Ten Reasons to Love Trim Healthy Mama

I've been trying to put into words to friends and family why it is that I love this new lifestyle change that I've made for my family and I. Trim Healthy Mama, as the books says, is not just a fad, it is a way of life! 

So here are my top ten reasons to love Trim Healthy Mama:

1. Chocolate

Never have I seen a diet (for lack of a better word) where you are allowed to eat chocolate in greater amounts than that of a chocolate kiss without being made to feel guilty. I get to enjoy things like skinny chocolate, chocolate nut slab, and (oh my word!) chocolate volcano mudslide muffin in a mug....all without a tinge of guilt!

2. Family friendly

I'm a mom of many, and the one thing I did not want was a diet that made me have to make my family and I separate meals every day. Creating twice the work making my family a delicious meal while I have to sit and eat rabbit food or cardboard is not my idea of enjoyable. And while I generally eat something different for breakfast, lunch, and snacks than my family, (because usually those meals are pretty quick and easy to fix for both of us), I'm able to make one simple meal for dinner, with just an extra side dish of homemade bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes for the ones who are not wanting or needing to lose weight. 

3. Homemade

This may not be a favorite of everyone, but one thing I love about this way of eating is it still feeds my need to make all things homemade. And yet if I really need to I can buy things ready made. But I can still make things like homemade dressings, bread, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, etc. As well as delicious homemade meals for everyone. 

4. Tweak-ability

I have never used the word tweak more than when I started THM. You tweak things to the taste you want, and you can tweak meals to make them THM friendly. You can take a basic recipe such as the chocolate nut slab (pg 372), and add different ingredients for a different flavor, such as almonds and coconut for an almond joy treat, or peanut butter for a Reese's peanut butter treat, etc. While I've made several of the THM recipes in the book, I've managed to take many of our family favorite meals and adjust them in different ways to make them on plan. 

5. Chocolate

Oh, wait, I already mentioned this one :p It bears repeating though. How many of us have gone on diets, starving ourselves and feeling miserable, only to hit a certain time of the month or a stressful moment, and crash and burn....and what is the first thing we usually turn to...chocolate. With THM, that's not a problem. 

6. Results

I first learned about THM in the weeks just before I had my little one over 2 months ago. After having her, I purchased the book, and started just trying a few things out, while still mostly eating our regular diet, and I still saw amazing results in those 7 weeks. And since really getting on board a few weeks ago, it's even more amazing. It feels almost effortless! Another result is for my nursing baby, I have had an overabundance of good healthy milk for her! 

7. Energy

Since starting THM, I can truly say I have never had more energy. In fact I'm struggling with getting enough sleep, not because I have a 2 month old baby, but because I have so much excess energy! In the weeks since starting this plan, I have walked miles without tiring, ran with my kids, and my house has never looked cleaner.  (although I do have 5 children, and it regularly turns in to a disaster area) but I have the strength and energy to get up and deal with it, and see to it that I stay on top of the kids for keeping up with their chores. 

8. Ease of Use

I won't deny that there is a definite learning curve here. That's why it took me a good solid 7 weeks postpartum to decide to fully devote myself to this way of eating. You have to learn the lingo and all the particulars of the plan, and you have to find your own way with it. What works for one family may not work for yours. But once you find your way, it's extremely simple and doable. And this is coming from a woman who gets extremely overwhelmed when things get complicated. 

9. Community

I think one of the biggest helps in the adventure for me, has been the whole THM community. You can join the boards either at their forum or on facebook, and you can get answers, encouragement, and lots of tips and recipes, even from the authors themselves. You can go on there and share a struggle and within moments have a barrage of  encouraging words from women who know what you're going through! Not to mention all the great recipes that you can find on pinterest!

10. Did I mention chocolate?

So ya'll can see, I'm a fan. I'm loving this whole new way of life for myself and my family! I hope you can be encouraged to look into it if you are looking for some positive changes! 

Blessings, 

sara

Trim Healthy Mama-2 Weeks In

Well, I am now officially 2 weeks in to this trim healthy mama adventure, (see my getting started post here) and I gotta say, it's definitely getting easier. I have had my moments, a few cheats here and there, but nothing major. The big news is that I am down a total of 13 pounds in two weeks of doing this! I couldn't be happier! I feel great! I have more energy than I've ever had, and I'm getting so many compliments and comments on how noticeable my weight loss is! 

Some other milestones other than the 13 pound weight loss are:

-I am now in the 170's! I haven't seen that number since I was a junior in high school!

-I can now almost fit into a size 14. It's still a little snug, but it won't be long! 

-I can also comfortably wear a medium shirt now, down from an extra large!

-I ran with my kids without the usual horrible knee pain following today!

Here's a picture of me and my little lady taken before church the other day. 

Some things I'm noticing, good and bad, about my eating habits, are:

-I'm learning to listen to my body, and eat the right fuel at the right times. I can tell when I'm really needing an E meal, as I will suddenly have that "just hit a brick wall" feeling. 

-I've learned that I can not skip a meal, because I will end up crashing and eating whatever I can get to first, healthy or not. 

-I've also learned to keep easy snacks around, even if it's just veggies, cheese, or nuts. When hunger strikes, if I'm not able to make something right then, little things like that help hold me off until I get back to the kitchen. 

-I need to keep snacky things around at meal times also, because I've found that I tend to graze too much while I'm cooking. So having little bits of on plan foods sitting out while I'm fixing dinner, keeps me from going for the bad stuff. 

-And lastly I've learned, it is actually possible to use your blender more than 4 times a day :)

Here are some of my favorite THM meals, snacks, or drinks that I enjoyed this week:

Cookie dough greek yogurt

1 tbsp all natural peanut butter, Stevia to taste, 1 tbsp mini dark chocolate chips, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 single serving plain Greek Yogurt (about a cup)

Mix everything but the chocolate chips up. I found the blender did a better job at this than I could. Add the chocolate chips, (I did use sugar free chocolate chips from the store, until I can find or make a better THM alternative), and then put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, and it's delicious! This was a pinterest recipe that did not have a link to share, but thank you to whoever created this yummy dish! 

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Mint Green Tea Latte'

From the THM files

Steep green tea or mint green tea in 8-10 oz of boiled water for 3 minutes. Cover the mug with a small plate to hold in the heat. 

1 Tbs coconut oil (extra virgin recommended)

1 Tbs butter (unsalted, grass fed recommended)

1-2 Tbs of cream

Stevia to taste

Dash of vanilla

3-5 drops of peppermint essential oil or 1/2 tsp peppermint extract if using plain green tea

Dash of salt (optional

8 oz hot green tea or mint green tea

3-4 oz unsweetened almond milk

Blend for 90 seconds. 

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Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Shake

Go over to Kristy's for this wonderful recipe and lots of others that she has come up with for THM. It really does taste like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! Yum!

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Zucchini Pizza Sticks

These are super easy! All you have to do is slice your zucchinis in half , scoop out a little bit of the inside to make a little well for your toppings, top with sauce, cheese, and whatever else you like. We just did turkey pepperoni, and some seasonings. Throw it in the oven at 350* for about 40 minutes. It literally takes me like 10 minutes to put this together. This is another pinterest recipe that had no link, but it's super easy!

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Earth Milk

Pg 425 of THM

I don't have a picture of this, because to be honest it looks just plain gross. But I decided to brave it this week, and as I prepared myself for the worst, because even though I'm not a picky person, the combination of ingredients in this very different drink, I just could not imagine it being palatable. But, no joke, it's not that bad at all! The name earth milk definitely suits it. It has a very earthy taste, (never knew what "earthy" tasted like until I tried this recipe :) and the addition of the chocolate makes it taste pretty good. Either way, it's drinkable and worth a try for the extreme nutrients in this healthy drink. I keep mine in the fridge, and a few times a day get a good swig of it to help boost my green power, and give me energy. 

That's all for this THM update. Can't wait to share more with you in the coming weeks! I've even been working on tweaking a few of our family favorites to be THM friendly! 

Blessings, 

sara

Learning Notes-July 15-19, 2013

Here's a mapping out of first week of school. We're of course still trying to figure things out, but this is a good start for our first week. This week and the coming weeks, will include lots of review, and we'll be taking things slow to get started. This is just a rough outline of what I hope to cover, we will cover more or less depending on how each day goes. I'm so excited for a new year! 

*Family read alouds, poetry, unit study work, and activities:
     -Bible-daily Proverbs; Keys for Kids; Character Building for Families-Orderliness ; Family Bible study-Romans; Daily Psalms reading
     -Memory Work-Character building verses-Proverbs 20:11 ; Salvation verses-The Roman Road to Salvation; Speed drills; Poetry memorization-My Kingdom by Robert Louis Stevenson
     -Poetry-A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
     -Literature-Chronicles of Narnia-The Horse and His Boy
     -Littles Read alouds-Little House in the Big Woods, as well as lots of short books throughout the day.
     -Unit Study read alouds-Middle ages-The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England; The Kitchen Knight; Select sections of Oxford's The Middle Ages; Geography will be utilized as we go along and look up various locations we read about
     -Unit study activities-Stain glass art; Making a castle

*The Three R's: 
  -Nicholas-
     -Reading-Devotional reading-Boyhood and Beyond; Unit study reading-The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood; Free reading 
     -Writing-Daily copy work from selected passages taken directly from our reading; Dictation 2-3 times a week from copy work; Cursive practice at least once a week (He knows cursive, but needs continued practice); Typing practice-twice a week; Daily writing-He must write every single day. All but two days of writing will be his choice, with two days of focused writing working on specific composition skills. This week we'll be focusing in on the paragraph, specifically working on topic sentences. Grammar focus-The seven parts of speech and making sure he's remembering the basics of punctuation and capitalization.
     -Arithmetic-Khan academy review; 5-a-day reviews; Speed drills-three times a week; Maximum math activities; Life of Fred reading once a week
     -Other-Keepers of the Faith Badge work-Right now he's working on orienteering along with Bible memory work

  -Madelynn-
She is going to be working on doing exercises to help her with her cross dominance every day to help her with her cross dominance issues. I'll go further into this as we see some progress.
     -Reading-Devotional reading-Beautiful Girlhood; Unit study reading- Not One Damsel in Distress-Molly Whuppie; Free reading
     -Writing-Daily copy work from selected passages taken directly from our reading; Dictation 1-2 times a week from copy work; Cursive practice at least once a week (She also knows cursive, but needs continued practice); Typing practice-twice a week; Daily writing-She must write every single day. All but two days of writing will be her choice, with two days of focused writing working on specific composition skills. This week we'll be focusing in on the paragraph, specifically working on topic sentences. Grammar focus-The seven parts of speech and making sure she's remembering the basics of punctuation and capitalization.
     -Arithmetic- 5-a-day review; speed drills; Maximum math activities; Life of Fred reading once a week
     -Other-Keepers of the Faith Badge work-Sewing

  -Emily-
She has really struggled this past year with school work. We found out it was because she was not hearing most of what was being said. She's since had surgery to put tubes in her ears that has drastically improved her hearing, however she is very behind in her reading and math skills, so we are working this year to get her caught up. She does have excellent handwriting and can proficiently write all her letters, many in cursive already, she's still not fully reading them all yet though.
     -Reading and Writing-Learning Language Arts through Literature; Activities from The Three R's by Ruth Beechick. 
     -Arithmetic-We will be doing many hands on math activities using Math on the Level and Maximum Math. Focus for this week-reviewing comparisons, classifying and sorting, and patterns. We will also play lots of math games. 
     -Other-Keepers of the Faith Badge-coloring

-Jacob-
He's a preschooler. My only plans for him is to include him in any learning we are already doing. Making sure he's doing lots of coloring, playing with play dough, and reading to him as much as I can every day. He already knows through no teaching of mine, all of his letters and their sounds, and has even started sounding out words. I will be following his lead and teaching him as I feel like he's ready for it. He also is very good with numbers and adding and subtracting. He knows all his shapes, and is like a little sponge always soaking up information. 
     

Homeschool Planning for 2013-2014

I guess I'm a creature of habit. Or maybe it's because nothing else seems to measure up the way I think it should.

We seem to follow the same pattern every school year though...We start off strong doing our own thing, tossing (most) of the school-ish looking books, and just living more of a homeschool is lifeschool approach. But then sometime around March, April, or May, I start doubting my methods, and start looking for something better.

This year, Simply Charlotte Mason caught my attention again, and we started using many of the resources from there, most we already had on hand. We really enjoyed it, and while I took a lot away from it, and other books like Karen Andreola's "A Charlotte Mason Companion", it still lacked the enjoyment of what we were doing before. So, while I was on my babymoon over the last few weeks, I decided it was time to start getting back to the basics of what has worked for us, and what we have really enjoyed. 

Here we are  at the cusp of a new school year. We start every year about mid-July while the weather is still scorching, and we can't spend much time outside, reserving more breaks for the cooler fall and spring weather. Though we really don't focus on grade levels too much here, this year I will be blessed to have an 8th grader, a 6th grader, a 3rd grader, and a preschooler, along with a baby girl in tow.

Most of what I'll be putting down here may sound familiar if you've read my blog long. But it's always nice to sit down and get all your thoughts down about the upcoming year to give you a fresh outlook. 

Here are our plans for 2013-2014:

Basically what school for us boils down to are the three R's....Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. All other subjects fall under those three things. 

One of my biggest resources for teaching my kids!

So let's start with Reading:

Bible reading and study is the most important subject we can cover every day. If nothing else gets done, my goal is to at the very least, have read our Bibles. Here are the ways we will do this:

-Every child who is a proficient reader will have a personal time of study each morning. My oldest son is going to be reading the book Boyhood and Beyond this year as part of his devotional time, and my oldest daughter will be reading through Beautiful Girlhood. They will also work on personal memorization goals. My non-readers will have a short devotional with mom every day where we can read and talk about the Bible together, so that they may understand it better.

-We will have a time of study together as a family. Every morning at the breakfast table, we will read through the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds with the day of the month, as well as a short devotional, probably something from Keys for Kids, or something else we have around. During our family learning time we will focus in on character study. After dinner we will have a time of reading through our Bibles and discussing various chapters together as I learned from the Maxwells cds. At bedtime, we read a chapter from Psalms. We will cover many memory verses, and my hope is to have at least one whole chapter memorized by the end of the year along with several other key verses. We'll also work daily on learning new hymns. 


In addition to Bible reading, we will cover history, science, etc using unit studies. We decided to try covering larger time periods to start off with over single events or people in history, such as our first unit on the Middle ages. We will alternate with a science unit throughout the year. For most of our units we will all work together, but I do plan to have my older two do at least a couple units on their own this year. My oldest specifically will cover a unit on our state history, and on civics. For civics, we plan on using the book Under God. It's an excellent study for kids as an introduction to our government system and giving students the understanding what our duties as citizens of this country are.  

Another huge resource! So much information to help teach your children.

-The way I usually handle our family unit studies is we have a spine of some sort on our topic of choice that I read aloud, while the older two read a book or more on their own time. My 3rd grader listens in and takes part in some of the activities, but her focus is mostly on becoming a proficient reader. I expect the olders to report back to me through oral or written narration, or any other creative way they want to show me about what they've read. 

-For individual units, the children will read 2-3 books on their unit, and as before report back to me in some way what they've learned. 

-Each of my children who are reading, or are still learning to read, have free time literature that they read on their own time. 

-We also have a family literature read aloud. Right now we're in the middle of reading through the Chronicles of Narnia together. 

-At bedtime, in addition to a chapter from Psalms, we will read a poem (or a few) from a selected poet or poetry book. 

-I have a separate read aloud to read with the younger group.

-For my kids learning to read, we us multiple resources including Learning Language Arts through Literature, Bob books, and whatever I find helpful. 

Writing is just an extension of our reading: 

My kids have learned one thing this last year.....they must write something every. single. day. That's not including copywork or dictation that we do to work on learning to write well. I do not care what they write (within reason, no hate letters to the media or opposing political parties....although....just kidding:) Here's some of the writing they do:

-First there's of course the copywork and dictation. This comes directly from something we're reading. It could be a memory verse, a poem, or a paragraph from a book we're reading. Sometimes we focus in on one copy work for the week to learn dictation from, but as they get older they will sometimes do 2-3, or sometimes only dictations. It just depends on their level. We pick out selected areas to focus in on grammar work that they need to learn through the week as well. This is assigned work daily, and as I said, not considered their daily writing, only their writing practice. 

-So in addition to that, they write daily. They start off just writing a sentence or two and move up to eventually writing whole pages daily, or sometimes they can be a bit more creative doing things like advertisements, plays, or speeches. They can also write letters, they can journal, or they can write something to go along with our unit. I will sometimes give them prompts. I love the book Story Starters by Karen Andreola.

-Typing is part of writing too. Especially in this digital age, it's important to have keyboarding skills. I don't allow them to do all their writing on the computer, but do let them do so occasionally. 

-Nature study doesn't necessarily fit under writing, but it's one way we put pencil to paper. Studying God's great outdoors is an amazing way for you and your kids to connect with God and learn so much. It teaches so much more than science. It teaches patience and teaches them to have a watchful eye. We try to get out at least once a week to do this. We keep lots of field guides around for whatever we may find. 

And then there's math:

Math has been my hardest subject to teach. We had found that Math Mammoth worked the best for us this past year, and if I had my choice we would continue with it. But we came to realize that it was costing us an arm and a leg to print. It wouldn't be so bad if we could print in gray scale, but when we did that, many of the necessary illustrations didn't show up. So we are going to be doing things a little different. Our primary curriculum for math will be Math on the Level. I really love MOTL. It's a great curriculum. It's just hard for me because it's so hands on, and takes a lot of daily preparation. One way I've found to help with that, is I'm going to be using Khan Academy to help teach the more difficult topics, and then review them using our MOTL "five a days". They will cover speed drills a few times a week as well. In addition to that we will do some math reading using books from the library, and Life of Fred. 

And that about covers our school year. I'll do some more posts later on, on how I've organized our school "stuff". I'm also going to be discussing some ways I'm working on healing my oldest daughter's dyslexia. And I'm hoping, though not promising, to do a weekly post on our Learning Journal covering things we're doing during the week.

Blessings, 
sara

My New Trim Healthy Adventure

It seems to be the big thing sweeping the internet. Have you heard of it? Trim Healthy Mama. I was doubtful when my friend shared it with me, but decided to look a little more in to it. I had to admit with all the glowing testimonies that I was seeing, it was hard not to want to give it a try. But I was just really grasping a hold of the whole Nourishing Traditions way of eating, so did I really want to switch things up already? 

But as I read, I found that eating the THM way was pretty closely related. I was reading things about fermenting foods, eating sourdough, and using stevia to sweeten things, things I was already starting to do....I wasn't so sure about eating things like fat free yogurt or no longer drinking whole milk, but I decided to dive in and give it a try, and bought the less expensive e-book version. 

Now to back up a little bit, I want to share a little bit about my weighty history. I was an average sized child, never had to deal with weight issues until I got into high school. I started high school weighing around 140. An average weight for someone my size and build. But after meeting my now husband, he quickly changed the way I ate. I would try to order just one soft taco, and he would tell me I needed to eat more and order me two. I joke with him that my weight is all his fault :) but truthfully I enjoyed eating more. Slowly, but surely, however, the weight started to pile on. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was up to almost 200 lbs. I got married in high school during my senior year, and like most brides tried to lose the weight for my wedding day, but I never seemed to succeed. 

Thus began my dieting ups and downs. With my first pregnancy, about a year after we were married, I found something unusual happen. Instead of further gaining weight, I lost weight to the point that I was 20-30 lbs lighter after having the baby than I was when I got pregnant. But soon after, the weight slowly crept back up again. And with each succeeding pregnancy, the same thing would happen. I would lose weight during pregnancy, and gain it all back afterwards. 

After my fourth baby, I started having health problems. I was always very tired. I was always eating and snacking, and I was quickly packing on the pounds with my weight topping out at around 240 lbs. I found out I had an enlarged thyroid, and went through some tests to find out why, but nothing turned up too serious. I did find out it would make weight loss nearly impossible, and settled into a depression over it all. 

This is me last year at my girl's birthday party. My son thought it was funny to drench me with water after the water game we had played :)

But then a wonderful thing happened, I got pregnant with baby number five last August/September. I was so happy! And the other great news, my thyroid was back to normal! And as in past pregnancies, I started to slowly lose weight during my pregnancy. By the end of my pregnancy I weighed in at 220 lbs. 

Here I am at 39 weeks pregnant with my fifth little one. 

It was then I was introduced to THM. I got the book a week or so after the baby was born, and started reading through it. I decided to play around with a few of the recipes, and give it a try...nothing serious, just as I had the time and energy. By the time I was 2 weeks postpartum, I was already at 200 lbs. I continued to try new recipes, and at 6 weeks postpartum, I weighed in at 190. That's 50 lbs less than what I weighed when I got pregnant ya'll! 

And here I am last week at the zoo with all my kiddos, 50 lbs lighter! 

So starting this last Sunday, I decided to fully devote myself to this new way of eating. I still am not sure what to think about all the fat free options, but I'm willing to give it a try. After all, I feel it's more important for me to get to a healthy weight, more than it is to worry so much about a few changes in the types of foods I'm eating. I'm still eating good, healthy whole foods, some are just with the extra fat removed. 

I struggled at first in how to eat this way and include my family, but I'm quickly finding my way through it, and feel the Lord is really blessing my efforts. I also found that having store bought pizza in my house is a recipe for disaster, and will fully admit, I had 2 cheats during this week during dinner time....lesson learned :) 

I'll be 33 in about 6 weeks, and my goal is to be at or around 170 lbs by then. I'm nursing a little one though and am not going to sacrifice my milk supply in an effort to drop the pounds too quickly, but it's nice to have a goal set, and I will be fully happy with whatever successes I have. 

What I'm hoping to do here is share with you as I go along each week my successes and my failures, as well as recipes that I've THM-ified to fit our family, along with some tips and helps that are working for me. I'm really looking forward to the changes that are in store! 

Blessings, 

Sara