My THM Life #1

So, one of things I really would like to do on this blog is do a weekly rundown of how my THM plan is going, and just overall, my weightloss journey in general. This will be my first post, and I, for one, think it is a wonderful idea, because not only will it help me to stay accountable, but will hopefully encourage someone else along the way........ Throughout the course of the past year, I have stuck with some of the same recipes,this year Im looking to branch out and try a few new ones every week.

   I want to start off by saying that budget wise, THM is totally doable. Our grocery budget is around 80 dollars a week for a family of three,which isn't very much. Thats a lot of beans and rice....lol.

 So, this week, I had a lot of cauliflower to use up in my freezer. This is a THM staple and is included in a ton of their recipes. I very rarely eat it in its true form,usually I blend it up and add it to soups, or grate it up to make rice. But this week, i was very excited to use in its original state, in a recipe that I have never made before, which i cannot wait to tell you about!. I love cauliflower, so you will probably see a ton of recipes on here that include it. I also came up with a new GGMS recipe. What is GGMS? Keep reading if you want to know!

Im not the most technologically advanced person....lol, but I am learning, so bear with me.

So, lets start with Monday.........

Does anyone really enjoy them, really? I know I don't .Usually I will make an "off plan choice"(we don't like to call them cheats), at least once per weekend, sometimes twice. Because of this,my Mondays usually start with a DEEP S meal of some sort. There are 2 basic types of meals on the plan, S and E ,and S breaks down into three types: Light, Heavy, and Deep. Deep S meals are your purest fat, and NO DAIRY.A Good example of a deep S meal would be eggs fried in butter. I usually put mine over spinach, add some MCT oil and sprinkle nutritional yeast on top.Deep S meals also do something to "reset" your system(so Ive been told), and make any complex sugars you may have accumulated easier to get rid of and to process. This is all much better explained in the book.

So, if you look at the pretty pictures in the top of this post,top row, middle picture, you will see what my Deep S meal was for the week. This was a shamrock shake, and you can find the recipe here . I did not have the protein powder as suggested, so I used a scoop of collagen to add more protein. Super delish!

Monday Evening, I made FAKER TOT CASSEROLE , a recipe from the Coers Family, which is also featured in the THM Cookbook, page 147. Holy Moly! I have never made this before, but I think it is a new favorite.

So, that made 2 S meals for the day. I had an E for lunch. On this plan, you want to eat as many type of meals as you can per day. For example,1 S, 1 FP, and one E.It keeps your body "guessing"
Tuesday Evening, it was Stuffed Bell Pepper Soup, which you can find here . I had to tweak it a little, but it was pretty good. Im definitely a Drive Through Sue at Heart, so it had a little too many steps for me.
Wednesday was a bit of a Blur for me, and I tend not to cook much on this day.We usually do something simple, like soup or sandwiches This week, however, I did manage to find some time to cook something, and made Mrs Criddles Cauliflower Chowder , which is a family favorite.
I usually do my grocery shopping online through Walmart. This week, i was able to purchase some riced veggies online(we have a lot of health nuts around these parts, so this item is pretty hit or miss. So, Thursday we had Cauliflower Fried, which is one of my personal favorites.
  One of the things I need to work on is incorporating more of the drinks into my plan. I truly believe that these are more helpful than anything, and I find I have lost more on the weeks that I have incorporated them. I happened to discover an amazing GGMS recipe this week. If you don't know what a GGMS is, see here.
   This week, I discovered that I could take leftover peach juice from my canned peaches, and make a really tasty GGMS out of it. I made a peach lemonade.It was delicious! I struggle with the drink portion of THM, mostly because I am lazy...lol, so the was huge!

So, that was my week in a nutshell, food wise. Next week, I will deal with how to do THM on a budget. Typically, I spend around 80$ a week for a family of three,next week I am going to attempt to cut that in half.
Also, in the works is a GGMS challenge, where I will come up with several GGMS recipes to share

STARTING WEIGHT:272    CURRENT WEIGHT:222(started the year at 232!, and have lost almost al of my holiday pounds!)

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My Weight Loss Story

My name is Rachel and here is my  THM story.I have been fat all of my life, from about the age of 7. You name it, I have tried it. Adkins, South Beach,Supermarket Diet,Paleo, Vegan,Weight watchers, Shakes,etc. In October of 2015 I weighed 270 pounds. This was my post pregnancy weight. My daughter was now 15, so I kept justifying the weight. Well, I hadn't lost any, but at least I haven't gained any either. That is what I would always say..............
This was me:

Oh boy, was I miserable. Very uncomfortable in my own skin. The sad thing is that I never really ate. Maybe one meal a day,somewhere in between 1200-1800 calories per day. People that are overweight are thought to be overweight because they overeat. This is simply not true.In fact, it was quite the opposite. I wasn't eating frequently enough, and not giving anything for my body to burn.Not only this, but I was an emotional eater. I would eat when i was sad, happy, stressed, you name it. Being in college full time causes a lot of stress, so i would eat a lot. Then i would feel soo guilty about it.

In the fall of 2015, I met a dear friend(or actually I had known her for a few months)who introduced me to THM. She let me borrow the book and on October 12,2015(I still remember the day), I began the plan. To date, I have lost 55 pounds.I also have gone from a size 22 to a size 14/16! I haven't worn that size since I was in high school! I realize that isn't a whole lot for my size, and I have a ways to go, but the best part it that I HAVEN'T GAINED IT BACK. I "cheat" several times a week and am only on plan probably about 85% of the time.THM isn't about losing weight,but its about FOOD FREEDOM. If I go"off plan" I can get back on three hours later, its that simple.I no longer feel guilty about having a slice of pizza. THM has done so much for me. I have clearer skin,no more sugar cravings. And best of all, my metabolism burns the way it is supposed to. Here recently, due to the holidays, I went off plan and gained back a whopping 12 pounds.Since, the beginning of the year, I have stayed on plan and lost 10 of that. All of my weight loss has been WITHOUT ANY EXERCISE. I am looking forward to adding some in the near future. Now, of course, there is more to it than that,and I will discuss the basics in another post at some point.

This is me today:

The picture on the left is obviously, me today.55 pounds gone and over 30 inches lost. If I can do it, and stick with it, anyone can.For more information about Trim Healthy Mama, please visit their site here . They also have several Facebook groups, which are extremely helpful.

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SOAK

Well, its Friday =) I hope everyone has had a great week. Fridays are my "off" days, and the day I take for myself just to do whatever, so more than likely I will do video and blog posting then.
   A few months ago, I had the privilege of getting to facilitate at my churches ladies Bible study,and is was such a wonderful experience.Im sharing this with you, because it was at one of these sessions where God just put something in my heart and just today I was reminded of it, so I wanted to share,

Proverbs 23:17-18 says:
                     "Don't for a minute envy careless rebels;
                       Soak yourselves in the fear of God
                       Thats where your future lies
                       Then you won't be left with an armload of nothing".

The word that stood out to me in this passage is the word soak. Soak. To make or allow something to become throughly wet by immersing it in liquid. It can also mean to impose heavy taxation on. Ive been on a particular diet for well over a year now. On this plan I eat a ton of beans. I typically just use them straight out of the can, but on this particular day I decided to cook them myself. The instructions said to soak them overnight.I thought this was really silly. Wanting them to come out just right, and being the researcher that I am, I was curious as to what the soaking process actually does, so I looked it up. When you soak beans, you remove some of the indigestible sugars that cause gas.SOAKING MAKES THE THINGS AROUND US EASIER TO DIGEST. NOT ONLY THE THINGS AROUND US, BUT GODS WORD AS WELL. Beans are dirty. When beans soak, the scum rises to the top so it can be wiped away. The scum is the anti nutrients, and all of the things that aren't good for us. I hope you can see where I am going with this. Yesterday I made a batch of beans,pinto beans. I don't know if you have ever noticed,but pinto beans are very unique looking. They have these unusual spots and stripes on them. After soaking them for hours, I made the observation that they didn't even look the same. For one, they were fuller and plumper, not a speckle or a single stripe on them. It was almost as if they had completely transformed.THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE SOAK IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. This transformation process takes time, all good things do. If you take shortcuts, you won't get the full flavor and richness that was intended.
   Soaking makes things easier to digest,and makes things that would normally be uncomfortable more bearable. It also gets rid of all of the "bad things" that are unbeneficial.It removes the dirt and the scum, and after the process is all over with, we don't even look the same. We act different. We think different. We become more like the individuals that God created us to be.
  Have you felt lately like you have been left with an armload of nothing? Ill admit, at the time of this revelation, I felt like that. It is in that moment that you have to ask yourself, have I spent time soaking lately? Am I dry? Most likely the answer probably is yes.


"Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
    scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life."
Psalms 51:7(The Message)

New year, New Blog

So, Happy 2017 People! My blog is getting a facelift =)So, one of my new life resolutions (a friend of mine referred to their New years Resolutions as life resolutions, and I kindve  liked it, so it just stuck), is to be creative. I have this deep desire inside of me just to be creative whether it be to make something crafty, compose a song, or even to just write. Life and busyness has stifled this creativity inside me over the past several years. This homeschooling mom, and full time college student has been busy, ya'll.

So, about 3 years ago I decided to dedicate this blog to just essential oil related things. Well, that worked out well for awhile, but things got complicated, then there that whole FDA compliant thing......which is confusing and blah blah blah.Dont get me wrong, Im still very much pro-oil, but there are soo many other things in which I am passionate that I like to talk about. Jesus. Trim Healthy Mama(more on that in another post),homeschooling,crafts,music and worship and the list goes on and on.Im a little ADD at times(lol), so there is no sense on putting a limit on what I can talk about on here. So, in 2017 you will be seeing a lot more of a little bit of everything  on here. Im also going to do my best to make weekly videos on facespace(also known as Facebook ), and youtube.

Heres to a blessed and more creative 2017!

A Weekend with Lavender

  

       One of the most popular questions I get asked all of the time is which oils should I take when I travel? My answer to that? Lavender!!! Without a doubt it is the one oil that I recommend you have on hand,especially when traveling. It can get you out of a lot of sticky situations. This past weekend, I got to know lavender pretty well as we went on our annual family mini vacay to the beach. I usually take all of my oils, but this trip, I only brought along lavender, frankincense, and On Guard. About halfway into the drive, my daughter starts complaining about her tummy feeling funny, and then she tells me that she thinks that she got stung by a wasp. I check her belly, and sure enough, there was about a quarter sized spot on her stomach that clearly had a wasp stinger in the center. Shes never been stung by a wasp before and tends to have allergic reaction to insects that have never bitten or stung her before(she had been messing with the stung area, thus spreading the venom). By the time we get to our hotel, she is extremely lightheaded and short of breath. I dont have a pair of tweezers(another thing that I recommend always having on hand). I turn to Google for answers...lol, and find out that you can remove a stinger by using a credit card(who knew?). WE get the stinger removed amidst screams and yells and a couple of accidental punches to my face(who knew removing a stinger could be so violent?). That sucker was about a quarter of an inch long. I immediately apply lavender to the affected area and the area almost immediately drops from about a half dollar size to about the size of a dime. The puffiness reduces.Not only does the lavender do all of this, it also produced a calming affect.

   Fast forward about a day. We all decide to spend a very long day at the beach. I made sure we were all sunblocked up, but I learned something new this weekend. water Resistant does not mean the same thing as waterproof. They are very different. Not knowing this, I failed to reapply as often as I should of, and my entire family got burned pretty badly......... myself and my daughter the worst. I have heard that lavender is great for sunburn,but had never used it for that before. My immediate thought was to use the aloe/ after suncare lotions that we always use(its been a few years since we have had any kind of sunburn this bad). Guess what. THEY DIDN'T WORK. Frustrated I finally decided to give lavender a try(I was trying to hold back on it because I was low in supply), It worked almost IMMEDIATELY. The picture you see above are the blisters after treatment. I applied only once this morning, and she is about 80% better! I should also mention that I used this in conjunction with aloe plant.

    So this weekend I guess you could say lavender and myself got to know each other extremely well this weekend. Up until now I had only used it for its restful and relaxation properties. This weekend it showed me that it was soo much more than that. Its a soother as well, not only mentally, but physically. I think I will keep it around  =)

If you are interested in purchasing Lavender, you can do so at my site or you can contact me here

New Products Just released!

Its September,and that means NEW PRODUCTS RELEASE TIME!!!!!  I am super excited about the new items doTerra is offering STARTING TODAY! Last year, we saw the edition of JUniper Berry and Cedarwood oils, as well as Digestzen and On Guard softgels (love these because they have the On Guard blend plus Melissa and black pepper added to them), the aromalite diffuser(my personal favorite), Reveal facial System, Slim and Sassy V Shake, and On Guard Laundry Detergent. Here are this years new items,in no particular order:

ARBORVITAE!doTERRA is the only company with this particular species or Arborvitae, which makes it even more exciting!Known as the “tree of life,” Arborvitae is majestic in size
and abundant in therapeutic benefits. Arborvitae essential
oil has a high content of tropolones, a group of chemical
compounds that protect against environmental and
seasonal threats, have powerful purifying properties, and
promote healthy cell function. Hinokitiol, one of the
tropolones in Arborvitae, protects the body from harmful
elements while supporting normal cell activity. This
compound also contributes to Arborvitae’s natural insect
repellent properties. Thujic acid, another tropolone found
in Arborvitae, has been studied for its ability to protect
against common threats in the environment. Native to
Canada, all parts of the Arborvitae tree were used
extensively by Native Americans for health benefits and for
building vessels, totem poles, baskets, and clothing.
Because of its natural preserving properties, Arborvitae
prevents wood from rotting, which makes it popular in
woodcraft and for preserving natural wood surfaces
USES
• Apply 1–2 drops to areas of concern on the skin.
• Add a few drops to a spray bottle with water and spray
on surfaces or hands to protect against environmental
threats.
• Apply to pulse points to promote healthy cell function.
• Diffuse to purify the air and to repel insects inside the
home.
• Mix 4 drops of Arborvitae essential oil and 2 drops of
Lemon essential oil for a natural wood preservative
and polish.

Breathe Respiratory Drops. Think Halls, only natural. If these are anything like the On Guard Throat Drops, you can bet I will be fully stocked !

A close relative to Ginger, Cardamom is known as being
the most expensive cooking spice and for being beneficial
to the digestive system in a variety of ways. Cardamom is
commonly used to help reduce indigestion and nausea,
and to soothe stomach discomfort and promote digestion.
Its distinct scent can lessen motion sickness while
promoting a positive mood. Cardamom has profound
effects on the respiratory system due to its high
1,8-cineole content, which promotes clear breathing and
respiratory health. Native to Southeast Asia, Cardamom is
added to traditional Indian sweets and teas for its cool, yet
minty aroma and flavor. dōTERRA Cardamom essential oil
is extracted from Cardamom seeds grown in Guatemala,
using our strict CPTG® testing standards. Through a
collaborative and responsible sourcing arrangement, we
are able to have a significant impact on the lives of local
partners, ensuring that these farming communities enjoy
improved livelihoods.
USES
• Use internally as part of a daily health regimen to
support healthy gastrointestinal function.
• Diffuse or apply topically to promote clear breathing.
• Add to bread, smoothies, meats, and salads to
enhance food flavor and aid digestion.
• Diffuse or inhale to alleviate feelings of nausea or
motion sickness.

Frankincense, Helichrysm, Melaleuca, Cedarwood, and
Lavender—all CPTG® essential oils known to help assist
in soothing skin irritations—form the base of dōTERRA
Correct-X. This multi-purpose, all natural ointment helps
soothe skin and enhance the natural process of skin
returning to a healthy state after being distressed.
Correct-X provides a moisture barrier that helps protect
against additional damage while simultaneously
soothing and hydrating the skin. This petroleum-free,
preservative-free ointment absorbs quickly and is gentle
and non-irritating, making it ideal for sensitive skin. Its like Neosporin, only better!
Frankincense, Helichrysm, Melaleuca,
Cedarwood, and Lavender soothe and
purify skin and help reduce the effects
of minor skin irritations
• Bisabolol has a high concentration of
panthenol, known for its calming effects
and ability to promote cell renewal
• Similar to the natural oils found in skin,
Jojoba provides optimal hydration,
helping to improve the texture and
overall health of skin
• Phellodendron Amurense Bark extract
is used to condition the skin and
support a healthy inflammatory
response

HD CLEAR For those with very troubled skin. Think Proactiv.......but better. There is also another new skincare line, called Verage that is anti aging. Looking forward to trying it.........

 At only 41.00 wholesale, this diffuser is one of our best yet!The dōTERRA Petal Diffuser is a small, user-friendly
diffuser that delivers health-promoting benefits to
your family and home. It has a relaxing mist and
soft white ambient light, making it ideal for
nighttime diffusion, and can cover up to 100
square feet. The Petal Diffuser has three timed
settings—1, 2, and 4 hours—allowing you to
customize the release of essential oils into the air.
This convenient diffuser is stable, light, and easy to
use—perfect for home or office use.
The Petal Diffuser permeates an ultra-fine, yet
substantial mist output into the air, releasing the
aromatic and therapeutic benefits of dōTERRA
CPTG® essential oils quickly and safely. This high
quality, affordable diffuser is perfect for both novice
and experienced essential oil users who want a
reliable, easy-to-use essential oil diffuser.

dōTERRA TerraGreens is a proprietary blend of 

whole food fruits and vegetables combined with 

superfruits and dōTERRA CPTG Certified Pure 

Therapeutic Grade® Essential Oils. This powdered 

mix packs a daily boost of fruits and vegetables into 

a mix that can be stirred into 8 oz. of liquid for easy 

and convenient nutritional supplementation.  Super excited about this one! Can't wait to make this a part of my daily routine.

So, there you have it , some pretty amazing new products. To purchase, visit my site here . To get these products at a great discount,be sure to take advantage of wholesale membership. Its only 35 dollars a year! Feel free to contact me with any questions......

Essentially Yours,

Rachel

* All information in this blog post was obtained through the doTERRA website*

Oil Testimonial of the Week:Cypress

It has been a crazy busy past few weeks at mi casa. I recently just got back from a fun cross country trip with my daughter and her youth group. I was able to share my oils with a few with them, and so was my daughter,which was cool.About 34 hours total spent driving in a van. As we were on on way home however,5 hours away from home to be exact(after about 12 plus hours of driving), I noticed that my ankles were largely swollen probably to at least twice their size. To say that I was a bit freaked out is a bit of an understatement,after all my ankles never swell, at least they havent since I was pregnant 14 years ago. I managed to somehow make it home,but i was miserable. As soon as i got home, I immediately plopped on the recliner so I could prop my feet up for better circulation. All of a sudden I remembered reading something about cypress for edema(I diagnosed myself with travel related edema...lol). I'll be honest, I havent used cypress a whole bunch since I purchased it, in fact I only bought it to use in my
 

     SLIM AND SASSY WRAP    recipe. I had hubby go grab it, rub a few drops on my ankles, and within an hour the swelling had completely DISSAPEARED. I wish I would have taken photos. I was completely amazed that they worked that fast. Actually, no I wasn'y because stuff like that happens all the time.

         So, what else is Cypress good for, other than water retention related issues? It also works great for swelling period, and works to help localize blood flow. It also works great for reducing the appearance of varicose veins. True story. If you know someone who has roaches(yuk!), you can mix cypress with peppermint to make a very effective bug spray. It also works great for breathing related issues, and the list goes on..........after this week, if definately ranks higher up on my lists of "must haves". Who knew that the leaves and cones of the Cypress tree could have such a powerful effect on our health? God did! Thats who =)  Until next time.........................