LovinLife- Happy New Year's all!

[lorihadams]

Ain't farmin' GREAT

 

[LovinLife]

Ok well not a REAL bull but the "bull" that is our power usage. It's worse in the winter but I still hate to use the AC in the summer. We plan on having a wood stove installed before winter this year. Of course we said this LAST summer and it never happened. It WILL happen this year if I have to get out there and install it myself!! I imagine it won't be cheap for the stove and the chiminey but I'm sure it will pay for itself by next winter.

Our house is a two-story home with 900 sf down and 900 up. (if I could do it over I would have gotten a smaller home) Upstairs has the cathedral ceilings with skylight. It's nice and warm up there in the winter but the summer, its an oven! That's even with window tint over the sklights. We have the three bedrooms upstairs and to keep it cool the ac will run for hours and the downstairs is freezing! So I decided ENOUGH! and we all moved downstairs for the summer! We moved our bed into the office, moved the kids beds into the diningroom/playroom and closed all the vents upstairs. I even put a curtain up in the stairwell to keep the cool air downstairs. So far it's been working out great! It's been in the 80's and has stayed a cool 74 in here. I've only run the ac for a couple hours before bedtime, and that's it!!

I'm very proud of myself about the summertime bed shuffle. However, I've been doing a really bad job taking care of my health. For the past week I've been having some serious belly issues....(same old, same old, acid reflux, bloat, sluggy, stress, wheat belly). I am seriously addicted to refined sugars! I know this and want to change but it's really hard! I think quiting smoking was easier. I put a TBsp of sugar in my two cups of coffee, then eat something else sweet (toast with jelly, muffin, loaf cake) then about 5 cookies. After dinner is the worse! I will eat a whole candy bar (or two) or another 3 cookies. When I'm eating a meal I'm already thinking about what I'm going to have for dessert! Uggghhh....this is my confession so bear with me. I just want to also mention that I eat sweets instead of "real" foods, not in addition to. Ok so there you have it, step 1. Admitting I have a problem...now what's step 2???? I tried to detox on fruits and veggies for two days but on day two found a chocolate easter bunny hiding in the pantry and off the wagon I fell. If at first I binge on a bunny, try try again. Did I mention that I dipped the chocolate bunny in peanut butter before I inhailed each bite. ud

 

[lorihadams]

Girl, I am fighting the same thing. I am really trying to just not have it in the house. Going GF has been hard too cause I CRAVE bread. I grew up on biscuits with homemade jelly and biscuits with deer roast and biscuits with well, everything really.

Hubby is a serious chocolate addict so I keep chocolate chips in the house and during the summer I have hershey bars hidden from him so the kids can do smores.

I like my coffee with cream and sugar....lots of both. I have switched to grinding my own beans and using a french press. I tend to drink less coffee and thus, less sugar that way cause I can't make a huge pot of coffee and nurse it all day long. It takes more time to grind the beans and boil the water and let it steep and because there is no warming tray you have to do one or two cups at a time to keep it hot. That has helped me cut my consumption a lot.

Going GF has made me cut my sugar consumption too, believe it or not. Think about stuff you make with flour....it usually calls for sugar too. So, that has helped.

I have just stopped buying the processed sugary stuff and replaced it with fruit. I buy at least 6 different kinds of fruit every shopping trip. It usually doesn't last a week cause my kids chow down on it.

I know this sounds horrible but the best way to avoid eating it is to not have it in the house. Why would you keep liquor in an alcoholic's house? The answer is, you wouldn't. Same with sugar or wheat or whatever makes you feel horrible. I plan on getting some stevia on my next shopping trip to help replace the small amount of refined sugar that I still use.

 

[lorihadams]

I just wanted to tell you about the $1 movies...

Go to regal cinemas website and do a search for a theater in your area. You can do a search for "regal cinemas, dollar movies" on google and it should bring the regal website up and there should be an option for you to do a theatre search for your town. Every Tuesday and Wednesday at 10am they do $1 movies for the kids. They are not this year's movies but ours is showing some really good ones that my kids haven't seen yet. You can pick the theater and get a schedule for the movies.

I take my "big purse" and pop a bag of popcorn before we leave and put it in two ziploc bags and take everyone a small bottle of water too. Yes, I cheat.

They start tomorrow, the first one we'll see is How to Train Your Dragon. We have that movie at home but seeing it on the big screen is totally different. They are showing Yogi Bear and Marmaduke and Shrek Forever After and Despereaux and Ramona and Beezus and Dispicable Me and Open Season 3 and Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs and bunches of others. They show 2 options per day so you could feasibly go twice a week and never see the same movie twice.

 

[Wifezilla]

Step 2....
Start introducing healthy natural fats in to your diet as you eliminate carbs. A good craving buster is natural peanut butter scooped up with a square of 85% coco chocolate.

Step 3..
Start drinking kefir daily. Buy the full fat unsweetened, but use truvia if you can't drink it straight. Nothing helps heal a gut faster than kefir.

 

[LovinLife]

Step 2....
Start introducing healthy natural fats in to your diet as you eliminate carbs. A good craving buster is natural peanut butter scooped up with a square of 85% coco chocolate.

Step 3..
Start drinking kefir daily. Buy the full fat unsweetened, but use truvia if you can't drink it straight. Nothing helps heal a gut faster than kefir.

Ok I don't know what kefir is but I will look it up. I tried the 85% coco chocolate instead of the milk choc but it didn't really do it for me. I like it but it didn't help curb my cravings. Does anybody have a "free day"? Like one day a week you can eat all the "bad" foods?

 

[luvinlife offthegrid]

Step 2....
Start introducing healthy natural fats in to your diet as you eliminate carbs. A good craving buster is natural peanut butter scooped up with a square of 85% coco chocolate.

Step 3..
Start drinking kefir daily. Buy the full fat unsweetened, but use truvia if you can't drink it straight. Nothing helps heal a gut faster than kefir.

Ok I don't know what kefir is but I will look it up. I tried the 85% coco chocolate instead of the milk choc but it didn't really do it for me. I like it but it didn't help curb my cravings. Does anybody have a "free day"? Like one day a week you can eat all the "bad" foods?

I think Kefir is basically runny yogurt. I drank some, and it tastes just like thinner version of yogurt. It's about the same thickness as a milk shake. It's good to make smoothies with. Someone gave me 2 bottles of it a while ago. (they didn't like it.) I would throw some kefir and some mango chunks in a blender for breakfast. I wonder if it has more probiotics in it or what, I never really paid attention. I haven't bought it since. I usually just buy whole milk plain yogurt by the bucket because we use so much of it.

EDIT: I was curious, so I googled it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

 

[Denim Deb]

I used to eat a ton of chocolate. I could quite literally eat a whole 6 pack of Hersey bars in a day, and want more. What did it for me was when the price went up. I just couldn't justify buying it. And, I lost about 30 lbs! I'll still eat chocolate, just not as much, though I still have my days when I will eat more of it than I should.

I was lucky, I was able to just stop eating it, but not everyone can do that. Try to find other things that you can eat instead. Also, try keeping track of when you eat it by making a journal. That way, you may be able to find patterns.

 

[lorihadams]

Okay, what is your biggest vice? Allow yourself one bite of it every day. If it is chocolate, buy good quality chocolate and allow yourself one square every day at the same time of day and that is your thing. It is okay to have a bite of something here or there but having a bite of cake and a whole cake are two totally different things. See what I mean?

It's like the coffee thing. I let myself have one cup every day and I have gotten to the point that I don't drink it every day anymore. Try substituting something good in place of something bad. I try to drink kombucha instead of coffee every day and I have to say I feel better....I don't care for kefir either.

Like cereal for my kids...ugh, I hate cereal. So for breakfast I substitute oatmeal for the breakfast cereal so they have something more filling and better for them and then allow them a small cup later in the day as a snack if they really want it. Most days they don't even remember we have cereal.

I have tried replacing junk with fruit so we have no choice but to eat healthier "sweet" stuff. Just don't buy it.

 

[LovinLife]

Ok. I will try REAl hard to eat better and keep ya'll posted. I had a dream last night I was chewing a piece of gum and all my teeth were falling apart and getting stuck in the gum. Maybe it's my body telling me something.