On Being a Trim Healthy Mama

Finally we all seem to be well again. Last week was spent preparing for my husband's 50th birthday. We had a great party for him Saturday night. Now my life can hopefully resume it's normal craziness instead of the crazy craziness.

 

I've been getting quite a few questions lately about the Trim Healthy Mama diet so I thought I would take a post to explain how it works. I was so done with diets before I bought the book. I was so afraid this would be another diet I would follow for a while and then hate. However, I soon found it has got to be the simplest, most delicious diet I have ever followed. I've stayed with it more or less for almost a year now which is a record for me.

 

It's based on two simple principles. First, have some form of protein with every snack or meal you eat. That can be as simple as a teaspoon of peanut butter spread on half of an apple. Or it can be as big as having steak and salad for supper. This was easy for me to grasp because I love meat. A diet that doesn't include meat just isn't going to work for me. I also loves eggs for breakfast so I didn't have to make a huge change in my breakfast - big bonus.

 

Secondly, our bodies run on two types of fuel - fats and carbohydrates. Never mix the two. This does not mean you can't have butter and pancakes. It does mean you have to change the ingredients in your pancakes. There are many recipes for pancakes made with almond flour and/or coconut flour. Almonds and coconuts are high in fat so obviously the flour made from them is as well. So you could have a breakfast of almond flour pancakes, eggs and bacon. Skip the maple syrup and top your pancakes with berries and whip cream or yogurt or cottage cheese. You won't feel deprived, trust me.

 

For supper you could have lean chicken breast cut into bite-size pieces and rolled in oat flour (you can make this in a coffee grinder with regular oatmeal) and garlic salt and baked in the oven. Add a salad with low-fat dressing and a sweet potato topped with laughing cow cheese and you'll be laughing. You've just had a delicious high carbohydrate meal.

 

At first it takes a little effort to think through your menu and figure out how to tweak it so that you are not mixing fats and carbohydrates but before long it will be second nature. Allow three meals between fuel types. So if your breakfast was high fat you can change to carbs for lunch if it's been three hours.

 

Sometimes I can't go between meals without snacking - the joys of being a nursing mom. Then I have a snack that's low in fat and carbohydrates so that it doesn't matter what I've just finished or what I'm going to have next. For me  that's usually a protein shake made with almond milk.

 

The book lists several "special" foods, but many are easy to obtain and some of the more "exotic" ones you can get along without if you don't want to get them. My shopping list has changed very little. I do highly recommend that you get the book. It includes the science behind why this diet works, scriptural reasons for using this diet, food lists and menu ideas, hundreds of recipes and extra information on balancing hormones and exercise.

 

I have lost twenty-five pounds on this diet and beyond that I have seen my headaches, depression, sugar/carb cravings all leave. I have more energy, and when I'm faithful to the diet my body feels "clean" for lack of a better word. Every night I have a piece of my fudge - guilt free - before I go to bed.

 

Lots of men are using this diet as well to lose weight.  For years my husband's weight had been steadily climbing. Just by eating this way part-time we have seen the upward climb stop. He's struggling to lose weight but I know that's because he doesn't follow the diet much. I'm just happy he's stopped putting on weight.

 

This diet in its variations is safe for pregnant and nursing moms as well. For most of my baby's life I've been eating this way, and he's gone from ten pounds at birth to nearly thirty pounds thirteen months later. I have never felt deprived on this diet. I wake up hungry, of course, after nursing all night long, but then I have a huge, plan-approved breakfast starting the day off right.

 

My teenage daughter has joined me off and on and enjoyed the diet as well. She's learned new ways of cooking/baking and new ways of thinking about food and food groups. Unfortunately, she loves the fudge as much as I do. It's hard to share.

 

Check out their Facebook page. There are also group pages on  Facebook where you can get support. The book in all of its various forms can be purchased here. I originally bought the PDF, but eventually  knew I needed the paper copy. There's just something about being able to read a book whether or not your computer is on - just saying.

 

If you have any further questions,  please ask and I'll do my best to answer.

Fudge Glorious Fudge

 

I'm starting to feel better although still not quite up to full strength, but at least I can cook and bake again for my family. Their appetites are starting to return too so the timing is good. This also means that I'm ready to get back 100% to my Trim Healthy Mama diet. One of the things that makes this diet so enjoyable is the chocolate I can make for myself. It is absolutely delicious, glorious, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth fudge.

I'm going to share the recipe for you today with my tweaks. First of all the ingredients : cream cheese, coconut oil, butter, peanut butter, xylitol, stevia, vanilla and cocoa.

I dump everything into the pot which I have set to low.



 

Then here's what I've learned that has made this recipe go from okay to awesome. I use a stick blender to mix it. I used to mix it with a spoon and try to smash the cream cheese up and make it blend in, but I always ended up with little pockets of cream cheese in my fudge. I put up with it for the sake of having chocolate. Then one day I decided to see what my stick blender would do - instant 100% improvement. I now have thick, creamy fudge...so delicious and feel good in your mouth.

It also took me a lot of trial and error to come up with a mold for the chocolate. I tried mini-muffin cups but they just weren't right. This was the solution I came up with that has worked for many countless batches now...a plastic lid lined with wax paper. (Note: I no longer use the wax paper and the fudge comes out of the mold just fine.)

 



And here we have the finished product. I keep it in the freezer. My husband likes it hard. I like it a little softer so I like to take it out and set it on a plate. Okay, let's not kid ourselves...I eat most of mine straight from the freezer. But if I can exercise the self-control it only takes about ten to fifteen minutes for it to soften up.

 



Waiting to be eaten...need I say more?

Glorious Fudge

1/4 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 rounded tbsp. stevia
7 packets (tsp) xylitol
1/2 tsp. vanilla
4 tbsp. cocoa

Put it in a pot on low and mix. Once blended move to a shallow container so it can set. The freezer is best but it can go in the fridge. Allow to harden, eat and enjoy.

 

This recipe is an "S" according to Trim Healthy Mama plan. I try to limit myself to approximately a 3" square for a serving. It is so good I could probably eat half a batch without giving it a thought. It's also a good way to get more coconut oil into your diet...just saying. I have absolutely no guilt eating this and that's another wonderful feeling.

 

What is your treat to yourself when you're watching your weight?

 

Weight Loss And Baby Beans

This has been our first week of summer break! Yeah! That has meant more sewing for me. We have also had some warmer and drier weather so the children have been enjoying playing outside. It has also been the week that I have finally lost more than half of what I’m hoping to lose – only 12 more pounds to go.

So let me say a few more words about the Trim Healthy Mama plan of eating. I have mentioned before that this is what I’m using for a diet. Let me just say that I’m absolutely blown away with how I have been able to lose this weight even though I would say that I have only followed the plan about 70-80% of the time. For instance, when my husband takes me out for our weekly date I don’t worry about dieting and even have dessert. However, this diet has taught me how to properly fuel my body so that I’m not giving my body extra fuel that it stores as fat but rather uses fat already stored to fuel my body hence causing weight loss. (That sentence was a bit too long. I hope it at least made sense.) If you are sitting on the fence as to whether or not to buy the book and use the Trim Healthy Mama plan for eating, go for it. Not only  have I lost weight I’ve also lost my headaches, depression and out-of-control sugar cravings. It has been wonderful and overall has been simple. I have not felt starved or deprived except for the few times I’ve eyed my children eating their fresh-out-of-the -oven bread, but then there has always been a chocolate shake, lemon curd tart, fudge or a strawberry whip to fall back on.

On the garden front our beans are up. This morning when I hung up our laundry there were a few poking up. Some were maybe and inch or inch and a half tall. When I went to get our laundry tonight we counted 26 baby bean plants! Several were 3-4 inches tall. It was exciting. The children had to come have a look. I think beans are one of the easiest and most fun plants for children to grow because they are easy and fast.

Checking out the new babies in our family

Baby beans - yeah!

We’ve been having fun travelling around the world. So far we’ve visited New Zealand, Australia, Papau New Guinea, Japan and China. I’m learning my geography better and so are my children. It’s been fun. Did you know that for every person in New Zealand there are seven sheep?

How was your week? If you have a garden, how is it doing?

Another Good Week

This week I’ve been able to do several things to promote the health of our family. The one thing I least expected to be able to do I’m very happy about.

As I said a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I are starting a new eating plan described in the book “Trim Healthy Mama“.  The first week my husband was off work so it was easy to set him up for all is food. This week he was back to work and I needed to send lunches. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I was surprised. It went well. I was able to send him to work every day with a nutritious lunch that was “on plan”.

If you are looking for a way to lose weight or feel healthier, I really urge you to check out this book - Trim Healthy Mama. In twelve short days it has made an incredible difference for my husband and I. I have lost nearly seven pounds, but beyond that my headaches have disappeared, my sugar and carb cravings gone, my mood swings just about history – I am a woman after all. 

There is a bit of a learning curve which scared me at first, but I find that every day it gets easier. There is a great support group on Facebook. You can get encouragement, meal ideas and questions answered. I haven’t followed the plan 100% – my husband took me out for lunch at the Mandarin yesterday, but it has been so good when we have followed the plan. And when I came home from the Mandarin? Well, the next time I was hungry I just went right back to it…no guilt.

What else have I done this week – got back to my online exercise programme (someday I’ll post about that), let my children help me more in the kitchen, found a recipe for homemade CHOCOLATE ice cream which I did tweak a little, took a walk one afternoon before our weather turned nasty, enjoyed my children from big to little. It’s been a good week.

So what did you do for your health this week?

Where Has The Time Gone?

I can’t believe it’s Friday again already! This week has seemed to just fly by. We’ve been busy doing school, trying out new recipes, playing outside.

This week I’ve also been doing a big study of the “Trim Healthy Mama“. I’ve been hearing about this book for quite a while. I finally took the plunge and bought the pdf version. This is a system for losing weight but more than that it’s a lifestyle that will help your body to be healthy not just thin. The two – thin and healthy – are not always synonomous.

Boiled down to two sentences the eating plan is this – Every meal and snack needs some form of protein. Never include lots of carbs and lots of fat in the same meal or snack. There are lots of recipes clearly written out to help you plan your meals.

Maybe someday I’ll do an in-depth review of this book. It’s 650 pages of down-to-earth information and recipes. The book was written by two sisters. The things I appreciate are that they are both busy homeschooling mamas to several children, and they both are on budgets. Those two things assure me that this plan is doable for me.

Next week my husband and I plan to start eating the way they describe hence all my studying this week. I’m already excited about some of the recipes I’ve seen. The best part – this plan includes chocolate! I don’t think a plan that omitted chocolate would work for me.

I’ll give you updates from time to time about how we’re doing. My husband and I both hope to lose 30 pounds, and beyond that to just improve our health in general.

Now it’s your turn. What have you done this week to improve your health?