When I sat down to draw this cartoon, my eight year old son sat down and drew one of his own. This is an accurate portrayal of our boys hearing the ice cream truck.
Laugh your way to better health!
Category Archives: Interesting Tidbits
Gimme My Gummies
I have a sweet tooth with roots so deep they touch my tongue. After every meal, I crave something sweet. Eating fruit is a great idea, but if I’m not hungry, just craving, I don’t want more than a bite or two, and unless I have five other people to share an apple with me, it becomes work to not be wasteful. Chewing gum is great too until my kids eat it all and I forget to buy more and turn to option three: one bite of chocolate or ice cream.
Ha ha! One bite? For me, that’s an “I need a drop of water; go ahead and open the floodgates” type of bad idea. My dilemma is this: how do I satisfy my craving for a taste of sweetness without adding 100 calories or more to my meal?
What’s that you say? Why don’t I ignore my craving? That’s the best idea yet! And it works for me when I’m out and about, but I’m a stay at home mom which means that 98% of my waking hours are spent within twenty feet of my kitchen. I try to ignore my sweet tooth, but I often lose. I lack the will power of the Green Lantern.
The solution that’s working for me is gummy vitamins. I’m talking about gummy vitamins for grownups, my kids’ Spiderman and gummy bears shaped vitamins, or Juice Plus which is a gummy version of fruit and vegetable juice.
I started taking gummy vitamins a few years ago during the first trimester of one of my pregnancies. Because of first trimester nausea, the prescribed vitamin horse-pills my doctor recommended were not going down without causing something to come back up. I started eating my sons’ gummy vitamins; better than nothing, right? And I never looked back.
Now when I crave sweets after a meal, I take my vitamins. They satisfy my craving without opening the floodgates of Sugar Dam, and each gummy is only about 7 calories. It’s a strange concept, gummy vitamins as dessert, but like I said, it works for me. Besides, I’ve never been so consistent about taking my vitamins in my life.
“A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul.” Proverbs 13:19a
Images courtesy of blog.scratchmenot.com (gummy bears), and me.
Put Your Back Into It: Posture and Weight Loss
God created the female form to be best displayed with good posture. Want to see what I mean?
Stand up and either go to a mirror or imagine yourself in front of a mirror. Slouch a little. Your boobs look smaller and your belly looks bigger. Now stand up straight and square your shoulders. Whoa, careful now, don’t over extend! If you push your shoulders back too far, your love handles (IF you have them) get handier. Okay, so we’re straight and square and relaxed.
Your silhouette looks great: breasts are front and center, belly looks slimmer, buttocks looks tighter. But more than that, how do you feel?
A little more confident? A little more in control? A bit more determined?
When I slouch, I develop a bit of the “poor me-s” and the “why bother-s”. Poor me, I blew it diet-wise and it’s only 10am. Poor me, I’m tired, I’m grumpy, and I haven’t accomplished what I thought I would today. Why bother exercising? Why bother putting ice cream in a little bowl instead of snarfing it straight from the carton? Why bother going to bed on time?
But if I stop and make myself sit up straight, stand up straight, it’s like my brain snaps to attention. My eyes are lifted up, my head is held high, and I feel more powerful. I blew it, but the battle is not lost. I have a fresh batch of choices facing me and I have a goal to reach. I’m sure my chiropractor would say that good posture allows my nervous system to operate uninhibited and what I feel is neurons communicating efficiently up and down my spine. Whatever, Dr. Leary. I’m going to call it “Queen Syndrome” because I feel like one.
How do you stand up straight without looking Victorian? Hang your arms at your side. Make a thumbs up sign with both thumbs, then turn your thumbs out away from your sides. You should feel your shoulders moving back, your vertebrae, collar bone, and the stars falling into alignment. You are a queen with a goal. Get to it.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9
Images courtesy of tuningpp.com (standing woman), achesawaytoronto.ca (sitting woman)
Recipe: Shrimp in Green Tea Curry Sauce
This recipe comes to us from Prevention.com. It caught my eye because it combines our final two cancer prevention foods: green tea and curcumin (curry). Like I said last week, the curcumin in curry isn’t plentiful enough to kill cancer tumors in one meal, but it sure is delicious.
One final note: when my husband and I first tried this recipe, we thought it was okay. Then my hubby squeezed some lemon juice over our plates and BAM! So delicious.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon green tea leaves (I cut open a tea bag)
8 ounces dried linguine (or whatever pasta you have in the pantry if, like me, you’re too lazy to make a special trip to the store; see photo)
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 pound large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and rinsed (would also be good with chicken, I think)
1/4 cup finely chopped scallions, white and light green parts
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons hot or mild curry powder
2 tablespoons sake or dry white wine
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
chopped cilantro and sliced scallions (dark green parts)
fresh lemon juice
DIRECTIONS
- Cook the linguine according to the package direction, subtracting 2 minutes of the cooking time. Drain and return to the cooking pot to keep warm.
- In a heatproof container, combine the boiling water and tea. Cover and steep for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, heat the canola oil in a large nonstick skillet or wok over high heat. Add the shrimp, scallions, garlic, and curry powder. Cook, tossing, for 1 minute. Add the sake or wine. Cook for 30 seconds. Add the tea and half of the tea leaves. Cook for 1 minute, or until the shrimp are opaque. With a slotted spoon, remove the shrimp and set aside.
- Transfer the linguine to the skillet or wok. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, tossing, for about 3 minutes, or until the linguine is al dente and the sauce has thickened. Return the shrimp to the pan. Drizzle with the sesame oil. Toss to combine. Garnish with the cilantro and scallions.
- Drizzle with fresh lemon juice and salt to taste.
Ginger Bread With Broccoli (Shhh, don’t tell my kids)
What says “Merry Christmas” and “Eat your vegetables” all at the same time? Broccoli Ginger Bread! This recipe comes from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious cookbook. The beauty of molasses and ginger is that you neither see nor taste the broccoli and carrot purees this recipe calls for. Even my picky eater eats it. And, as we discussed last week, broccoli is a cruciferous vegetable, so it’s a dessert that helps fight cancer. Doesn’t get much better than that! (I’ve paraphrased the recipe instructions a bit because I’m too lazy to type every word.)
Merry Christmas, enjoy your bread, and I’ll see you in January! Keep your body moving; every little bit of exercise is beneficial.
Gingerbread Spice Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp EACH baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon
1/4 tsp EACH ground cloves, allspice, salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup broccoli puree (I thawed frozen broccoli and stuck it in the food processor with the oil)
1 cup carrot puree (Steam or boil carrots, puree in food processor or blender. Or use applesauce if you’re pressed for time)
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tb grated orange zest
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 9×5 loaf pan.
2. Mix the flours and spices in a bowl, set aside.
3. Mix the sugar, oil, egg until smooth. Add the veggies, yogurt, molasses, vanilla and zest and mix again. Add flour mixture and mix until smooth.
4. Bake 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes, turn out onto a rack and cool completely. Or slice it steaming hot and blow on it to cool it between bites like I do. 🙂
The Daniel Fast Made Delicious
Here’s something new to the blog: a book review! Yes, I got the book for free. Jealous? I would be too. Here we go:
I picked up The Daniel Fast Made Delicious not because I was fasting, but because I wanted some new veggie recipes. It’s essentially a vegan cookbook with some unique flavor combinations and a good variety of veggies and seasonings. There are even recipes for veggies that I’ve seen in the store, but never bought because I had no idea what to do with them. Now I do. One other thing I like is that most foods they refer to are ones I’ve heard of; I have seen these veggies in the store, which means I don’t have to hunt all over town for them. I’ve only tried a few of the recipes so far, but the ones I tried were really good.
If you are fasting (bless your heart, I haven’t had the guts yet. I have severe hungerphobia. I’m making progress, though: since I began living healthier and losing weight, I’ve learned that if I leave the house for a few hours and don’t take a snack with me, I will not die. Logic is not involved here, folks, just an unhealthy dislike of that empty sensation.) Let me start again…if you are fasting, (bless your heart) then this would make a good companion guide to The Daniel Fast. The Bible study at the end is basically just meditating on one verse per day for three weeks, which at first struck me as way too short, but then I wondered when I last meditated on one verse for longer than ten seconds. One verse is enough.
In short, this is a good, not-too-weird-and-“out there” vegan cookbook with some encouragement to get the most out of fasting. Or some fresh ideas for veggie-ful entrees. Along with tons of veggies, many recipes call for dairy or egg substitutes, but I plan on making them with good ol’ animal products. I’m making Pumpkin Lasagna this week. See what I mean about unique flavor combinations?
Have any of you ever tried the Daniel Fast?
Pet Perfection: Backyard Chickens
Our family has taken the next step toward organic free range eggs and becoming an unofficial petting zoo. Let me introduce you to the ladies; a family album of sorts.
Here they are newly arrived in July and super cute. Like their human counterparts, they spent their days eating, sleeping, and pooping. We even had family come visit from out of town to hold a handful of fluff.
Next came the awkward teen weeks with the loud music, testing of boundaries, and punk hairstyles. When they started eating the ants in the garden, I told them I loved them.
Fully plumed and adjusted to the fenced backyard, these five ladies now have full time jobs scratching and fertilizing the yard and gardens.
If you need some inspiration for your workout, try the We’ve-already-eaten-the-bottom-leaves Bean Jump!
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for…an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:11-13
Sex, Soup, and 2 Fisted Eating 