserts, fruits, or juices, as they are all high in sugar (which contain sucrose, which breaks down into fructose/glucose so you might as well be eating bread.) This is not something everyone knows: sugar is sugar. The carbs you get from a cookie end up breaking down into the same basic units as the carbs you get from an apple, despite the apple being seen as healthier considering its vitamin/fiber content. In keto eyes, they're both the same kind of evil. Another issue with the diet is that since you're eating so much protein, it is better to drink shittons more water. For someone who is on the diet longterm, eating tons of protein and dehydrated, all that protein will fuck up your kidney. But I don't think it's common. That's basically it. You have to be strict, no cheating, and drink lots of water.

People think Oh my god I could never go on this diet, what would I do without my toast every morning/pasta/potatoes/etc? How could I never eat cake/cookies/brownies/candy, not even a bite? For people who mainly subsist off carbs, yes this would be a very difficult change. But I have always preferred meat/savory foods to sweet foods. I do love certain carbs, but there is an immense variety to this diet. Your proteins can come from steak, chicken, fish, beans, eggs (which have their own endless ways to be used). I end up eating tons more vegetables than I would normally, I've made delicious broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, Swiss chard, and spinach dishes. The best part is that this diet is meant to be high fat, meaning you can eat much more bacon, butter, sausage, and fatty nuts like walnuts, cashews, almonds, and macadamia nuts than allowed on a diet based solely on caloric restriction. And by using almond flour or coconut flour, there are tons of recipes to make bread, tortillas, and countless desserts if you are hoping to replace your normal carbtastic items.

Over the course of the first month and a half, I lost probably 10 pounds. Nothing I had ever tried had had any results before, and I had been converted into an unshakeable believer. Then I became lax, started cheating once a week or so and lost another 10 pounds over the summer, slowly. I was at my lightest (153) around early September of this year. Then school started picking up, and I got into a month long stretch of school/tests stress plus a mentality of "I'm going to restart keto soon so I should eat anything and everything delicious before then" and over the course of a month and a half, put on almost 10 pounds. It was pretty devastating. I for some reason hadn't thought it a possibility to put on that much weight after tasting the glory of actually feeling thin for those amazing weeks. So now I'm on keto again, and have dropped 6 pounds, mostly from water weight tied up with glycogen (how your body stores extra carbs.) I'm pumped up and motivated, hoping to hit at least 150 by Thanksgiving. I've done great this past week and plan to not cheat the next five. Coming up next: one of my favorite keto recipes, goat cheese meatloaf!

BMhIgh, A History.

In my sophomore year of high school, I went to Jamaica for a week on a family vacation. It was beautiful and gorgeous and full of vacationey stuff, namely sitting on our asses and eating too much at every meal. When we got home, that was the first time I remember stepping on the scale and noticing my weight. I still remember what it was: 137. I don't think I was technically overweight then, and it wasn't long after that I slowly started putting on some weight, just randomly maybe after holidays. I wasn't huge (maybe on the heavier side of a healthy BMI) but throughout high school I did imagine wistfully once in a while how nice it would be to look like my thinner friends.

Then college happened. Starting out college I wasn't completely happy with how I looked. I think I was hovering at around 151, technically bordering a healthy and "overweight" line at 5'5". I think my last physical showed normal values except for an elevated triglyceride. But I started dating my boyfriend at the time and all thoughts of losing weight went to shit. We ate out, celebrated small things with deliciously fat filled treats, comforted ourselves in times of stress, and since I was in a relationship, I felt comfortable being who I was. I wasn't trying to impress anyone, as long as Austin found me attractive, who gives a care? I probably gained at least 15 pounds the first two years of college. When we broke up junior year, I started going to the gym more in a half hearted attempt to make a change, but my diet stayed roughly the same and the weight was maintained. I felt fat, but not altogether unattractive. Boys still expressed interest here and there so I didn't altogether feel horrible about myself. I tried counting calories once but didn't do it very seriously, and I basically stayed the same size.

Cue the start of med school. Tons more work and stress and no time to think about wooing boys plus months of cold, Buffalo weather and no exercise resulted in a roughly 8 pound weight gain over the course of the first semester. I looked fat in the mirror; I would avoid looking at myself when I showered. But I had school to worry about and it just wasn't a priority. I had been going to the gym more so I wasn't ridiculously out of shape, just straight up fat. My mom had been trying to get me to lose weight, for both health and cosmetic reasons for the past couple of years but it had just been kind of background nagging. My dad who never had an opinion had started to agree with her over that past year, saying shit like "fan hou liu yi kou", meaning every meal should have a bite leftover. He would take care to reiterate often that I should always be feeling a little hungry, that's how he maintains his weight. I didn't altogether disagree with them, I just hadn't found the motivation to lose weight seriously.

After an emotional conversation with my mom on her birthday weekend this past February, during which I admitted I felt a lot of stress at school, turned to food for emotional comfort and felt ugly and fat, I finally felt the motivation to make a real change. I decided to go on the ketogenic diet, basically cutting out almost all carbs. I have been following it on reddit and since I have always been a carnivore, it didn't seem too ridiculous. I was finally tired of feeling fat, unattractive, and hyper aware of how fat I looked in pictures. It was finally time to really do something, and that something was the start of my new religion, my keto journey.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bald Eagle

http://www.connie-zhou.com/asian-american-awakening/

So this article has been floating around on the interwebs lately. Basically this ABC talks about being an Asian American in the US and how we make up a population that is caught between two worlds: Chinese and American. She discusses how her identity has always been one of a confused version of either extreme (mathlete, hello kitty asian vs. whitewashed asian), how Asian stereotypes are more OK to make fun of than black ones, and how racism against Asian is a more important issue than it is made out to be.

Until I read this article, I really haven't had many identity crises. But this one almost gave me one. I am Chinese. I look Chinese. My parents are Chinese, we speak Chinese, I mix brownie batter with chopsticks, and of COURSE I take my shoes off when I get home (if you just kept your shoes on, all the shit you stepped on throughout the day would get tracked in and you might as well live outside.) I am American. I was born in Madison, WI which was and always will be "home" to me. I watch American TV shows, read American books, love American food, and hold rather liberal values. I guess now that I think about it, I don't really know what I am. I am an inbetweener, a floater, a link between two worlds. I am confused.

I have rarely felt discriminated against. There was that one time in 8th grade when all the non-white kids got called into the library for a vocabulary test but that was more hilariously ridiculous than infuriating, since most of us had much better vocabulary than any of our white classmates. When someone wrongs me, I NEVER assume it's due to my race, it literally doesn't cross my mind as a reason. Maybe it's because my parents are professors and we have always lived in a racially diverse area and many of my peers were also first generation Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or whatever. Also, I have always lived in an academic environment and I think it's usually the less educated and less wealthy population that still holds firm racist beliefs. Whatever the reason, I've been perhaps living in a bubble where racism is usually not an issue.

I think I identify as mostly American. I've been so culturally immersed in America since birth that I talk like Americans, feel guilty when our government does some insanely stupid thing in the Middle East, worry about American healthcare and understand what America is and how it works. America is my home; I feel relief when I fly back into America from somewhere and see McDonalds everywhere. When asked to fill in the country of residence on a form, I automatically look at the top for "United States." But I am fiercely Chinese in some ways. I believe in respecting your elders. They are wise, strong, human, and have been through shit that I couldn't even imagine. I believe in keeping tradition alive. China has an incredibly rich and beautiful history through literature, music, and dance, which I have always been interested in. I believe in excelling academically and pushing yourself to do the best you can. And sorry but "trying your best" for my parents is usually different than "trying your best" for the average white American family, just based on my own experience. "My best" is synonymous with an A. And while this kind of tiger mom thinking or whatever people call it has brought me a lot of stress and pressure like everyone thinks, without these expectations, I almost definitely wouldn't have tried as hard in school. And when I reached my goals, I mostly have my parents to thank. Through pushing me and bitching at me when I bring home a grade other than an A, they made me believe that I COULD have done better because I have the skills and was just a lazy fuck or didn't study the right way. Which they were usually right about. They always had an unshakeable faith in my abilities, even when I doubted myself. They love me so much, and for all the shit I went through in that house, I could never, ever say that they didn't care or didn't try.

When I go back to China, my uncle tells me straight up: "Remember. You are Chinese." It wasn't until now that I realized what they are trying to say. When I walk in the streets of Harbin and order food in Chinese from the local people and they treat me like just a normal Chinese person buying Chinese food at a Chinese restaurant, I get such a rush. I feel like I belong in a weird, unfamiliar way. I'm around people who look like me, who share more of my genetic profile than most other people in the world, and it is the land where my parents, grandparents, and all my ancestors lived. It is where my DNA existed and was modified and molded for thousands of years, and in a way, China is where I should have been born, had my parents not moved. And despite my cultural upbringing and American sense of humor and Chinese illiteracy, I will always be Chinese. China is vast and complicated and wonderful. It is flawed and dirty and corrupt. But I feel loyal to this country because my family lives there and my parents are from there and it is coursing in my blood with every breath I take.

It's hard to feel like I don't completely belong anywhere. For the most part, I feel very comfortable being a Chinese-looking-and-sometimes-feeling person in America. But I worry about my kids; I don't know enough Chinese or enough about China to make them feel as Chinese as I do, which is clearly not a lot. My F2's are even worse off, assuming they don't marry Chinese people, and their offspring will be even less Chinese probably until my family line may not know they stemmed from China at all. I don't want them to lose the Chinese part of their identity. But I am so glad that I have had the exposure to both worlds. I feel balanced with my values and my beliefs. There are so many important things I have learned from both cultures, lessons which would leave me much worse off had I not learned them. I hope that I can try to embrace the best of both worlds, understand and avoid the flaws in both cultures, and retain my sense of pride in being an American Chinese. Chuang qian ming yue guang. Enough said.

With a little help

I love my friends. Obviously it's bittersweet to chat and phone and skype and visit, knowing that once it ends, we are still usually miles apart. But the kind words, shared eye contact, uninhibited laughs, and mutual love we feel for however many moments make it all worthwhile. I just facetimed some of my best friends as they were at our local Denny's, while I am here in Pittsburgh. Both the people and mediocre diner hold very important places in my heart. The whole thing made me feel full in spirit. Sometimes I find myself too lazy to make the effort to keep in contact, but keeping in mind how special I know these bonds to be helps remind me of the important roles these people play in my life. They help me get by, they are people I turn to in times of joy, fear, sadness, and anger, and have given me very few reasons to believe that will ever change, so long as I put in the effort to remind them that I love them and need them. This time of our lives is especially unpredictable and constantly fluctuating. It is scary. But for some reason I am not afraid for my friendship with these people. Maybe because they, as my friends, make me brave. I am really lucky to know and love such great human beings that have made and still make my life so full of hope and laughter and learning. I hope they know how very much they are appreciated.

The God Complex

Some thoughts. When you are presented with something so scary, so utterly terrifying that you are all but consumed by this most primal fear, you fall back on your faith. You fall back on what you know is rock-solid, what makes you brave. In The God Complex (Doctor Who, of course,) they explore this idea through a monster that feeds on that faith. It lures you in with the one thing that scares you most, making you reveal who or what you have this unshakeable faith in, and it takes it from you. Then you die. It was fascinating to think about, the idea that there is this thing in everyone that keeps them going, without which, you just wither and die. I think depression might be just that: the loss of that faith that keeps you brave, strong, and marching on, despite whatever scary ass shit life throws at you. Your faith is intertwined with hope, that this thing you believe in will lead you out of whatever situation you are facing at the time. For Amy, her faith was the Doctor.


This episode was a little confusing for me when I watched it the first time around, but this time it hit me. The Doctor believed every word he said when destroying the faith Amy had in him. He is indeed just a mad man with a box, and she waited for him, and he does nothing but put her in danger. That led to the goodbye. He was afraid to lose her, because at the end, the faith she had in him to save her all the time was ungrounded and ultimately false. He's saving her one last time by leaving her. It's tragic. It's beautiful. It's what makes this show so special and timeless (pun) and it's why I am downright obsessed with it.

I could draw deep into the small part of my brain dedicated to philosophy and try to conjure up some parallel between this episode and religion. It is clear that the Minotaur thing was a kind of Godly figure, possessing its victims and having them praise him. But I think the bigger picture revolves around Amy's faith in the Doctor, the moment when he breaks that faith, and their separation. The relationship between the Doctor and his companion is so complicated and indescribable. When he smiled that crooked smile and stepped into the TARDIS alone, it damn near broke my heart. But the point is, you let go those you don't want to hurt, at least in this case. And I'm not too sure Amy's faith in him is completely broken...I sure as hell still have all my faith eggs in the Doctor basket. All in all, this episode was beautifully written, amazingly shot, and makes this show the closest thing that comes to an item of worship for me. If I had to pinpoint my faith in something, it would be the one and only Doctor. Praise him.