I enjoyed this podcast interview with Dr. Morehead, from the Wise Traditions Podcast series. After you listen to it, you will understand the different energies that come from food: cooling, cleansing, warming, and building. What types of energy do you want to eat as you get older to be healthier? You will know after listening to this episode.
Here is a copy of the description copied from the Wise Traditions podcast page:
“There is more to food than meets the eye! Food has energy that ascends and descends, and warms and cools our bodies. Conventional western medicine focuses on the physical. But Dr. Kenneth Morehead explains how limited that approach can be. He is a licensed doctor of oriental medicine and is a nationally board-certified acupuncture orthopedist. As such, he has quite a different take on how to approach wellness!
“In today’s episode, he covers a myriad of topics, originating from Asian medicinal principles. He looks at how specific foods affect our vitality. He discusses how our eating habits and diet should change as we age. And he discusses the effects of a variety of foods and how they can help address health concerns. Dr. Morehead’s main objective is to teach us to pay attention to our bodies so that we can achieve better balance and health.”
The above video features the authors of the Trim Healthy Mama book explaining the main principles of the diet.
Who is the Trim Healthy Mama diet for?
-people who want to get off insulin
-people who want to get off thyroid medication
-people who want to lose weight without sacrificing taste
-people with a sugar addiction who want to cut it off but can’t bear to be in a life without desserts and sweet treats
-people who have lost weight with low carb diets but are now having hormone imbalances. They need more carbs but don’t want to gain weight back that tends to come with eating carbs.
-people who want some yummy new recipes to spice up their lives!
I have been following the Trim Healthy Mama facebook group. It is so cool to see so many people out there healing using the THM diet, not just by losing weight, but by improving other issues. Every day people are posting pictures of their victories. Some involve weight loss, some involve other health issues. Here is one story shared by a woman about her senior citizen mother who it sounds like was put on a THM diet. The woman who posted the story says that when she moved her mom into her home to live with her, her mother “was over 350 lbs, required major amounts of insulin & thyroid along with at least 20 other meds. She had osteoporosis & B12 deficiency. Due to eating non-processed, healthy foods, (I’m her sole caregiver so she doesn’t have much choice) 😉, today she weighs 237, has normal bone density, 1/3 her thyroid meds, 1/4 the insulin, & no longer has high cholesterol! How’s that for a victory?”
I have extended the deadline for the Trim Healthy Mama cookbook giveaway. Please go over here to make a comment at the bottom of the post so you are considered entered into the giveaway.
Is one of your New Year’s Resolutions to fix healthful food for your family and eat it yourself? I love the above podcast episode from Wise Traditions because it makes that resolution sound sooo totally doable. It features Kelly the Kitchen Kop. She tells her story of how she went from eating fast food to being a real food guru. She saw tremendous changes in her son’s behavior when she switched him over to real food.
Kelly has a great blog with some free handouts on how to more easily fix real food for your family so you aren’t in the kitchen all day.
This video presentation from the 2016 Agency-based Education Conference fascinates me. It is a summary of the book, the Seven Myths of Education. When we understand these myths we are less prone to fall to all the educational fads that come out. Enjoy this!
Our homeschool routine started back up for the new semester. I took three glorious weeks off before that! It was a fabulous Christmas holiday with our big kids home from college. Oh it was so glorious!!! I miss their scholarly and creative examples so much.Of course we also miss their brother who is on a mission in Argentina. We got to hear from him twice though, on Christmas Day and then two days later from the airport on his way to Argentina. Then a random person texted me a picture of him from the Atlanta airport. It’s so amazing how technology can bring us together! Apparently the person was a Latter-day Saint who recognized the missionaries, all 21 of them flying to Argentina (!), and took the time to ask my son for my phone number so she could text me the picture.
The week after Christmas we had a lot of family time, going to the temple, playing games, and watching movies. My firstborn made French fries for all his younger siblings with his new deep fat fryer gift so he was a hit. We had rainy weather the week of Christmas and now everything is sunny again. Much as it was fun to stay up late watching movies and sleeping in, it feels good to be getting back into our responsible rhythm.
My 21 daughter sewed this creature/pillow thing as a Christmas gift for her little brother. Apparently it is a sloth so my son calls it “Sleuth the Sloth.” So cute!
I have been homeschooling now over for over 18 years so I find that sometimes it is challenging to find the zest and joy that I used to find in it so easily. I forget that what I told the older kids hasn’t dribbled down to the younger ones through osmosis, so I have to repeat myself. I know this is just part and parcel of having a wide spread of ages and lots of kids. So I have been wondering about what I can do to bring some joy back into my homeschooling life. These are things I have done off and on over the years but I want to do a lot more of and really create a habit of them with the younger ones! So here are three things to do a lot more of:
Play more music. I have all these CDs of songs to learn basic facts like the times tables, capital cities, other geography facts, the bones of the body, etc. Sometimes I think my kids have learned them all and then some random moment comes when I find out they don’t. So time to get these out again and play while the kids are going through their morning routine. I also have lots of big band music CDs, musical CDs and classical music CDs so I want to play those too. I think the key will be to delegate to the kids the task of actually getting the CD into the player and playing it.
2. Have cocoa and books. I read about some blogger having “coffee and books” time during the winter. This is basically where you sit and drink coffee and read picture books to your kids as part of breakfast. I’m not a coffee drinker so I think we will start doing “cocoa and books” to gently ease us into the routine of homeschool mornings.
3.Require my kids do some piano every day. We got the Hoffman Academy membership as a Christmas gift from the grandparents. This is my latest incarnation of how to get my kids learning piano. I want to also play more of it myself to inspire them. I was asked to accompany a men’s trio singing Emmaneal for our church Christmas Day program. Even though it was slightly terrifying to play Sally Deford at her finest, I left out a lot of notes but still followed along, playing when I could, and enjoyed the thrill of creating beautiful music. I want my kids to enjoy creating music on the piano too so it’s time for me to require a bit.
4. Play more games as part of our homeschool. I have a ton of learning games for math, language arts skills, science, and history facts. I keep waiting for the kids to play them on their own but it never happens. It’s time for me to actually sit down with the game and invite people to play, maybe with a few treats to help bribe them to play what at first they claim is a “boring game” with mom. I used to play games with my older kids and I got out of the habit. I read this post here that inspired me.
Some things to keep:
1 Requiring 4 pages of mathusee every day. I have used mathusee since my 23 year old was 5. I’ve seen the results of not requiring math with his younger sibling and requiring it with the 23 year old and their sister, age 21. The two kids that I required math to be done every day without a break got higher ACT scores than the one who I didn’t. Math worksheets (in the form of pages in a mathusee books) are just one of those things that we do every day in our homeschool.
2. Requiring a few more things in addition to math before free play. These two other things are a page of handwriting and an hour of reading silently on one’s own, or listening to a book on CD for an hour. Then for my youngest guy who is not a fluent reader yet I will keep requiring that we read one page of him reading aloud alone so he can continue to bone up on his phonics decoding skills. So for this guy who is working on becoming a fluent reader I like to get him books on CD like The Tale of Desperaux or The Saturdays from the public library.
3.Reading aloud during dishes time. I read aloud from a book of my choice while the kids do the dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is a great way for me to keep tabs on who is doing what in the kitchen, instead of me leaving the room to do some other task and hoping for the best. It also allows us to bond over literature and I get time to sit and rest! I do sometimes have to stop reading so they can talk to each other about who is doing what. I also have them inspect each other’s work. Right now we are reading Laddie by Gene Stratton-Porter. It’s also on youtube so at least for this book I can pull it up on youtube when I need a break from reading aloud.
4. Keep singing! I have renewed my love for singing. I went for years not involving singing in our homeschool because I felt I was too busy or depressed to sing. I realize more and more that singing helps me feel more empowered to control my time and not get depressed! After the breakfast dishes are done I love to gather the kids around the piano and sing. It has been a tradition for years that the first song we sing is “Let Us All Sing” by Dr. Seuss. One year for Christmas I picked up the Dr. Seuss songbook at the thrift store and this is the first song in the book. It warmed my heart when I was talking about the power of singing when the big kids were here over Christmas. I said something like, “Singing is so good for you…” and then they spontaneously broke out into singing that song from their childhood. I am so thrilled that they still remember it! We also sing a hymn, some Disney songs, and then songs from the LDS Church magazines or my old Joy School books from Richard and Linda Eyre.
Something to drop:
Me getting on the Internet before lunch dishes are over. I get too distracted.
So that’s my list. What are things you want to start, drop, and keep?
Let’s fantasize about books! What do you want to read for 2017? Forget resolutions, think about what to read! With my new commitments of doing a teen statesmanship club and an online 5 pillar class, I am not committing to reading all of these. But a girl can dream can’t she? Here are some books topping my “I-would-love-to-read-these-books” list:
The first, Caught Up in a Story, is about how parents can use books as an ally in “shaping a child to love what is beautiful, pursue what is good, and grasp what is true.
Drawing on her own storyformed childhood and her long study of children’s literature, Sarah Clarkson explores and celebrates the soul-forming power of story to help children imagine, and live, a great story of their own,” according to the blurb on goodreads.com. I just picked up a copy from the public library today! I’m so excited!
I saw the one above on my sister’s goodreads.com list. She voted for it as the best picture book for 2016. It’s about a little girl who befriends a boy and they go off on an adventure into a world of stories.
Another on my sister’s to-read list. It was authorized by L.M. Montgomery’s heirs as a prequel to Anne of Green Gables. Hmm…will it disappoint or live up to the original books? We shall see!
This one is how Anne Carroll Moore created libraries for kids. I love books like this about real people who create wonderful legacies.
From goodreads.com, “Here is a book which will teach you the ‘how’ of becoming a Book of Mormon expert. Any normal human brain can do it. Yes, even yours.
This book outlines each step necessary for you to get out of the vicious circle of reading and forgetting, reading and forgetting. It will lead you by the hand step-by-step, utilizing 5 minutes a day of regular, serious, concentrated study. It will also show you how to use other, mentally-wasted, secondary time for reinforcement, to make all you learn in the 5 minutes a day permanent.” Sounds fascinating!
Years ago my niece gave us Jon Scieszka’s True Story of the Three Little Pigs to my kids for Christmas. We enjoyed it a lot. The above book is Jon’s autobiography. I picked it up at the library before the holiday, and just haven’t gotten to it. It looks like a lot of fun! I’m sure I won’t approve of some of the crude moments mentioned in the goodreads reviews, but the other parts will make me laugh. I am a mom of five boys so…what more can I say? Jon grew up with lots of brothers so I am sure I will relate to this. I need more stuff to get my reluctant boys to read. This might fit the bill.
Again, from goodreads.com, “A SANE WOMAN’S GUIDE TO RAISING A LARGE FAMILY is written from the practical, experienced perspective of a mother of ten and has thoughtful, helpful answers to important questions, such as:
Can a mother meet the needs of multiple children without drowning in sheer neediness?
How can a moderate income stretch to include more children?
How can you make space in your home work for you?
What are some ideas for handling mountains of laundry?
How can you preserve time for yourself and your marriage?
How can you manage multiple children and their activities?
Mary Ostyn is founder of Owlhaven (http://owlhaven.net), a hugely popular place to share parenting tips and funny mothering moments. As mom to ten children-six of whom are adopted-she is a writer for Adoption.com (http://ethiopia.adoptionblogs.com). A contributing writer to the Larger Families blog (http://largerfamilies.blogspot.com), she lives with her family in Idaho.”
I wonder if these gardening tips here will work in the dry soil of southern AZ?
I’m always looking for fun ways to get my kids interested more in math.
Debbie, a friend from my newly married days, is reading this book right now. It sounds so beautiful. Here’s what goodreads says, “Life has a strange way of repeating itself, and I want my experience to help you. My hope is that you’ll consider my words and remember my heart….LETTERS FOR EMILY
Harry Whitney is dying. He has Alzheimer’s disease, and he knows his “good” time is dwindling. So he compiles a book of poems for his beloved granddaughter, Emily, hoping that his words of hard-won wisdom will heal the old wounds that are tearing his family apart. But Harry’s poems contain much more than meets the eye; clues and riddles that lead to an extraordinary cache of letters and a promise of hidden gold. Are they the ramblings of a man losing touch with reality? Or has Harry given them a gift more valuable than any one of them could have guessed?
A memorable tale of the power of love and family, Letters for Emily is a novel sure to enrich readers of all generations.”
My friend Tracy in Idaho has this book on her book club calendar. I just checked it out on goodreads and it has mixed reviews. It seems that people mostly either love it or hate it. Here’s the end of the blurb on goodreads, “Set against a backdrop of steaming cups of tea, freshly baked cakes, warm fires, and lovely company, The Awakening of Miss Prim is a delightful, thought-provoking, and sensitive novel that gives rise to theories about love and companionship, education, and the beauty of every passing moment.”
This one looks so fascinating! It’s how geography influences us.
One of my Veggie Gal friends is a ThetaHealer. She told me that the creator of ThetaHealing, Vianna Stibal, has written several books. I think will start with this one.
Another one just for fun!
Here’s another one from Tracy in Idaho. Amazon has the following summary:
A female professor, a super maximum security prisoner, and how Shakespeare saved them both
Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before – supermax solitary confinement.
In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars.
A testament to the power of literature, Shakespeare Saved My Life is a remarkable memoir. Fans of Orange is the New Black (Piper Kerman), A Place to Stand (Jimmy Baca) and I Couldn’t Help Myself (Wally Lamb) will be be inspired by the story of the most unlikely friendship, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years-a friendship that would, in the end, save more than one life.
Here is a wonderful movie for you to watch for date night with your husband. It’s called “To Joey, With Love.” It’s about a real lifemarried couple, Rory and Joey Feek. Rory is the husband and Joey is the wife. They are country music stars. I had never heard about them but they are famous. Shows how much I know about country music, haha. They aren’t just country music stars, they are gospel country music stars.
When I asked my husband what he wanted for Christmas, he said he didn’t know. So that gave me free reign! In other words I could buy what I wanted to have myself, heehee. (Little did I know he was planning on gifting himself an iPhone 6, used, to replace his old one!) I am always looking for good movies/DVDs about married love. So I saw this at my local Walmart and thought it looked like a great story of married love. Boy was I right! I was not disappointed by it. I give it 5 out of 5 stars. You can find it on Amazon or Walmart or Target. It’s too slow for most kids to enjoy watching for a family night movie, at least for my rambunctious boys, but as a date night movie it’s perfect. We watched it for a long overdue date last weekend for New Year’s Eve. I felt so encouraged and full of life and love after watching it. It made me cry and laugh and feel good all over! It made me appreciate my role as a wife and mother so much, and the simple pleasures and abilities that I enjoy. I felt like the whole movie was a big bear hug straight from the heart of Tennessee. It also made me want to farm!
Anyway, I don’t want to spoil anything about this story on DVD so I won’t say much more. It’s not really a “movie.” It’s their real life story using home movies that Rory made, showing the birth of their baby and lots of moments with Joey and her baby that are so sweet, and then Joey’s fight with cancer. As a naturally crunchy mom, I love that the story shows Joey having a home birth and then breastfeeding her baby. Then it shows so many tender moments of Joey and her baby Indiana interacting. You see so much mother love from Joey! Here is Joey singing one of my all-time favorite songs, Amazing Grace.
This is a song that they sing about an experience they’ve had had helping underprivileged kids at Christmas time. Here’s what Rory says about the experience:
Every year, our local car dealer Richard Lyons takes about 50 kids from the community shopping at Walmart and gives them each $100 to spend. Joey and I have had the chance to be part of that special event a couple of different times, and to see the joy that he brings to those little faces are priceless. Richard’s generosity and compassion inspired us to write this true story about one of the experiences that happened a couple of years ago
Rory and Joey are a beautiful couple! Here’s one more video of them singing. You can catch more of their hymns here. Here is Rory’s blog. Now I have a new blog to read!
I am so excited to share this review and giveaway with all of you! It’s the set of Tuttle Twins books. These are books about liberty for kids by Connor Boyack, author, speaker, and political activist. These books are the best books out there to help your kids, and, yes, you, even you learn what principles form the best basis for government and economics. These are principles of liberty. If you have already heard about these books and are ready to buy them, I have a great deal for you. You can save 30% with my coupon code. Scroll to the bottom of the post to get it.
Connor is also the author of the book below, Latter-day Liberty.
He is president of the Libertas Institute, a nonprofit org. dedicated to being a watchdog for liberty in the form of legislation passed in the state of Utah. He spoke to my group of Zion Women at our retreat here and to my group of homeschooled teens here. He is an amazing young man who speaks boldly for liberty. I am so pleased that he has tackled the project of making classics of freedom accessible to young children, and the young of us at heart who want these classics in more digestible formats. I would love to plow through hundreds of pages by Mises and Rothbard, but I just don’t have the time. Thank goodness for Connor, who makes these books! I have pasted images and quick reviews of the books below, along with the interviews that Connor did with Tom Woods about each book on the Tom Woods show. Each book is based on a classic work on liberty.
First, we have The Tuttle Twins and the Law, which is based on The Law by Frederic Bastiat. The Law is a classic work about what true law is. This essay inspired Pres. Ezra Taft Benson to write his essay/speech, The Proper Role of Government.
The Tuttle Twins and the Miraculous Pencil is about the wonder and miracle of the free market. Leonard Reed’s classic essay, I, Pencil, inspired this work. Reading this book will help you and your kids appreciate just how amazing the free market is. Appreciation then helps us feel more gratitude and then more willingness to work hard in the free market, offering the fruits of our labor, buying the fruits of others’ labors, and not act entitled. I mean, if there are so many steps and pieces involved in the making of the humble pencil, think of how many more steps and pieces go into the making of an iPhone! It just makes me appreciate freedom and the free market that much more. Appreciation and a vision of the free market allows us to fight for the free market and against policies that defeat the free market.
The Tuttle Twins and the Creature from Jekyll Island is the most amazing one of them all. When I heard Connor was writing it, I thought, “Wow, how he is going to boil that down in a form kids can understand?” It is based on the classic The Creature from Jekyll Island, which is all about the Federal Reserve, how it was formed, and why it is bad. I was pleased to see that Connor did a great job of explaining the evils of Federal Reserve in an easy to understand format. The interview below involves Connor talking about this book plus the food truck book below. I couldn’t find one with Tom Woods so you will have to enjoy this other one.
The Tuttle Twins and the Food Truck Fiasco explains why city regulations are bad. I loved the storyline. In the story, several food truck owners are being threatened to be put out of business because of regulations passed by a city council due to being persuaded by a big business owner, to favor his business. This book shows in a simple way why that’s wrong and what we, even kids, can do about it. As I read it, a memory floated up to the top of my mind of when my dad was on the city council and a fellow city councilman passed zoning laws to favor his business. Things like this probably happen all the time, I suspect.
F.A. Hayek’s classic The Road to Serfdom is the kernel of idea for Connor’s most recent book, The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom. This book explains why central planning of government is wrong, in the form of building a new road.
I love all these books! I give them all five stars! The illustrations are colorful and beautifully well done by Elijah Stanfield. The text is easy to understand. The characters are relatable. You can use these books for your homeschool read-alouds or just as simple bedtime stories. These books all cover principles that were out there when I was going to public school, but I had no clue about them. I had a statist education that didn’t question the government. I wish these books had been there when I was young, but Connor was just a wee lad and hadn’t written them yet! By reading these books with your kids and discussing them, you will help your kids and yourself to have a vision that government doesn’t always do things in the interest of liberty. Government can have bad guys in it who use the government for their own selfish purposes. I know, shocking, right?
That’s why I love these books. They give you and your kids a vision of how government can be bad. They give you a vision of what to do to fight back. They give you a vision of what each classic related to the book is about. These books will spark more conversation and further study and action to fight back. I love that each book has a section at the end, after the Tuttle Twins story, about the classic work, questions for discussion, and a link to a PDF workbook online that you can buy full of activities, for each book. If you buy the whole set, you will get the PDF workbooks for free!
You could use these discussion questions for homeschool essays, dinnertime conversation, or even for a group discussion with your homeschool co-op or commonwealth. I am starting a new Teen Statesmanship Club, which will use these books. You can read more about that here. I am wondering what topic is next in line for the books. Connor has said that eventually the series will involve around 10 books. Maybe a book about Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, John Locke’s Treatise on Government, or the Declaration of Independence? I suggest Connor do one about Cesare Beccaria’s Of Crimes and Punishments to explain why gun control laws are bad. Also Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists to explain the true meaning of the First Amendment. Let’s also have one about anti-trust laws!
OK, if you want to enter the random drawing of a giveaway, please comment below with why you are interested in having these books in your home. The winner will receive a set of all five Tuttle Twins books! The winner will be announced on Friday Jan 6, 2017. Only U.S. residents in the continental states enter please. If you just want to buy the books right away, to read to your kids or get them for a teen statesmanship class, go here. Use coupon code EDUCATE to get 30% off. Code expires January 7, 2016.
Disclaimer/FTC Disclosure: I was given a set of these books for free but all opinions are my own.
I am going to do a Teen Statesmanship Club for Winter 2017 for our homeschool group. I am so thrilled about this! Here is the format we are going to use. I invite you all to freely copy this format if you want to do some kind of scholar based, liberty-based American history class.This is for a 90 minute class. This is for ages 13 to 18. Keep in mind this is all theory right now. I may adjust as I go through the class in the coming months.
First week of the month, do a simulation, play a game, or watch a movie that inspires teens to greatness. Use simulations from the book written by Tatiana Milne here.
Second week, discuss the life and works of a great statesman/woman. We are going to do Thomas Jefferson, Mother Teresa, Ron Paul, and Irene Sendler. Notice how I have the men balanced by an equal number of women. We are even going to talk about everyday ordinary mothers when we talk about Mother Teresa and ordinary dads too when we talk about Ron Paul.
Third week of the month, come to class already having read a Tuttle Twins book. Discuss the book using the questions at the back of the book. Watch any related videos, like the I, Pencil one here.
4. Discuss a few chapters from the book, Understanding the Times by David A. Noebel. This is probably the most comprehensive guide to the competing worldviews of the day: secularism, New Ageism, Biblical Christianity, Islam, among others.
5. When there is a fifth week we will play a game or simulation, and hopefully it will relate to the previous chapters of the UTT book.
We will also have a student each week do a ten minute report on something they are passionate about.
For a part two semester, I will follow the same format, but insert Uncle Eric books on the third week and do different heroes for the second week. I might throw in some lessons on parliamentary procedure and mock trials, as my energy and connections to people with those skillsets allows. I have seen how my older kids benefited from those lessons and activities. Now that I live in rural southeastern AZ my options are more limited.
It is time for me to do another review and giveaway! This time I am reviewing the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook. This is a companion book to the Trim Healthy Mama Plan book pictured below. If you’ve been reading this blog lately you have seen that I am on a THM kick.
These books were written to replace a thicker book that had both the plan and the recipes all together in one book, pictured below.
I had to first get these books from interlibrary loan as my public library didn’t even have them here in southeast AZ. I wanted to preview them before I got my own copies. (I often do this with books. If you don’t know what interlibrary loan is, call up your public library and ask about it. It’s a way to check out any book even if your own public library doesn’t have a copy. Your local library can get the book from other public libraries, even if the library is out of state. You might have to pay a small fee to get pay for postage, like $1 to $3. You get to keep the book for about three weeks or so. This is such terrific news! It means that all the public libraries in the U.S. are your library! Amazing! Wouldn’t Benjamin Franklin be proud!? Okay back to the scheduled content of the post…) Now, here is a review of the cookbook.
The cookbook has over 300 recipes! The recipes are divided into the following sections:
one pot meals
hearty main dishes and sides
breakfast, including muffins for single serve and family serve
desserts, including single serve and family serve cakes with delightful frostings
drinks, hot and cold
snacks and condiments
Then the back of the book has a recap of the plan, so if you are new to the plan you can have a summary and learn the important portion guidelines. These recipes are all wheat free, except for the sprouted bread on p. 200, which calls for sprouted wheat flour. They are all sugar free and white potato free. Most are grain free. The video below gives a quick introduction to the plan.
Here is what I love about it:
-The cookbook is super mom-friendly and family-friendly. The authors know what it is like to cook for a big family. There are a ton of recipes that will please your husband and kids, even teenage boys. The S dinner meals are full of dense, chewy, or creamy comfort foods like ground beef, other meat, cheese, and sour cream. Some of them are: meatloaf, beef stew, lasagna, enchiladas, fake tater tot casserole, roast beef, chicken parmesan, cheeseburger pie, and fish tacos. Yum, yum, yum!
Here is the faker tot casserole that I served to the whole crew the first night my big kids were home for Christmas break. My 21 year old daughter declared it was absolutely delicious! I used leftover chicken from our Sunday chicken roast instead of ground beef. The faker tots come from cauliflower instead of tater tots.
-it has recipes that make enough servings to feed a big family and some recipes are labeled “single serve” so they are just for moms if you want to fix something just for you to stay on the diet plan, which is especially helpful when the rest of the family is given something that is off plan for you. Some of the soups and muffins and cakes are single serve recipes.
This is the cinnamon roll muffin single serve recipe. Very yummy!
-the recipes are labeled “E” or “S” to go with the diet plan they wrote. S stands for “satisfying” and E for “energizing.” Satisfying meals are those that are high in fat because they satisfy you. Energizing meals are those high in carbs and energize you. The authors teach in the plan that it’s best not to have meals high in fat and carbs at the same time, if you want to lose weight. If you have a meal high in fat and carbs you call that a crossover or “XO” meal. Those people who have high metabolisms, like kids, can afford to eat XO meals repeatedly and not gain weight. Some recipes indicate what you can do to make the meal a crossover for your kids. Then other recipes are called “FP” for “fuel pulls.” Those are foods low in carbs and fat, and higher in protein. I think the idea behind FPs are that they pull fuel in your body already stored, instead of adding fuel to it. The authors recommend that every meal have protein, and then you combine the protein with either high fat or high carbs but not both.
-that the authors are not afraid of whole, natural, God-made fat, like butter, sour cream, coconut oil, and olive oil. You won’t feel like you are eating cardboard or rabbit food on this diet!
-the photos are absolutely gorgeous, thanks to the the photographer, Rohnda Monroy. I have to admit when I first got the book I spent a night or two (ok, more than that) sitting up late poring over the recipes, drooling over the pictures.
– the fun names of the recipes, like Wigglemallow Pie and Volcano Mud Slide Muffin.
-that one of the authors, Serene, has been influenced by the Weston A. Price foundation diet so she recommends soaking oats and other grains for the cooked cereal recipes and of course, whole fat foods
-the fun chatty descriptions of how the two sisters came up with the recipes or the names of the recipes
-that the authors say that you can start the plan without any special ingredients. Some of the recipes do call for special ingredients like the baking blend, glucomannan powder, pristine whey powder, or the integral collagen. Don’t get overwhelmed by the mention of all these ingredients. It is so easy to feel overwhelmed as you read through the cookbook, thinking, I have to go out to the store or Amazon today and buy all of these ingredients! Take a big breath, slow down, and start out with just some almond flour and golden flax seed meal which you can find at Walmart. You can start out with the cinnamon roll muffin recipe with those ingredients. The recipes that don’t require special ingredients are labelled “NSI” for “no special ingredients.” You can find those easily in the book and get started with those. I will have to do another blog post about substituting things, but in the meantime, you can Google to find substitutions for the THM Baking Blend and Sweet Blends, and also how to get started on THM on a budget. Using salmon, oats, tuna, ground beef, chicken, sweet potatoes, skinny chocolate, raw greens, Greek yogurt, cheese, beans, and cheap cuts of meat is a very doable, inexpensive way of doing the diet. Here is how you can make your own Greek yogurt for half the cost of grocery store Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is a staple of the THM diet.
If you can’t afford the “Not Naughty Noodles,” one of the special ingredients, just get spaghetti squash and cook it up. The flesh of the squash naturally separates as noodles. Very cheap, nutritious, and totally suitable for spaghetti!
Here’s what I don’t like quite so much about the cookbook:
-the repeated use of all the funky sweeteners, like xylitol and erythritol, sugar alcohols, which the two sisters/authors sell in the form of the Trim Healthy Mama Gentle Sweet and Super Sweet blends. Some purist health food nuts like Sarah Pope don’t recommend sugar alcohols, for reasons here. I have noticed that my stomach feels a little funny when I have baked goods that use erythritol. I recognize that they have their place, since they are lower on the glycemic index than whole sweeteners, as part of a weight loss/healing plan. So I am thinking, use them cautiously if you are super addicted to sugar, as a replacement. Notice any reactions. If you don’t have any short term reactions use them while on plan, and gradually wean yourself off them. Then when you hit goal weight transition to whole sweeteners like maple syrup and sucanat. Or use whole sweeteners the whole time in your weight loss journey, in small amounts. Eat plenty of fatty, S meals, and you will eliminate your sugar cravings.
This is the zapple recipe, which is a mock apple crumble made from zucchini. It is my least favorite of all the recipes I have tried. It did not taste as much like apple crumble as I had hoped. The texture was off. Zucchini just isn’t as firm and crisp as apples.
-that the only option to be grain free with all the baked goods (except for the sprouted wheat bread) that they give is using their baking blend, which is made chiefly of almond flour and coconut flour. What is a mom to do if she is allergic to these, like my son? One option I recommend is to learn to cook with natural yeast, which lowers the glycemic index of grains. I have been tracking my diet for months now. I notice when I eat natural yeast flour in the form of wheat sourdough bread I do not gain weight and can actually lose weight, if I follow the THM portion guidelines, still limiting carbs and fat and separating the fuels. So if you are allergic to coconut and almonds, and want baked goods, I recommend you get the books written by Melissa Richardson here. Those two books shown in the page on that link have recipes for most baked goods: bread, cookies, cake, etc. Hopefully you are not allergic to wheat, coconut, and almonds all at the same time!
The chocolate chip cookie recipe made from a copycat THM baking blend of equal parts almond flour and golden flaxseed meal. They definitely tasted good.
I give the THM cookbook four out of five stars. I am positive it will help you in your weight loss goals, if you follow the portion guidelines. So I am giving away a copy for the New Year! If you want to enter the random drawing please comment below as to what interests you the most about the book.
I have been tracking my diet and using the THM meal labels for over a month now. I’ve also weighed myself daily. I can vouch that when I eat lots of crossover meals in a row, I do start to gain weight. When I eat only S or E meals, at least three hours apart, according to the portion guidelines given in the back of the book, I do lose weight. I’m at the point where I don’t really need to lose weight for health reasons, after losing 70 pounds in 2015-2016, and then maintaining that loss for almost a year. I do have about 10 to 15 lbs to lose just to look better, or firm up my muscles, but I am happy with my size.
Most importantly, I am thrilled that by using the E meals in the book, I have been able to restore my sleep and my hormone balance, which is what drew me to the book. I came to it after my weight loss journey not in need of the “Trim” part of the equation but the “Healthy” part. Before I found this book, every time I introduced carbs back into my diet after being high fat for months, I would gain weight.
This book has taught me the following:
that frozen cauliflower is a staple for me to have on hand to make fake rice and potatoes. I have made “fauxtatoes” in years past for my Thanksgiving mashed potatoes with raw cauliflower. It didn’t occur to me to keep frozen cauliflower on hand instead of fresh so that I can be more flexible in my cauliflower sub recipes, because I don’t worry the cauliflower is going to go bad (I use it so infrequently)
that frozen okra is another staple to keep in my freezer because of its amazing properties. It can act as a thickener and binder in the recipe but then be a slimming agent for my body. I learned I can use it in grain-free brownies, in smoothies, and in soup.
that wassail is a new Christmas tradition for me to start making on Thanksgiving day and continue through the holiday season! It was sooooo good! I’ve never been a fan of cranberries until I tried the recipe in this book.
how much fun it is to make a muffin in a mug for breakfast or a dessert at the end of a long day. If my family happens to be having a dessert given to them, full of white sugar, then I can whip one of these muffins up and enjoy something sweet along side them.
that I can make a wrap out of psyllium husks (still perfecting that one)
that I can make crunchy “Cheetos” type puffs with a THM recipe called “Crunch Puffs”
that radishes can be used both to color frosting pink and as a sub for potatoes in order to have low-carb hash browns
that gluccie is an ingredient that will thicken puddings, gravies, and smoothies without adding carbs or calories.
that turmeric makes a great drink called Singing Canary that I can just feel healing me as I drink it.
Overall, I have to say this cookbook is the best collection of recipes for weight loss ever for anyone, but especially for a mom. If you have a New Year’s goal to lose weight, break free of sugar addiction, or make more whole foods dinners from scratch for your family this book will help you!
Please comment below to enter the drawing. The drawing will be held on Wednesday Feb. 1, 2017.
Tree of Life Mothering 