What’s Wrong with you??

I get this question more than once a day. I wish I got paid for every time someone asked! I have a group of problems, most are food sensitivities due to leaky gut. I can’t eat what most people eat and even if I could, I realize it’s an addiction to sugar that is fueling it.

I decided to tell my story. It was a LONG story lol 40 minutes on a video. Here is the shortened version. I suffer from hypothyroid brought on by leaky gut that happened for God knows why. Due to my leaky gut, protein molecules pass through my intestine into my blood stream causing me to have inflammatory immune responses to foods. The list has grown due to molecular mimicry. That’s the nutshell, but if you are board and want to see the video, here it is.

I’ll apologize up front for the lack of great scenery, the tangents, the shaking of the camera at times, and the length 🙂

Hello, My Name is Eileen and I’m a Food Addict…

I have really known this for years but I’m saying it out loud today. It’s not that I’m addicted to all food. Maybe I should say I’m a sugar addict instead. You see I can totally moderate vegetables, fruits, meats, even carbs.. I dont miss them if I dont eat them. BUT if you take away any type of sugar, my body goes into a panic mode.

 

I am convinced this cute little girl on the side of this box is the devil incarnate. Don’t let that cute face fool you. This “food” she is peddling not only is high in sugar but it also has addictive properties as well.

I recently read an article by the New York times that said an early study of sugar was discovered that showed it had issues but of course there was a coverup. So it’s no wonder I cant seem to help myself. Just looking at this picture makes me want some. Horrid stuff.

So what is a girl to do? Well get rid of and keep it out of the house. Surround herself with friends who don’t eat that stuff on a daily basis and go on a sugar free diet. Sugar free is really a bad word though. No processed sugar is more like it. Natural fruit sugars and vegetable sugars are totally fine.

It seems the more I read about my health and through my self diagnosis, I am finding more and more about how food is a poison that is really making us sick. It doesn’t seem like it but seriously look back and tell me why diabetes is so prevalent? Why is ADHD found in kids super young? Why has obesity become a serious issue? Why had cancer cases risen? Why are children going through puberty at 8 instead of 13? There are lots of things people could say like we didnt have the medical diagnosis we do now, but honestly stop..think.. dig into research.. There is so much we don’t know about the food we are now eating. Most of it are made from chemicals that are used in jet fuel, for embalming humans, for oil production, and many others..yet when anyone mentions it, people seem to pass it off as if it is untrue.

Did you know you can make plastic taste like anything? Smell like anything? This is scary! No one bats an eye at a frozen dinner, spagettios, soda pop, and even little debbie..yet all of these are made with a ton of preservatives to keep it on the store shelf. Things are added that dont have to be on the label if its less than a certain amount. People keep shoving these things in their body because its easy and cheap and then wonder why they got cancer when they were 30 with no family history…

I’m not exempt from all this either. I still buy some items like this for my kids. Now that I work and should be able to afford better food, I grab the easy cheap stuff to save money. It should be a crime to even have this stuff on our store shelves.  Can you imagine a world where the only things in the supermarket were the outside perimeter isles of the grocery store? I think people would starve!!

Hello, I’m Eileen. I’m a junk food addict. BUT I am trying to break the cycle because these poisons are killing me. I have food sensitivities to eggs, dairy, gluten, and peanuts. Why?? Not sure but not only has all of these foods caused me to gain 30+ pounds, they have also caused me huge inflammation flare ups, and have started attacking my thyroid tissue. Something caused all this.. Something is wrong with these items now. I used to be able to eat these all without any problems. Now I have a theory and many will disagree but some will not. My theory is that this all started with the rise of Monsanto. If you look back its been the same number of years since they started really heavily invading our food supply and my illness. The rise of antiboitics in cattle, the spraying of round up on GMO round up ready corn, wheat, soy… its all connected. Having lived surrounded by spraying of fields for 15 years and being exposed to groundwater that is sure to be contaminated has thrown my body for a loop and it is boycotting all those foods. My children are also having issues as well with not sleeping well, IBS, and ADHD.

So here is the Monsanto site. Monsanto has been around for years and years..slowly invading our food supply.. Saccharin… gee that has proven great for us.. IN 1994 introducing that bovine growth hormone into our milk supply..gee that worked out well.  Anyway take a look back at 2008 when my issues started. They had just developed that Round up Ready 2 Yield. There had to be something different in there.. and then look at all they’ve done since. That same year they added Acceleron® brand seed treatments. Then those would be added to corn in 2010. They were already in our sugar cane supply.. The new herbacides, the new GMO technologies, the “improved” vegetables.. we are eating all this every single freakin day. No wonder I’m sick!  Now to get the family off most of it… the challenge..

Happy Organic Homesteading!! (just watch where your seeds are bought from!!)  😀

Craft Time

I’m sorry I havent been on the blog in over a year. I’m still trying to find myself lol. Just kidding. Life has taken many turns and I’ll blog more about that later but for now I wanted to show you some stuff I’ve been working on.

I love to watch youtube and I found a lovely cat loom knit pattern. I love loom knitting because I cant knit to save my life but have always wanted the coziness of  a knitted hat and scarf. It’s different than crochet. Anywho..I saw this cat and have a great idea for it.

Right now with Halloween coming I’ve decided to make orange and black cats and sell them on etsy and to friends on facebook. You can find links to both on the side bar. I am also going to make some pink ones with a little cancer charm hanging from the neck. All money for those pink ones will be donated to cancer research.

So without further ado here is my cute Halloween cat in orange!

Halloween Cuteness!!

Happy Homesteading!!!  😀

Lost

It seems since moving here I’m lost. The first year it was all about starting something new and it seemed all I did was fail. Not so much fail I guess as not succeed.

I didn’t have enough fencing, I didn’t have enough help, I didn’t have enough building supplies to finish projects… It seemed like it was never going to happen. In this last year fibromyalgia hit me hard. The fatigue unbearable, the work not done, the projects put on hold, the money..still not there. People are more than willing to buy my goods but I cant get it out there to sell.

My kids tried to help this year with the garden. We had awesome lettuce and nothing was done with it. Onions faded away with weed growth, tomatoes over run with lambs quarter…green beans intertwined with horse nettle. My garden grew great weeds this year…tall as your eyes can see up! However without my leadership and constant prodding, my kids wont do it. They do not have a farming heart.  I think one of my sons would do well being self sufficient and living that hunter gatherer life style but gardening is just not his thing.

I’m a bit ADD when it comes to my life. Everything needs to be done and so little projects get started here and there as money is available but nothing is getting finished. I’ve tried my hand at several things to help bring income to our farm. I’ve sold Usborne Books and while that was great, parents dont want to spend their money on such things..not with xbox sitting there and iphones. At least not around here… I’ve done various craft items and will try my hand at a few craft fairs this fall but had I grown a bumper garden crop, sold at the farmers market, and tucked that money away, some of my projects would be complete. We would have a full pantry of food due to canning and freezing and drying.

Sadly this is not the case. I know God will look out for us and always provide, but I was put on this earth to grow and produce food for our family and to sell to others. It just doesnt seem like I’m doing my job if I can’t get out of bed in the morning.  This year seemed to be the year of what is easily taken care of….what can you do after your kids leave?? While this is a good thing to ponder, given my kids will leave here hopefully in 5 ish years and start their own lives, it still seems wasted. Recently my husband and I have been watching Mountain Men. This is a bad thing for us. I love the show but it stirs my soul to the way we should be living and aren’t. I’m not sure how to fix it. We have a lot of debt and my husband really doesn’t care for his job anymore. I would love for us to live off the land more and not have as many bills and debt. It’s like luxuries of life keep us tied between a life of self reliance and a life of “normal” people.

It’s really hard to explain and I’m sure some of you with kids get it. A couple small examples are we homeschool online, but the bills from the internet and electricity just to school online are high versus me sending them to public school and not having those things. I feel they get a better education, better nutrition, and better life lessons with them at home but we need internet and electricity… another example is food. This world is filled with junk and unfortunately sugar cereals, pop tarts, donuts, candy, pop…all that exists and our friends eat it, they serve it when we visit, yet we try to keep it out of our house. It would be easier if we had no kids, but we do and its there and it costs us money to buy those items we could do without. It’s hard when you eat it once or twice, not to want more when it’s not around. The last example is my husbands truck. He drives many miles to work everyday, we need a reliable vehicle. My husband could trade it in for a more affordable truck, but he doesn’t really have anything that is his as it is. The payment kills us and there is no refinancing, but for him to have one nice thing…

Again, I’m lost. How do I strike a balance in my life that works here at this place with our many acres, my fibro troubles, my lack of work help, my increasing buyers, my desire for self sufficiency, and my ever mounting debt??… This is the question I will be figuring out over this winter. Winter..my season of rest…my season of reevaluation.

 

Happy Homesteading!!   😀

The last few months

So the last post I put up was me juicing. At that time I was feeling absolutely fabulous. High energy and almost all my symptoms for fibro had disappeared. Yes I still had fatigue but nothing like I had in the past. Unfortunately the money was not there to sustain it. It was $100 for me to eat each week all three meals and then I had to feed my other 3 family members.

There just comes a point when you have to do what’s best for your family despite what you know is best for you. It took a whopping 2 weeks for my fibro symptoms to return to almost what they were before I juiced. And now its June 30th and I am sitting at work on the verge of tears because I hurt so bad today. It is at the point now that I am unable to really farm my farm. How horrid is that?!

We moved to a larger place because we were outgrowing our old. The things I love to do, I cant even find the energy to think about. The thought of having to butcher 1 chicken for dinner makes me ache. The thought of having to go out and weed for 5 minutes makes me want to stay in bed. The thought of getting out of bed, makes me want to stay in bed! This is horrible and sucks.  The worst part is, I’m not sure how to find a way to juice…. How do you make money appear that isnt there? I have done as much as I can by growing all my greens but that is only half of the juice. I still need to afford it all year even in winter when I cant grow that stuff.

I’m sorry that I havent written in months and the first thing I write is how my pain is dictating my life right now. But hey..it’s my life and the life of millions of other people who either havent found out that juicing rocks or cant afford it any longer like me.  I have to make a choice between farming and juicing. Its a little hard when you need to raise animals to feed your family nutritious food not full of pink slime or sprayed with ammonia when it means you are dying in pain and so tired you cant make it through the day.

Women sacrifice a lot for the sake of the family and many times their families dont even realize it. I hope some guy is reading this and finally realizes that his wife is awesome. I’m sure tomorrow will be a bit better with the pain but because I weeded the potatoes yesterday, I’m paying for it extra today. Such is my life.  Drugs are looking good again which sucks. It shouldnt be easier and cheaper to get a drug to hide your symptoms than to get actual REAL food that will cure you! My rant is over. I have two more hours I have to muster through of work and then I’m off to bed.

 

Happy Homesteading Peeps!   😀

Juicing/Eating Meal plan

Ok I thought I could get this to you a little sooner than planned but here it is. This is what I sat down for the last month and made so that my life would be easier.  Meal Plan This is a normal excel document. To the left you will see color codes. These are the color of juices for the day. Sometimes the breakfast smoothie and juice matches and sometimes it doesnt, but that is your color of the day. The goal is to eat that color of fruits and veggies as much as possible. Then you will see a list of food and juices listed along with lunches and dinners. Lunch and dinner I change depending on what I have around but for the most part lunches stay the same because I love these soups and stuff Joe Cross has. Then you will see a juice list.

The juice list is a Thursday through the following friday list. I grocery shop on a friday so I need my breakfast and juicing done for that day so I can take it with me shopping. So when you print out the first week, you will not be making the friday breakfast or juice to start the week, but the following friday will be added in the list because you will be shopping the next friday and will need something to take with you.  Understand?? As you continue on the last week’s juice list will include the juices for the first weeks friday 🙂   I really hope you get it lol.  That juice/breakfast list never changes for me so I’ve left the amounts on for you. If you find that you dont like an ingredient and have extras left over at the end of the week, then adjust accordingly.

This excel sheet was made for those who have already done or have printed off Joe Cross’s 10 day eating/juicing plan as most of the recipes are on there. It also has recipes in his cookbook that I would love to give you but unfortunately they are all of course copyrighted. Buy a book on amazon. Also if you need to make batches of the detox soup or any other soup or salad for lunch, that is NOT included in the juice list. The juice list is just that juice/breakfast only.  That is why farther to the right you will see a family list. The juicing/breakfast list is just for one person with the exception of the one I listed double for the kids. I have two kids. Also if you see I wrote double batch or water down…. I am making juice with my juicer. Yours will be different and you may end up with more than I get out of mine. I use wide mouth pint jars and the Juice recipe is to fill two of those. One for 10am and one for 2pm. Breakfast is whatever the amount is.

This has made my life mega easier because I made sure I alternated juice colors and each week has two green juices and two of another color. I can easily print out a week sheet and add my other stuff on and I”m out the door instead of trying to figure out what I need for what juices that week. Feel free to change it up, but this gets you an awesome start! Even if you just are going to juice for your snacks, you really should juice something each day.  Remember juicing is not blending. If you dont have anything left over when you put stuff in your machine, you are blending. Although good for you too, its not juicing. Juicing will let your body take a rest and not have to digest. The nutrients enter your body within 15 minutes. Blending is great too but your body has to digest the fiber along with it so the nutrients are slower to reach you. If you cant afford a juicer but have an awesome nutribullet or vitamix, then I’d still blend most of these recipes while you save for the juicer.

Oh and an FYI that I”m so proud of is that from Feb4th to March 18th I”ve lost 9 pounds!! My body loves this eating plan!

Happy Healthy Homesteading!!   😀

Tips on Living and Eating Healthy part 2

It was getting a bit long so I thought I’d do a two parter 🙂

Tip #7 Get a plan or make one! Many of us are busy, we dont have time to wing it. We will fall off the wagon and never climb back on because its hard. So here is what I’ve done. When I started I followed Joe Cross’s 10 day, juice/eating plan. I found out what shakes I liked, what I didnt and drank anyway 😦   And also what a plan looked like that I could live with. He gives a grocery list, recipes, and eating plan.  After I completed the first week I bought his cookbook. I’d recommend it but it wasnt quite what I was looking for. It has a lot of juices but I wanted more meals and he basically has non. Its ok but buy it used and cheap if you can. During the second week I started putting together a plan for eating long term. I wanted to do a month of breakfast, juices, and lunches that were already preset. All I had to do was make the dinner different. I wanted a set grocery list for each week so I could just print and go. I also wanted something that was available year round easily because winter is sparse and summer is abundant. I need the sparse that I could add too in the summer when I had more options. I also wanted basic ingredients I could grow each summer so I wouldnt have to buy. It took some work but I am on week 3. Joe color codes all his juices and so I made sure I got each color one day a week, two green days, and then added 1 more of another color. Make sure also that you have snacks waiting for that impulse eating binge you will go on!  Your body will act like it is starving because it doesnt know how to efficiently use what you are now putting in it. Your body will be like..”dude where’s the sugar? Hey I want fast food!  You over there..what is this stuff? I know the old stuff..I had to try to figure out where the nutrients were but this stuff..um..oh wait I dont have to work..its all right here..awesome!!” Pretty soon your body will be like..”dude this stuff is awesome.. I dont need fast food, that is too much work for me. Cake?? um if you want to but I swear its sweet so only a little!”   You will begin to see that the food you were eating was too salty, too greasy, too sugary, too much of everything except nutrition.

Tip #8 Dont sweat the small stuff.  “omg I’m on a strict 1300 calorie diet now and I want salad today. I’m craving this french dressing but its like 90 calories already and I want to over load my salad today. argh..I hate this diet”  First of all, its not a diet. Stop calling it that. Second of all, stop and think a minute. Why do you want a lot of dressing? Its about listening to your body. Did you do a veggie juice for your snack today? Did breakfast also not contain a lot of fruit? Your body might be telling you it needs a bit more sugar today then you’ve given it. After a while you wont have to think about it, you will learn to trust your body. Its something small, so dont sweat it. If you have 400 extra calories one day because you were starving its not going to matter. In fact, when I restricted so bad I actually stopped losing. It was when I loosened the reigns a bit and stopped sweating the small stuff, did I start losing again. I just dont do it everyday all day. There are days when I counted calories and all I saw was the perfect number and all i wanted was a handful of cashews… So once I had a plan that I knew was under 1500 for the most part, it was ok to then listen and add a handful of cashews, a candy bar, or a small bag of chips in my day without feeling guilty. Yes I eat chocolate..Im a chick..I need it. Sorry lol. There are days I know I’ve had two or three candy bars, but then weeks when I wanted none. I dont know what it is but I always keep a hershey bar in my freezer. I also found that sometimes you think you want a lot but you dont. So I also try to keep hershey kisses too. I suck on 3 at first and then force myself to go to something and if I want more later I go get more. Its the small stuff honestly that will make or break a lifestyle. I told you before it has to be sustainable for long term.

Tip #9 Eat Color.  If your plan doesnt have color, it sucks. For some reason mid winter, when I made a sunrise breakfast juice that was red and orange, I smiled. When I grabbed a salad that was purple, orange, green, yellow, red…I smiled. Color makes you happy man! Would you rather eat a gray meal or a colorful one?? Spice it up a bit. If a recipe calls for cabbage but you already have green in that recipe, get red cabbage. If you are making a salad, just dont put romaine lettuce, cucumbers, and green peppers in there then douse it with red dressing… Put some red cabbage, dark green kale, yellow or red peppers, orange carrots…then its so colorful you wont crave color dressings much. I use a zesty italian on mine mostly. The more color the more nutrients you are eating. Here is a link to an awesome document I made from a link online. I printed this out on card stock to remind myself to eat from all  the food colors .

Tip #10 Dont be afraid to change the plan and plan ahead! Nothing is set in stone here. If its not working, change it so it does. Its not about weight loss, its about making you the best you, you can be. It takes a while to listen to your body and find out what works and what doesnt work. Its work! Dont forget I’ve been at this since December 21st guys and I Just now figured out what works for me. Once you have it down I swear it will get easier. I was at church the other day and the cake honestly didnt look good to me. Sometimes when I grab stuff it doesnt taste as good as I remember, so its out of the plan. When I first started I had to figure in daily potato chip eating before bed…now.. I dont at all. I crave them every once in a while but mostly because I want salt or the crunch..not the food itself. Always think long term. Speaking of that. If you super like a recipe..like Joes Detox soup..its light and yummy. Make a double batch and free it in mason jars or containers in serving sizes. There are days when my plan calls for salad and I just really want me some soup. Voila, its portioned out and in the freezer. Plus when you’re making plans for you for your family and dinner and you just dont want to eat what they are having, you can grab soup too. I always have at least 5 jars of some sort of soup in there. Taco soup, detox soup, lentil sausage soup, homemade tomato basil… If the recipe doesnt have calorie counts I sit down and figure it out then put it on the recipe itself. Then when I make it again I know exactly I’m eating.

Tip #11 Drink Water.  Now many people hate water. I am one of them. I can drink close to a half gallon when I work out..but after that forget it. It tastes gross and the more I tried to drink the more I wanted to puke. So how do I combat this…well I try to drink a half gallon of water a day which is 8 measuring cups. If I dont, I feel totally dehydrated. My lips get chapped, I feel like I have cotton mouth..its bad. So first off in the morning Joe Cross suggest drinking 8 oz of ginger water. So I do that. Ginger is awesome and stimulates digestion. Well there is one cup down… then I have green tea. Now my cup is large and is actually 2 cups of water and green tea naturally helps you shed pounds. Its been proven. There is 3 cups gone already. Then I usually work out in the morning which I can easily drink 4 more cups during that. The last cup I drink later in the day in the afternoon or I will have a large 2 cup green tea or Echinacea tea with dinner. Done. It doesnt have to be water water.

Tip #12 Get with some like minded people. It doesnt have to be that they are on the same health plan as you..notice I didnt say diet 😉   It just has to be that they are eating healthy and working out. Please dont hang with weight watchers, or jenny craig or any of those peeps that eats the processed box crap. Find people that eat whole foods, gardeners, farmers or personal trainers. If you see someone at a gym everyday, talk to them. Not the steroid guys..just your average joe. My fitness obsessed friend got me a job in a fitness center. One day I was sitting at the counter and I heard a guy that comes in every night before closing, talking to his friend about juicing. Who knew he juiced?? He was talking about juicing and bone broth… I about died! Bone broth is awesome!! Its a super food in my opinion and I have a link to make it up at the top of the page. plus its water..hehe  The more you know about people the better. If you dont or cant do the gym scene then do searches for facebook groups. Get in on something that give you a way to share what you are doing and ask advice. There’s nothing wrong with a little question. Its how he learn.

The last tip Start where you are! Dont wait til you can get a gym membership, or freak out because you cant. Again the internet is a wonderful resource for workouts. If you are severely overweight or if you have knee, hip, back issues search for stuff Low impact. The point is to start. There is a quote on my FitFarmingMomma facebook page that says “There are many days of the week and Someday isnt one of them.” Its true. Find something you love to do. I love yoga/pilates stuff. I have two crunch videos I bought online. One is slim down yoga pilates  and the other is burn and firm pilates. I also just bought piyo from beachbody. I love Richard Simmons Sweatin to the Oldies #2 as well. Richard is goofy and some cant stand him but I love that he is who he is and doesnt hide anything. He genuinely cares for people getting healthy. It doesnt have to be something you buy a ton of equipment for like p90x. Just use your own body weight to build muscle. Go for walks down the road, go to walmart and push a car around the perimeter of the store. Do push ups, the dreaded squats and lunges. I swear they arent as horrible once you can actually do a good amount lol. Find something fun. Swim, bike, run, roller skate…anything. Try knew things and then do what you love. Start with 15 minutes and work your way up to 45 if you have the time. Do a quick 20 min before work or do a half hour after work. You have to find the time, it just wont happen. You find time to watch tv right? You find time to read a book or go visit a friend..its a priority. Its like eating and going to the bathroom. You have to…plain and simple. Get a schedule that works for you and your life and stick to it. The more you skip workouts the more you will not want to do them at all and pretty soon you are back into old habits of layin on the couch eating a huge bag of cheese doodles and wonder why you feel like crap.

So to make this a bit easier, Yesterday I gave you a link to Joe Crosses 10 days eating/juicing plan. If you think this is do able and want a plan for afterwards. I am going to share my plan with you next week. It has all the juices listed for a month along with a grocery list. Now of course you will have to tweek it to what works for you. Obviously if you hate a juice or an ingredient, you will have to swap it out but this is my plan.

 

Happy Healthy Homesteading!!  😀

Tips for living and eating healthy Part 1

Tip #1 is eat REAL food. It’s not cheap. This is why it bothers me that the lower incomes have to eat crap. Crap is cheap, many are on fixed incomes and to be healthy and actually eat real whole food is hard.  I told you in another post that it costs me $100 a week to keep myself on a great diet that allows me to be pain free. How many people do you know that have an extra $400 a month per person in their household to eat healthy??  I know of no one! I honestly didnt think we did either, but each week its there. Eating healthy has to be a priority. Dont fall into the Diet Shake trap. To me commercial shakes are not healthy, they are not full of stuff made in a lab not what God designed to go into our body. It has to be a conscience effort each week to find the best, cheapest way to eat real, not just grab yet another package of something that someone has taken the work out of to make it easy… Think Color and lots of it!!

Tip #2 It’s ESSENTIAL that you grow your own food!!  Every family, I dont care where you live, needs to grow something you can eat on your own. YouTube is chalked full of ways to grow food with limited space. Vertical gardens, window gardens, hydroponic, container gardens, you name it, its there. They not only show you how to do it, but many include videos on how to make whatever you need to start with. There just simply is no excuse for not growing food. Seeds are 50 cents a packet or $1.00 and that money will save you a $100 if you do it efficiently. They even have these videos on using a bag of miracle grow. You cut open the top and plant in the bag. That can be thrown on a deck. So $4 and you can grow tons of lettuce, spinach, kale, radishes whatever has shallow roots. Well what is that?? Look it up. It takes work. Nothing in life is free. There is no shame in learning! Be a lifelong learner and then a sense of pride comes when you accomplish something. Its amazing!! FYI garden seed become 3 for $1 at the end of the season so stock up and put them in the freezer for the next year. They will still grow 😉

Tip #3 You need to eat less meat. I”m not saying go Vegan or Vegetarian, although my body does really really well on a Vegan diet, I’m saying meat is expensive. Most families are eating it everyday. As a farmer I know how much it costs to grow out those animals. Cows take two years before you can eat them, unless you eat veal but then its less meat. Even grassfed, I still need to buy hay at $5 a bale.. this year my rabbits and baby calf..less then 6 months old, went through 100 bales of hay. So I bought the cow for $300, spent $500 in hay, will spend another $500 easily because she is now bigger, next winter, and then I have to pay 300-500 for butcher costs. And I’ve waited two years to eat any of this meat! Not to mention the hours spent in the barn hauling poo, and food, and water. I have to mark up the meat or I cant buy another cow to grow for the next two years. We bought a two day old calf for $160..thats a lot of money and now we buy milk replacer at $70 a bag…eat less meat.

But what about Protein????!!!   Omg if I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I’d have enough to buy a full grow cow lol.  Its why diet companies make so much money!! They all claim x amount of protein per serving! The more the better it seems. Tip #4 You are getting more protein than you think with vegetables. Why do you need protein? To build muscle. So what are you doing exercise wise that is building muscle? You have to be honest because if you are not exercising at all, you will get all the protein you need just from veggies alone. As you start to exercise your body needs protein to make and build muscle. If you dont do anything at all your body easily starts burning muscle instead of fat. If you are using it, the body is like..oh wait I cant use that, she/he is using that for pushups..I’ll use this stuff over here(fat). So please do something!! Many people insist you cant live without meat. Now personally my body likes meat..about twice a week. That’s it. If I eat too much my body feels bloated and gross, but that’s me. Get a fitness pal or Fatsecret app for your phone or use it on the internet to calculate your protein consumption. If you are working out fairly regular I’ve read you need half your body weight in grams. Ex. I weight around 180 for I need to have 90 grams a day. I think this is a bit high for me but I listen to my body and its important to know what foods have proteins in them, beans, nuts, any legume really like peas, and kale, broccoli… then eat accordingly.

Tip #5 It’s important to know your own body. It took me a bit to get to where I understood what my body was telling me. When I first started juicing and doing smoothies I was tired, and lightheaded. There are a few reasons this happens. Well first my body was going through a detox time and my body takes longer to detox because of my fibro. Second reason was I wasnt eating or juicing enough. Your body needs a MINIMUM of 1200 calories. Always. Look up calorie intake calculations online for what your body needs or go to a gym and have them help you out. I need 1300-1500 calories on any given day or I get lightheaded. Lack of protein is another reason you might feel lightheaded. If you are working out and you dont fuel your body with what it needs it starts freakin out. That is why you will see lots of body builders drinking protein shakes after or during a workout. You need nutrition after you workout..right away or your body just starts grabbing it where it can, and you dont want it grabbing it from muscle! What works for me is a smoothie for breakfast and then I work out. I dont get sick because its a liquid breakfast. When I finish working out I grab my “snack” which is a juice. It has fruit sugars that can easily be used and it also has protein from the veggies. Now if I’m working extra hard or I havent fueled my body well enough I will start feeling “hungry.” That is when I grab a protein powder. I’ll talk more on that in a minute. Listen to your body, if you are hungry eat, but if you are bored, get a piece of gum lol. Dont eat whatever, have something healthy and just enough to stop you from feeling hungry.

Tip #6 Dont be afraid of Protein Powders. I dont do commercial shakes, but I do use a protein powder on occasion. If you are eating meat every day you probably wont need one, but with me only eating meat a couple times a week, I occasionally use a Vegan Protein powder. I usually put it in my juice for the day. I have learned how to tell if my body want protein for the day, by a feeling I get in the morning. Its usually that I’m hungry. I know weird, but I”m almost never hungry in the morning which is why I started doing a smoothie for breakfast. I dont get hungry normally until 10 am ish. This is the protein powder I use. 

I wish honestly it was a little more natural but its the best I can find. What I like is it is Berry flavored. Many a juice recipe gone wrong, have been saved by this powder. Its a pea and rice protein instead of whey. Its your choice what you use but because alot of my juices have fruit in them the Very Berry works well instead of a chocolate. Plus I have sensitivities to dairy, eggs, gluten, and peanuts sooooo… many whey proteins give my body a fit.

 

 

 

Commercial Diet Shakes…no thanks! (long)

December 21st, 2014. That’s the day I decided I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have fibromyalgia. I will always have it, but it doesnt define me anymore 🙂   I am so greatful for the knowledge God has led me to and the monetary funds he enables us to have each month so that I can eat healthy.  There are SOOO many diets out there. Most I dont agree with, a few I do, but the point is you have to find something you can do long term that fits your life, or you will fail.  That’s not to say you wont fail, but I dont see something not working as failing. The only failure is the lack of trying!!

As many of you know I grow organic produce. I love knowing exactly where my food comes from. I dont trust others to make stuff for me. I try to trust people to grow things I cannot but you always have the greed of making a quick buck and knowing that person could easily lie to you. When you buy something you did not grow or make yourself, its a crapshoot. This is why I chose my particular diet to lose weight rather than do commercial shakes.

I used to do commercial shakes a lot. They were so good. Tasted like chocolate or vanilla, had lot of protein. The problem was it was so good and sweet that I kept drinking many a day. Many shake companies out there make shakes that arent real food. You cant take that food in your hand, put it in a blender, dehydrate it and come up with what they have. The ingredient lists are something you need the internet to find out what they are and you cannot pronounce it even if you tried. They claim to burn fat, to stop carbs from turning to fat or sugar, speed up metabolism, and a host of other things. Their plan is to get you addicted to the sweet chocolate you’re craving because you are eating healthier and therefore you buy more. It’s sole purpose is to have you buy more so they make more money.

I dont do commercial shakes because I like to see what I am putting in my body. There are no exotic super foods that are the new craze. There are no metabolism enhancers or fat burners. My shakes use simple nutrition that I can grow myself if need to. They use things my body are adapted to living in Indiana. They are things, that should I grow a garden, are now free nutrition. They are real tangible things I can hold in my hand, eat raw if I choose, or put into a blender or juicer. They are a way of life I can continue to do for the rest of my life.

Make what you put into your body, something that is do-able for the long term, not a quick fix.

 

Happy Homesteading!!   😀

Juice On!!

Today I’m going to share info with you. Info that I spent time searching up that will save you time. I hope you sat down and watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netlix or hulu. If not please make it a point to do it. Dont worry about watching the second one, just watch the first.

Joe Cross has the best site I’ve found for starting to juice. I would suggest if you are starting out to print out is 3 day juice plan and start by using those recipes to juice once a day or however many times you want to. Here is the page with the plans. http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/rebooting/plans/  If you dont have a juicer there are many smoothie recipes on his site as well. Juicing is better if you are going to do it because your body doesnt need to digest anything. It will absorb the juice within 15 minutes. When you blend you still get the juice but with it is the pulp and your body has to take the time and effort to digest the pulp. Depending on why you are doing it, its not always a bad thing. For me my body needed rests throughout the day because I take a long time to digest proteins. So I smoothie or juice for breakfast. I actually get sick if I eat actual food for breakfast. A juice allows my body to take the time it needs to get started in the morning by not having to digest hardly anything. I then do my “juice” for the day and eat a light lunch and light dinner. If I’m hungry after dinner, which is usually my binge time, I will try really hard to grab a handful of seeds or other nuts (not peanuts) because again my body takes forever to digest them so I am full until bedtime.

Here is a great guide to colors of foods and what they do. https://dnetproxy.appspot.com/juicing-for-health.com/color-food-groups.html  This will help you as you put together juices for yourself. I ended up copy pasting into a word document and then printing it out on card stock as references for myself. Many of Joe’s recipes combine a couple, but he sticks to color juices which usually have more of that particular color. My week usually looks like 1 Purple day, 1 orange day, 1 red day, 1 Yellow day, 1 green day and then two days are free for whatever juice I can make with sale items. So lets say blueberries are on sale and black grapes..yup I hit the jackpot this week! I was able to actually make a blue/black day. I try to make two green days if I can and then most of the time I have another orange day. I save my white veggies for dinners and lunches except I drink 8 oz of ginger water each morning while I make my breakfast juice. There are many mornings I am not even remotely hungry. If I drink that ginger water when I wake up. It actually gets me hungry!

Another great site I found the other day is this http://www.justonjuice.com/ It has recipes and stuff on it as well. Their plans and grocery lists suck, but lots of good info you can read while drinking a juice or something!   😉

Those of you that are struggling with multiple food allergies, please look into Leaky Gut. I cant find the article I read last week but it said that once your gut is damaged, one food leaks through. You become intolerant because your body attacks the proteins leaking through. So you eliminate that food, only to find yet another you are intolerant to. Well that is because your gut is not fixed and the food you used to be fine eating has not started leaking through because you took away the other. Now your body is fighting against the new food leaking through. It causes you to keep eliminating “intolerant foods” and pretty soon more items are leaking through. Leaky Gut is a horrid thing. I believe I have this and that is the reason I have my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Leaky Gut takes forever to heal and you need to be on a super strict diet but little to no hope of eating your food again. By eating fruits and vegetables and juicing, for me, it has helped repair my gut enough that I can eat one of my trigger food, not much, once a week. I usually do greek yogurt because it has a lot of bacteria in it that my gut needs. It also talked about rotation of food and to not eat the same food for 4 days but I cant do that. I found this is working and I just keep away from the foods that cause me issues.

As I sit and type I’m regretting the chicken I had in my wrap for lunch.. argh. I found also that by adding Apple Cider Vinegar to my weekly juicing, that helps. If I eat something that is making me feel bad, like this chicken…. I just make a juice that has that in it, and it helps break that down some. Any acidic fruit helps me really. Lemon and ACV are the best. Its along the same line as what a marinade does to meat.  Here is the juice I make when I eat meat. I usually sip on it throughout the night after dinner.

Digestion Drink

• 4 Carrots
• 1 Orange Peeled
• 1 Granny Smith apple(use it because its more bitter)
• 1 TBS Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother)
• 1 small Piece of Ginger

Juice the 4 carrots, orange and apple. Add in ACV and stir. Ginger you have two options. If you like ginger you can juice it too. If not my suggestion is to take some ginger and cut it up. Add a little water into the bottom of the jar to cover part of the ginger. Let that sit overnight and then you can pour off the water into your juice to add the flavor and enzymes. It really needs the ginger to help cover the ACV though so try to add some in. Its great for digestion   🙂

I’ll share one more recipe that I got from an ebook. I made this last night and this is my new go-to pudding. I cant eat pudding anymore..its tragic but dairy hates me although I love it! BTW I hate avocado’s..like mega hate but this is awesome so try it even if you hate them because this is a great way to get some into your diet!

Chocolate Orange Mousse

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1 banana
• 2-3 TBS unsweetened Cocoa powder
• 1-2 TBS Maple syrup
• juice of one orange
• 1/2 tsp orange zest

Blend avocado, banana, cocoa powder, taste and add maple syrup. Add juice of an orange and blend again. Eat or chill in the fridge.

I found that my blender did not want to blend those three ingredients. I would suggest juicing the orange first. Then put the liquid in the blender with the ingredients and blend. In a pinch you can use orange juice. I added my orange pulp into my blender and I also waited on the maple syrup until last and stirred it in by hand. This dessert is 340 cal per serving and serves 2. When I made mine I put it into 3 jelly jars and got 3 servings. Avocados are high in fat and cals but its the good kind so eat up..just not everyday!

 

Happy Homesteading!!   😀