Todays post is some of my recipes. This does go together with my ultra metabolism post. I have had to learn how to have many alternative foods and I am so glad I did. I love knowing about the foods I am eating and how to make things myself. I do have to give a shout out to the GreenSmoothieGirl you can find her at www.greensmoothiegirl.com She has a very positive realistic outlook on life and the food we eat. I really feel like she gives real ways to fix the nutrition most of us are lacking in our diets. I feel so much better when I eat green smoothies every day. If I go a day or two without one I can feel the difference. I am in my last week of a 30 day green smoothie detox. I have long strong finger nails for the first time ever. I have been surprised at how full I feel all the time. If you have not checked her out yet I highly recommend it. She has many great recipes to help you get started on eating a healthier. I have a lot of her book so if you want to come check them out you are welcome anytime. If you have never had a green smoothie you are welcome anytime to come try one for free.
I am posting 2 recipes today Coconut Ice Cream and Salsa.
Coconut Ice Cream
1 can whole fat coconut milk
3oz approx of real dark chocolate 72% real cocoa or higher
Sweetener of your choice, Agave, Stevia, Dates sweeten to taste.
1tsp vanilla
Blend all ingredients until warm (about 5 min), This works best with a blendtec, vita mix type blender.
Freeze.
Thaw for 10-20 minutes before eating.
For creamy dairy like ice cream freeze in Ice Cube trays and just before serving put cubes in blender with some almond milk, coconut milk, or something like that. It just takes a little milk.
Serve.
Variations we enjoy.
*1/4 cup -1/2 natural peanut butter When this is blended for about 5 min it becomes thick like fudge. This is my favorite.
*Mint, you can add Peppermint oil or extract or a few peppermint leaves. This is wonderful.
*Nuts of any kind.
*Mix ins- pour ice cream into a flat Tupperware type container and sprinkle with nuts, marshmallows, toffee, whatever you like in your ice cream. Once sprinkled on push slightly to get it into the mix better.
* you can leave out the chocolate (I don't know why you would want to!) and mix in some frozen berries.
After making a few batches you will start to get creative and come up with some great variations. This is a great Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free alternative to traditional ice cream.
Salsa
4-6 tomatoes (1 28 oz can tomatoes can be substituted)
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 bunch of green onions
2-3 cloves garlic
1 jalapeño or green chili's (1/2 can green chili's can be substituted)
salt to taste
Blend and enjoy.
You can also add corn, beans, avocado you name it.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Aunt Carol
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson She was not born in June! |
One year ago my Aunt Carol past away from Cancer. She had known for about a year that she had cancer and that life was going to be short. She gave me the privilege and responsibility of her photos. She had more photos than anyone, and they were very well organized. I have always thought that I got my love of photos from her. She always had a camera and was always taking photos. She was also not afraid to be in the photos. As a young child I had a few opportunities to spend weekends with my Aunt Carol. She taught me how to make cakes, decorate them, & how to build gingerbread houses from scratch. She made beautifully and equally delicious cakes for every occasion. She never went to any celebration without one. All of my siblings received an amazing wedding cake as our gift. She was always happy and had a very kinky sense of humor. (I think that runs in the family) Over the last year I have been scanning, organizing, dating, journaling her many pictures. I only scanned about 1/4 of them and still did over 6000. I focused on photos of my family, siblings, and heritage photos. There are many that I had to choose not to scan if I wanted to finish in my lifetime. I was given some of these photos about 2 weeks before my aunts funeral to scan for a slideshow. Those 2 weeks for extremely emotional for me. Many of the pictures were of my Nana & Papa who both passed away when I was in high School. I felt like I was morning the passing of my Aunt Carol, Uncle Bill, Nana & Papa all at the same time. It was much more difficult for me than I had anticipated. Amazingly she had photos all the back to the early 1900's that is like giving me gold. At my aunts funeral all of my sisters got up to sing Family's Can Be Together Forever. I couldn't make it through the song. I was crying uncontrollably. My family seemed very surprised by this as it was not my usual behavior especially in public. What I was not able to explain and still don't think I can do it justice is the emotions that had been tied up in these pictures, I had just spent the last 2 weeks scanning all the memory's of making cakes, Lifting up the mixer and splattering mix all over the ceiling, Spending time at the cabin, and generally knowing how much she cared for me. It was all so raw and fresh in a way that would not have been there without those pictures. My Aunt Carol was an amazing woman who was always happy. She loved babies. I am so grateful that she shared her love of pictures with me. She will be missed by many.
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| Carol June Shaw |
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| Carol June Shaw |
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| Loren Elliott Shaw (Bud, Papa) Willene "Roberta" Hale Shaw (NaNa) Joseph Allen Shaw, Carol June Shaw |
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| Carol June Shaw |
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| Carol June Shaw |
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| Loren Elliott Shaw (Bud, Papa) Willene "Roberta" Hale Shaw (NaNa) Joseph Allen Shaw, Carol June Shaw Stephenson |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson, Jeff or Scott? |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson, Willene "Roberta" Hale Shaw(Nana) Mina Mae Hale (Nana's Mother) |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson Joseph Allen Shaw |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson Bill Stephenson |
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| Carol June Shaw Stephenson Joseph Allen Shaw |
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| Aunt Carol with the Babies! |
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Thankful for UltraMetabolism!
This post has been coming for a long time. For some reason I am feeling like I need to blog about this today. To start off my story I must warn you it is a long one. If you don't want to read the whole thing just know that this book UltraMetabolism changed my life and how I think about food.
My Health and my children's health are much better off because of Dr. Mark Hyman and what he says in this book.
Ok here comes the long story.....
I have suffered from chronic migraines for as long as I can remember, back in the days when they said children don't get headaches, a migraine can't be started from allergies or something else. All my life all the doctors have done is prescribe me medicine with no real way to cure or to stop them just to treat. The only thing they ever did to try to stop them was tell me to try removing foods one at a time and see if that helped. I did that. I stopped drinking soda, I stopped eating red meat, I stopped eating sugar, You name it I stopped it. Some lessened the migraines but not stopped them. I also have suffered from insomnia & joint pain. About a year and a half ago my Dad called me about 2 weeks before Christmas. He said he started listening to this book on tape and he was feeling better, was having less headaches, and was losing weight. The fact that any book got my father to change his diet at all had me interested. I went to Borders that day and bought the only copy they had in stock. Wow this book had me from the start. He talks about the side affects of sugar, processed foods, and the number one thing he talks about is artificial preservatives. Dr. Hyman believes that if we do nothing else to our diet but remove the artificial preservatives we will all be better off. I truly believe this as well. None of this was really new to me but he put it in ways that made me believe and UNDERSTAND why these food habits were so bad. Within the first 2 days of reading I stopped Drinking Soda! This was huge for me, I was probably drinking the equivalent of a 6 pack a day. I had already decided to wait until after Christmas to implement any of his teaching so I wouldn't go through any detoxing during vacation but for the first time someone made me see soda a poison. I stopped pretty much cold turkey. I do not recommend that to any one and neither does Dr. Hyman I just could not drink it anymore. The real difference this book made in my life is this. Dr. Hyman suggests doing a detox, this is not a crazy drink nothing but water for 30 days type thing. It simply says eat whole fruits, vegetables, rice and beans etc for 3 weeks. (gives recipes and meal plans to make this as easy as possible) At the end of 3 weeks reintroduce one item at a time for 3-6 days and see how your body reacts to it. I really didn't think I would have to many side effects with food, BOY WAS I WRONG. After about 2 weeks I woke up one day and couldn't figure out what was different. After a few hours I realized that my head didn't hurt. Then the scary truth hit me, I had been living with a headache for years constantly and didn't realize it. This made me almost cry. What made me actually cry was my kids pointing out the day after that that I was happy and they said I was in a good mood, "does your head not hurt anymore Mommy?" This was very emotional for me. I felt terrible about what kind of mother I must have been. I didn't realize how much this effected my kids. At the end of the detox the first think I introduced was eggs. Day one nothing much happened. End of day 2, my stomach hurt, I had a killer migraine, and generally felt like I was going to die. Removed eggs for 3 more days and after feeling normal again introduced cheese, a little congestion but nothing major. Eventually I introduced Red meat or Specifically steak one of my favorite foods ever, Within 1 hour steak made eating eggs look like a walk in the park. I had a similar result with eating pork and any turkey or chicken that wasn't naturally raised or fed. Eventually I realized I was having side effects to Gluten as well. This is really not something I anticipated. After removing these things from my diet I felt so much better. I do still occasionally get headaches (usually with pms etc) but they are nothing in comparison to what I use to get. What Dr. Hyman did that was so different was have me remove everything and introduce them one at a time. This is why I never had results before. I had more than one trigger so removing one at a time did not remove the symptoms. After feeling so much better I had to tell people so I started talking about it. My sister who had been previously diagnosed with a sever case of fibromyalgia called one day with a terrible headache asking how I got mine to stop. As a result of Dr. Hymans detox she found out that she does not have fibromyalgia she has celiacs disease in every day speak means Gluten makes you sick. While doing research about celiacs disease I started finding out in conjunction with my sister that Asthma and stomach aches are two of the side affects of celiacs disease. My son Dylan has had severe Asthma for most of his life and was on 4 medications twice a day and had been since he was 2. He had a distended belly and problems with his bowels. He was being put on new medications to help with his acid reflux and other side effects his asthma medication was causing him. My youngest son Elliot would double over every night saying that his stomach hurt. I promptly cut Gluten out of their diets. They are not entirely Gluten free but 75% or more. Elliot's stomach aches became far and few in between and Dylan's distended belly went away withing 2 weeks. His asthma improved and because of removing Gluten from his diet and introducing essential oils (a blog post for another day) to use when symptoms do arise he is now medication free. To give you an idea of how much better he is on a peak flow meter (measures oxygen output) on a good day he could hit around 200 not good for a 10 year old. After changing his diet on a good day his is about 300 and when he does get sick he is still above 220. This is amazing. My goal in the long term was to wean him from his meds when I felt comfortable. He stopped taking them himself because he said he didn't need them anymore. One other thing this book did was make my oldest son Chandler aware that Milk gives him Migraines. I am so grateful he found that out at the age of 12 and not 34 like his mom. I completely realize that this is a terribly long post. I have come to love green smoothies. They are a great way for a Gluten, Egg Free Vegetarian to get the protein, Vitamins, etc that are needed. As of tomorrow I am going to do a 30 day Green Smoothie Girl Detox. Over the course of the last 18 months I have let a few things back into my diet and it is time to remove them again. I would also like to give my metabolism a jump start. There are some things in my life I would like to be able to do and because of my ankle and it's multiple injuries in conjunction with my size I cannot. I want to be very clear. None of this was done in a effort to loose weight it was only to improve my health. Most people however do loose significant weight when making the changes that I did. I did have some size changes but not significant weight loss. For the sake of my joints I would like to do that now in a whole foods healthy way. I am hoping the the 30 day Green Smoothie Girl Challenge will give my body what it needs to get started in a healthy way. If loosing weight does not happen I will at least know that I have rid my body of some of it's bad habits that I let sneak in.
P.S. If you are reading this and all you can think is that I am crazy and that food can't be that bad for you believe me when I say 5 years ago I would have called someone like me today crazy. I believe now that some things are given to you when you need them. If you don't need them right now maybe someday you will and you know you will be able to come to me for help. I believe that my dad told me about UltraMetabolism at a time I was ready to hear it. I hope that someone is changed and will improve their life as a result of this post but if not, know that mine was changed. Thank you Dr. Hyman, Green Smoothie Girl, All the Gluten Free Bloggers out there, Katheryn Beiber and to many friends who have helped me embrace my new food lifestyle!
My Health and my children's health are much better off because of Dr. Mark Hyman and what he says in this book.
Ok here comes the long story.....
I have suffered from chronic migraines for as long as I can remember, back in the days when they said children don't get headaches, a migraine can't be started from allergies or something else. All my life all the doctors have done is prescribe me medicine with no real way to cure or to stop them just to treat. The only thing they ever did to try to stop them was tell me to try removing foods one at a time and see if that helped. I did that. I stopped drinking soda, I stopped eating red meat, I stopped eating sugar, You name it I stopped it. Some lessened the migraines but not stopped them. I also have suffered from insomnia & joint pain. About a year and a half ago my Dad called me about 2 weeks before Christmas. He said he started listening to this book on tape and he was feeling better, was having less headaches, and was losing weight. The fact that any book got my father to change his diet at all had me interested. I went to Borders that day and bought the only copy they had in stock. Wow this book had me from the start. He talks about the side affects of sugar, processed foods, and the number one thing he talks about is artificial preservatives. Dr. Hyman believes that if we do nothing else to our diet but remove the artificial preservatives we will all be better off. I truly believe this as well. None of this was really new to me but he put it in ways that made me believe and UNDERSTAND why these food habits were so bad. Within the first 2 days of reading I stopped Drinking Soda! This was huge for me, I was probably drinking the equivalent of a 6 pack a day. I had already decided to wait until after Christmas to implement any of his teaching so I wouldn't go through any detoxing during vacation but for the first time someone made me see soda a poison. I stopped pretty much cold turkey. I do not recommend that to any one and neither does Dr. Hyman I just could not drink it anymore. The real difference this book made in my life is this. Dr. Hyman suggests doing a detox, this is not a crazy drink nothing but water for 30 days type thing. It simply says eat whole fruits, vegetables, rice and beans etc for 3 weeks. (gives recipes and meal plans to make this as easy as possible) At the end of 3 weeks reintroduce one item at a time for 3-6 days and see how your body reacts to it. I really didn't think I would have to many side effects with food, BOY WAS I WRONG. After about 2 weeks I woke up one day and couldn't figure out what was different. After a few hours I realized that my head didn't hurt. Then the scary truth hit me, I had been living with a headache for years constantly and didn't realize it. This made me almost cry. What made me actually cry was my kids pointing out the day after that that I was happy and they said I was in a good mood, "does your head not hurt anymore Mommy?" This was very emotional for me. I felt terrible about what kind of mother I must have been. I didn't realize how much this effected my kids. At the end of the detox the first think I introduced was eggs. Day one nothing much happened. End of day 2, my stomach hurt, I had a killer migraine, and generally felt like I was going to die. Removed eggs for 3 more days and after feeling normal again introduced cheese, a little congestion but nothing major. Eventually I introduced Red meat or Specifically steak one of my favorite foods ever, Within 1 hour steak made eating eggs look like a walk in the park. I had a similar result with eating pork and any turkey or chicken that wasn't naturally raised or fed. Eventually I realized I was having side effects to Gluten as well. This is really not something I anticipated. After removing these things from my diet I felt so much better. I do still occasionally get headaches (usually with pms etc) but they are nothing in comparison to what I use to get. What Dr. Hyman did that was so different was have me remove everything and introduce them one at a time. This is why I never had results before. I had more than one trigger so removing one at a time did not remove the symptoms. After feeling so much better I had to tell people so I started talking about it. My sister who had been previously diagnosed with a sever case of fibromyalgia called one day with a terrible headache asking how I got mine to stop. As a result of Dr. Hymans detox she found out that she does not have fibromyalgia she has celiacs disease in every day speak means Gluten makes you sick. While doing research about celiacs disease I started finding out in conjunction with my sister that Asthma and stomach aches are two of the side affects of celiacs disease. My son Dylan has had severe Asthma for most of his life and was on 4 medications twice a day and had been since he was 2. He had a distended belly and problems with his bowels. He was being put on new medications to help with his acid reflux and other side effects his asthma medication was causing him. My youngest son Elliot would double over every night saying that his stomach hurt. I promptly cut Gluten out of their diets. They are not entirely Gluten free but 75% or more. Elliot's stomach aches became far and few in between and Dylan's distended belly went away withing 2 weeks. His asthma improved and because of removing Gluten from his diet and introducing essential oils (a blog post for another day) to use when symptoms do arise he is now medication free. To give you an idea of how much better he is on a peak flow meter (measures oxygen output) on a good day he could hit around 200 not good for a 10 year old. After changing his diet on a good day his is about 300 and when he does get sick he is still above 220. This is amazing. My goal in the long term was to wean him from his meds when I felt comfortable. He stopped taking them himself because he said he didn't need them anymore. One other thing this book did was make my oldest son Chandler aware that Milk gives him Migraines. I am so grateful he found that out at the age of 12 and not 34 like his mom. I completely realize that this is a terribly long post. I have come to love green smoothies. They are a great way for a Gluten, Egg Free Vegetarian to get the protein, Vitamins, etc that are needed. As of tomorrow I am going to do a 30 day Green Smoothie Girl Detox. Over the course of the last 18 months I have let a few things back into my diet and it is time to remove them again. I would also like to give my metabolism a jump start. There are some things in my life I would like to be able to do and because of my ankle and it's multiple injuries in conjunction with my size I cannot. I want to be very clear. None of this was done in a effort to loose weight it was only to improve my health. Most people however do loose significant weight when making the changes that I did. I did have some size changes but not significant weight loss. For the sake of my joints I would like to do that now in a whole foods healthy way. I am hoping the the 30 day Green Smoothie Girl Challenge will give my body what it needs to get started in a healthy way. If loosing weight does not happen I will at least know that I have rid my body of some of it's bad habits that I let sneak in.
P.S. If you are reading this and all you can think is that I am crazy and that food can't be that bad for you believe me when I say 5 years ago I would have called someone like me today crazy. I believe now that some things are given to you when you need them. If you don't need them right now maybe someday you will and you know you will be able to come to me for help. I believe that my dad told me about UltraMetabolism at a time I was ready to hear it. I hope that someone is changed and will improve their life as a result of this post but if not, know that mine was changed. Thank you Dr. Hyman, Green Smoothie Girl, All the Gluten Free Bloggers out there, Katheryn Beiber and to many friends who have helped me embrace my new food lifestyle!
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