Menu Monday - Trim Healthy Mama 2

Last week was our first full week trying to navigate doing all of our meals on the THM plan, and we had some really big wins. We loved several of the new recipes we tried, and feel really confident that we can make this plan work for us.

I did go through a little bit of detox being off of sugar and Splenda this last week, but I'm over the hump and moving on to greener pastures. It's hard to tell if that's the case because I also was dealing with some sinus issues and possibly some weather related headaches too -- so who knows, but all I know is that this morning I woke up and have been running all day.

I got up and immediately made breakfast -- Chocolate Waffles with Strawberries -- which meant that I ground some oatmeal into flour and used the waffle iron! Yay, ME! I put some mini chocolate chips and sliced strawberries on the boys' waffles, but for John and I - we just used the sliced strawberries and a 1/2 TBS of butter.

Tyler has fallen in love with some of these new foods -- which is amazing -- we are hoping to inch him onto the plan as well in a bit of a modified version. He LOVES the Strawberry Cheesecake Shake -- as you can tell -- since it is an afternoon snack everyday. I try to time it to be around his dinner time -- because they eat much earlier than Mom & Dad do. So we include it as a part of his dinner.

Have a great week and let me know if you're doing the THM plan too! I'd love to hear your favorite meal ideas!

Menu Monday - Trim Healthy Mama 1

We decided to move up our plan to going full force this week -- so here is our menu plan -- lunches are blank for the first couple of days because I just wasn't ready to plan those quite yet. I'm struggling with figuring out what will make the best plan for lunches at least until we get some leftovers to rotate in for lunches. 

It'll be a bit of a work in progress for a few days/weeks while we get used to this... sort of like remembering to eat every 3-4 hours -- I'm just not normally that regimented -- so I'm going to have to adjust my way of thinking. For instance, I need to go eat a snack here immediately because I completely forgot. 

Part of that is because I feel like crud -- and have all weekend. I'll have to work through that before I gain full control over all of this.

I'm excited to try out some of these recipes this week though, and test out our alternative dessert snacks. They sound pretty good, and I'm also excited to see if I can fool Tyler with the Chocolate Zucchini Cake this weekend. 

I bought a TON of vegetables yesterday, but we load up on those in just about every meal - so I just hope that it was enough. 

I made sure to get some good quality cocoa powder. I've made the switch to Stevia instead of my old standby of Splenda. I'm so glad I did after reading what the worst sweetners for your body are. 8 Best and Worst Sweeteners for your health  -- sad that my old standby is the #2 worst for your health... and I always believed the absolute worst was Sweet 'n Low, but that's actually #3. Making the switch away from Splenda has been pretty easy for me - I got some H-E-B packets of Stevia which are approved for the THM plan and other than some small issues with getting it to dissolve -- it's been great. I will do my best to rid our house from the pink packets too -- but that might take a little longer.

New Year, New Me

This year, I've decided to try the Trim Healthy Mama Plan - and totally revamp the way that my family looks at food. For years we have done the no carb thing -- or left off some food group in the hope that we could get healthier. This year, I think I've found the secret that I've been looking for.

It's not about complete elimination of a food group all together, but just changing the way that you combine and fuel your body. This has amazing promise to help not only with trimming our waistlines, but also helping with lessening my chronic illnesses as well! So if you're out there wondering how to help reverse the insulin resistance or diabetes that is plaguing your body... I'm telling you that you owe it to yourself to check this book out and read it with a new outlook on eating.

There is still much to learn from this book in my journey, but we are starting this week with breakfasts and snacks -- then next week we will add in lunches, and finally in week 3 we will add in dinners... somewhere in there we will also add in exercise too.

I sat there over the weekend basically feeling completely overwhelmed by the meal planning aspect of this plan -- mainly because I want to make sure that we have everything we need on hand instead of being caught off-guard and needing to make bad choices just for the sake of serving a meal. When I finally found someone else's guide to starting the plan -- I found my saving grace. I was sitting there dumbfounded over needing to plan all of this out... but then I realized that it was going to be okay to just get one or 2 meals a day planned for this first week.

I'm also working on adding more water to my daily intake. I've cut WAY back on Cokes and Dr. Peppers -- but I want to get them completely gone again like they were at the end of the summer. I've only had one here any there since I quit them in July... but they really aren't good for you so I'd like to get them cut completely. If you're sitting there thinking that you can't possibly live without them -- just know that I was right there with you initially. I didn't think there was a world without having one every other day or so... but I'm here to tell you that I really don't miss them much at all when I'm not on them. I think I had one craving which is where I initially had one, but I really didn't enjoy it like I did before... so trust me there is a world afterwards.

I made this document for meal planning with Trim Healthy Mama -- so I'm going to add the image to this page, but if you find that it is not in a good printable format -- please contact me, and I'd be thrilled to share it with you! 

My other main addition for 2016 so far has been that I'm doing a Bible reading challenge with my family -- my sisters & Dad are on board with me -- and we are reading 3 chapters of the New Testament each day for 90 days -- which will get us from Matthew through Revelations by the end of March. We are only on day 4 -- so please feel free to jump in with us, and let me know that you're reading with us so that I can check in with you from time to time. We are using the Bible Progress app to track our progress -- it's a free Apple app -- but I'd bet there is one for Android phones as well.

My final 2016 goal for now to share with you... is that I'm going to do my level best to be back on this ol' blog of mine as much as possible. Right now my goal is to post at least every weekday, but I'd like to get back to doing it daily as part of my regular routine... so bare with me while I knock the old cob webs off this site, and my fingers... I hope that you'll like where our journey on this page is about to take us, and that you'll jump in to let me know that you're here with us!