Happy February! I'm Carrie and if you're here, I'm so glad to have you along! This will be my second time starting Trim Healthy Mama, but this time something is different. I've tried a few more diets along the way - namely keto and intermittent fasting. While I now agree with Serene & Pearl that those ways of eating are not sustainable and will cause damage to your body long term, one thing I have to say about them: after learning to eat keto, THM is a walk in the park! S meals are basically keto (but with WAY more freedom in the non-starchies category!) and the E meals are (almost) everything you weren't supposed to eat!! As the girls say, it's all about the beautiful balance.
I enjoy cooking, and love tweaking recipes to make them my own, so here I am with a new food blog/recipe file, so I can keep track of what I'm doing and share with others if I make anything that tastes great!
Here are a few things that I'm doing to help me to get on plan and stay on plan:
Binge listening to ALL the Poddys. Starting with #1. The Bible talks about meditating on God's word as the primary way of getting His word into our hearts and minds.
Psalm 119:15 - I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
Romans 10:17 - So faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of God.
Psalm 77:12 - I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.
If we are thinking about Him and His will all day long, it will be much more natural for us to be obedient to Him. Since God made this world to operate on principals, it makes sense that whatever we spend all our time thinking about will soak deep into our minds. There are even a few verses for that:
Philippians 4:8 - Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
1 Timothy 4:15 - Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 - All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
We are to practice right living, and the scriptures are there for our instruction - not just in holiness! We can apply the principals of meditating on what is true, good and beautiful, and meditate on what God has given us as one of our most important gifts on this earth: food to nourish these bodies that He has commanded us to care for. Serene and Pearl bring so much clarity and sense to the wide world of food, and listening to them makes eating well seem like the easiest and most God-glorifying thing we can do on this earth!! I just listen to all the Poddys in a row, starting with the first one, when I'm cooking, cleaning or driving. Basically any time that no one else needs to talk to me. I probably average 3 per day right now. When I run out I plan to start them over again. The Poddy content is so rich and so full of truth and encouragement, that it won't hurt me to get them more than once!
Keeping sweets in the house. And I don't have to bake them. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome with any diet is the lack of sweets. No one's diet tells you to go ahead and eat cake and ice cream... except THM! They teach us to eat cake and ice cream with wisdom, throwing out the white sugar and flour in exchange for healthier alternatives that are gentle on your blood sugar, which are just as delicious. For me, baking blend is still a sad substitute for white flour, and most of the cakes aren't quite the same (with some exceptions!). It's much easier and faster to make S or FP sweet treats that are creamy and cold to keep in the fridge. It's SOOOO much easier to say 'no' to ice cream on the way home at night if I know I have an amazing chocolate pudding already waiting for me in the fridge at home. I use It's Just Allulose from Amazon (currently $0.61/oz, cheapest I can find) and even my hubby and kids can't tell it from real sugar. It dissolves and doesn't stay gritty, no cold mouth feel, no upset stomach, because it's not a sugar alcohol. It's less sweet than Gentle Sweet, so I always adjust my recipes up. For drinks I use THM stevia. It's much purer and is far less bitter than regular stevia off the shelf. Here are some of my current sweet faves:
Coach Nikki's Amazing FP Chocolate Pudding (use a blender cup, 1/2 the amount of liquid, chill for best flavor)
Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake - S (don't let the name throw you off, it's a southern traditional cake and this one IS just as good as one made from white flour and real sugar! Make cupcakes, freeze a bunch)
Rashida's Vanilla Caramel Coffee Creamer - FP (Trim Healthy Future Cookbook)
Serene's Yuck Yum Bitty - S (Trim Healthy Table - almost every morning for breakfast with like 8 superfoods in it!)
Trimmy Hot Chocolate Mix - FP (THT, just blend with water for instant hot chocolate whenever I want it!)
If I can have chocolate pudding, sweet coffee, chocolate cupcakes and hot chocolate - practically as often as I want - I can say no to cookies after church. I am noticing a trend towards chocolate here...
Menu Planning. I'm a planner, so if I don't know ahead of time what I plan to make for dinner, I spend like 2 hours figuring it out and running to the store, when I could have spent just 30 minutes cooking. I mostly pick from THM and THT cookbooks, and I do some repeats - although I'm still sampling new recipes from both books! Eventually I'll settle down to a couple of dozen recipes to cycle through, but there's no reason to be boring with THM!
Bread... Lots of bread... The thing that everyone misses on keto is bread. The thing I used to miss on THM was bread, because I didn't make sourdough at that time in my life. Now that amazing THMers like Glenda Groff have published their treasure troves of sourdough, it's accessible to everyone!! Mix one day, overnight in the fridge, bake in less than a hour, right before dinner? Yes please! I'm currently making her No Knead Honey Oat Bread and my whole family loves it. I made sourdough waffles for Sunday Breakfast, and I can't wait to try out some of her Bagels and Cinnamon Rolls - even if they are a crossover. I can probably content myself with Cinnamon Raisin Bread for regular breakfast breads.
So that's what I'm doing to stay on plan: plan ahead, make lots of treats, remember to enjoy bread with E meals, listen to the Poddy!! Hopefully I'll soon have a THM coach (at least for a while!) and keep up this blog. Here's to a Trim and Healthy Me and You!!
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