New Journey Day 7

Another good day. Reboot is going well, we found out Anna doesn't have chicken pox (the race track on the exam table was my way of keeping the kids occupied while we waited for the doctor!) so we got to go to Colorado for Aunt Carol's graduation! Bad news? We blew the reboot on the road. We should have just ordered salads but we both got pasta dishes. Mistake! We only finished half our plates and felt so yucky the rest of the trip!! We had decided already that we would take a break for a few meals while we're gone but should have made a better choice at supper! Tonight's dessert, however is delicious. Purple passion-grapes and blueberries with a bit of fresh mint. Mmmm!

New Journey Day 6 *Dessert*

Today was pretty much back to normal. We're on the second week so there are more options and even dessert. Which reminds me...I forgot to fix it tonight!!! For lunch, neither of us could even finish all of our food! We had a roasted beet salad (I never knew I liked beets!) with roasted summer vegetables.
Now, I better go fix dessert...
I had to add another pic after I made dessert. It's called Peach Pie Delight and it actually tastes a bit like pie. It's got raw sweet potatoes in it but you can't taste it at all. Sooo good!!

New Journey Day 5

They were right. Days 2-4 are the hardest. Today was much easier. Probably because I ate a piece of fruit between meals and adjusted the menu a bit. We had salads at both meals (along with a vegetable side) with a delicious dressing. It will become a regular in our house. Here's the recipe (this is from Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead):
1/2 c olive oil
1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs raw, local honey
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c fresh basil, chopped (1/2 tsp dried)
Sea salt & pepper to taste
Whisk it all together and pour over salad. This makes enough for 2 servings.
Our salad is any kind of leafy greens and your favorite vegetable toppings. Today we had baby greens with avocado, tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, & carrot.
Half way through, Aaron has lost about 10 lbs and I've lost about 6 lbs. Today felt mostly back to normal. It was rainy and cold today, so the kids and I spent some time snuggled up watching cartoons :) Aaron still hits a wall around 5pm but he's also not drinking both juice "snacks" of the day. Tomorrow's breakfast is a big bowl of delicious fruit-pineapple, mango, kiwi, orange, grapefruit. Mmmm!

New Journey Day 4

Today was definitely interesting! I woke up not doing very good. It seems not drinking/eating some of the meal items isn't a good idea! Whoops. My blood sugar got way too low so I felt pretty bad this morning. Once we figured out why I was feeling so bad and I ate some fruit, I felt much better. Of course, it took me til 2pm to figure it out! Ha. So from now on, I'll add a piece of fruit in between meals if I need to. Days 6-10 should be easier-we get "dessert" every evening! :) Aaron is amazing-he can stomach even the grossest juices!! I'm still glad we're doing this. We are getting so many more fruits and veggies than we could possibly eat in a day.
Tomorrow it's supposed to be cold and possibly snow!! :( So this evening we are enjoying the weather while we can!

New Journey Day 3

Whew...today has been the hardest. I spent half the day in Wichita at an appointment and getting loads of produce for the rest of the reboot. The other half of the day I spent prepping as much as I could. I'm hungry and the crazy thing is that I'm craving fruit. What I wouldn't give for a bowl of pineapple or blackberries! Or a grilled cheese. Isaac didn't eat his at supper and I was *really* tempted to eat it! ;) The fatigue and headache were worse today, so I'm leaving the disasters around the house and going to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be easier. Oh yes...Jacob was stealing the carrots for the soup before we could get them in the blender! That boy LOVES carrots!

New Journey Day 1

Aaron and I are embarking on another new health journey. We are doing a "Reboot" fast. It's from the documentary "Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead" that we watched a couple weeks ago. It's not a total juice fast, but the only thing we will eat and drink for 10 days is fruits and vegetables. Since neither of us have any health concerns, we were comfortable in trying this. Why are we doing this? To flush out all the toxins in our system and lose a little weight. We eat almost exclusively "real" food. The only exception being when we eat out, which is rarely. But we aren't able to eat 100% organic. If you go to www.fatsickandnearlydead.com you can see exactly what a Reboot is. For instance, today (the first day) the menu has for breakfast a berry/apple bake (apples and berries baked with some cinnamon and nutmeg), an apple, carrot, ginger juice for snacks (I couldn't stomach this one-too much ginger! Next time I'll use much less), a leafy green salad with vinegar and oil for lunch with carrot & sweet potato "fries", and a kale and avocado salad for supper. Some days it's just juice for a meal, other days it's some kind of salad. The hardest part? Fixing meals for the kids but not eating it ourselves!! :) They say days 2-4 are the hardest so we'll see!
I'm excited to see how this changes us and helps us get even healthier. I would highly recommend watching that documentary. It's very inspiring!!

New Journey Day 2

This afternoon has been harder. I'm very tired and the thought of not eating leftover lasagna or grilled cheese (what the kids are having) makes me grumpy! Even harder is finding the energy to make our meals. They're not fancy, but it just takes time to prep everything and put the salads and/or soups together. I think this would be much easier if it were just Aaron and I. But having to make meals for the kids is hard!! And it doesn't help when Aaron keeps talking about what he's going to eat when we're done with this reboot. Or smelling people's grills fired up! Haha! Since we can't go to church (Anna has chicken pox, still waiting to see if Jacob gets them), this morning we rode bikes up to the college again to run around the track. Anna is a competitive little runner!! She walked/ran 3 laps and then was too tired. I told her it was okay to go and play! The boys were playing in the sand pits. She did for a little bit and then next thing I knew she was off running another lap. She said it really bothered her that he hadn't been able to run that last lap and make it a mile! After all the cheering she got, Isaac decided he wanted to run. That little squirt ran half a mile!!! He absolutely loves bike rides and the last 2 days we've taken at least two a day! This afternoon he was tuckered out from his run and fell sound asleep in his bike seat!
I have no doubt this reboot is going to help us tremendously. The 2nd and 3rd days are the hardest to get through. I think I'll just ignore the laundry and go to bed early tonight!!!

New Cold Remedy?

I found a new cold remedy that we're trying (since 3 of us have colds. boo!). It's honey and cinnamon. I found it on pintrest. For the record, the smell of honey makes me want to gag. I will bake with it, but to eat it plain or "uncooked"--no way! But I put on my big girl pants and tried it on a strawberry. It is SO TASTY!!! The website says one teaspoon a few times a day at the beginning of a cold will knock it out in a couple of days. We'll see how it works. I think regardless, it will be a new fruit dip! Here's the website I found it on.

Growth and Revolution

I have a lot of picture posts to do (anniversary, birthday, 7 month update), but I haven't had time to download the pictures yet.
Some changing has been going on around our house for the last several months. With all of Mom's health issues and the research Dad has been doing and the things I've been learning, I have started really taking note of what we eat. Maybe I just haven't "gotten" it before, maybe the people I heard from weren't explaining it (more finger-shaking than teaching). I don't know. But a combination of things has caused me to look more closely at this area of our lives. Dad has been a great source of research for me...I don't know how he has time to learn all that he does with all he does, but he learns and he shares. He doesn't lecture (I can't believe I'm saying that! ha), he shares. And to me, I think that's the greatest way to educate someone. I stumbled across a show on hulu last night, "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" (he focuses on school food for the most part). I think the reason I like it so much is the way he teaches these kids and families about nutrition and food. He doesn't rage and rant about organic food. He's passionate about healthy eating and shares how to eat healthier. He makes the point that these kids aren't taught in school anymore about nutrition or cooking. Home Ec was a REQUIRED class when I was in high school. I don't even know if they have Home Ec anymore, let alone require it.
So, what am I doing about it? I look at my family history and I see the health problems that are trickling down through the generations...obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, high cholesterol. It scares me! Aaron loves salads and vegetables. He'll snack on lettuce for Pete's sake! I like them, too but if I have a choice I'd prefer chips or chocolate to snack on. I believe it's a mix of learned habits and genetics. Aaron grew up snacking on carrots and celery on road trips. I had candy bars and pop. I'm not saying my parents are bad for letting me have those (honestly, I don't remember as a little kid what we had, but I know when I was in high school that's what I had). But then I look at my kids and I see genetics playing a bigger part of it. Anna and Jacob started out eating the exact same things-when they started baby food, it was fruit and veggies, table food-same thing. They were both offered and made to eat vegetables. Jacob never liked them much. Anna always did. Good grief, she would eat a salad at 2 yrs old! I kept offering Jacob the same vegetables over and over. I always made him eat veggies. He'll eat broccoli, carrots, corn, green beans...but he doesn't usually ask for seconds and he sure won't ask for them as a snack. Anna does. He will however ask for seconds of anything sweet and he would drink pop all day, every day if I let him. They're both allowed to drink pop (not so much any more though!), but Anna will usually ask for milk or water instead. So I look at those two and I see that some of it has to be genetic. That doesn't mean I'm going to give in and let him have all the sweets he wants and none of the vegetables. It just means healthy eating is going to be harder for him, just like it is for me.
The more I learn about nutrition and the things that are allowed by the USDA, the more shocked I am. And the more it makes me want even better for my children. Did you know that some ground beef can be made with renderings from beef (that are usually used for dog food) "washed" with an ammonia solution?! And that the USDA doesn't require that to be listed on the label??
Did you know the shellac (shiny, hard shell) on candy comes from the secretions of a bug?! Seriously...

"This coating is not vegan and most likely not vegetarian either as it may, and probably does, contain crushed insects."

Is that not disturbing?

Eating organic/natural can be pretty expensive. Which is why America is having an obesity epidemic! When it's cheaper to buy a hamburger washed in ammonia than it is to buy a pound of organic apples...what do we expect? The grocery budget is usually at the top of the list for the chopping block when you try to cut back. Believe me, I know about cutting back expenses! There is literally no other area that we can cut back in besides food. I have noticed that the price of organic food has come down a little bit. And it's more available than it was a couple years ago. Our store in town has a FEW organic items. WalMart is carrying more and more. The Dillons in Hutch carries a lot of organic, especially produce. Another way I can save money is with my garden. I wish I had a bigger one, but this year I've got 12 tomato plants, 6 pepper plants, green beans, 2 cucumbers, and 4 zucchini plants (all for just $12!). I want to be able to plant potatoes, onions, carrots, cantaloupe, watermelon, and strawberries and have some blueberry and raspberry bushes along with fruit trees. That's the dream anyway! ;) There is also an organic farm (Jako, Inc.) nearby where I can get grass-fed beef, cage-free chicken, and organic produce. I was talking to a friend several months ago and she made an astute observation...if you try to go "organic" all at once, in everything, you'll go broke and you'll "fizz out". Do a little at a time until you eventually get there. For me, there are 3 main things that I want to avoid right away-high fructose corn syrup (which is HARD! It's in practically everything!!), non-organic beef and chicken, and candy/sweets. The first two will be expensive but the last one is simply a matter of not buying pop and candy. Although WalMart does carry cage-free chicken that isn't much more than the Tyson chicken. And there's a local farm that has great eggs for $1.50/dozen.
So we're on a journey to healthier eating. I'm so glad that Aaron is 100% supportive and encouraging. The more I learn, the more I want to share and the more I want to change. It doesn't make you a bad person if you don't buy organic fruit for your kids. It doesn't make you stupid if you don't know about these things. But I do think it's important to know where our food comes from and to be more aware of what we put into our bodies. We can say "Well, my parents/grandparents ate this and they're fine!" but the real problem is a generation or two away. Look at the kids in school today and you'll see the health problems that are usually prevalent in adults. I think most of that has to do with our unhealthy eating habits-at home and in schools.
Anyway, I hope this makes some sense and maybe educates someone just a little bit. I'll still be your friend if you let my kids drink a pop when they're at your house or eat plain ol' potato chips! ;) I'm not an organic snob. :)