Trim Healthy Mama

I have wanted to write about this book/diet I have (halfway started). It's called "Trim Healthy Mama". I read the book once but they say to read it 2-3 times to really start to understand the concept.  I have Facebook stalked the THM group and saw so many testimonials on how this diet had worked for people.  The first week I tried it I lost 5 pounds in a week!  Then I started cheating…… but I am back on the bandwagon.  I highly encourage you to look it up for yourself since, frankly, I am terrible at explaining it!  Here is an excerpt from the book:

"The two primary fuel sources for the body are glucose and fats.  It is crucial that protein be included in every meal, but it is not a primary fuel for the body.  Once you focus your meal on one fuel source at a time, your body will be able to burn through that fuel, and then switch directly to the task of burning your own adipose tissue (body fat) for fuel.  Results?  Natural weight loss."

There are two types of meals that you eat.  An Energizing meal. (E meal)  That meal is Higher on good carbs and low fats.  Then there is a Satisfying meal. (S meal).  That meal is Lower in carbs but higher in fats.  Both meals you are always adding protein.  The book is thick with information, recipes and food lists.  I have had some AMAZING meals and I will try to start posting recipes. You can eat whichever type of meal that you want but if you are going to switch to the other type (E to S or S to E) then you need to wait 3 hours so that your body can be digested and ready to switch.  For me, the S meals are so easy and delicious so I usually have that for breakfast and dinner and put an E meal to give me energy for lunch.

I'm going to start with a drink recipe that is not in the book ( I couldn't find it) but it is on the website.  I made it and when I saw the ingredients I was SCARED!  haha  I didn't want to take a drink but when I did, it was so good!  I just drank a Quart in about two and half hours. It's really good for you and it is better to make this then diet soda or juice.  Give it a try!  Do it!  Tell me what you think!

Good Girls Moon Shine

Ingredients:
1-2 Tbs. raw, Apple Cider Vinegar (try to find one with the mother included)  I bought Braggs brand   (I heard that makes a huge difference)
1 tsp. ginger powder (ground ginger)
2-4 mini spoonfuls of Stevia Extract
water
ice

Instructions:
1.Fill a Quart Sized jar with water and ice.
2.Add raw apple cider, ginger powder and sweetener
3.Stir well and enjoy!

Exploring Tennessee

I finally downloaded a lot of pictures off of my phone yesterday and saw so many things that I wanted to share with ya'll.  As I would take these pictures I would always think, "Oh man, I have to blog about this place!"  Then time would get away from me and I wouldn't do it. So...here are some snapshots of some fun Nashville and neighborhood finds.

First up is the cutest new coffee shop in Franklin called "Frothy Monkey".  I had been to their first location in Nashville and was waiting for this one to open up because it was a lot closer to where I live.   It is always busy and I was happy to hear that they opened seating upstairs.  I have only had coffee (the Turtle mocha was amazing!) but the food looks incredible!  

One of my favorite blessings since moving here was meeting my friend Whitney.  She has been so fun to get to know.  You know the girl who seems good at everything creative?  That's Whitney!  I love our lunch dates which now includes her yummy son ,Liam.  She gave me such a special treat when she invited me to a recording session her dad was doing.  He had arranged some songs to be recorded for the Christian  groups, First Call  and Steve Green.   For those who really know me you know that I LOVED it  and it was so much fun to watch.  I tried really hard to be on my best behavior!

Matt and I kept hearing about a yummy burger spot called The Pharmacy.  It. Was. Unbelievable.  Matt had the Farm burger which is one of their most popular.  It had beef, ham, bacon with an egg on top. I was afraid that if I ate that I would die right there of a heart attack so I went for a plain old cheeseburger.  It was so good.  The buns were made locally.  They make their own sodas like an old fashioned soda shop and they might make their own beers also.  I didn't have a soda and decided to wait until Ivy was with us to have that special treat.

A beautiful picture of downtown Nashville.

I had been part of an auction for a family in our church who was adopting.  I got tickets to a fun jumpy house called Pump it Up.  Even though I was a little freaked out about the germ factor, I told myself I would spray the girls down when we got home and I let them have a blast.

Here is my hard working husband cooking at Waffle House.  I stopped by to see him one day.  Having never worked in a restaurant before, he is getting to be quite a cook cook!

Matt and I visited a shop called Nashville Pickers and it reminded us that Antique Archaeology from the show American Pickers had opened a new location in Nashville.  The original is not far from my parent's house but this was fun to visit the Nashville store.

One restaurant that we have been really wanting to go to since we have moved here is Burger Up.  We visited the one in Nashville and it was so yummy!  Everything they make is grown locally.  

They even make their own ketchup and mustard.  I had the Memphis burger and truffle fries.  I will have that burger again.  The bun (made locally) was so soft and everything tasted so fresh. 

I asked about kids menus and it was really cute because they have a basket full of children's books and inside the cover is the menu taped to it.  

We have joined a rec center as a family and when we went yesterday, they were having a craft fair.  They let kids to all kinds of crafts for free.  Painting, coloring masks, making notebooks, making pottery and face painting!  My girls loved it and I thought it was really fun.

I have saved a couple other places that I want to blog about individually so stay tuned!

Just Do....Today

I saw this quote today and I thought it was perfect to start the year with, especially after a day like yesterday.  You know one of those days where you are tired, lose your temper with your kids, etc.  Yes, well yesterday was worse than that.  I was tired and hormonal.  Can I just say that I feel more hormonal now than ever?  My mom might say my early teens were worse and maybe they were but I needed a good grounding spanking yesterday.  As a matter of fact, Matt got home and an hour into it, he sent me to my room.  Yep, he did.  And I went.  After the girls went to bed I went out to ask for his forgiveness (the girls too) and I started to cry.  He just stared at me.  He said nothing and just stared.  Ha ha.  I know that sometimes 3 girls are a lot and I am the biggest girl he has to deal with. I went to bed at 8pm and slept until almost 7am.  A NEW WOMAN.   (By the way,  I started my day today with a text to him telling him how much I love him and he WILL come home to a happy and peaceful home tonight.)

I started a new eating plan yesterday ( just eating as clean as I can and omitting all the sugar I can) and I did really good.  I had yummy meals, didn't count calories but defiantly ate less than usual.  When I get nervous about it I think "Just do today".  And today has been pretty good.

Matthew 6:34 " Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself."

Buster's Place

 Since Matt and I have moved to Tennessee, we are all about exploring, so imagine my excitement when I got my Tennessee Magazine in the mail and "The Best of Tennessee 2012"was in it.  It lists viewers choices in different categories for West, Middle, and Eastern Tennessee.  We had been wanting to drive a half hour and visit a town called Murfreesboro.  We went into a couple of antique shops (we heard the antiques were cheaper there than Franklin) and then we tried a place that won Best Burger for Middle Tennessee.  It. Was. Amazing.

 As you can tell, it was not fancy and it was very crowded.  If you have ever been to Steam Boat in Waterloo, Iowa, that is what it reminded me of. (or what I remember of Steam Boat).  The burgers were amazing! (Did I already say that?)

 I thought the Cokes were cheap until they just brought us out a cold can.

If your in the area,  you must try Buster's Place!

1615 N.W. Broad St.

Murfreesboro,TN.

615-895-5464

Sizzling RoundUps

Every Sunday morning we are called to the breakfast table at 7:30 sharp! It is Sizzling Round Up day. They are so good that Ivy asks me if it's "church day" so that she can have the round ups. This week my Mother in law asked me if I wanted to learn how to make them. I wish that I would have taken a picture of every step. But here it is.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Take an 8oz. ramakin. Spray it with Pam.

Put 1 piece of turkey bacon around the rim.

Make a layer of crumbled bread or seasoned roughly crushed croutons to fill the bottom.

Cover with shredded cheese and lightly press down.

Pour an egg on top. Use a knife to spread the white on top. (don't break the yoke.)

Bake 22-27 minutes. (Ramakins may vary.)
Take a serving spoon and wrap it around the round up and pop it out onto a plate.
So yummy!
Enjoy!

New Recipes

(Wish I was a better photographer)

I made some new recipes tonight that I made from Pinterest. The meat balls I had made before but not the broccoli cheese bites. My mother in law had some frozen meatballs left over that she wanted to get used so I put them in the crock pot. I didn't want to make the same old steamed broccoli for dinner so I found this recipe and it turned out great! They were kind of like crab cakes. A mom had made them to get her kids to eat veggies. I've taken these meatballs to a party before and it was a hit. I just served them with toothpicks.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

1 pkg. frozen meatballs (can use turkey)

1 jar of grape jelly

1 12-16oz. jar of chili sauce

Put the chili sauce and the grape jelly in the crock pot and stir until smooth.

Heat if necessary.

Add meatballs

Coat them and cook on low 2-4 hours.

Serve over rice.

Broccoli Cheese Bites

16oz. frozen broccoli

1.5 cups cheddar cheese

3 eggs

1 c. Italian bread crumbs

thaw and strain excess water from the broccoli

Mix everything together

Form into small patties and put on parchment paper

Bake for 25 min. at 375 degrees (turn patty after 15 minutes)

Enjoy!

Smoothie Making: Healthy Living

Ok, so I hit a wall 2 weeks ago. I was getting dressed for church and I "Officially" had NOTHING to wear. I had gained that much weight. I had given away all of my "fat" clothes when I lost weight, vowing to never go back. One thing I have learned about myself through foster care and Matt losing his job is that I am definately a stress eater! I told Matt that I refused to go buy something, we should not be spending money on that, especially when Matt still doesn't have a job. So I said, I was going to change. I did great last week, I lost almost 4 pounds! I worked out on the eliptical for an hour for 4 days (my goal was 5) and tried to eat as healthy as I could. I also went back to trying to stay away from white flour, sugar, and dairy. I did Ok. I still had a piece of Sam's Club pizza....but stopped eating after that piece of pizza. I don't stress out over stuff like that because it needs to be a lifestyle.

The one thing that I had been wanting to do is "Juice" in the mornings. I have a great Blendtec blender and so I was on the search for a great Juicing, all natural recipe. I stumbled on a book that I got on my Kindle called The Beauty Detox Solution . It gives a great recipe for a glowing green smoothie . While, I don't agreee with everything in the book from a Christian standpoint. She does have some great tips and she talks alot about food pairing and how that gives you energy and makes you look and feel healthy.

I like the book for that fact that she gives you tips on how to incorporate (even on a small level) things to make you feel better and loose weight as a lifestyle. While I am at it, if you are struggling spiritually with your weight (as I do). There are 2 books which I highly recommend reading BEFORE this other book . These books have really made a difference in my life regarding my lack of self control with food. They are MUST READS for anyone struggling. They are "Made to Crave" by Lysa Terkeurst and "Reshaping it All" by Candace Cameron Bure.
Lucy helped me get everything ready.
Washing lettuce and getting it ready for salads.

Family Staycation

Ok. So at the beginning of the summer I had a garage sale and sold all of my baby stuff so that we could take a family vacation this summer. Then 4 months ago Matt lost his job and so I saved the money to go somewhere to celebrate when he got another job. That hasn't happened. So while we needed to have some work done on both of our cars, there went some of the money, however, as I was reading one of my favorite blogs, this girl talked about her family taking a "staycation" so we did a mini one today. Our plan was to go to Santa Monica Place to window shop and have lunch. However, on our way there Matt said, "Man, I'd love to go to Tito's today." So me being the submissive wife :) , I told him we should go. It had been a while. Usually you can't find a seat but at 10:30am we had our pick. ( I know, you are thinking,"Who would eat taco's at 10:30am?" If your asking you haven't had Tito's!)Here's my yummy tacos. I should have taken a picture of happy Lucy with her head stuck in the refried beans and salsa. Yep, my girl is truly Mexican!
A great outdoor shopping place in Santa Monica. There was a famous female athlete in Nike and the Papporazzi were in the store filming her and taking pictures of her. I was sad that I didn't know her because it's in the sports arena and I only know actresses. But her bod was amazing...feeling a touch guilty at the Tito's.
On the 3rd floor roof looking down on Third Street Promanade.
This was my favorite part. This market had a lot of places to eat in there. I told Matt I'd love to go and eat there sometime.
Here is another part of the outdoor eating. You can see the Santa Monica Ferris Wheel from there and a sneak peek of the ocean.
Since we were only window shopping, we got in the car and were going to head over to the Grove. (one of me and Ivy's favorite places). On the way, we decided that we go there so often, so we decided to stop at Magnolia Bakery. It has a famous bakery in New York and they opened one in Los Angeles. SO CUTE! Ivy and I jumped out of the car and went in because the parking stinks so Matt and Lulu drove around while we picked out everyone's treats.
L.O.V.E.

Ivy, the happy customer.

peanut butter bar(Matt), Vanilla cupcake with green buttercream frosting with sprinkles (Ivy), Chocolate with Chocolate frosting (Lulu), red velvet with a creamy frosting (of course Kelli!...I was a little surprised by my frosting but it was still AMAZEBALLS!)
Yes. Please.
Besides the emergency stop at Grace Community Church for Ivy to go to the bathroom, it was a smooth day. Loved spending it with my family! Check out these places and tell me if you liked them!

Summer Food Crawl continued....

I have made a couple AMAZING things to eat this summer. I made 2 things this week and I will share one of them today. It tasted amazing but I don't think I made it right. I can't wait to make it again. I got a cookbook from my friend,Kelli for my birthday. It was from a restaraunt we went to in Nashville called The Loveless Cafe. Such great food!

I made the Suppertime Beef Casserole

1 (7 ounce) package macaroni and cheese

1 pound ground beef

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 (10 ounce) can onion soup

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the macaroni and cheese according to the package directions. Brown the ground beef with the garlic in a skillet over medium heat, stirring until crumbly, drain. Add the soup and prepared macaroni and cheese. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the mixture into a 2 Qt. casserole dish. Bake for 30 minutes.

Keep in mind this is a southern recipe so it is not diet friendly. I used steamed broccoli as a side dish to make myself feel better. Matt loved it! Every day since then he says, " I wish we still had some of that macaroni casserole." :) Enjoy!

Ivy's Recipe.. Strawberry Delight...Food Crawl #3

I wanted to do something fun with Ivy today because it was her 1st day at summer camp at Legacy (where she is going to Kindergarten). I'm not going to lie, it was a hard day. I cried alot. I could write a whole post about it. Just realizing that she is going to be a Kindergartener hit me hard. I miss her when she is not here. Anyway...Ivy has been asking me to help her make something out of one of HER cookbooks and I chose the "Paula Deen's My First Cookbook". We made Strawberry Delight. (It's not diet food!)

Ingredients:

1 large angel food cake

8oz. block of cream cheese

14 oz. can of sweetend condensed milk, regular or fat free

2 10oz. packages frozen,sweetened, halved, strawberries, thawed

7oz. can of whipped cream

1. Tear the cake into bite size pieces into a bowl. Put the cream cheese and the sweetened condensed milk into a medium bowl and mix with an electric mixer until it's smooth.

2. Put about half of the cake pieces into the large glass bowl. Pour about half of the cream cheese mixture on top of the cake pieces and use a spatula to spread it evenly from one side of the bowl to the othere. Open 1 package of strawberries and evenly pour the berries and juice over the cream cheese mixture. Take the can of whipped cream and make a thin layer evenly over the strawberries. Make sure you don't use it all because you need more for the top layer than you do for the bottom layer.

3. Repeat the layers. You can decorate the top with fresh strawberries if you like.

4. Cover the top with plastic wrap and keep this in the refrigerator until after the meal is over. Then bring it to the table and everyone will ooh and ahh and think you are just the best cook ever!

So yummy! Enjoy!

Marston's Salad....food crawl continued...

A couple weeks ago Matt and I took the girls and used a gift card we had to a new place in town called Marston's. They have a very successful restaraunt in Pasadena so this is another location. The food was AMAZE-BALLS! I had the most amazing salad. I had heard that the their San Pasqual salad dressing was so good and that they sold it. You can get it here . I quickly got out my phone and wrote down the ingredients so that I could make the salad at home. I added some rotisserie chicken and I think the only other thing that would make it perfect is some crumbled goat cheese.

Here are the ingredients:

spinach leaves

green onions

candied walnuts

avacado

bacon

Marston's San Pasqual dressing

Matt said that it was the best salad he ever ate. Score!

Enjoy!

Amazing Bacon Wrapped BBQ Burgers

Ok, to go along with Grandma's baked beans, I found this amazing bacon wrapped BBQ burburger recipe. It was amazing but you could almost split a burger with someone else. Here's Matt making the patties.You put the mixture of sautaeed onions, mushrooms and BBQ sauce in the middle of 2 patties and push them together.
Wrapping in bacon goodness.

Enjoy!

Grandma Gorsh's Baked Beans

Me and Grandma (Mary) Gorsh
I told Matt yesterday that I wanted to do something this summer. Kind of like a food crawl through out the summer. We still need to watch our weight but I am thinking a little splurge once a week. (In this case twice because we had leftovers.) With Matt out of work right now, I still want to make amazing memories this summer but we can't spend extra money so... you have to buy groceries anyway right? I would like to try a new recipe each week.

I am going to post about our amazing burger later in the week but I wanted to share my Grandma's WONDERFUL recipe for baked beans. You HAVE to make them this summer for a BBQ.I dragged my Jr. Chef out of the pool to help me prepare the beans.

Grandma's baked beans. You'll be wanting her address to send her a thank you note after you try these beans!
Grandma Gorsh's Baked Beans:

VanKamp's pork n beans 2-3 cans (1 lb. cans)

1/4 lb. (4 slices) bacon, kind of crisp, crumbled

large hamburger patty, cooked and crumbled

medium onion

1/4 cup brown sugar

1T. molassas ( I never put this in because I don't have it)

1T. Ketchup

1T. mustard

Mix and heat. Enjoy!