Hello Cauliflower!

It's Saturday night and I'm sitting on the kitchen floor nursing Julianne.  Kurt and Oliver have destroyed the kitchen made a black bean chocolate cake.  We're one week into our new lifestyle and I'm down 5 pounds!  I'm happy to see those numbers dropping.  This week we've tried several new recipes and have pretty much enjoyed all of them.  

Today we went to the Farmer's Market to check things out and we're considering doing the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for meat and maybe dairy?  Do you drink raw milk?  We've never tried it but are curious.  We have so much to learn about healthy/whole/raw eating and have enjoyed reading and diving in to learning these things.  We plan to join 3 Rivers Market (our local co-op) to get a membership rate and will look around at meat at Earth Fare, Kroger, and Trader Joe's to make a decision on how to start buying grass fed, organic meat at the best price. 

We've had cauliflower breaded and fried in coconut oil, baked in a cheesy casserole, and mashed like potatoes (aka fauxtatoes) all in one week.  I think it would be safe to say that before this week we hadn't had cauliflower our entire married career.  It is the starch substitute in the low carb world so we've jumped in and have been pretty happy with it.  

I started thinking about changing the way I ate because I had baby weight to lose.  I didn't realize Kurt would jump right on board with me and make this a family affair.  I'm so thankful he's making these changes with me because it makes it so much more of a lifestyle change than a diet which would be a temporary change. 

These are all good changes and we're feeling good.  We are happy to keep this up!

xoxo,

Riss 

Bye Bye, Sugar!

Guess what?  We're making some changes around here.  What kind of changes you ask?  Well, we're saying "Bye BYE!" to carbs and sugar!  No more bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, artificial flavoring/colors, and dyes.  I really thought we ate pretty good, healthy meals because I was making so much of our things from scratch.  Well a friend turned me on the the movie "Fathead".  Have you seen it?  It's free on Hulu, so go watch it.  It changed my mind on food and got me moving in the right direction.  Kurt is excited.  He's ready for bacon and steaks.  I'm ready to lose my baby weight and to feel better about myself.  So, we're doing it.  We're diving in to make a change and are pretty excited about it!

I'm going to keep a food journal so I can look back at what we ate over this first month.  We are trying tons of new recipes that we are excited about.  Today we ate romaine lettuce wraps with cream cheese and chicken inside.  They were good!  And satisfying!  I will share the recipes we enjoy.  We shopped at Aldi's yesterday, and found some pretty awesome things so we'll be going back.  I think the biggest struggle will be our morning coffee.  Full fat half and half is a GO but SUGAR is a NO- GO.  So we are trying Stevia in the Raw right now and it will take some getting used to.  It's kinda funky.  :)

I'm excited to be healthier and hopefully thinner.  I'm excited to get my family more healthy and to cut out the junk that has crept in.  I want my children to be healthy and strong!  And Julianne will be eating solids soon too so it's a great time to start this new lifestyle.

We've also organized some major things in our life this past week.  The coat closet was horrific and it's now accessible without cursing, the desk in our kitchen had become a catch all for mail (that never got opened), and all kinds of junk, receipts and coupons, and, and, and.  We cleared that out along with our "junk drawer".  Those small things feel so good to get under control, don't they!!??  The biggest thing we got ahold of this past week was our finances.  We had really taken a break from tracking our purchases which is just awful.  We got it all figured out and are excited to keep track again-- one week at a time!!

So August is a new month and we've got big plans for it!  Pretty exciting things around here! :)  What do you have going on?

<3
Riss