A Gram Here, a Gram There...

This past week our nephew, Henry, and our niece, Halliday, have been visiting us. They're terrific kids, 13 and 10, and we had a lot of fun -- went to the local county fair, did some geocaching, poked around the pioneer village and the old, old cemetery at a local park, watched a few movies (Halliday is a To Kill A Mockingbird fan), and just hung out.

And as of this morning, I have an extra 5 pounds around my middle. Argh.

This is not due to any major Indulgence, but rather to just a modest relaxation of restrictions for the duration. To wit:

* The kids are not egg fans, so I made pancakes from cottage cheese, eggs, protein powder, and coconut flour.* They were, indeed, reasonably low carb and quite high protein -- 3 grams usable carb per pancake, with 7 grams of protein -- but I'd have five or six, 'cause I'm hungry in the morning. You can do the math.

* The kids had sugar-free pancake syrup on their pancakes, but I'm not a fan, and had low sugar jelly instead. Again, we're talking 6 grams of carb per tablespoon.

* Peanuts in the shell were the preferred snack food, and who could resist? Again, not terrible, but once you take the shells off those peanuts run 4 grams of usable carb per ounce, and I ate more than an ounce at a sitting, more than once.

* At the county fair I had my annual ear of roasted sweet corn, for another 15 grams of usable carb.

* For their final night at our house, we had Edy's no-sugar-added ice cream, the Fudge Tracks flavor. That's another 15 or so grams.

* On our drive back to the Chicago suburbs where they live, we had supper at a truck stop. I ordered a double bacon cheeseburger, no bun. It turned out to be ridiculously huge -- I'm guessing a pound or more, all told -- so I didn't eat even half of it. But I'm also guessing from the texture and flavor of the patties that it was not made from pure beef, but rather had additives. Who knows what? Bound to be higher carb than ground beef, whatever it was.

None of this qualified as an unmitigated nutritional disaster. But it all adds up, especially since I've reached an age (or hormonal status, or something) where I need to stick to Induction levels -- 20 grams per day or less -- to keep it off, much less have a prayer of dropping a few pounds.

So my shorts are snug, and I feel bloated. So far today I've had three fried eggs and a couple of teeny pork chops, adding up to maybe 4 ounces, total. I'll stick to super-low-carb for a few days, and, I trust, shed the excess poundage before it gets too comfy.

But you see how just a little here, a little there, nothing really awful, can add up. Add up to five pounds in a week!

Somebody pass the meat.

* before y'all start nagging me for the recipe, I thought I'd let you know: I've sent it to Andrew DiMino at CarbSmart, to post to my column there. I'll notify you when he has it up.