Day 5, reboot

 I had a very busy weekend with company. I was not very wise in starting my plan right before my monthly time ( very inflammatory) and company can usually make one happy...but it was busy and hard on my feet, but that's ok, we had fun and I actually stuck to my plan quite well. I am pleased. Because I have done this before, I can follow a slightly different route, so I tested pork roast last night. Ugh. I usually don't eat pork as a general rule. I did NOT pass! I will stay away and re-try again in a month or two. I will eat light and clean to recover today. How is your eating going everyone?

Day 2 restart

Day 2

Down .8

Holding steady.

Feeling well.

Slept better than I have in awhile, amazing how quickly that sets in. 

Testing rice tonight.

Purchased tons of veggies at Aldi. 

Aldi is my favorite store for buying veggies other than my Azure store.

See you tomorrow.

day 1, the plan

Today is the day.  Day 1.  

I am starting the elimination diet over, which is a good thing to do once in awhile to kick start your weight loss and healing.  I am excited! I have been 'maintaining' quite well over the last few months...but that will not do...it is time to get back in the full groove....

lower wt, the plan

I finally hit a good lowest milestone this week.  I did lots of cleaning on Sunday and while I was at it I made chicken broth out of my leftover chicken bones.  I drank a pint of this as my meal for the afternoon and after taking a sitz bath with Epsom salts, I felt very refreshed and cleansed.  I haven't really done that in awhile and I am glad I did.  I think I really needed that. They say when you lose wt. you are releasing the toxins that are stored in your fat cells.
Other changes I have implemented is starting a short Pilates schedule.  Schedule is not the right word, just doing 10 minutes of it a few times a week in addition to the band arm exercises I do almost every night.  I can tell that little bit is quite toning.  I have to be wise about my use of exercise due to my adrenal fatigue.  As I have begun to heal, I have been able to add these in slowly. Over the summer I would work in the garden for 20 min or clean the house or go for a 10 minute bike ride and I would be totally wiped for the rest of the day and barely be able to make it up the steps to my bedroom!
The broth was an idea that was started by my research into the GAPS diet which I am looking into for use with my son in the near future.  He has IBS. He has had it since I can remember and now it has been more of an acute issue for him.  Yes, I do believe it is likely a stress reaction to the loss of his brother as to why it is so acute this year.
My research has me thinking that he needs to have his gut healed and this seems to be the best way to do that.  Even the elimination diet would help but it is so much harder to gauge in a young person, so with the GAPS, he can follow a very specific plan that will actually heal the gut and even allow him to eat foods that bothered him before.  This is no small task and may be taken on by all of us as we all will likely benefit from it, so I must take my time in it's implementation. Plus, he is 14, so I need to help him be full on board!
If you have an issue with allergies, ADHD, autism and more....this is something you want to look into.

the plan update..oat meal

For those of you that are keeping up on my elimination lifestyle change, I tested oatmeal on Thursday morning and was so excited to wake up and find that I was down .8.  I thought I was up at first, but no, I was down....85% of people find oatmeal to be a trigger food, so this is very good news for me, but not so great when we know it bothers two of my children, so bulk items with oatmeal may not work.  Also, different versions of oatmeal are still tests, although now it is more likely that I will pass it.

 I also got down to my lowest wt. so far. I have been feeling great.

I am looking into the GAPS diet to help heal my son's IBS.  I will post more on that later but it is specific to healing the gut which we know he has huge issues with. What is the connection between acne and ones gut. We know health starts in the gut. Yikes.

I am really loving Pinterest for keeping track of all these great and healthy recipes.

just another quick update

I missed my update yesterday.  I had a clean/ friendly day on Weds and was very pleased to see my wt. down 1.2 Thursday morning, but a strange thing happened. Even with a clean day I ended up working on harvesting my garden, well, I know I have to limit my time out there and I overdid it.  It was hot. I was sweating and I drink lots of water without any electrolyte drinks. I was so tired and achey that evening. I did still lose wt so it wasn't the same inflammation gain, but I felt bad, so I will have to assess what that was but I am thinking it is the time of month. I have learned that around a few days before the big event, our bodies become in a inflammation state, so all bets are off.
Planning to experiment with pumpkin pie and almond flour for my damsel this weekend. I will let you know how it goes.

CC, Hashimoto's and the plan

Today I am giving you a quick everything update.  There is so much I want to blog about, so many things I am learning and really I just don't have time for this research but it must be done. My house needs attention on a deeper level, but I am taking that one step at a time.
Today I am up .2 which I did not expect but I added a special drink I love and that must have been it.  Oh well, I will have fish and greens tonight which was a big hit for my tummy last time, hopefully I will lose on that...I want to get into that next digit down on the scale and I keep shying from it by a measly little .0....ugh.

I am on a journey to learn more about autoimmune diseases, which tend to run in families, so I can help my sweet little damsel.  I need to have myself and the man checked out as well.  I am learning how these are all related and that having one leads to more etc...I guess 20% of the population has a autoimmune disease and most of those are women!!

Did you know this sweet girl has been diagnosed with a autoimmune disease?  Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Here body is attacking her own thyroid!!  Why is my precious girl's body doing this?  She must have had this last year and we didn't even know it. It came to light this summer and I will share that story soon.

Did you know that I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia years ago but always questioned if I actually had it?  I have recently discovered that frequent urination and plantar fasciitis is one of many symptoms! Pregnancy's can trigger these things and I can look back remember how much worse I was after the birth of a child.  This may be why woman have a higher incidence overall of AI.



We are in week 3 of Essentials and week 5 of Challenge A.  Things are moving smoothly for the most part, but very fully!  I love the thinking education of Classical Conversations. I am looking forward to creating my book list for the year that I try to stick to as best we can, but it usually is longer than can be managed.  If I am able I will post here sometime.
We do Foundations at home with Damsel since she is older and this is her second year, we have tweaked it to fit her 7th grade level and we are preparing for her to be in Challenge A next year.  Very excited. I am planning on tutoring that lever next year.

plan update

This weekend I had a very nice time.  Sat. afternoon was spent at a picnic for a local group that supports kids with cancer.  We are still always included, we are so thankful. We had a petting zoo and all kinds of fun for kids, hamburgers, chips...I was starving and did not come prepared with my salad.  I was hoping there would be more than just burgers and chips I will admit. Well, as it turns out, I had popcorn, very salty by the way but oh do I love me some popcorn....(this will increase your up wt in the morning naturally) and chips and a bun with my burger which I normally don't include, because I was so hungry and the variety was so limited. It was good though.
 I went all out and ate some skittles too, which are my fave and I haven't had those in months.  As suspected I was up.  I didn't end up feeling too bad either. This is what happens when you are healing your body, you can manage some 'off days' much better.
Sunday I ate well, no bun with home made hamburgers and a guest. I just couldn't resist the fries...they are so good!! I have figured out that I get real fat when I eat white potatoes.  But I did well enough that even with my 'passed' home made ice cream I was only up a .4 which made me happy.

Monday I had a totally friendly day and lost all my weekend inflammation and now I will have several days of friendly testing this week.  I ended up testing one little thing yesterday, unplanned....in my efforts to start making less wheat items, I made some almond flour (AF) biscuits. Oh boy were they good.  I got out my flour from my freezer from back when I was making things for B and found my almond flour book. Well, I just HAD to try these biscuits of coarse...so I did.  Even though one can lose weight on a food, one may not be free of reactions. Food that don't agree with you , as you may have learned from reading my previous entries, can cause many other symptoms.  I have been so amazed and thankful for how in tune I am to my body these days.  I ended up having a headache all through the night and woke up with it. Mmmm.
Needless to say, I couldn't help but have memories of making things and using this book for my dear boy.  We miss him so much!

 I can't remember if I wrote this here, but I made AF blueberry fritters the other day for breakfast and tried them. I passed but noticed I had a headache in the afternoon.  I will have to make a specific test because  both AF creations had eggs as well, so it could be eggs, which is also a high reactive food. UGH!

  This was a big hit for every one.

Even my very picky husband had one bite and grabbed for more quickly to make sure he had his share fully. That makes my heart sing because my man does not dish out comliments like candy around here...oh know. Tomorrow I hope to tell you about my love blood cell analysis I had on Sat.

Peace and keep eating your plate of veggies!

another day on the plan

I am so happy to report that my list of friendly foods continues to grow.  WHITE TALAPIA FISH. I love it! Well, I already new that I loved it but I hate so well.
I am down another .8.
I grill the fish on a indoor grill with coconut oil, sprinkled with mama garlic spices, then sauteed yellow zuccini with onion, with mama garlic and tumeric, then layed this on a bed of lettuce after covering the lettuce with a lovely little drizzle of olive oil.  I wish I had taken a picture just to give you all a wonderful visual. I will next time.
I also went to serve at church, watching the very busy little ones while young families had a parenting class. I loved and still do love reading about and going to things like this. I think I would have enjoyed watching.  Instead I was able to love up on these sweet kids. It was so nice getting to know some of the older ones I haven't really been around much with my trips to take Braveheart to the hospital etc. I felt blessed.
Many of these mothers, wonderful mother I might add, are thrown for a loop in regard to this spanking thing, and I would love to share my story, but that is for another day.

Love and health to you, how many veggies will you eat today?  Fill that plate!

Pumpkin Chia Pudding breakthrough breakfast ~the plan

Oh boy am I excited! 

First, I was down 1.2 after testing swiss chard, but I had a small headache so may have had a slight reaction, I will keep an eye on that.  I just don't get headaches anymore.  

I finally got the recipe for the Pumpkin Chia Pudding and it is the BOMB!!  I don't think the picture below does it justice, the lighting in my kitchen is not conductive to good photos with my capable camera.  If anyone knows how to put iphone pics on here, please advise me.  

This was soooo good, seriously.  It's pumpkin with chia seeds and cinnamon and nutmeg and coconut milk....mmmm....well, I love to change things up, it's just what I do because things are just never good enough like they are, I have to add tons of  junk.  But with this I added things that are friendly for me.

Here is the pudding after sitting in the fridge.

Here is my home made whip cream that I made in my new twister jar, which I love by the way and it only took less than a minute, seriously!!

Here is my finished masterpiece!  I added the whip cream to the pumpkin dish, drizzled with honey, lightly covered with my flax granola, then sprinkled some nutmeg. Truly divine.  

I later went back and added some wild blueberries to a second taste test!  Very filling, full of protein and omega 3's and who doesn't need more pumpkin in their life??

No more DAYS, the plan, testimony

I am pretty much done with the 20 day part of the plan. Also, I have had some distractions and some off days as I explained before. Once you get to Day 20 you just keep using the template for rest days and adding new foods. I am making a list of foods that are friendly and keep adding from there.

 It seems like there are so many things going on and I am pretty impressed with how well I have eaten correctly and avoided lots of poor food choices.  Let's get one thing clear, this isn't about denying one's self pleasure.  The truth is though that we have been eating badly in this new age world. In addition, I have enjoyed some delicious chocolate nearly every day of this journey. I have a long list of foods that I can eat and feel great and stay awake during the school day with my kids. It's a good feeling.  I also allowed myself to enjoy some fun eating times along the way, making sure I 'rest' my body with friendly foods which gives my body a chance to 'heal' and return to normal. This is why my wt. loss has stalled, because I have been testing and having days where I don't test. Now I keep going on my template.  After having a great rest day yesterday with a loss of 1 pound this morning, I will test something new today...I should add in a veggie..if I don't react then the wt. will continue to drop off.

Testimony time:

Since I have started this plan, I have found many foods that my body loves and that help my body to sleep better and lose wt. For instance, I have noticed that my body LOVES beef..yes, beef!  I sleep like a baby, a sleepy baby..haa.  Chicken is good too but doesn't make me sleep nearly as well. My basal temp goes up with beef as well. My stomach fat has decreased by a significant amount even with my measly little 10 pounds of wt off. My soft tissue damaged left knee, the one in which I could not touch and was always swollen but never injured in a way that a surgeon could assist, is markedly improved. I can touch it with my hand, run my fingers over my knee!! I appreciate the little things!  Rarely do I have pain that I was living with previously. My feet which are severely injured with plantar fasciitis, to the point that I can barely walk at times and my feet literally ache throughout, are 50% improved!!  4 1/2 years of this!  My fatigue is noticeably improved!!  My general headaches and body aches that I was learning to live with are nearly completely gone!
I wonder if I am forgetting something...

Very happy!

Day 15 the rest day

Day 15....ok here we go...now I have had my rest day but two days of just eating the wrong food at dinner, only dinner mind you, it can really make you feel how much inflammation was in that bad knee and those bad feet. Seriously.
Yesterday was a fabulous day though. I felt plenty full even with some healing ginger carrot soup.  I was quite tired by days end since I did a mild cleanse and then helped out at church with the kids while an event was going on. Came home quite ready for bed, but the amazing thing was how much I was dreaming of the most delicious meal we had eaten for dinner. It was so good.

Stir fried zuccini and broccoli (broccoli from my garden by the way) with brown rice ( I really love the short grain but hearing great things about brown jasmine rice so can't wait to get that) and steak.  Oh my, I made my new favorite sauce called Spicy Coco Sauce. I will finally put down here the picture and recipe.  Pour it on the veggies and rice, so tasty, I didn't realize how much I love tumeric until this dish.  AND you can still lose wt. on this stuff!

Back down 1.2 and will keep going.

Ok, I do know how to take a picture but this one is just not that great.  I am going to have to get you the recipe later. Oh it is so good.  Really.


Love and peace to you all. HE is the reason.

Day 15 the plan

Day 15 Rest Day....well, it turned into a non-rest day because we went to a lovely wedding which was only outside and I just decided to pick the best foods I could as the Chinese food looked really good. This is how one stays on these kinds of 'diets' although I hate that word because I am having a lifestyle change that I can live with forever and enjoy things in life as I go. That is how it was with all my wt. loss while juicing last year too. I am not done juicing, just adding to my life here with this information I will use for my life forever. Love it..so yeah, I am up...1.4 today! It's really true, everything I have been learning. I think that most of this is the sodium in the food and hopefully I can have a true rest day today and eat all my safe foods and then I will be back down and raring to go. I am so excited to try some new foods again.

See you tomorrow to find out how my rest day went.

Love to all.

Day 14 the plan

Day 14 meant trying a new breakfast, so I tried one that I have been longing to eat again. My Budwig breakfast. I did pass but with only a .2 loss.  I will take it but won't be eating that often yet so far.  Now I will have a rest day, but we are going to a wedding with Chinese food so I may eat a wedding dinner this time. There is just always something to interrupt even a 20 day lifestyle change to I have resigned myself to just missing things which is fine but this one was outside and I will just see. Let you know how it goes.

Day 13 the plan

Day 13: Rest day. I basically repeated one of my last great loss days which was beef taco-ish night.  I added just a tbsp of refried beans thinking the gas wouldn't bother me, but I forgot that I get headache from that, so woke up with headache this morning. Ugh.  Good news....I am down 1.4 today!! Woot Woot!!

Total wt loss since August 20....10 pounds!!

My goal is to take a picture just for fun today.

BMI wish I had written my starter BMI:   35.7

I want to get under 30 to start, which will get me out of the 'obese' range!  

22.8 pounds total from last year. I know Braveheart would be so proud of me, I can just hear his encouragement. Miss you my precious, precious boy....how can I live the rest of my life without you??? I am glad to be able to think of this as not my permanent home. I will have eternity with you.

Hey, I am not saying I am some sexy mama or anything, I just want to log my progress and maybe I will inspire one of you in the process. See you tomorrow. Oh I hope I can handle my breakfast test this morning.

Day 12

Today is Day 13 with yesterday Day 12 being a 'test veggie' day. I made a delicious tomato sauce from the maters out of my garden.  I put it on my chicken Parmesan, but really it was Manchago for now, and mild symptoms last night of itching and some mild aches, but this morning my wt was up .2 so I think we have a full reaction!  We will cut that out for now. Rest day today so hopefully will recover and then tomorrow I get to test a new breakfast that I love and I am so excited!

No worries, the wt. is just a tool.

Still working on pics.  See you tomorrow.

Day 11

Day 11 was a rest day.  We enjoyed all of our foods that are 'safe' foods.  Felt good all day.  Woke up after a good nights sleep to being down .6.  This is good. Today we will test a new veggie....tomatoes....everyone wants to be able to eat some of this in it's sauce form.

Total loss: 8.4 lbs

Total loss since last year when I lost 40 lbs but gained much of it back when Brave Boy became ill
 again: 21.6

I will plan to post a picture soon as I keep things moving and where are my food pics, I am too busy. I will try harder.

Day 10 the plan

Day 10 down: down 1.2 pounds!!! Yeah!

What a good day of feeling well, eating well and all just all together well.  I added the pinto beans (refried beans) as a new protein mainly for the kids and we love tacos.  The kids had a brown rice tortilla fried in coconut oil with same as me inside except I let them have mozz cheese, where I just had my beef, beans, manchego cheese, avocado and lots of lettuce on a plate with some mildly sauteed kale with pumpkin seeds. I no issues until later which involved lots of gas and a mild headache. So I guess beans are a fail for me for now. My exzcema acted up too, but I am not sure if it's from that or from picking tomatoes without gloves after dinner for my mama. Tomato plants really bother my skin. I am going to test tomatoes soon but fear I will fail some version of that.

See you tomorrow.

Total loss:  7.8 lbs

Day 9 repeat the plan

Day 10: New Protein

I did recover from my 'off' day by losing .4 lbs, I am happily moving on with the plan.  Today is a 'test protein' day. I chose to add pinto beans so we could have something filling that the kids would love.  Tonight was almost like any other day that we eat. We will have tacos.  Plan modified of coarse. Feeling good.  Can't wait until tomorrow to see if I can say there is some more wt off and loving my list of foods I can and cannot eat growing.

Day 9 the plan

Day 9? Well, day 9 will be repeated today. Yesterday we had a memorial lunch for our dear boy and there was this magnificent buffet with prime rib and I ate very well but added a bit of the cheese cake etc...needless to say I literally didn't have to eat the rest of the day and likely most it is a reaction to bread and increased salt which is super high in restaurants. So, I am not discouraged, it was a good day and I am repeating today's rest day 9 and back to business.  The bummer part is that I have a wonderful dinner at church tonight but it is a potato bar so...can't do potatos yet, so will call and get the details so I can eat well.
Love to  you all, love to my Brave Boy!