Paleo Berry Ice Cream

Who doesn't love ice cream!?!?  We sure do in our house, but since we stopped eating dairy, it's been an ongoing challenge to find the right combination of coconut milk and nut milk to make a batch without the over powering flavor of coconut.   About the only *successful* batch I've made is double chocolate (chocolate with mini chocolate chips) because the raw cocoa covers up the coconut flavor so well.  This afternoon though, the kids specifically requested "no chocolate".

Inspired by The Spunky Coconut's Ice Cream recipe book and her many fruit flavored ice creams, we used what we had available in our fridge on short notice.  It's different than any thing in her book and was a huge hit!

First I made my own coconut milk because we didn't have any in a can and for a thickening agent I used a banana (assuming the flavor would be masked well with the frozen berries like it is in the smoothies we make) and a little xantham gum.  Our sweetener was just a spoonful of raw honey and the berries themselves!  I had no guilt or concerns giving my kids TWO scoops of this delicious treat after dinner, on a school night!

HOMEMADE COCONUT MILK

2 c. shredded coconut
4 cups of hot, filtered water

Using a high powered blender (like a Blendtec or Vitamix), pour 4 cups of hot (not boiling, but pretty hot) water into the blender.  Add 2 cups of unsweetened shredded coconut.  Blend for about 3 minutes on high until the mixture is foamy and creamy.  Strain the mixture with a fine mesh strainer, followed by a nut milk bag.  (I didn't really need to do the last step because the fine mesh strainer got all of the coconut fibers the first pass through).

This will make about 3 cups of coconut milk and leftovers stores easily in the fridge in a glass mason jar.  It will be hot before making the ice cream and that's ok because the frozen berries will bring the temperature down quickly.

MIXED BERRY ICE CREAM

2 c. Homemade coconut milk (or full-fat canned milk)

1 c. almond milk

2 c. frozen berry mix (I used a blend of blackberries, raspberries and blueberries)

1 ripe banana

2 T. raw honey

2 t. vanilla

1/2 t. xantham gum (optional)

1 c. frozen berries (to be added to ice cream maker for chunks of fruit in ice cream, optional)

Using a high powered blender again, pureé all of the above ingredients until the berries are well blended (about 2 cycles of the ice cream setting on my Blendtec).  The frozen berries quickly brought down the temperature of my freshly made coconut milk.  However, if you are using fresh berries and the mixture remains warm after blending, I recommend cooling the mixture in the refrigerator or freezer for a couple of hours before putting into the ice cream maker.

Fill an ice cream maker (I use Cuisinart's 1.5 qt ice cream maker) about 3/4 full with the cooled mixture. If you have leftovers, it makes a great smoothy on the spot - my baby gobbled it up in his sippy cup. Let the ice cream maker run until the mixture stops turning, about 30 minutes.  You can add in 1 more cup of frozen berries at this point for chunks of berries in the ice cream - my kids loved finding blueberries on their spoons while eating their scoops!

You can serve immediately or put in the freezer for a few hours to get nice hard scoops.

Paleo German-style Coleslaw

I'm always on the hunt for easy and quick side dishes to serve with lunch and dinner. I stumbled across this recipe when I was in a rush and just started throwing things in a bowl that sounded like it would go well together. The key is making it simple. It seriously takes about 2 minutes to make and I love it!

It's a little on the tart side, so you can adjust or add a little salt (I don't use any) or change the proportions around.

Ingredients:

1 bag of ready made coleslaw
Extra virgin olive oil
Apple cider vinegar
Organic Dijon mustard (I use Organic Ville brand)

Directions:
Empty bag into a large serving bowl.
Using a liquid measuring cup, pour in 1/4 cup olive oil.
Next, add apple cider vinegar until the oil/vinegar mixture is 1/3 cup.
Finally, squirt in the Dijon mustard until you have 1/2 cup total.

Use a fork to stir everything together until everything is complexly mixed and then pour over the coleslaw mix. Stir the dressing in until all of the coleslaw is covered with dressing.

You can serve immediately, but it tastes better after marinating for at least one hour.

Enjoy!!

Pirate & Tinkerbell Birthday Party

I'm a planner.  It's probably one of the things about me that drives my hubby crazy, because he is the complete opposite, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda guy.  It works for him though because his work schedule is never final until they are actually doing it.  It changes even mid-flight too.  For me, planning has helped me with my "job" too - from planning our week, meals, errand running schedule, etc.  If I didn't have a plan, I'd always be stressed and nothing would ever get done.  How many can relate?  

Anyway....back to the point of this post.  Because I'm a planner, I start working on my kids' birthday parties weeks in advance.  This year, I've already started over two months in advance (yes, we have already booked the venue), but to not ruin the surprise, I'll talk about last year's party instead.

One of my passions is baking.  Now that I have kids, I have lots of opportunity to try something out that I never had a reason to try out before: make elaborate cakes.  I find pure joy in the challenge to design a cake from scratch, having a vivid image in my head and then being able to make my dream into reality.  And because I'm a planner, a perfectionist, and have quite a bit of patience, I'm able to do pretty much exactly what I want (especially because my hubby supports me in doing it by letting me buy the necessary tools).

Before I come up with a creation, I talk with my kids about what kind of party they'd like.  Last year, because I was hugely pregnant with baby number three, I decided to combine their party.  I know this won't work when they are teenagers, so I'm enjoying this possibility now, especially while they have some common friends.  Lucky for me, my son loves pirates and my daughter loves Tinkerbell.  

Next, I surf the web for ideas on the cake decorating.  I already have the start of a vision in my head, but I like to see if anyone else has done it already (if they have, I will modify it, so I'm not copying anyone).  This also gives me a chance to get inspiration from others with ideas of things I hadn't considered before.  Once I see what my kids like and don't like, and then combine that with my own vision, I draw up a sketch with some crayons.  I'm no artist when it comes to drawing, but it helps me translate my vision to other people and to remind me what I want to do.

After that, I design their party invitations.  This part is really fun.  When my oldest turned 3 years old, I threw him his first birthday party and on a whim came up with a cute little rhyming poem for his invitation.  I liked how it turned out so much, I decided to keep up the trend and do it for every party since then.  

Here is how their party invitations turned out:

When it comes time to making their cakes, I dedicate pretty much an entire week of my free time to doing just that.  Their party was planned for a Friday, so Monday or Tuesday I make the fondant, Wednesday I bake their cakes, make the buttercream frosting and put the frosting and fondant on the cakes.  Thursday I decorate.  Last year, I had several gum paste decorations, so I started making those about 2-3 weeks before the party date during nap time.  Sometimes my son would help, other times my daughter helped a bit, but for the most part I did a lot of it on my own.  I found that making the flowers in white gum paste was the easiest and to use the color dust to "paint" was the best solution for getting the colors the exact way I wanted. (To me, solid colored flower petals do not exist in real life, and so to make gum paste flowers as realistic as possible, I couldn't use colored gum paste.)

Because I had made several of the decorations in advance for my daughter's cake, her cake only took about 1-2 hours to decorate.  My son's on the other hand, took closer to 4 hours, if not longer.  A note about the cake toppers: I bought the Tinkerbell candle and special ordered the pirate treasure chest (with my son's name engraved on the bottom), and the goodies that went into the chest.  I made everything else from gum paste, including the palm tree candle holder.  

These were definitely a labor of love, but I had a ton of fun designing them and then making them reality!

Many thanks to Kim for taking these pictures during the party!

I have a few more pics of the food, cakes and party favors set up too, in case you are curious what that all looked like.  We had a treasure hunt for a buried treasure and the girls painted butterflies.  After that, everyone spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the pool!

Many thanks to Pam for documenting the entire birthday party!

Eating Paleo: Tips for Converting

I've had several friends ask me in the past few weeks about the Paleo Diet because they or their husbands are considering switching to it.  I've even recommended it to friends for its health benefits.

Everyone seems to have the same initial struggle: "Where do I begin?!  It seems like such a hard diet to follow!"

Let me tell you, it's not that hard.  Really.

The first step is making the decision that you (and your family hopefully) will be eating this way for whatever reason is motivating you to want to try it.  Mine was making my baby happy and trying to curb my daughter's monster temper tantrums, as well as making myself feel better overall.  A couple months later I learned I also have medical reasons to eat Paleo (see posts here and here for background).  You may be in the same boat, trying to get your kids to have more even tempers, have medical reasons to try it out, or simply just want to eat healthier so you can live life, not just survive it.  Keep this reason in the back of your mind at all times when you get discouraged or hit resistance with your family.  I told my kids we were going to try it for 30 days to see if it helped us feel better.

So once you've made that big decision, what's the next step?!?

There are two options:  go cold-turkey or a slow conversion.  They both have their pros and cons, so you will have to decide which will work best for you and your family.  My approach was cold-turkey, mixed a little with a slow conversion.  What happened was I decided to switch the day after I had gone grocery shopping, so my fridge was full of yogurt, cheese, wheat for making bread, etc, etc.  I let the kids eat all of that until it was gone, and then I just never bought it again.  For the pantry, I did a lot of purging from the pantry (yes, lots of $$ in the trash, but knowing we weren't going to eat it again, I knew there was no reason to keep it).  I will make full disclosure here that before switching to Paleo, we were already eating a fairly healthy diet.  My kids ate organic cereal, greek yogurt (or any yogurt without corn syrup or food coloring), homemade 100% whole wheat bread, real cheese (never any Kraft singles; they devoured goat cheese), whole wheat pasta, organic spaghetti sauce (if I didn't make it from scratch myself with organic ingredients), etc.   You get the picture.  With that said though, it was still an adjustment.  If your pantry doesn't include items like that, the adjustment will be greater, especially for the kids.  But don't lose hope: your kids can only refuse eating for so long.  At some point they will be hungry enough to eat what you offer. :)  For my kids, I initially let them eat as much fruit as they wanted, while I encouraged them to eat meat and veggies too.  As their taste buds have changed, getting them to eat a wider variety of food hasn't been an issue, but now I have to limit their fruit intake so they don't eat everything in one day.  They are like little monkeys and will devour 4 bunches of bananas in two days.  No lie.

Meal Time Adjustments

My biggest adjustment was breakfast.  Prior to eating Paleo, we ate cereal and toast for breakfast, or yogurt.  Occasionally eggs, but rarely meat.  So I did some research, downloaded some e-books for my Kindle off Amazon (there were a few $0.99 books for Paleo recipes that helped me get started), and surfed the internet. (see below for some good resources).  We ended up eating a lot of eggs those first couple of weeks, but as I adjusted to waking up and making breakfast every morning, we slowly started eating other things. 

Lunch was also a learning experience.  Similar to breakfast, where I was used to offering something fast and easy to prepare, lunch was a time for sandwiches, mac and cheese or occasionally hot dogs (if I could find any without all of the nasty preservatives).  It took some getting used to, and I tried many different bread recipes to help convert the kids, but found that the endless baking wasn't worth it because the kids didn't like any of the bread.  So I stopped making it.  Now we typically eat leftovers from dinner, if there are any, or I make something new.  The best part is that I now sit down and eat a nice lunch with my kids everyday!  (That will change next year when they are both in school over lunch time, but for now, I love it).

The next step was getting a dinner meal plan that fit our lifestyle.  As I've mentioned in a past post, I was already using E-Meals Paleo meal plan and that made a huge difference.  There is typically 1-2 slow cooker meals per week, so on our days that we're out late for the kids' activities, I use those slow cooker recipes or we have our one night at Panera (they get a salad with chicken or salmon and I make my own salad at home).  The other nights, I prepare a meal and it never takes more than 45 min from start to on the table, ready to eat.  In reality, dinner was the easiest transition for us.

The weekly grocery trip goes hand in hand with the meal time adjustments.  The first couple of weeks was rough; I didn't buy nearly enough fresh produce and our fridge was bare by day 5.  My schedule is so packed, I typically can not run to the store to get anything else until my next grocery shopping day, so we had a couple days each week that I was scrambling to find school snacks and lunch.  By week 3, I went overboard and bought enough to last 9-10 days.  Then I didn't buy enough in week 4 because I thought I had enough left over from week 3.  Point is, that it will take some time figuring out how much produce will be enough for your family, and also figuring out what you need to stock up on more.  The picture here is what my counters look like after my grocery store trip.  The fridge is full too.

Recommended Gadgets for the Kitchen

I highly recommend making an investment in a nice blender.  Many Paleo recipes assume you have one and in the end, it really is a good investment, even if you decide to not eat Paleo 100% of the time.  We bought a Blendtec (mainly because I liked the flat panel for easy cleaning and preset cycles to take the guess work out of making a smoothy) and we use it daily.  Even my hubby, who is not a big fan of us eating Paleo, uses it to make smoothies before working out or for breakfast when he's in a hurry to get to work.  The kids love the smoothies too and I put things in them they never would eat normally, like kale, ginger, limes, spinach, and homemade coconut milk.  I've even used it to puree the baby food and it works so much faster than the immersion blender, as well as makes the texture just right.  The selling point to my hubby was that I got rid of the old blender, the bread maker, the waffle maker, the panini grill, the juicer, and the small crock pot. And it has a 7 year warranty. 

I also recommend investing in a single food container storage system.  I converted all of our old mismatched containers with OXO Pop Top ones (also available at my local Sam's Club for a little less than Amazon right now).  They really come in hand because if you plan to bake much, the least expensive way to buy ingredients is in bulk online. Not only that, they are great at keeping food fresh and provide a very easy way to see everything you have (or if you need to stock up).  I keep our snacks in them too, and with the pop tops, my kids have easy access to them.

It's taken me a few months to get my pantry and kitchen converted over like this, because eating Paleo is a little more expensive, but only if you bake a lot.  As I've backed off on baking and have stocked the pantry pretty well, the regular grocery trip isn't any more expensive than before we made the switch.  Instead of cereal and pasta, I buy more fruits and veggies.

Below are some good resources and tips/ideas that I have learned as I stumbled through our transition to eating Paleo.  It's by no means all-inclusive, but hopefully it will get you off on the right foot.  If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to post a comment!

Good luck!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Helpful Reading & Recipes*

• The Paleo Diet (book by Loren Cordain about the health benefits of eating Paleo)

• The Paleo Mom (blogger, great advice for converting family and family friendly recipes)
• Pancakes (I add cinnamon and frozen wild blueberries - the kids devour them)

• The Spunky Coconut (blogger, she's not Paleo, but has many delicious recipes that are Paleo, and she has a few recipe books for yummy treats)
• Chocolate Chip cookies (a huge hit in our house!)

• E-Meals Paleo Meal Plan

Breakfast ideas

• Eggs or crustless quiche
• Homemade sausage patties 
• Buy ground pork and/or turkey, add in spices and form into patties or links.  Cook in a pan with about 1/4" deep water until cooked completely.  Store extras in the fridge or the freezer.  Be sure to eat the unfrozen ones within a couple days (that's never an issue in our house).
• Smoothies
• Homemade cereal with coconut milk or almond milk
• The Paleo Mom's plantain pancakes (see link above)

Lunch ideas

• Salad (spring mix with Cuties, strawberries, some pecans, and homemade dressing from olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little honey).  I try to keep turkey breast chops or filets on hand to sauté in the pan to add to our salads.
• Stuffed acorn squash
• Cook 1 lb ground turkey or lean beef with italian seasoning
• Cut two acorn squash in half, remove seeds, and slice off tops and bottoms so they lay flat on a baking sheet.  
• Mist baking sheet and squash with olive oil, fill empty centers with cooked meat.  Pop in the oven for about 35-45 min at 425 deg.  
• Let cool for about 10 min before serving.
• Soup - if I cook a roasting chicken, I save the bones and skin to make broth in my slow cooker overnight (just add water).  Using a fine mesh strainer, I separate the bones/skin from the broth and then make a soup with leftover chicken, carrots, kale and some spices.  Kids eat it right up!

Dinner Ideas

• A Favorite Dinner : 
• 1-2 lb of ground turkey (avoid Jenni-O, and make sure there aren't added flavorings or salt), 
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 2 tsp of dried cilantro
• salt and pepper, to taste
• Sauté the onion and bell pepper until soft.  Add in the ground turkey and cook it thoroughly.  Add in the cilantro, salt and pepper.  Serves 2-4.   
• Can serve by itself or with some fruit or veggie salad
• Salad with a meat/fish (same type of meal that we eat at lunch sometimes)

Snack Ideas

• Nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews)
• Dried fruits (try to buy organic if you can.  I have a hard time, so I do end up getting ones with the added sugar, but I don't let my kids eat too much of them.  They are used to make trail mix, mixed with everything else).
• Homemade trail mix (grab handfuls of nuts, seeds, dried fruit and even some dairy free chocolate chips and put into a container)
• Organic baby carrots, celery and apples.  They go great with almond butter.
• Applesauce

Shopping Resources*

• Amazon Prime 
• Coconut Flakes (great for making your own milk, baking, etc)
• Baking ingredients (arrowroot flour, tapioca flour, coconut flour, etc)
• OXO Containers
• Tropical Traditions 
• Coconut oil and palm butter (order when they have free shipping)
• Sam's Club
• Big bags of nuts, almond butter, OXO containers
• Bulk fruits and veggies
• Almond milk
• Walmart/Target
• Silk Coconut milk (if you don't want to make your own, or can't because you don't have the right blender)
• Almond milk

*Note: I am not in anyway sponsored or paid to make recommendations for specific companies, reading material or products.  They are simply what I have been using and found successful.

Hyperthyroidism - What to do?

A few weeks ago, my doctor ordered a standard list of blood lab work to be run on me, just to make sure everything checked out okay.  I had been eating Paleo about 6 weeks or so when I finally made it over to the lab (fasting in the morning is HARD - the first morning I was planning to go I totally forgot as I was cutting up pineapple for the kids and made my cup of coffee.  Oops!).

The lab results weren't too shocking, though I really wish I was able to compare them some results from just a few months prior.  My cholesterol was a bit higher than normal (for me anyway) at 150ish total - it's normally less than 120 and I've even been in the 90's at one point.  Blood sugar levels normal. Even my blood pressure that day was close to normal (120/60), but a little higher than my typical reading (110/58).  Doc said I was good to go and come back if anything came up.

So I was surprised when her nurse called me a couple days later saying my doctor had reviewed my chart again and saw that my thyroid results were high.  She wants me to be retested in a few months and if they are still high, the recommended course of action is medication.  Ugh.  I HATE medicine. I asked if there was anything else I could do other than meds, but the nurse was clueless.  She was absolutely no help in telling me what causes hyperthyroidism or natural ways to deal with it.   I told her I would do some research and see if I could bring my levels down in the next few months.

Now, I'm hardly surprised this is the input the nurse or the doctor gave me.  I mean, medical doctors in the U.S. don't know anything about nutrition unless they have a personal interest in it.  I don't blame them; their schooling doesn't teach them nutrition.  But it does make me frustrated with our healthcare system.  I could go on and on right now about how I think the drug companies, lobbyists, FDA, the food industry and medical professions are all in cahoots with each other to keep themselves in business at the expense of the general populations well being, but I can save that for another blog.  Bottom line is that if I want to feel better, I must do all of the research on my own and treat myself.  Not a huge issue for me because I love to research and read.  I just don't always have the time.

Before I talk about what I found to do about hyperthyroidism, I figure I'll take a second to explain it.  I know when I heard my test results, all I could think was "I've heard of it, but what are the symptoms again?  What makes it so bad?" and on and on.  So here is a summary from Wikipedia:

Hyperthyroidism, often referred to as an 'overactive thyroid', is a condition in which the thyroid gland produces and secretes excessive amounts of the free (not protein bound, and circulating in the blood^[1]) thyroid hormones, triiodothyronine (T3) and/or thyroxine (T4).

The classic symptoms are these: 

Major clinical signs include weight loss (often accompanied by an increased appetite), anxiety, intolerance to heat, hair loss, muscle aches, weakness, fatigue, hyperactivity, irritability, hypoglycemia^{[citation needed]}, apathy,polyuria, polydipsia, delirium, tremor, pretibial myxedema, and sweating. [emphasis added]

I find this interesting because before I started eating Paleo, I had major hair loss (which I attributed to being a postpartum mom, though I never experienced the same kind of hair loss after my first two babies), and I also had many muscle aches, weakness, fatigue and irritability.  Once I started eating Paleo, many of these symptoms improved significantly, especially the hair loss.

So what causes hyperthyroidism?

The major causes in humans are:

• Graves' disease. An autoimmune disease (usually, the most common etiology with 50-80% worldwide, although this varies substantially with location- i.e., 47% in Switzerland (Horst et al., 1987) to 90% in the USA (Hamburger et al. 1981)). Thought to be due to varying Iodine in the diet.^[12]
• Toxic thyroid adenoma (the most common etiology in Switzerland, 53%, thought to be atypical due to a low level of dietary iodine in this country)^[12]
• Toxic multinodular goitre

High blood levels of thyroid hormones (most accurately termed hyperthyroxinemia) can occur for a number of other reasons:

• Inflammation of the thyroid is called thyroiditis. There are several different kinds of thyroiditis including Hashimoto's thyroiditis (immune-mediated), and subacute thyroiditis (DeQuervain's). These may be initially associated with secretion of excess thyroid hormone, but usually progress to gland dysfunction and, thus, to hormone deficiency and hypothyroidism.
• Oral consumption of excess thyroid hormone tablets is possible (surreptitious use of thyroid hormone), as is the rare event of consumption of ground beef contaminated with thyroid tissue, and thus thyroid hormone (termed "hamburger hyperthyroidism").
• Amiodarone, an anti-arrhythmic drug, is structurally similar to thyroxine and may cause either under- or overactivity of the thyroid.
• Postpartum thyroiditis (PPT) occurs in about 7% of women during the year after they give birth. PPT typically has several phases, the first of which is hyperthyroidism. This form of hyperthyroidism usually corrects itself within weeks or months without the need for treatment.
• A struma ovarii is a rare form of monodermal teratoma that contains mostly thyroid tissue, which leads to hyperthyroidism.

Hypersecretion of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which in turn is almost always caused by a pituitary adenoma, accounts for much less than 1 percent of hyperthyroidism cases.^[13]  [emphasis added]

Again, the causes are interesting because maybe this is a normal thing for my body to go through, seeing that 7% of postpartum moms deal with it.  Phew!  Maybe all will be well after all and I don't have to worry about the family history of hyperthyroidism.

Next step was to figure out how I can help my body correct itself without taking medication.  I have three months to get there, which to me is plenty of time to make a difference!

I came across NaturalNews.com, which promotes natural ways to tackle health issues and read this on their page about hyperthyroidism:

..... 

Dysbiosis is an overpopulation of antagonistic organisms in the gut that damage the intestinal wall allowing food particles to easily pass over and end up in the bloodstream. When undigested food particles are recognized by the immune system and tagged as foreign invaders in the body, the immune system then unleashes an assault of inflammation causing a systemic allergic reaction.

The most common food allergens to avoid include gluten containing grains such as wheat, barley, rye, oats, kamut, & spelt. Soy products, different nuts, eggs, and heavy proteins are often not tolerated well. Obviously all processed and man-made foods need to be avoided at all costs. Other common allergens include those of the nightshade family such as eggplant, tomatoes, & onions. Anyone with auto-immune reactions or excessive inflammation should get tested for food allergies or try an elimination diet to see if the conditions improve.

An anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle are critical for full recovery from these conditions. Anti-inflammatory foods help to modulate the immune system giving it a more accurate pair of eyes so as to not over-inflame when stimulated. To effectively de-inflame, it is key to completely avoid man-made foods, sugars, and food allergens as listed above. The long chain omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA powerfully de-inflame the body by restoring natural balance to the lipid wall of the cell membrane

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031642_hyperthyroidism_hormones.html#ixzz2Q01U8e00. [emphasis added]

Ah-hah! The most common food allergens to avoid are things that are automatically eliminated in the Paleo Diet.  And that bit before about having a leaky gut?  Can relate to that too after being told I had IBS about 10 years ago (which, of course, was to be treated with prescribed medicine, but because I won't take medicine unless I'm on my death bed, I found a new diet that healed my gut so well I rarely ever have the same symptoms, even after eating the "bad" foods).

So I looked to my husband after reading this excerpt to him and told him to stop giving me grief about eating Paleo. (He believes it's too restrictive, but I will save that for another blogpost). 

The author goes on to say that eating certain anti-inflammatory herbs like ginger and cinnamon, should be eating as much as possible (which happen to be AWWWE-SOMMMME in smoothies!!).  And also, that about 20-30 minutes should be spent out in the sun each day to help the production of Vitamin D.  That's not too hard, considering summer is around the corner and I much prefer to be out in the sun than stuck inside.

In the end, I won't have to think too hard about ways to reduce my hyperthyroidism because I've already made almost every single dietary change that is recommended.  The new thing that I've decided to incorporate is regular exercise at the gym.  I don't really like working out at the gym, and actually prefer to get my exercise in by doing yard work or manual labor (so much more to show for it at the end!).  But, we don't really have any yard projects in the works because I did them all a few years ago, so I must get over my distaste of going to the gym and figure out a new routine to help me change my view.  I started a ZUMBA class last week and hope to go once a week, and then the other days head to the gym to get in some cardio and weight lifting.  I already have a goal to get into "short-wearing" shape by this summer so I can wear appropriate clothing (shorts and tennis shoes) while hoofing it around at Disney.  Oh, and also so I'm not too ashamed to be seen in a swimsuit.  So my motivation to exercise is there, two times over!

I'll keep you posted on my progress and the pending recheck later this summer!

Paleo Diet "Cheating" Backfires

I have so many things I'd like to write about, but find it nearly impossible to find the time to sit down to write.  But there is something I would like to share sooner, rather than later.

Following the Paleo diet now that my hubby is home from his deployment has had its challenges (and is one of the things I've been wanting to write about).  I knew it would be difficult, as he was deprived of any of his favorite foods for 4 months; when he gets back to the States all he wants to do is eat out at all of his favorite restaurants.  So we've been hitting up Mexican (lots of beans, rice, corn, and cheese), Japanese (sushi with lots of soy), Indian (lots of milk, rice and wheat), Thai (lots of rice, noodles, and soy) and Greek (milk, wheat, and processed meats) restaurants.  I try as hard as I can to eat Paleo, but some places it's nearly impossible and I've made the decision to "cheat" so I could eat something rather than nothing.

Every one of those times I cheated, I didn't feel all that great the next day and the baby, who holds me accountable of what I eat, wasn't his normal, happy self.  Enough of a reason to not cheat, right?  Yes.

Well, this past weekend my daughter was invited to a friend's birthday party.  The food her parents provided was way better than the standard run of the mill greasy pizza.  They had fresh fruit, fresh veggies, and snack items (which prior to eating gluten-free/paleo, was a totally acceptable thing in my book). In fact, it was much like the kind of food I serve at our kids' birthday parties.  Their meat, however, was chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A.  Before eating Paleo, Chick-Fil-A was the only fast food place I'd take my kids, but shortly before switching our diet, I learned that the nuggets are not nearly as healthy for you as I thought they'd be, the grilled ones included.  (There's a great read about that on the blog "100 Days of Real Food").  Anyway, as a treat, I decided to let my daughter have a few of the nuggets (I mean, it's been months since she last ate at Chick-Fil-A, what could a few really do?).  And I decided I would try a couple of them too.

Big mistake.

Within about an hour or two, I had such a splitting headache come on out of nowhere, I was sure I would end up with a migraine.  Thankfully, taking a couple Tylenol soon enough stopped the headache before it got so bad that only sleep would cure it. Phew!  A diverted disaster.  Not so much.

The next morning I woke up with a foggy head.  I couldn't focus.  Everything was in slow motion.  I couldn't concentrate on anything. It was déjà vu of how I felt when I was eating bread everyday a few months ago.  Heavy feet, weak arms, lethargic.  All of it.  

I have no doubt I felt that way because I ate two of those chicken nuggets. Crazy I can be so sensitive, right?

Well, today, two days later, the baby has been spitting up huge amounts of milk right after feeding.  He hasn't done that in two months, since I started eating Paleo and stopped eating bread.  

Coincidence?  I think not.

So, if I've learned anything about this diet, it's that it really does work at making us all feel better and forces us to eat much healthier too.  That's not really so bad, is it?

My Story Part I: Why I Eat Paleo

Everyone has a story behind their decision to do something radical and new.  Changing the way we eat can sometimes be considered radical, especially when it involves cutting out so many favorites and staples of the typical American diet.  But for me, it wasn't really all that radical, as you can read here.
(If you're unfamiliar with the Paleo Diet,  read a very nice summary by The Paleo Mom here.)

Already Half-way Paleo as a Nursing Mom

I'll start with the baby and me:  I'm a nursing mom and third time around I feel I'm a little more in tune with baby and how my diet affects the baby.  I automatically cut all dairy out of my diet from day one, with the exception of butter.  I can't drink cow's milk because I'm so sensitive to it, but seem to handle yogurt and cheese fine.  But, knowing my other two kiddos had milk issues as babies,  I thought I'd save myself from the trouble of learning my third baby also has a milk sensitivity.  I figured a little butter on my toast in the morning would be fine.  I mean, that's such a negligible amount, it really can't be that bad, right?  Wrong.  It took me a few weeks, but I did discover that that tiny amount of butter made him very gassy and crabby (and he is normally a VERY happy and calm baby).   So no dairy.  Got it.

Next I discovered I couldn't eat soy.  I LOVE drinking soy shakes for breakfast to start my day full of protein.  I find that eating that, instead of a bunch of carbs, helps me eat less the rest of the day because I'm more satisfied and don't end up grazing all day.  The first time I drank a soy shake after the baby was born I had also gone for a long walk in the hot summer weather, so I assumed that I was dehydrated and he was upset that afternoon because there wasn't enough milk.  But a week or so later, I had another soy shake for breakfast, didn't go for a walk, and the baby was miserable that afternoon/evening.  I stopped drinking soy, and he wasn't gassy and fussy.  That was HUGE!  My hubby had left for a month when the baby was just a week old because his father had a severe stroke.  That left me home to take care of a newborn, a three year old and a five year old, all at the start of the school year with new schools and a new schedule.  Having a happy newborn was critical in  maintaining my sanity.  So, I stopped eating soy.  In reality,  I wasn't too shocked soy bothered him.  I had a hard time drinking the soy shakes while I was pregnant with him.  In fact, I had a hard time eating dairy too - I felt so incredibly nauseous after eating soy shakes and greek yogurt, I gave it up until the last trimester, when I pushed through the nausea because I craved the protein.

The last thing I found I had to stop eating while nursing was peanuts.  No surprise here either.  My mom has a severe allergy to them, so I guess it runs in the family.  I've had times where I get a scratchy/sore throat after eating peanuts, but it also was when I had a hard time with allergies in general (living in Houston with terrible air quality and a carpeted apartment on the ground floor in a very humid climate made me have constant headaches and post nasal drainage that caused nausea).  I don't normally like to eat peanut butter, but my hubby likes it, as do the kids, so it's usually in the pantry.  When I ran out of almond butter, I started using peanut butter on my toast and the baby's response was painful gas and hours of crabbiness in the evening.  He would be so gassy, it would take hours to get him to nurse to sleep.  Again, in the interest of keeping my sanity and not making my baby suffer, I stopped eating peanuts.


Already Cooking Paleo

One thing my family and friends know about me is that I LOVE to bake.  Cook, not so much.  I leave that to my hubby.  When he's home, that is.  Cooking for toddlers, as any parent knows, is always a chore.  There are two ways to tackle their picky tastebuds (that crave carbs) and their willpower to be independent.  One is to be a short order cook to ensure they eat something. The other, which I prefer, is to serve one meal, that we ALL eat and if they decide they don't like it, they can wait until the next meal to eat.  They obviously aren't that hungry.  So when you combine the whininess factor, trying to come up with kid-approved meals, and throw in that I'm not a huge fan of cooking daily meals, oh, and that most every night of the year I get little to no help with preparation or cleanup because hubby is either deployed or working nights, cooking anything other mac and cheese or making sandwiches was a big deal.  Then I discovered E-meals.  When I tried it a few years ago, it helped, but I didn't like that everything was made from a can or some prepackaged food from the middle aisles of the store.  Everything was fast to make, but it was too salty and too processed for my taste buds.  Then last fall, they released a new meal plan: Paleo.  I signed up immediately.

After my hubby deployed last fall, and the new meal plan came out, I started cooking Paleo for dinner.  The kids loved almost every single meal.  After the holidays, I started to use it almost every night and found that cooking wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  My distaste of cooking slowly melted away and was replaced with an eagerness to try something new.  It wasn't that hard; someone else came up with the meal plan and grocery list and I could pick and choose which meals I thought my kids would eat.  We were eating Paleo dinners for about a month when I decided to go 100% Paleo.


New Chronic Fatigue and Soreness

A major reason, if not the most important one, for changing my diet was how I had been feeling for several months.   After the birth of my third baby, I had a horrible time getting my energy levels back.  Every morning I'd wake up and feel like the world was sitting on my shoulders and each step I took felt like my feet were made of lead.  When I picked up my baby, he didn't feel like he was only 10 lb or 15 lb; my arms were so fatigued, many times I felt like I would drop him.  Of course, I had some weight to lose, I'd gained more total weight this time around than I did with the other two, but within a couple months, I was back down to my body's postpartum "happy" weight.  Which means I still had another 20-25lb to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, along with regaining all of the muscle that melted away into oblivion the first trimester.  Oh, what we mothers go through to bring these bundles of joy into the world.  But I digress...

This overwhelming feeling of having a fatigued body was new to me.  Not that I felt like a million bucks after having the first two kids, but to have all parts of my body feel completly exhausted, no matter early I went to bed, and to have achy-ness all over that wasn't painful, but rather annoying, was a constant reminder of how I could feel.  How I used to feel.  Then I thought about my mom.  How, in her early thirties, she started having chronic pain, and how over the past 20 something years, she's been to the doctor almost every week for something.  Either pain, a rib out of place, a never-ending migraine, a sore hip, you name, she probably had it.  I thought about how she has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia (before it even became a popular enough disease that you see commercials about it), and then later rheumatoid arthritis.  Basically, she has chronic pain and has been on prescription medicine for years, all the while trying to tackle it with natural supplements.  (She has, in the past five years, found a natural supplement that works so well she's been off the meds completely).  But I still remember her dependency on them and I REFUSE to ever take one dose.  EVER.   Her whole family has some sort of chronic pain, between her mom, sister, and brothers.  It's definitely in my genes.  But I'm in complete denial that I will ever be diagnosed or live with chronic pain.  It's just not an option.  There are too many things I enjoy doing and I haven't even begun exploring the world like I want to!



The Critical Event

The deciding factor was my daughter.  One Saturday morning, she had a complete and horrible meltdown, after being crabby from the minute she woke up.  She had eaten homemade 100% whole wheat toast with Nutella (her FAVORITE), then had some greek yogurt and later a soy protein shake made with soy milk.  I had had enough.  I figured maybe if if we tried changing her diet, she might feel better.  It was worth a try anyway.  Anything would be better than listening to her scream over everything and trying to stay a sane parent in the meantime.  So I made a decision right then and there we were going to try eating Paleo for a month and see what happens.  Minutes after watching her sulk off to her room, crying and upset, I turned to her brother and said "What do you think about trying a new diet if it helps your sister not act like this?  It would mean we can't eat a lot of foods, like yogurt and bread and goldfish crackers.  We can try it for a month and see how we all feel.  I think we will feel better in the end, but it will be hard.  Are you okay with that?" He responded with a very confident "Yes, I don't like it when she screams so much."

I had bought The Paleo Diet book by Loren Cordain over a year ago, but between pregnancy and a new baby, didn't really have the time to sit down and read it.  So, with this new found interest, I started reading up on all the benefits of the diet.  Up to this point, I just knew that it was a really healthy way to eat, but I didn't have the background of why.  It was like a veil had been removed from my eyes.  Everything started making sense, from my family history of pain, my fatigue and soreness, my daughter's crabbiness and refusal to eat anything but bread, crackers and yogurt; it all just clicked.


The Noticeable Improvements

It's worth mentioning now, that to this point, as a nursing mom, my favorite breakfast item was homemade 100% whole wheat bread.  Craving carbs is an understatement.  I lived for them.  I would eat this bread for breakfast, lunch AND dinner.  Not so much because I really wanted to, but because I was hungry, I was tired, and I needed a quick fix.  A crying baby, a screaming preschooler, me about to pass out from exhaustion.  You get the picture.  Cutting bread and slathering on some almond butter solved the problem immediately.  I could nurse and eat at the same time and when my three year old was eating, she wasn't screaming or whining.   I should also mention that I started making this bread shortly after my hubby deployed and was making a new loaf every two days.  It was a staple item in our house.  And coffee once again entered my diet because too many people were asking me if I was okay because I looked so tired.

That's when the baby started spitting up ridiculous amounts after every feeding.  I automatically assumed it was the coffee and new intake of caffeine (I had given up black tea too after he was born), but I couldn't bring myself to stop drinking it.  I needed that extra oomph in the morning to get me going and stay going until bedtime.  Otherwise, I was a walking zombie.

When I stopped eating the bread, the baby stopped spitting up within a week.  Seriously.  Maybe here and there he'd spit up some with a burp, but nothing like he had been.  And he started gaining weight again at a faster pace.  So it makes me believe that either A) he's gluten intolerant, B) eating the bread in combination with the coffee made my body highly acidic and therefore my milk acidic, which made him spit up, or C) a combination of A and B.  Whatever it is, I will not go back to eating bread anytime soon, if ever.  (As a side note, when I do "cheat" a little and eat something with gluten in it, the baby is noticeably more cranky and spitting up a lot more the next day or two.)

I also noticed that my energy level improved significantly, as did the fatigued muscles.  There were still days I was utterly exhausted, but it wasn't every single day.  And as I gain muscle mass back and start getting into better shape, my energy level and patience improve.  I feel like I'm a better mom now too, able to keep up with my kids, have the patience to handle their independent and strong-willed personalities and just feel happier in general.  If for no other reason, this is good enough for me.


And so, that's my story and why I feel eating Paleo isn't just following some fad diet, but rather a very necessary lifestyle change for myself.  If it weren't for my baby and family history, I probably would still be eating the way I was a year ago, but after living through such an improvement in our family and our daily life, I don't see how I can go back.  I share all this with you because I don't believe I'm the only person that struggles with the same issues at home and I'm a firm believer that our diet is foundational to our well being.