thedarlingone

>>I carry most of my body fat between my waist and my knees, so what kind of pants I'm wearing doesn't really... affect how warm my legs feel, at least down to knee level, because I'm insulated anyway.<<

Good point. Mom's around your size, and her pants *are* rather thinner than mine.

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I have no experience with preparing pork, so I can't help you much with that part. Though I *do* know that Mom has been known to buy cans of deviled ham and treat them pretty much like she would canned tuna (mix with mayonnaise, put on whole-grain tortilla or bran cracker).

I recommend a bit of caution with tuna: as I understand it one can safely eat it once or twice a week indefinitely, but Mom has been eating it ~6 - 8 times a week for decades and last week we found out that she may in fact have chronic mercury poisoning, oops.

Mom buys Margherita brand turkey pepperoni in New York. She likes to eat it with cheese. It's refrigerate-after-opening, so you'd only need space in the mini-fridge for at most one 4oz packet at a time.

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I asked Mom what she would advise, and received this email in response:

Is this the sort of thing you're looking to send her†? I can't really think of any recipes for someone who only has a microwave. I know in some locations there are low carb frozen dinners she could microwave but they are expensive and the portions are not very big.

Nuts - macadamia are the lowest carb, but expensive, peanuts are the highest carb but probably the cheapest nut on the market. Peanut butter is ok, but some brands have a lot of sugar in them, so read the labels.

Seeds - pumpkin, sunflower etc

Canned meat & fish - tuna only twice/week because of the mercury content (feel free to tell your friend about my newly discovered mercury issue)

Jerky and other shelf stable meats like pepperoni or beefsticks - like peanut butter you have to check the labels because some of them have a lot of sugar in them

Deli meats - check the labels for the same reason as above, some of them are fine and others are not. Avoid anything that says it is honey roasted or teriyaki flavored.

Hummus

Cheeses - most cheeses only have a trace of carbs in them. Read the labels on cheese spreads. Most of the savory spreads are ok, but something like strawberry cream cheese has a lot of sugar.

Eggs - some stores sell hard boiled eggs near their quick meals/take out section.

Low carb crackers - look for ones high in fiber. My favorites are Bran-A-Crisps or Swedish crisp bread, but Wasa cracker and Finn Crisps are pretty good, too. You can put peanut butter, hummus or cheese spread on these.

Low carb tortillas

Pickles and olives

Veggies - most vegetables are ok, avoid the starchy ones like corn, peas and potatoes, and the other root vegetables like turnips, parsnips and beets. Substitute scallions where you'd use onions and go easy on carrots. Summer squashes are ok, winter squashes MAY be ok, depending on how you react to them.

Fruit - most fruit is not good when you're trying to get your blood sugar under control. Cut it all out initially, then add in avocado and berries. If those don't cause blood sugar spikes, you can add in melons, except watermelon. Fruit has been a very "trial and error" category for me.

Fats - use them, a lot. Don't buy fat free or reduced fat products.

Avoid - pasta, rice, bread and anything sweet.

The mention of sweets reminds me of the existence of Lindt 90%-cocoa chocolate. If you haven't adjusted to low-carbing yet it can seem bitter, but I hear once your tongue has lost its sugar tolerance it's quite good. There are also special low-carb candies made with sugar alcohol, but note that sugar alcohol is a laxative so you can't safely have more than one or two a day. Mom tends to eat 2 - 4 squares of Lindt most evenings, and only buys sugar-alcohol candy on special occasions.

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†The way conversations involving you usually go pronoun-wise is that I call you "they" (and "Jesse"), she calls you "she", I do not correct her but continue calling you "they", she eventually notices that I am calling you "they" and tries to switch but immediately forgets again. This time Dad was around and I trust him somewhat less††, so I ended up following suit on the "she".

††Dad is liberal, but has not always kept up with advances in liberal thought since the 80's.