YHWH leads

I have totally lost my blog mojo. The last months/ year the posts seem to get more and more rare. Maybe it’s something to do with having 3 kids doing school now instead of 2, and just being generally busier. Phew. But, I’ve been meaning to do a blog post on this and I WILL GET IT DONE TODAY.

In other news, I have had some sweet notes, and comments from many of you who noticed my last blog post which has since disappeared. We did end up miscarrying. I’m doing well and the kiddos took the news well also. The miscarriage took less than a week until an at home test showed a negative on a pregnancy test so that was great. No dr. visit needed. The first few days were horribly disappointing of course, but I’m actually in a bit higher spirits about the possibility of baby #4 now than I was a month ago. It’s possible anyway! Combining the fact that I got pregnant, and that I went 2 months on no diet plan/ exercise and not gaining any weight back.. seems to point to my health and hormone levels getting better. So thank you all for your sweet notes, and I pray I’ll be able to share pregnancy news again with you sometime.

Okay, In Dec. of last year we started eating Paleo. I do like most of the diet/lifestyle.. but there were some problems with it for me. 1- The mentality behind it. It’s pretty anti biblical. Unclean foods are highly pushed so it makes cooking recipes harder, but it’s also very pro evolution, etc.. That does not ruin the diet, and you can follow it (the diet itself isn’t the problem.. just most of the bloggers and such that follow it are very pro evolution, etc..) but mainly 2- I stopped losing weight after the first month. The first week I lost eight pounds. EIGHT. Within the first month I was down 12. Then it stopped completely. We ate paleo for another 2 months after that and not a pound came off. A bit frustrating. I like the idea of whole foods, etc.. but right now I want to focus on weight loss as well. (honestly the pregnancy really jump started that even more lol.. I had a mild panic moment when I realized what my starting weight would be lol) So I started looking around for other options. Then we went camping for almost 2 weeks, had guests for almost 2 months, etc.. So I had no diet plan at ALL in the last 2 months. It’s also been 2 months since we went to the gym for those reasons.

(before from last week for future reference)

I got on the scale last Tuesday morning and was shocked to realize I had not gained back a single pound in those 2 months. I’m pretty sure that has NEVER happened before. EVER. Slowly losing my weight and being to my goal weight by the end of 2014 is my major goal this year. I started with a total of 60 to lose so I think a year is a reasonable time frame. If we get pregnant again this year I’ll be happy to cancel that goal out, but now I’m even more determined to lose so I can start at a healthier weight. Anyway.. While I was trying to find what to change up in our paleo diet I kept running into friends who were raving over Trim Healthy Mama. i had seen Above Rubies talk about it often as well in my facebook feed so I finally started investigating. I have to admit I didn’t start investigating until I heard several mention losing 15lbs in 2 months. lol. I can handle those figures.

I have NEVER bought a book on weight loss before. It’s just not my thing. I have done weight watchers several times, and it usually works, but the last years nothing has worked. The scale has slowly moved up (or in the case of late last year flew up 20 lbs in 4 months) for about 5 years now. I’ve tried diff. things but to no avail. Ugh. So I researched this book well before ordering it. It’s $35 after all. Eyikes! I came across some really good book reviews.. (Here is a great resource. http://www.gwens-nest.com/tag/trim-healthy-mama/ It should have a link to her review, as well as some other great stuff in there) and decided to order it about 3ish weeks ago.

The book is HUGE. The price tag suddenly made more sense after it arrived lol.

I read it off and on for about 2 weeks before I got started. I LOVE this book. The first half doesn’t just tell you how to eat, it tells you WHY. That was GREAT for me. With paleo they elminate milk. I didn’t because I figured.. what could it hurt? Now I understand and haven’t drank it in a week. Not saying I never will, but I understand why it doesn’t work for weight loss now. We had honey and maple syrup fairly often on paleo. Now I know why that hindered my weight loss. The main idea of the book is that you DO NOT COMBINE FATS AND CARBS AT THE SAME MEAL. You can still have moderate carbs. Beans, brown rice, etc.. All still fine. Just not with carbs. Your body will burn one and turn the other into flab. By seperating the two you keep that from happening. Like paleo it is sugar free. Unlike paleo it talks more about great alternatives. Stevia and Xylitol. I’ve had stevia in the past that reminded me of drinking toliet cleaner. At least what I imagine toliet cleaner must taste like. It’s just kinda gross. I never minded the plant fresh in teas, but the bought stevia? Nope. So I found some Xylitol locally and decided to try it out. I can NOT tell the difference between that and sugar! (I bought birch xylitol, not corn.. heard it tastes better and corn is likely to be GMO) However, it’s a bit pricey so I decided to give a type of stevia I’ve heard everyone say is good a try.

Some brands add in bad things, but this is just pure stevia extract. It comes in a small half full shaker bottle for $9. But one serving is 1/64th of a teaspoon! A little goes a LONG way. I’ve used it several times in the past 2 days and it tastes great!

So far the food has been awesome. We’ve had Trim Healthy Pancakes with Gwen’s berry syrup..

This is one of my fav’s.. Loaded Fotato Soup. Soooo good.

We’ve had ground beef/ cheesy casseroles, breakfast of fried eggs and turkey bacon, etc.. And since last tuesday I’m down a bit over 3 lbs. Yeah!!

(the girls made Jesse and I this breakfast)

The book has a HUGE section of recipes as well. So many great ideas! This is a bread that takes a few min’s to cook. It has no carbs in it so you can eat it with as much fat as you’d like. yum.

My favorite item so far is the skinny chocolate. One batch was lasting me a while, then my husband discovered it. It’s actually HELPFUL for weight loss and super healthy. SOOO good.

My largest concession for this is my chai latte’s. I did just find a coconut chai finally (been looking for one for awhile) and I’m going to try that. But what I really enjoy is a tazo organic chai concentrate latte. Or a starbucks one (they serve the same brand). And it’s got both sugar and honey in it. Just not doable. Esp. not 1-2 a day. I’ve tried tea bags, but it’s just not the same unless I use honey in it. So, I’ve made the switch to coffee. We’ve found some great brands we really enjoy and I have not actually missed my chai. I WILL still have one as a treat. For instance, next tuesday my mom is keeping the kids (and my neices who are 3 and 2) for a sleepover.. (I’m doubting any sleep happens). I think Jesse and I might have a nice late night date and I’ll get a chai. Or on our anniversary in 3 months.. Etc.. But I’ve decided to make those rare treats instead of daily happenings. I’m pretty sure that was a big sabatoger of my weight loss.

While you can’t have milk you can have cream.. all the cream you want. Make up some yummy coffee with cream and xylitol.. and SOOO good. (shown here with some more skinny chocolate topped w/ cream and peanut flour)