Mint Tea w Stevia
I decided to grow Stevia this summer and now that it is a healthy plant with many branches I trimmed one branch with maybe 20 leaves on it and added it to 10 stalks of fresh Spearmint and 2 stalks of fresh peppermint. Steeped in 2 quarts of just boiled filtered water it makes a delicious cold or hot tea. The Stevia was actually too sweet so next time I will cut it back to 10 leaves per 2 quarts of water.
Soy Shake with Strawberries: 1 cup lite soy milk, plain, 6 to 8 frozen strawberries, 1 scoop Plant Protein Powder, 1 stick of Inulin Fiber. Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. You can substitute any fruit, fresh or frozen. One of my favorites is a banana and a tablespoon of cocoa powder.
Blackberry Mango Shake: 1 cup fresh blackberries, 4 large strawberries, handful of frozen mango, 1 cup apple juice. Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.
Fresh Vegetable Soup: Place 1 stalk celery, 1 seeded red bell pepper , handful fresh parsley, 1/2 cup water, in the blender and blend until smooth. Add 2 medium baked and peeled beets and 1 baked carrot. Puree until smooth. Salt and pepper to taste. Add juice from half a lemon or lime and possibly a tablespoon of greek nonfat yogurt.
Baked Beets and Carrots: It’s hard to blend some of the vegetables and I don’t have a juicer, yet, so I place the beets and carrots in a foil pouch and bake them in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Just until they are tender. Then peel the beets and puree.
Last night was hard, I didn’t feel hungry but was tempted by the meal that I fixed for my family. I can tell that evening dinner time and before bed are going to be tough. However, I survived by eating three small pieces of bagguet dipped in a little bit of olive oil and a taste of dessert. Darn, almost a perfect day.
9:30am running around, late for my first Doctor’s appointment. My daughter made my Soy Shake w Strawberries for me and out the door I went. Drank it in the car. The routine physical revealed that my blood pressure, EKG, heart, lungs, and skin are healthy. The weight loss was a nice surprise, even on their scales. I will schedule blood work and get a x-ray of my left knee. The right knee seems to be getting better. Yeah!
11:30am home from the doctor. Made a Berry Mango Fruit shake and left again to get the x-ray.
12:30pm Ate a large plate of steamed kale with balsamic vinegar and a glass of Mint w Stevia tea. I’m satisfied, my stomach feels pleasantly full and no cravings. However, the other end of the digestive tract is very active today. Clean out time!
Last night I was reading the home page of a Face Book friend and I noticed that she liked a documentary named, Fat,Sick and Nearly Dead by Joe Cross. So I downloaded it from Netflix and watched it. This is the boost I’ve been looking for with my own eating plan. The Reboot juice fast will be perfect for this time of year, especially since we have a vegetable garden. So, here goes, I’m going to stay on the juice fast for 15 days adding in steamed vegetables and occasionally whole grains, and nuts and plain soymilk. #fatsickandnearlydead.com
Began my morning with a soy shake made from : 1 cup plain lite soymilk, handful of frozen strawberries, 1 scoop Protein Powder and 1 stick of Inulin Fiber. This is basically the same shake I’ve been drinking for breakfast for years. It is very satisfying, especially in the early morning when my stomach isn’t ready for food.
About 20 minutes before drinking my shake I have taken a Glucose Health supplement. It helps support glucose metabolism.
10:30am Just returned from pulling weeds in the vegetable garden, 2 hours worth! Also picked fresh blackberries and corn, pulled carrots and beets and snipped fresh kale. So, that gives me lots of choices for todays juices and steamed vegetables. I will post the recipes that I come up with under the Healthy Recipes category on this blog page. Just look for todays’ date.
It’s time. It’s time to stop overeating, bingeing, practicing poor nutrition and lying to myself about it. I am a 56 woman, post-menopausal, who has a BMI of 35 (healthy BMI is 25 or lower), and I am emotionally tied to food. I am also a nurse and own an online nutrition business. So, I know what I have to do and finally I’m doing it.
In January, I began taking a cholesterol lowering drug. The hip and joint pain was ferocious and by April I had extremely tight IT bands in both legs and my knees became painful and swollen. So OKAY, UNCLE, it’s time. Time to take the excess weight off of my knees and lower my cholesterol. Those are the goals. Follow my daily journey to better health and if you need it, apply what you learn here to your own. We are in this together.
From the keypad of Mrs. Eagle
First of all, this article is written from personal experience on the consumer side of health care. I am not an expert on private insurance programs. This is a testimonial from the person in our family who schedules medical tests, shops for medicine and tries to work within a budget, me.
In January, my husbands’ company gave us the opportunity to reduce our insurance payment by setting up a Health Savings Account along with a high deductible Major Medical insurance plan. After working through the numbers we decided that the Health Savings Account gave us a better opportunity for longterm affordability and would require us to shop around for health care.
We are allowed by the Federal Government to set aside a certain amount before we pay taxes, ie., pre-tax money into what is called a Health Savings Account or HSA. We can spend this money on medical tests, doctor visits, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and wellness visits.
We also pay half of the insurance premium for a major medical plan through a major health insurance company which has a high deductible rate that matches what we put into our HSA. It is the insurance company’s responsibility to pay for preventive medical testing, ie., mammograms and colonoscopies. Also, they use their bargaining power to reduce the costs of providers and connect us with an online pharmacy.
It is our responsibility to find the best value for our HSA money because what we don’t spend this year we rollover into the account for next year. So far we have worked with the online pharmacy to reduce our drug costs by half. My husband takes 2 drugs to lower his blood pressure. We also exercise regularly, take whole food supplements and are switching to a mainly vegetarian diet. I personally love to cook using Dr. Dean Ornish’s program.
Since this is the first year we have done this it is an experiment. So far our account is growing and we have had the funds needed for our family’s medical care. We are also paying for the care of 3 dependents. Future blogs will be posted on our progress .
What I love about this system is it puts the responsibility for our health on us, reducing our costs and introducing competition into the health marketplace. And economists tell us that in a society where enterprise is free, competition always lowers the cost.
I’ve had numerous requests for this recipe. It is from an old cookbook about Victory Gardens that were planted during World War II. My son took a jar of these to his wrestling banquet last year and the team emptied it in record time. The award won is a blue ribbon at the Great Frederick Fair.
Dilly Bean Pickles
2 pounds fresh, green beans left whole
4 small cloves garlic, peeled
4 heads fresh dill or 4 tsp dill seeds
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 1/2 cups white vinegar
2 1/2 cups filtered water
3 tblsp Kosher salt
Wash beans. Peel garlic. In each of 4 sterilized pint canning jars place 1 clove of garlic, 1 head of dill or 1tsp dill seeds, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Fit beans into jars vertically, packing them tightly. Allow 1/2 inch of space at the top of each jar. (I pack them with the blossom end up and evenly slice the ends off leaving 1/2 inch of space.) Bring vinegar, water and salt to a boil, stirring enough to dissolve salt. Pour hot liquid over beans filling to within 1/4 inch of rim. Fasten clean, new canning jar lids and rings onto tops of jars following manufacturers directions. Place jars in canning rack and lower slowly into warm bath with 2 inches of water covering jars. Bring water bath to boil and process at a rolling boil for 5 minutes. Remove rack of jars carefully and allow to cool away from drafts and or cold air. Check lids for seal and remove rings after 24 hours. Pickles will be ready to eat by Christmas.
Want to join the ranks of the biggest losers without being humiliated on TV? There is genetic testing available to determine which diet and lifestyle changes will work the best for your particular genetic variation.
Recently my daughter has ordered a genetic test for health that detects certain variations influencing the nutrient digestion and metabolism. Her particular results outline the study of 16 different genes with 5 variations on 4 genes that affect fat metabolism. The personal report explained how the variations affected amino acid production in the gut that caused the absorption of fat. She was given detailed recommendations on diet, exercise, and lifestyle to move her forward toward optimal health. We were very impressed with the ease of the testing and the information returned to her. With this new testing available, the myriad of choices for weight loss can be narrowed down to match individual metabolism. Genetic testing for the biggest losers here we come.
Laura Powell Like
Adding green, white, blue, purple, orange, yellow and red fruits and veggies to your meals takes imagination and a well-stocked refrigerator. So far today I’ve added a banana to my soy shake and thinly sliced cucumbers to my bagel and cream cheese. Bananas are a white fruit so I’ve consumed 1 white and 1 green serving, at least 5 to go.
When combat shopping at the local food warehouse I will lug home a very large bag of frozen strawberries. They have been flash frozen at the field and carry the red nutrients that can be added to breakfast shakes or blend them with a little pineapple juice for a great ice cream sauce. Of course vanilla ice cream is a faux white fruit.
Apply your creativity and let me know how you are going to add fruits and vegetables to every meal and snack. Remember that a variety of colors and at least 7 servings per day is the goal. Then we can truly have a healthchat.
After hibernating for 2 months it’s time to wake up, yawn, stretch and walk out of the cave to see what’s new. Attending a nutritional seminar last weekend has helped to stimulate the winter-dulled mind and re-energize the stiff, slow body.
At the seminar we learned that consuming different colors in your daily 7 to 9 servings of fruit and vegetables are the latest nutrition recommendations. Red, Green, Yellow, White, Blue, Purple and Orange are the colors associated with different phytonutrients found in plant-based food. For example, green fruit and vegetables contain EGCG, Lutein/Zeaxanthin, iso flavone, and Isothiocyanate. These unpronounceable food factors maintain cell health, lung health, liver function and support arterial function. Red fruits and vegetables contain Lycopene and Ellagic Acid which support prostate and DNA health. Our bodies were designed to perform with optimal health while living in a garden of endless variety. However, the number of Americans that fall short of eating enough phytonutrients on a daily basis is 70 to 80%.
What to do? How do we incorporate the phytonutrients from 7 to 9 servings of plant foods each day while getting a balance of all the colors? How many of you grow your own vegetables and fruit without pesticides and away from pollution laden air? Also, Cauliflower and Eggplant may not be among your favorites. You can drive yourselves and your families crazy, forcing them to eat things they don’t like and trying to keep track of all of the colors consumed. Or you can do your best to incorporate as many colors and servings into their diets as possible and take a good, plant-based supplement for what is lacking. Everyone will be much happier with the latter approach.
My recommendations are to find a supplement company that grows, harvests and processes their own plant materials on organically certified farms. Nutrilite is such a company and they have supplements for adults and children that fill in the gaps in your diet. Also, when you shop for food, try to buy organically grown fruit and vegetables in a variety of colors. The closer you are to the grower, the better. nutrients begin to break down as soon as the food is picked and in two weeks time a piece of fruit can lose 50% or more of its vitamins. If you live in a place that is frozen during the winter, go to the freezer section of the grocery store and select vegetables and fruit that have been flash frozen right after picking.
And finally, incorporate as many colors as you can into every meal. Yesterday I had an omelette with mushrooms, celery and onions, a blueberry muffin and a glass of orange juice for breakfast. For lunch I added celery and red apples to chicken breast and made chicken salad with raw carrots on the side and fresh pineapple for dessert. The days of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn are over. Try to introduce one new fruit or vegetable a week and if your family rebels, let them take supplements. Just don’t give up, optimal health is too important.
I’m always available for advice on this topic at lauraelike@gmail.com and I would welcome your comments and questions on this blog.
Laura Powell Like
Healthchat.blog
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