Baking - Tips, Questions, Discussions, Recipes.

Well, giving myself a challenge next week. 

I'm seeing my parents for a couple of days as they are down near me for a holiday. So just an hour and a half on the train across the Pennines. Should be a scenic journey.

So as they're on holiday, they won't have any snack type things. So I figured I'd bake something to take over with me for us all, sister-in-law and niblings will be there too.

The challenge is, Mum and Dad are both diabetic. So I've been looking through sugar free recipes. A lot of them use artificial sweeteners, but the ones you need to use to bake with are stupidly expensive. So I've managed to find a full blown sugar free recipe. However, I've tasted sugar free baking before, and it's not great.

So think of me on Monday when I try to make a diabetic friendly carrot cake. I think it will need all the help it can get! LOL

Lass

Xx

Why not go savoury, Lass? 

Xx

Mostly because Mum has been denying herself anything and everything sweet, and is a bit miserable about it. So I'm hoping to show her that there are options out there so she can still have cake.

My brother is home and doing the meal cooking too, so he's feeding them well. A bit too well though, and he refuses to change his ingredients to take their health issues into consideration. His opinion is you should live better and shorter, so deny yourself nothing and if you die sooner at least you've enjoyed your time. He doesn't believe that taking butter, salt, cream, and sugar out doesn't have to change how nice and enjoyable something is.

But also a large part of it is that I need something that is quick. I'm really suffering at the moment and no one can tell me why. The only suggestion I've had is that I'm too fat and too inactive, but I'm not sure I believe that. But we'll see what happens as more weight comes off. But earlier, I almost collapsed because chopping an onion was too long to be standing up.

Sorry, totally fed up and depressed about my situation at the minute. I try not to complain, because it could be so much worse. But I am sick of being told things will get better and then they get worse, and no one can tell me why - yet more issues keep being found. And I've had enough of sitting on the sofa, or lying in bed, and being stuck in the house because I can last maybe an hour out of the house, then I need to come home and sleep the rest of the day. Or I do one of those 10 min, high intensity work outs as best I can, only to have to sleep for 2 or 3 hours to recover. It's ridiculous!

Sorry.

Lass

Xx

Don’t be sorry Lass. I’m only sorry you feel so low. It’s so hard when the slightest effort makes you crumple. 

I’m with you on the need to cater for people’s medical needs. It would be ok if it really was a choice between living shorter better or living longer miserable but it’s not. It’s a choice of living shorter with the problems that come from not looking after yourself (and with diabetes those problems can be serious) or living longer in good health. Harrumph. 

I hope you find the perfect recipe for you and your mum and for you 

Lots of love xxx

Oh Lass, I'm so sorry you are feeling down these days! I do know how you feel! I've been trying to loose a bit of weight tooa and it's easy for people to say, just watch what you eat and become more active but when after standing for more than five or ten minutes, your feet go numb or feel like pins and needles, then your legs buckle under you, how can you become more active! It's a catch 22 situation! I just hope once I've had this back operation, things will start to improve for me! Has no one given you an opinion on what might be wrong Lass? Are you on treatment just now that could be causing the fatigue? I know what it's like and you just can't fight it! Then you get frustrated with yourself for not trying harder but find it impossible!

My husband is diabetic, he was only diagnosed about August last year. He has a very sweet tooth but amazing willpower! I hope whatever you make, carrot cake or whatever, your parents will love! My husband doesn't like carrot cake, not because he's tasted it but because the words carrot and cake should not be in the one sentence! Lol!

Hope you feel better soon or at least find out what the cause is!

Hi Lass,

I'm afraid it wont sort your cooking dilemma in the short term but have you thought about combining your two loves and growing Stevia in a container in your garden?  Apparently it grows well in containers and is about 300 times sweeter than sugar so you should get quite a bit of sweetness from one crop.

I'm also not a fan of carrot cake but in my case it is not the cake (I've also had courgette cake and beetroot and chocolate cake) but the cream cheese icing that is too often put on top.

I hope that they get to the bottom of your lack of energy soon.

love and hugs,

Gragon xx

Oh Lass, no wonder you're feeling totally fed up and depressed, you have far more than your fair share to deal with. The fatigue sounds crippling. Do you have a free booklet 'Coping with fatigue' from be.macmillan.org.uk or you can call 0808 808 00 00?

I would struggle to do 10mins of high intensity exercise at the moment. I teach pilates, and have found that low impact exercises done well are extremely effective in keeping things moving and lifting your spirits a bit. I've taught chair pilates classes to people with mobility problems, and it's amazing how much you can do, and how much better people feel for it.

It must be so, so frustrating to be told you're too fat and too inactive when you're exhausted and suffering. Is there someone you can talk to at your cancer care centre? 

I hope you have a great visit with your family. I'm with Daloni and yourself on respecting someone's medical conditions, let us know how you got on with the cake. xx

Hey Daloni,

It was the pain, it just built and built until the small of my back just refused to take anymore. Ended up holding onto the bench and side stepping to get to the stool so I could sit down. It's the small of my back when standing still, and my right hip when walking, and T8 fucking constantly. T8 likes to give you that pain that radiates into your core and makes you feel nauseous too. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

I've got my eye on a carrot cake recipe that I'm going to omit the raisins from, because they add sugar as well as over 500 calories to the whole cake! So fingers crossed my skills will see it good....

Exactly Annette! 

For the last year I've lived on salads, and tracked my food. Every day I came in around the 1500 calories mark, but I continued to put on weight. It's always been the same, and the Drs think it's because of my PCOS. So as long as I exercise and am active, I could - and have - live on pizza. But no amount of healthy eating without exercise is going to make me lose weight. So these last 6 years of cancer has basically meant comfort eating and 0 activity due to pain and exhaustion.

I'm on 47 pills a day, not including pain killers. LOL. I've got my thyroid replacement meds, hormones to suppress the womb cancer, 2 blood pressure tablets, 1 beta blocker, a stomach protector tablet, and vitamin D. The high blood pressure and high heart rate could be making me more tired because my heart is working harder. My thyroxine dose also has me as technically hyperthyroid, so again everything is running harder and faster than it should. They also think the 4 doses of RAI I've had may have given me some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome. Then I have sleep apnea - newly diagnosed - which is known to make you more tired as you don't sleep well overnight. And finally, I may have fibrosis or cirrhosis of the liver - currently going through tests - and that's known to make people more fatigued than usual.

So..... plenty of reasons for being tired/fatigued, most of which sadly can't be fixed.

I'll post a pic and a review here once the cake is made and then tasted - if it gets tasted. Lol - to let you all know how it went. If I find any good recipes suitable for diabetics, I'll try and remember to share them and tag you so you can see. I found some nice chocolate on Amazon that I got Dad for Father's Day last year. He said it was good on the whole, though some flavours weren't as successful as others. I could try and get you the link if you'd like?

Hey Gragon,

I hadn't actually. I'd need to look into the process of extracting the sweetness. I believe it comes as a white powder when you buy it. So I'd guess it would need processing, probably by stewing and boiling the leaves, then evaporating the liquid to leave behind the crystals of sweetener. And tbh, that seems like a lot of work for prob not a lot. Lol. But it will need to be investigated, first question would be can it even grow in our climate.

I'm afraid there will be lemon scented cream cheese on this cake too. It's not even an icing, it's just straight cream cheese slathered on. Lol. I do like it, well, the icing, and I know Mum does too. And she loves citrus. So.... fingers crossed. Lol. As I say, total experiment and massive finger ccrrossing and improvising involved!

Hey Tina,

I tried a Pilates workout on my app, it nearly killed me. Lol. It was called corset Pilates, and had you on your back doing things with arms and legs. Def activated my core, but also left me on the floor for a couple of hours or so as I couldn't get up. Luckily I could reach my blanket though, as I got very cold!

The workouts are high intensity in that they get your heart rate up. But they are mostly really low impact. The ones that ask me to jump or bounce I don't do, and when it wants me in a push up position I do it from my knees and not toes. Some of the exercises I even do from my chair too. I just see how I feel, do what I can, and alter or miss out what I can't. Last thing I want to do is cause myself an injury again.

I'm not sure how much weight I've put on since my diagnosis, but I've gone up 4 dress sizes. And with the sleep apnea, hormone positive womb cancer, and as a minimum - the start of liver problems with a confirmed diagnosis of non alcoholic fatty liver disease - I MUST lose weight. And if that's not a big enough incentive, then my 2nd brother is getting married in October and he is very vocal about how fat and disgusting I am. So I refuse to be a blob in his wedding pics, or not allowed in the pics because of my size. So my aim is to lose enough weight to get down 5 dress sizes.

I'm not going by BMI, because I think if I got to my recommended BMI I'd look ill. I'm 5' 10" with REALLY broad shoulders and a giant head. Rugby player type build. My BMI says I should be around 12.5 stone, and I think that would look weird. I say giant head, because the geneticist measured it and I'm in the top 1% for my height. I also read an article the other day, where a poor woman had an allergic reaction to something and her head swelled up. The author of the article talked about how ginormous her head was, and how it had grown to such a monstrous size, then gave the same circumference as mine normally is. Lol. (63cm)

So, I guess it means that this year shall be spent exercising, sleeping, and eating. Then maybe once the weight has gone, if the problems are still here, the Drs will look for other causes and reasons, and maybe fix me! I can live in hope!

Lass

Xx

Hi Lass 

I’m exhausted just reading this. You have so much going on. Baby steps though. Going down five dress sizes sounds a massive drop. Maybe start with one?

Good luck! 

Xx

Apparently I don't do things by halves? Lol.

And it's 5 dress sizes by October the 26th. So not too insane? Or at least as close to.

9lbs lost since Jan 1st, so it's a start.

Lass

Xx