RECIPE WEDNESDAY - Vitamins & Fast Metabolism

While I've always tried to eat healthy (okay, most of the time), sometimes I need a little structure. As I said in Monday's post, my sugar numbers have been back up due to 'not' staying on track while the girls were here.

DISCLAIMER:
I am not a dietician/ pharmacist/ nutritionist, etc. Expert in anything. I just know what works for me.
Do your own research and listen to your body.

First, let me give you a rundown of my routine.

Morning:
8 oz of warm lemon water with a tsp. of raw honey.
This helps cleanse the liver, which will help rid the body of excess glucose.

Breakfast
2-3 days a week: old-fashioned oat meal with diced peaches/ cinnamon and a 1/4 c half & half
 Cinnamon is great for lowering glucose. While fruit is a natural sugar, this also provides fiber           the body needs. Same for the oatmeal.

Morning Vitamins  1200mg Berberine - take 2.
Berberine is a Chines vegetarian supplement that will help block  sugar
Apple Cider Vinegar tablets 480 mg per serving.(take 2 / 1-3 times per day) I take them 3 times a day
Chromium - 1000 mg - take 1
Chromium is a system cleanser. Lets your body only retain what it needs and flush the rest.
CoQ10 - 200 mg - Good for heart function. My mom died of a heart attack so I know there is history
Cinnamon - 1000 mg per 2 tablets.
Super B Complex - 1 tablet for Metabolism.  I have a slow metabolism.
Ocuvite for 50+ - For eye health
VirMax - Blood Sugar stabilizer - take 1

I take 2 vinegar tablets 3 times a day. I also take the cinnamon mid-day rather than with the morning round.

BEDTIME:
I have an 8 oz. cup of Detox Tea by Yogi. You can read about it HERE

Apple Cider Vinegar can reduce your 'fasting number' by 20pts. So at bedtime, I drink 4 oz. warm water with a 1/2 tsp of raw honey and 2 Tbl. of Apple Cider Vinegar. I usually have 2 -3 crackers to prevent heartburn.

While this seems like a lot, I feel the natural course is far better than the chemical/ medical options. 

I won't go into details about Haylie Pomroy's system today. If you need a refresher, I invite you to check out THIS POST

There are 3 Phases. Her key thing is 'don't start on Monday'. I get that. With that in mind, Phase 1 runs Tuesday Wednesday. So here's my food list for yesterday and today:

PHASE 1

VEGGIES:

Bamboo shoots/ Bean Sprouts/ Green Beans/ Carrots/ Mushrooms/ Peas/ Pumpkin/ Sweet Potatoes/ Tomatoes

GRAINS/ STARCHES:

Barley, Brown Rice, Steel Cut Oats, Quinoa, Rice Milk, Sprouted-grain breads, Tapioca, Wild Rice

FRUITS:

Apples

Apricots

Asian Pears

Blueberries

Cantaloupe

Cherries

Honeydew

Lemons/ Lime

Mangos

Oranges

Peaches

Pears

Pineapple

Strawberries

Tangerines

Watermelon

MEAT

Lean meats - beef/ chicken/ pork/ turkey

Buffalo

Deli meats (nitrate free)

Fish - Haddock/ Hallibu/ Pullock/ Tuna

Sausage - chicken/ Turkey/ nitrate free

Turkey Breast

Turkey Bacon

BROTHS/ ETC.

Broths - chicken/ beef

Dried Herbs

Garlic - fresh

Ketchup - no sugar/ syrup added

Mustard

Decaf Tea/ Coffee

Salt & Pepper

Onion Salt/ Powder

Garlic Salt/ Powder

Cinnamon

SWEETENERS:

Stevia

Tomato Paste

Vanilla Extract

Peppermint Extract

Vinegar

NO FATS!

 If you look at the list, you'll see the first 2 days are more about 'cleanse'.

BASICS
Eat within 30 min of rising - this kicks in the Metabolism
Eat EVERY 3 Hours -
    Meal/ Snack/ Meal/Snack/ Meal
Veggies are FREE
Drink a minimum of 64 oz. EVERY DAY!

Tomorrow I'll share with you what the list encompasses for Thursday/ Friday.

Whatever you choose to eat/ not eat... remember....

Enjoy the Journey!

~Kelly

   

TIME FOR CHANGE - Week 2

Before I go into today's post I want to thank Karen and Amy for stopping in this week. I love having visitors. It does get lonely out here on the 25 acres of seclusion. Welcome ladies. I hope you'll stop in often.

Well, so far everything seems to be working the way it should be. I went 6 days without a cup of fluffy. That is a definite record for me. LOL I did have one Sunday morning just because it was Sunday and I'd been good throughout the week. So that will be my Sunday treat as long as I've stuck to program.

For the good news... I'm down 3 pounds from last week. I started last Monday at 186. I am now 183. So YAY! Now to see if I can repeat the process for this week. Bob and I have that 'whom ever loses the most in 3 weeks wins $50 thing. I could use an extra $50 for my trip to IL in April. I miss my favorite JoAnns Fabric and Crafts (the one in Springfield MO though nice just isn't up to the store I'm used to in Peoria) So while I'm up there I hope to get an awesome deal on the outdoor fabric for the furniture in my new gazebo.
Though we'll both benefit from the gazebo I'll use it tons more than Bob will so that makes the fabric a 'treat'.

Okay.. today is my last day on my Root Chakra. I don't have my book handy to see where we go from here. I'll have to wait and let that be a surprise tomorrow. :-)

Until then...
Enjoy the Journey!
Kelly
186/183/125-130

EXPLORING THE CHAKRAS as a Weight-loss Option

If you're like me, you've at least checked into every diet out there. Everyone seems to be an expert at something and have an opinion on what works.

A couple of years ago I purchased a book called The Inner Peace Diet. The heading claimed "Attain permanent weight loss and pure bliss in just 7 weeks".  Okay. It sounded like more of a spiritual take so I picked it up. Flipping through it I saw that the book dealt with healing the chakras. I figured even if I didn't lose weight, I'd learn more about my chakras so brought the book home.

Though it took me over two years to actually take the book off the shelf and get more in depth, I'm glad I did and wished I'd done it sooner. Enlightenment is POWER.

First off, the book takes you through the 7 chakras, explaining their location in the body and how they relate to your over-all health. Here's what the second paragraph under Chapter 1: Your Root Chakra had to share...
           "Your first chakra directly reflects your ability to flourish in your environment. When you have a balanced and thriving root chakra, you enjoy feelings of safety, security, stability and stillness. "

The fourth paragraph is the one that resonated with me the most.  Apparently a blocked first chakra explains my feeling of being uncomfortable in my own skin and out of touch. Or in my opinion - like a bloated whale!

So for Week 1 I am to 'stabilize the first chakra'. Through meditation, eating RED foods as well as foods from Mother Earth will help me become more grounded. The book suggests the following foods:
NUTS
SEEDS
LEAN MEATS

The Protein Power recommends eliminating seeds and beans during Phase I but everything else is good to go. So during my grocery shopping on Tuesday I came home with:

Spring Mix salad greens
Red sweet bell pepper
Red apples (Red Delicious and Gala)
Strawberries
Craisins
Roma tomatoes
 and lean meats such as lean sirloin for stir fry, lean pork loins.

I also have dried and frozen cherries.

Although the book suggests non-processed foods, I did buy smoked turkey and cured ham lunch meats. They were on sale and Bob and I like those just for snacking. Plus, there's a recipe under my FOODIES link on Pinterest I want to try the cured ham with.  I'm not a big breakfast person but I do require protein first thing in the day so I need to expand those options.

Please join me on this Journey as I discover how the Chakras affect over-all health.
Enjoy the Journey!

TIME FOR CHANGE!

Okay... I've been lamenting for the past couple weeks as to how what I'm doing doesn't seem to be working. I'm counting calories religiously. Until I pulled the muscles between my shoulder blades I had worked up to a 2-hour workout on the Wii Fit EVERY day.  And still the pounds would not budge. As in I bounced back and forth from 185-186. Technically, a normal 1-2 pound fluctuation. I decided I had to figure out what was going on.

Oh yeah... I did a Jillian Michaels 2-week detox. Not to be gross, but nothing changed their either. I'm regular and normal in that department so was a wasted $16 IMO.

So Saturday while I was out for some shopping and lunch I took the January 14th issue of FIRST for Women. Dr. Oz smiled from the cover asking the simple question "Slow Metablolism?" Well... YEAH!

I turned to page 30 where the enlightening article began by asking the question about what was the SINGLE best change to make heading in to 2013 if you wan to reach your dream weight.

The answer: Eating RIGHT for your metabolic type. 'New science links eating wrong foods for your metabolic type...'

Okay. I have heard for years that certain foods work for some people while others fail miserably. Everyone is NOT CREATED EQUAL when it comes to the foods our body will accept. I've also taken these little 'What's Your Metabolic Type' quizzes before. And you know what? I ALWAYS fall into the same category. So why do I keep trying to eat the way other people think I should instead of what is right for ME.

This particular quiz asked 7 questions under 3 different categories to determine my metabolic 'type'. Depending on which category you could identify with the majority of the questions determined the foods you should be eating. By recognizing myself in 6 out of the 7 questions under one of the categories, I found myself to be a TIGRESS.  (Doesn't that sound appropriate for someone who writes romance novels on the side? hehe) I came close to being a GAZELLE... scoring 4 out of 7.

So what does this mean?
I metabolize PROTEIN more effectively. Which makes sense. When I'm hungry or 'snacky' I would much prefer protein over anything. While I've been counting calories religiously, I've also followed the stream of WHOLE GRAINS. I don't eat a lot of potatoes. But I would eat Whole wheat Pasta, Multi-grain bread, whole wheat rice. Dr. Pholip Goglia- author of Turn Up the Heat: Unlock the Fat-Burning Power of Your Metabolism said something that described EXACTLY how I've been feeling lately. Bloated and miserable!
"When the body is trying to adapt to something inappropriate, it registers that as a form of trauma--and when the body senses trauma, it produces inflammation and hoards fat."

The other thing that made me think about what my body has been refusing to do (after reading the article) was that I lost the most weight and felt the best when I did Protein Power several years ago. So I dug out the book and went back through the basics. I am now on Phase 1. The hardest part so far is not having my 1 cup of fluffy in the morning. I figure I can't give this idea a chance if I don't commit to it completely.

The one thing is that I can enjoy protein. I won't miss the grains and if it prevents me from feeling like a bloated pig by end of the day then I'm all for giving it a shot.

So Protein Plan with lots of fresh fruits and vegies it is.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about something I've added to help me stay focused.
Until then...

Enjoy the Journey