As you read in my last post, I started a journey to regain my health over a year ago, beginning with T-Tapp. That was an awesome basis for my return to health. When I started T-Tapp, I had just began to be able to go around without crutches for the first time in over 4 months. I was out of shape and over weight. I did some experimenting with my diet through last fall. I went sugar free for a few weeks. I tried a little of this and a little of that to just be eating healthier overall. I switched over to only using good fats - olive oil, coconut oil (instead of shortening) and butter.
We had the opportunity to watch a couple of inspiring DVDs - Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, and Food Inc. I found that something that I had begun to suffer from over the summer was, in fact, "Urticaria". Joe, of the Fat Sick and Nearly Dead DVD had suffered from this. My doctor had told me that my immune system was out of whack and was thinking that any irritation to my skin was a cause for an all out battle, so even something as minor as a mosquito bite because eczema very quickly - painful and itchy and would not go away. I began to be serious about trying to eat right and get healthier. I did some juicing - that DVD was so inspiring I just had to try it. I couldn't do a full on juice fast since I was still nursing Carese, but I did have a fresh veggie/fruit juice for breakfast everyday for about a month. Within a few weeks of eating right, cutting our sugar and refined flour, and doing some juicing, my urticaria began to heal and disappear!
So, fast forward to this past spring. I was so excited that I had consistently lose inches from T-Tapp and I felt overall healthy, and I had so many projects around our home that needed attention. So I made this huge summer "To Do" list and dug in with a vengeance. The only problem was, that after just a few days of painting and cleaning projects I bottomed out. I just couldn't do it. I was tired, yet I wasn't sleeping well at night. My left eye was constantly twitching. I had mood swings and was definitely dealing with some hormonal issues. I did some research, as well as began to feel that many of the things I was dealing with were similar to what I dealt with over 10 years ago when I experience adrenal fatigue. I decided that what I needed was a real juice fast. I started a 15 day boot camp which was 5 days of eating all fruits and veggies, cooked, raw, juiced and blended, followed by 5 days of just juicing. I actually did 8 days of juicing and then I hit the wall. I just couldn't go on. I told Daryl that I HAD to quit - it was doing great things for my health (my eye had stopped twitching and my energy had returned), but I could tell my metabolism was shutting down - I was cold all the time and super cranky! Juice fasting and motherhood just are not great companions, and that is a fact.
That very day, I got an email showing a blog post about a book about eating healthy that was written by two "mothers of many," Trim Healthy Mama. It was perfect timing. Everything that this blog post said about this book made sense and I knew that this would be the next step in my journey to health. I did some research into the book and the program and found the Trim Healthy Mama Facebook page for women using the program (over 8,000 members at the time) and talked it over with Daryl. I ordered the book (there was a wait time) and adjusted my diet according to the basic principles of the book (yeah, I'll get to that in a minute). I also borrowed the book from a friend and began reading like there was no tomorrow! I finished the first 10 chapters or so in just a couple of days, and then researched what supplies I needed to have on hand for most of the recipes that I thought I would like. I talked about the eating plan with my husband and older girls, and was able to get them to agree to try this with me for the 4 weeks left until our church camp out.
Fast forward a few weeks. we were challenged at first to work out what recipes we liked, as well as how to tweak recipes that we already have, and find something easy and enjoyable for us. Some of us were more challenged as they were dealing with sugar withdrawals (I was just coming off a juice fast and had been sugar free for a while), so that made it hard the first week. But we all stuck with it and worked to find what would work for us. Here are some of the benefits we discovered in that first 4 weeks:
No intestinal distress - no gas, no indigestion, no burping!
Acne/pimples were nearly gone - great reduction in blemishes for all of us
Noticeable inch loss, and for those of us who were weighing, there was significant pounds lost too!
Cravings greatly reduced - sugar was not our only addiction we quickly found out, but after a couple of weeks, all cravings were basically gone (well, if someone ate something in front of us, it might be a difficult temptation, but we were no longer craving foods/snacks.treats out of the blue)
Better Sleep! At least for Daryl and I
Dessert every night - this made everything worth it!
So, as we approached the camp out, I asked if they were going to return to the plan after camp. Daryl was so enthusiastic about this way of eating that he didn't even want to eat our old way even at camp - we both ended up caving here and there, but mostly stuck to plan at camp! The older girls were mixed on going back on plan, but Jessica decided to go back on plan in order to be as healthy as possible in preparing to be standing up in Jeremy's wedding (she really enjoyed/is enjoying the lack of blemishes when she is "on plan").
So, here we are, 2 months since we started the "Trim Healthy Mama" way of life. Unlike any other diet I have ever been on (and there have been many), this is becoming our new "normal." We are loving how we feel, and loving the lost inches. Daryl has very little left to loose and is now experimenting with meals that are meant for weight maintenance. I had a very busy two weeks in August, and although I had not cheated during those two weeks, I felt that I probably had not lost much, as I was just eating what was our new normal, and no longer having to focus on what I was eating. To my surprise, I had a record inch loss - over 8 inches lost in 2 weeks! I was doing T-Tapp regularly, but I was still having THM desserts every night! I believe I can safely say that this is now a way of eating that I will be sticking to for the rest of my life. I never want to go back to eating foods that may taste good at the time that they enter my mouth, but leave a legacy of indigestion, gas, lethargy, acne and weight gain. We are eating tasty meals, delicious snacks and desserts. For many of our meals, you'd be hard pressed to even tell what we did differently - it looks the same, just made differently. We have homemade pizza every week, lasagna monthly, spaghetti and burgers every week. We have scrambled eggs and bacon or muffins for breakfast every day. I have delicious protein smoothies every afternoon. I do "cheat" once in a while, but it's usually things like popcorn, or thin whole wheat burger buns - still healthy foods, just a little too heavy in the carbs - but it's working - I'm still losing inches and feeling wonderful! A few things I've cheated on and regretted though - Little Caesar's Pizza or a Dairy Queen Blizzard for example, were very hard on my system - indigestion, gas, pain were my punishments. 
So what is the basics of this way of eating? In a nutshell, you will learn when reading Trim Healthy Mama, that eating two sources of fuel in a meal will cause you to burn one and store the other. Fuel sources for our bodies are fats and carbohydrates. So a doughnut is the ultimate evil in this plan. So it having a burger on a big old bun, and adding some french fries or potato chips. So we choose to have our hamburger on a low carb bun or tortilla shell, and then have a salad or veggies with dip on the side. By limiting your fuel source to one fuel, your body will easily burn that fuel source and will not pack anything into fat on your body. So there is two types of meals in this plan - the "fat" based meal that is rich in good fats and low in carbs, and the "carb" based meals that are higher in carbs and low in fats. Instead of sugar, you used forms of stevia, and instead of wheat flours in most recipes you use things like almond meal and flax meal.It is so good for you, and after you get adjusted to this way of eating (probably at least 2 weeks for most people to get the hang of it), it is quite easy. It does require purchasing ingredients that most people do not regularly purchase, and some of these things can be a little pricey. But once we were on the plan for a little while, the extra costs have lessened (we had to purchase a lot of new things all at once to start off, but now we just replace them as we use them up, so it's not all at once).
I highly recommend getting this book for another reason besides learning to be healthy - the first 12 chapters are chocked full of great information about how our bodies process foods, and what nutrition is and all sorts of great information about health. I'm going to be requiring my children to read these chapters this year as part of their science curriculum!As a side note, it's a fun book to read. It's written by two very different sisters, and they can be so funny as they banter back and forth in the book and even in the recipes! One sister has 9 children and the other has 6 children. The mamas were both home-schooled growing up and home-school their children. One is a super healthy purist (i.e. no microwaves) and the other is on the more practical side (i.e. if it takes too much time, it's not going to work for me). It's a great balance that ensures that most moms will be able to relate to one or the other! They even have easy vs purist version of many of the recipes!
I think one of the best things about this way of eating is that both of these mamas got to the point of no longer needing to lose weight. They found that they had to make adjustments to the plan in order to maintain a healthy weight! They created meals that will tweak the weight lost meals so that they are maintenance meals. So you don't end up at your goal weight and then left all alone, trying to figure out how to keep what you've worked to hard to achieve! Also, this way of eating can also be used when pregnant or nursing, you just need to have more of the meals that are weight maintaining in order to support the extra demand on your body! I sure wish I had known about this years ago, but it wasn't known then so I'm just thankful that I have found it now! And these are proof that is works - they've both been following this way of eating for years and years and they both look so healthy and trim!A little warning to those interested in trying out this way of eating. The book seems pricey, but there are hundreds of easy to follow recipes - it's almost more of a recipe book than anything else! But it's so important to read the actual book and understand the how and why of this way of eating and why it works so well.
And lastly - I know you're thinking "I just can't live without chocolate" - well, let me tell you, these ladies LOVE chocolate and so do lots of other mamas on this plan, so there's tons and tons or great chocolate recipes!
So what are you waiting for? Go buy Trim Healthy Mama and start your journey to good health and a trim figure today!
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