Moving from the Shred to Trim Healthy Mama

Well the 10 day shred is over and another 10 days have passed. I have to say I was suprised but the results. At first, I didn't think I noticed much of a difference. I was actually sleeping worse than I had been, even with a 5 month old baby. But what I noticed in the days to come was that I was craving less. Craving less sugar, craving less portions, and craving less at night. This has actually been a huge help! We were struggling with getting a full dinner prepared while trying to get the babe fed, bathed, and down for sleep, oh and not mention that I had language two nights a week, and we had to get our exercise in there somewhere. Now we focus on lunch as our main meal and it frees us up to have a smaller dinner. So what's for dinner? Well, I'm glad you asked. :)

I was recently introduced to Trim Healthy Mama. Any THM's out there, would love to hear from you! So basically THM is a little bit confusing, but makes sense. There is a pretty big learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's fine. The basic idea is to loose weight don't mix your fats and carbs, and there are some limits as to what carbs we are talking about. If you want to know more google it or as I suggest, get the book! That said, we now are trying to implement the THM approach, as it's a sustainable way to eat not just to loose weight, but after as well. 

The tricky part is making this work in Africa. It takes more effort and you are more likely to make some mistakes. But it's all in stride, and as the ladies of THM will tell you, adapt it to you, make it work, give grace. So here we are trying it out. I had fads, but the science behind it makes sense, so alas I give in. 

Our first recipe is a new go-to favorite and will commonly be seen on our plates for a quick dinner. We actually first got the idea from our favorite café in town, who knew we were doing it right all along!

Laughing Cheese Omelette & Pork Sausage

Ingredients

1-2 cubes of laughing cow cheese (la vache qui rit in our stores)
3 whole eggs
1 Tbl. of butter (I usually just guesstimate on this)
1/4 Bell Pepper, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped

Directions

First, sauté the onions in butter, again I just usually slice of a bit and go with it. This is a fat meal (or S as THM calls it) and so you don't have to limit your butter for cooking. Afterwards, I put them aside on a plate and add more butter to the pan. Then I whisk the 3 eggs in a bowl and add the onions and bell pepper. Before the butter starts to sizzle too much I add the mixture into the bowl, but remove it from the heat when I do. Usually I just hold it for a few seconds in the air and then set it back down. Once the egg starts to harden on the bottom side, I add the cheese to one side of the omelette. Then I fold it over and flip. Let it finish cooking then, voila, it's finished. You can also add some more laughing cow cheese on top at the end. 

To get the protein part in, we have a sausage patty with it as well. The grocery store recently started carrying ground pork, so we add spices to it and cook it in patties. Then we want one we just pop it in the microwave. (If I was in the states, I'd probably alternate with bacon) mmmm!

If I'm still hungry I'll finish off the meal with a shake: frozen strawberries, coconut milk (because we are still in "S" mode), ice, vanilla, and if I didn't already have a juice + shake earlier that day I'll also add a scoop of the vanilla juice + mix. 

So please share with me your favorite THM meals! We don't have all the baking mixes and access to vegetables here, so I have a feeling we are going to struggle with variety! 

Shred 10, Zinger Chicken, & Lemon Berry Smoothies

You can do anything for 10 days right? Well we'll see. I've decided to join others in doing a 10 day shred that involves taking my Juice + supplements and shakes as well as no gluten, dairy, processed foods, sugar (fake or real), no eating after 6pm, and no caffeine. But really? In African culture it's like impossible to not eat after 6pm, because you take a break during the day and then go back to work around 3 or 4, which means meeting with people, language classes, etc take place in the evening and then you have to exercise when it's not blazing hot outside, followed by getting a baby down to eat and bathe all before 8pm, AND THEN you can try and make dinner and enjoy it before passing out on the bed. So yeah, needless to say we don't eat until 9pm, which is not ideal, but reality. But, it's been good to help us go hungry a little bit during the night so hopefully when the 10 days is over we won't need to eat as big of portions in the evening, and even better if we can figure out how NOT to eat at 9pm. 

I'm also reading a book called "French Kids Eat Everything" by Karen Le Billon (am American who married a French man). As I dive into her stories I can totally relate to when I was a kid. I hated vegetables and really anything not from a drive-thru. But I no longer think that's because I just thought it tasted it better, but instead it was because I didn't have vegetables prepared with flavor, spices, and healthy fats for me to learn to enjoy. Growing up it was the "eat it or don't get dessert" trick or the more poputlar "eat it or you don't leave the table." No problem, I'll sit here all night before I eat 10 boiled brussel sprouts...I mean yuck! 

Our food system has so much work to be done, we can't get gourmet meals in pre-school like the French can, but we can do our best to start teaching our kids to enjoy flavors from as early as 4 months. So that's what we have been doing with Ezra. We have been introducing him to new flavors like peach compote with mint and apricot compote with vanilla bean, all homemade. I'm not trying to be granola here folks, I'm just trying to be French. :) 

So as I read this book and think about Ezra's clean start to food, it's got me realizing how much it plays into my struggles with food today. Part of our desire to overeat and eat bad things stems from what we were taught to eat as a child. I mean when I was in elementary school we didn't have a cafeteria so we got a choice of ordering McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Grandy's, etc. I kid you not people, this was our daily lunch! I like to think America has evolved a little bit since then in our choices for our kid's lunches, but who knows. So if you have kids and are on this journey to eating healthy yourself I highly recommend Le Billion's book. I also recommend for anyone with babies to check out Bebe Gourmet. It has some great recipes and explanations for recipes for your baby from 4 months and up. It's also based on a French diet, but adapted for Americans. Because I'm just not sure I'll ever get up to the level of serving foie gras to my kid (or myself)...

That said, with the #shred10 I am posting a few of my favorite recipes, and some honest truths along the way. You can follow along on insta stories. First up, is an amazing zesty brussell sprout-potato-chicken zinger and my new favorite shake combo berry lemon cake batter.

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ZESTY PAPRIKA CHICKEN WITH CITRUS BRUSSEL SPROUTS AND POTATOES

(taken and adapted from the Healthy Living Revolution Cookbook, pg 56)

INGREDIENTS:

1 lemon
1 orange
1½ lb brussel sprouts, trimmed and halved
4 small shallots, quartered (we used onions since we can't get shallots here)
1 lb baby potatoes, quartered
1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp olive oil, divided
1 tsp salt, divided
½ tsp fresh ground black pepper, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried thyme
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs

DIRECTIONS:

1) Preheat to 450°.
2) Zest the lemon and the orange. Then thinly slice the fruit.
3)In a large bowl, toss brussel sprouts, shallots (or onions), potatoes, lemon and orange slices with 1 Tbsp oil, ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper.
4) Pour onto a large baking sheet.
5) In a small bowl, mix together garlic, ½ tsp salt, ¼ tsp black pepper, paprika, thyme, zest and 2 tsp oil. Brush over the chicken.
6) Place chicken onto the baking sheet in between the brussel sprouts.
7) Roast for 20 to 25 minutes. Brussel sprouts should be tender. If the chicken is done but vegetables are not tender, place the chicken on a plate and cover with foil. Continue to cook the vegetables until tender.

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Berry Lemon Cake Batter Smoothie

1 - 1.5 cups of dairy alternative (I used coconut milk for this one)
1 scoop of Juice + Vanilla (or protein powder of your choice, but the vanilla flavor gives it the cake batter taste)
1 Tablespoon of Chia Seeds
1 Tablespoon of Flax Seeds
1 drop of essential oil lemon (I use Young Living because I know they are approved to digest)
A handful of frozen berries like blueberries, raspberries, etc.

Tying My Happy & Yummy Shrimp Dish

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I'm a little behind on my blog posts for this month, but that's due to a small work crisis of loosing all my files that were on the cloud. Anyways, here I sit in the dark, on my bed, babe asleep for his morning nap, ready to pour out some struggles in hopes that one person might feel the same, and together we can grow. 

Food has always been a struggle, because let's face it, it's so darn good. And I do not want to a waste a meal on something that tastes bad, but that desire to only eat things that my tastebuds like has led to a life of empty calories. It wasn't until after college that I actually started cooking with raw meat, vegetables, and spices. I didn't really have much experience in the kitchen outside of meals that could be warmed up in the microwave or oven or couldn't be bought in the freezer section. I also didn't know that they were unhealthy. I mean the label read Healthy Choice! 

So now almost 10 years later, although my knowledge of heathy food has changed, my heart hasn't. And even though our family may eat zucchini pasta with homemade tomato sauce or stuffed sweet potatoes (though not in Africa because we can't buy sweet potatoes here), I still look to food when I should be looking to God. 

I don't think I realized that I even did this until I started read this paragraph in Made To Crave by Lysa TerKeurst,

"Tying my happy to the wrong things is partially what caused my weight gain in the first place. There were too many experiences I enjoyed primarily because of the food that was attached to them. The movies were tied to popcorn. A birthday party was tied to cake. A ballgame was tied to a hotdog. School parties were tied to cookies. A morning meeting was tied to gourmet coffee. Getting gas was tied to snack crackers and a soda. Watching TV was tied to chips. A summer outing was tied to ice cream. A winter outing was tied to hot chocolate." 

Even as I type the words above two things happen inside me—I want to go to one of the actives above so I can have the aforementioned food, and two, my heart hurts and my eyes well thinking about how true the statement above is for me. *sigh* Because here's the deal—"My body size is not tied to my happy. If my happy was missing when I was larger, it will still be missing when I am smaller." Thanks Lysa for tearing me apart. She goes on to say, "Tying my happy to food, skinny jeans, or anything else sets me up for failure."

So what now? Now, I am on a journey to rip apart the sin in my life tied to food. As Lysa puts it, "I want to be in the process of becoming more and more like Jesus . . . it reestablishes that God, not food, is in control of me." 

So when I crave more sweets, bread, or experiences solely for the purpose of food, I can stop, and use that as a way to check my heart and pray to God. And in the few short weeks of trying this, let's just say it's been hard, and oh so convicting. My sin nature has won a few battles, but not all of them, and my heart is growing in pursuit of the Lord. 

So that's my challenge for anyone else who may be struggling with their ties to food. It may not be a weight issues or even a health issue, but instead simply an issue that pulls your devotion away from the Lord. Lysa has some great checkpoints on how to evaluate whether or not we are succeeding in our goal, and next post I'll talk about those in my own walk with this issue. But for now, I leave you with one of our go to recipes that we use in both the U.S. and Africa (when we can find affordable shrimp):

Black Bean, Corn, & Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

1 tablespoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, divided

1 1/2 cups whole-kernel corn (we use canned, but if you are in the states, try to get one with the least amount of ingredients)

3/4 cup bottled salsa (you can also make your own, but we can buy salsa here in Africa, so we usually use canned for sake of time)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained (we can't always find black beans, so we substitute red beans)

1 small can of pineapple (you can also just buy pineapple salsa or even mango salsa if you are in the states, for Africa, we add our own pineapple from the can, because whole pineapples are way to expensive!)

Preparation

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.

Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Add shrimp; toss to coat.

Coat pan with cooking spray. Add shrimp; sauté 3 minutes or until done. Add 1 tablespoon lime juice. Remove shrimp from pan. Add corn to pan; sauté 1 minute. Stir in salsa, cilantro, and beans; cook 30 seconds or until thoroughly heated. Stir in 1 tablespoon lime juice. Serve shrimp over bean mixture.

(adapted from My Recipes)