Amy’s Frozen Foods

How many mommies out there don’t feel like cooking dinner tonight, show of hands? Yea me either, but if you don’t feed them then eventually someones going to call CPS. I’m totally kidding but on the reals, I hate cooking dinner in the summer. It heats up the whole house and i’m just too tired. Now if you know me I am completely against anything frozen, like anything. I cook all of my dinners mostly from scratch every single night, but with my recent health problems I have not been able to do so. This had me searching for an alternative. I never thought I would actually be saying this but I am totally in love with Amy’s frozen foods.

Amy’s is a line of frozen products that focus’s on being non-GMO, vegetarian, and organic. Amy’s is a very health conscious company that the more I learn about the more and more I love. I first found Amy’s bowls, I tried the Mexican Casserole first. That’s literally all it took and i’m hooked. So the first thing I noticed about this product was that the box says everything that you need to know about the product. They say very clearly right on the front if its vegan or if its low sodium, etc, you don’t have to go searching if your on a special diet.

They have such a wide variety of foods, from pizza to Asian stir fry you should never get bored. They also have family sized meals which is perfect for not cooking dinner. The family meals do take like an hour to cook so that is something you will need to keep in mind. My favorites for a healthy lunch is the burritos and the bowls. I am starting to venture out into pizzas, I have yet to find something I haven’t liked.

The price is a little pricey in my opinion but I honestly think its worth it. When you look at it and say “$10 for one tiny pizza”, say it in your husbands voice that helps, remember what you put into your body and your kids bodies is an investment. Food in our opinions is an investment, your investing in your future.

I also wanted to tell you guys how cool their website is (I will post the link down below). I love how the first thing you see is different sections for recipes, their non-GMO stance, and a section on being gluten free. I did not dig too deep into their website but you can also buy their products in bulk online.

http://www.amys.com/

I give Amy’s 5 stars. I love these meals so much, their super delicious, my toddler will eat them, and you can feel good about eating them.

Common Juicing Questions

So recently I have had so many people ask me about juicing. Apparently people on FaceBook are paying a lot more attention than I thought, awesome. So here are just some tips to get started off the top of my head.

Warning: Consuming nothing but juice can be very helpful and great for your body however, you have to do your research and know what you are doing. You will mess up your body if you do not follow the rules

How long do I have to juice for? 

People always ask how long you have to juice and I always say it depends on why you want to juice. First off, its called a Juice Reboot because that’s what your doing your rebooting your system, flushing out all of the bad chemicals and toxins. Second, juicing is not a fad diet, its not a diet at all, you can use it to aid in your weight loss but ultimately juicing is a lifestyle change that needs to be respected and followed. So basically you can not juice for 10 days to lose weight then go right back to eating crap, it doesn’t work that way.

You can juice for as long as you want, 2 days or 60 its up to you. So if your juicing for health reasons or to restart your system I suggest you do the full 30 or 60 days. If your juicing to lose weight then it depends on how much weight you want to lose. So if you need to drop 10 lbs before your wedding then do it for 7 or 10 days, if you need to lose around 100 lbs then I would suggest the full 60 days. You will have to figure how long out yourself.

What kind of juice do I drink?

You can not drink store bought juice, you will get nowhere. You have to make the juice yourself, so you will have to have a juicer or go buy one. There are millions of juice recipes and even recipes to make crackers and soups that are ok for you to eat. I do not go by any recipe, by now I just kinda know what goes good with what. Now it is very important you are not drinking just fruit, there is way too much natural sugar. So I try to stick to the 1:1 rule, 1 fruit to 1 vegetable. This does not mean you have to put the whole vegetable. So if I put 3 apples (that’s 1 fruit) then I would add 1/2 of a cucumber (1 veggie), and then go from there. Here are my 2 favorite recipes.

2 Red Apple

1 Green Apple

1 Grapefruit (Peeled)

3 Asparagus

1 Celery Stick

1 In Ginger (For Eczema)

or

2 Carrot

1 Sweet Potato

4 Kale Leaves

Handful of Strawberries

What kind of juicer do I use? 

You can use any juicer you want. This is not a topic I don’t have too much knowledge in but from what I understand juicers are just like anything else, the more you pay the better they work. We bought the Breville Juice Fountain, I will post a link below. It was around a $110, which is a little pricey in my opinion, but totally worth it. We love our juicer and have not had any problems. I have a friend who has one and everybody else who i’ve asked say they love theirs too. Now you can just as well buy a $20 or $40 one, its going to do the same job. The cheaper juicers, once again in my opinion, will end up costing you in the long run. I had a family member with a cheaper, off brand juicer and she would always complain that the leftover pulp was always so wet and sometimes dripping. That means that the juicer didn’t truly get all of the juice out of her fruits and veggies, so she had to use a lot more. Same family member tried to juice using the NutriBullet and hated it the first try, hope that helps.

http://www.brevilleusa.com/the-juice-fountain-compact.html

https://www.nutribullet.com/

Can I eat other meals and still juice?

Kinda. While you are doing a juice reboot you can not have anything to eat or drink but fruits and veggies. So you can eat a apple or carrot but you still need to stick to 3 juice meals and 1 juice snack a day. To keep my sanity I do 3 juice meals and then 1 snack of avocado or peach. I have heard that you can drink coconut water, but I have not tried.  You also need to drink lots of water during this too.

Do you need to eat any protein or dairy?

This is a very debatable topic so i’m not going to get too far into it. No, you get all the protein you need from fruits and veggies. Yes it is a different kind of protein but this is only for 30-60 days. As far as dairy goes, I do not believe the human body was meant to consume cows milk so I try to stay as far away from dairy as possible. To answer this question, just no you do not need dairy.

What can I expect?

Expect to feel tired, goodness are you tired. You will literally feel like you haven’t slept in years. You will get horrible headaches, you will feel unsatisfied that you may misinterpret as hungry, you will be cranky. This is all apart of the withdraw process, long story short, you are addicted to the chemicals they put into your food so when you cut your body off from that chemical (sugar, salt, etc.) you will have side effects. The good news is is that this should only last about a week, maybe a week and a half. We have even experienced nausea and vomiting when we were first starting juicing.

How much weight do you lose?

Once again that’s all up to you. I’ve heard of people doing the 30 days and losing 40 lbs or doing a 10 day reboot and losing 15 lbs. My husband and I started this lifestyle change back in January and he has lost around 80 lbs, I however have lost about 14. Defining factors are if you stick to the diet or are lose about it, if you are working out during this time, how wide of a variety you are juicing, etc.

What do you do after the 30 days?

After you are done with your juice diet, from what I understand, you slowly reintroduce healthy foods. A lot of people chose to keep juicing after their reboot is up. I plan on continuing to do breakfast and lunch juice and then dinner and a snack a healthy meal, its completely up to you. You can not go back to eating crap, you will blow your tummy out, trust me. So take that 30 days and use it to educate yourself on what “healthy” really means. You may want to start by having half a piece of plain, baked chicken breast. Then the next day try some white rice, and work your way back into food that way.

Other Random Facts 

-You are supposed to drink juice with a straw and place the straw behind the teeth but still to where juice gets in your mouth. The acid in the juice is not good for your teeth but your mouth needs the bacteria. So you drink your juice with a straw and then brush your teeth about 30 minutes later.

-Juice is best kept in glass containers, not plastic.

-You can freeze juice for up to 3 days.

-When going to dinner with friends or whatever you can still have a salad, to act like your participating, just with no cheese or anything.

-Different fruits and veggies do different things for you, so look into what your putting in to get the best results you want.

-When dropping a massive amount of weight it is entirely possible for your excess skin to shrink back up too. Yellow fruits and veggies help with skin shrinkage, also lathering yourself in coconut oil daily or lotion will help.

-After a while fast food is not even an option, you don’t even crave it. You crave juice.

What do I recommend?

This is what we did, we started back in January and I just stopped buying junk food. I started with sugar, I stopped buying any sweets. Then I waited a week or two and moved on to salty foods like chips. I made it a rule that I could no longer fry anything, not even in a little bit of grease. The next month we made it a rule that every night after dinner we would go do some physical activity, I will post a blog about free ways to work out with kids. Then we stopped taking our medications, I will tell you it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. You can heal yourself of any pain or headache or almost anything naturally. Then we started juicing for breakfast and lunch and still eating dinner and a snack, we did this for 30 days. Next we will do the full 30 day reboot, then I plan to do a 60 day reboot.

My Current Health Situation #2

So I haven’t updated anyone on how I have been doing in a while, I haven’t had time to even blog in a while. So lets jump right in. We put our kids in a part time daycare type place so that I can rest and focus on healing. So far I have not been able to use this time to relax, its been mostly catching up on housework and things of that nature. I make sure that I take an hour or two for myself but for the most part I have just been productive. This has helped our family tremendously. Our house no longer looks destroyed, I no longer want to duct tape my kids (or husband) to anything, Autaum’s temper tantrums have almost gone away, but most importantly I am feeling better.

I feel like I am finally regaining my sanity. You never think about how much you need rest until you are running short. I am still having problems with my symptoms I guess maybe i’m just managing them better. I can not bend over without getting dizzy to where I have to sit down for about five minutes. If you have kids you know that it is near impossible to not bend over all day, its just not. My husband has been extremely understanding about me not being able to pick up toys or trash or just not being able to sweep and mop, he’s even picked up some of the slack. Its nice to not have to feel guilty. I still get my extreme hot/cold flashes, more cold lately. If you know me and you see me in long sleeves or a jacket, please don’t comment, all that will do is make me self conscious. I know its a hundred degrees right now, I know. Unfortunately this is just how I have to live my life, not my a thermostat but by just how my bodies doing that day. I have hot days and I have cold days and I have days where I go back and forth, and it all sucks. I am still having mood swings, i’m not going to go  there, but they are getting a little bit better. My Eczema had flared up worse than it has been in my entire life. It is now all over my normal spots and all over the back of my neck into my hairline, spots all over my face, and on my shoulders. The thing that sucks the most is my memory loss or brain haze. Your thyroid effects so many things including your brain function. This has been super bad this past week. I am loosing things left and right, I am forgetting appointments, and I am just strait up not remembering stuff. I am normally ninja mommy, always on top of EVERYTHING so for me to loose my glasses or forget what time were supposed to be somewhere, its just not me.

My husband has been so amazing throughout this whole ordeal. He gets off work and immediately starts helping. Where we were three years ago, we would have never gotten through this. We have grown so much in ourselves and in our marriage. When we first got together we had a big problem with communication or the lack of. Communication is everything. Its so nice to be able to just simply tell my husband whats wrong and what I need him to do to help and he actually listens and does it. I can not even begin to say how blessed I am to have this man. He is dealing with his own battles and still treats me like a queen. He has stepped up in the daddy department, he has stepped up his house managing game, he has ruled the husband job. It has gotten so ugly at times and hes been cool as a cucumber the whole time. So if you see my husband, please please please give him a pat on the back or some words of encouragement.

I also just want to say that i’m pretty proud of us. The enemy has attacked and attacked and we stayed strong in our faith and love for Jesus majority of the time, I’m sure in our darkest hour we have had some doubt, but we kept on praying and talking to Jesus, see communication. Our journey and battle is not near over with, and that’s ok. Were just taking things one day at a time.

Our plan for right now is to get moved into the new house and get everything settled, Michael is looking for a new job. The kids will stay in daycare for a good while. I will be taking the next few months easy. I am not making any commitments or signing myself up for anything crazy. I am just focusing on me and my little family. I will still need some help like sweeping and mopping or picking up toys but I have faith that this is only temporary.

God is Good.

Love Me Challenge Day 2

A Photo of You 

Really? Really? Why do I need a picture of me? I am not a picture person and I certainty do not ever take a picture of myself…

ok well here it is…

I was having a hard time not wanting to go out and buy me some amazing Taco Bell so I turned on this lady’s juicing success story. In the beginning it shows this incredibly overweight lady crying talking about how she has taken a million “before” picture but has never gotten to have a “after” picture. I have no idea why, maybe I was delirious from not getting my Taco Bell fix, but that 30 seconds of her video was all I heard. I honestly don’t remember anything else from the video, I don’t need too. I know eating healthy and exercising is going to make me healthy so I really don’t need to hear her success story but that 30 seconds I did need to hear.

I do have a “after” picture. I lost about 10 pounds right before I graduated. I did 3 hours of Zumba a day and was on a very strict eating schedule, it was a lot of work but I am proud that I did it the healthy way. Oh and that was back before I had kids, I had so much free time and energy, 3 hours are you kidding me? I can’t do anything for 3 hours, not with my kids. So anyway I remember seeing myself in my prom dress with my waist just as tiny as can be and I just had an amazing feeling of accomplishment. I felt so incredibly pretty but I felt like I had earned the right to feel pretty.

Here is my “after” picture.

I felt so pretty, I felt like a princess. I know this time around I won’t have a super expensive dress on or my makeup and hair done but it wont’t matter. I will still have that accomplished feeling, even more so because I need to lose so much more.

The whole point of this was that when I took that picture in the car, that was a “before” picture, but I still felt just as pretty. When I look at my “after” picture I don’t get sad or hard on myself, I feel in my heart just like that. I am pretty, I am beautiful. My waistline does not define my beauty. I am a beautiful person inside and out. I have a big heart and I am funny.

This time when I post my “after” picture I will feel accomplished and proud for the right reasons, because I am healthy, not because I feel pretty.

DIY Sit Still Please

I have been having the hardest time getting my daughter to sit still at meal times lately. A lot of times when you have a seeker (child who seeks movement) they have a particularly hard time sitting still or in my case, in a chair at all. Today when I was picking up after dinner I found a hot dog, juice box, and part of an apple all hidden on my couch. How the heck did she manage to sneak those over there? Since I am juicing my meals I have not been able to sit down and eat dinner with my kids but today I was standing at the table making their lunches for tomorrow, I saw her get up and every time told her to get back in her seat. Somehow my little ninja did it. Your going to want to take a few minutes with your child and explain how each of these works and how they are to be used, you can not just assume your child will understand or even accept these changes but it will pay off in the end. So here are my top ways to help your little one sit still at meal time.

High Chair

Autaum is sitting in her own big girl chair now but there is some nights where we will have her sit in our extra high chair just because it has a foot rest. From what I understand when a child has a place to put their feet they feel more grounded, more secure, thus are more unlikely to wiggle and squirm around. We like to take the tray off and just pull her up to the table. We still want her to feel like a big girl but be comfortable at the same time. We have had ok success with this method. Ill post examples of each one down below.

Bungee Cord Around the Bottom Of their chair 

I have read in a couple different places that if you don’t have a high chair like this, do not go out and buy one that’s silly, all you need is a little bungee cord. You take the bungee cord and wrap it around your child’s chair, be sure to make sure its not going to snap off and hurt them. I’m sure there’s a million different ways of doing this yarn, string, tension band, etc.

Table Mat

I’m sure you all know that it doesn’t really matter what you take away from your kid all they care if that they are loosing something, with Autaum it could be string and she will think she’s dying. I got this great idea in Wal-Mart when I walked past those little plastic mats you put on the table to go under your kids plate to stop the mess. They had a kind of crappy selection but they did have a Elmo one. So what you do is you get the plastic mat (costs a dollar) and you put it on the table. That’s literally it. First off, it shouldn’t matter which one you get, if I would of got the one with the map of the world on it she wouldn’t of cared. Second, if you know your kids super picky you could always make your own. Print out pictures of your kids favorite character and tape it on there or buy stickers and stick ’em on. So the idea is that if they refuse to sit still then you have the option to take their mat away. I Velcroed hers to where her plate should be, this way she can’t move it when she wiggles and I can take it off and still wash it. I just bought ours today so I have not gotten to try it, but I will update this and let y’all know how it goes.

Visual Taped on Chair 

This one you can really do whatever your mind can come up with. Autaum responds the best to pictures so I was going to just print out a picture of Elmo’s head and tape it on the seat of her chair, where her booty should be, but then when I was looking for Velcro I found a book that needed to be repaired. Sure enough there was a picture of Elmo sitting down at a table so I ripped that bad boy out and taped that to her chair. This is good because it is showing Elmo doing what I want her to do. Another great idea would be to take a picture of your kid eating, sitting their chair the correct way you want them too. You could also put a construction paper circle that says “Autaums Booty” or something like that, there’s is literally a million ways to do this. Once again, I just did this today so I will let everyone know how it goes.

Lap Friend

I had to use this trick to get Autaum to not panic when we first started putting her in time out. You take a sock and put dry, uncooked rice or beans in it and tie off the end. That’s literally it. I hot glues google eyes on it and a tongue to make it into a snake to try and make it more fun. The fact that it is weighted will be soothing to your child and also a constant reminder that their legs can’t wiggle too much or they will make the snakes dizzy or whatever silly rule you can  come up with. This is a double whammy because this can be taken away as well.

Social Story

A social story is basically something that is going to tell or show your child the proper steps to complete a task. Depending on your child’s age you may need to adjust some of these but its all the same concept. So this can be anything from a book  to just a picture next to your child’s chair on the wall, it all depends on how much time you want to put into this. Some different ideas are index cards your child can hold, a flip book, a piece of paper on the wall, numbered Popsicle sticks, Etc.  Your going to want to include pictures of each step and how they should be completed, a lot of people like to take pictures of their kid doing each task, Autaum gets distracted by this because she loves to look at pictures of herself so I stick to the characters she likes. You will also want to include words even if your child is nonverbal, this gets your child used to the idea of looking at words and putting it together that they mean something and not just scramble. This also opens up a lot of learning opportunities. So every day before meal time you are going to want to look at the chart and talk about what every picture and what every word means. Try not to go into too much detail, it is easy to overwhelm, but your child needs to semi understand the story. Social stories are great for almost anything your child does, diaper change time, playing outside, sharing, you name it. I could not find a decent picture to steal from the internet so I just whipped up this bad boy real quick. I am crafty, I do not draw, as you can see.

Dinner Time Chart

My last and final DIY would be to create a “dinner time chart”. Once again you can make this as complex or as simple as you want, from construction paper and markers to printing and laminating. All you need is 7 boxes, one for each day of the week, and that’s it. You can let your child place a sticker on it or color off each day that your child has a good time at dinner. I found these plastic, dry erase pockets at the Dollar Tree for a dollar. This is her chore chart but its basically the same thing. There ya go, that’s it.

Love Me Challenge

Ok so if you have been following my blog lately, shame on you if you haven’t, then you will probably already know about all of my health problems and my depression. I have decided to join a few of my fellow mommies in doing a 30 day “Love Me” challenge. I want to encourage everybody reading this to join me, in your own way, or to just sit and reflect on the topic of the day. Everybody needs to be reminded of their love for their self sometimes. So today’s topic will is:

Why are you doing #LoveMe?

I am doing the love me challenge because I need a reminder of how freggin’ awesome I am, duh. I have been really down on myself lately, down on the world. I think I just gave and gave and gave so much of myself to my family without ever taking or taking very little, I just ran myself down. Becoming a mother has really opened my eyes to being selfless and giving. Becoming a mother has also opened my eyes to seeing that it is perfectly ok to be a little selfish sometimes. Like when your sick, I never stop when i’m sick. I just go and go. Lately I haven’t had an option to keep going so i’ve had to just relax and focus on getting better and then when I feel better of if there’s something little I can do like change a butt, then do it. There’s a big difference in getting better and being lazy.

This whole experience has also taught me that it is ok to leave your kids with people and just relax. Really I only ever get a sitter for my kids if I have a doctor appointment or if there’s a big event, like a birthday, then I will get a sitter so I can scrub the house. It is perfectly ok to call up the mother in law and be like “I am dizzy, I am going to take a nap now, Ill leave the front door unlocked, they are dressed to go”. Im totally kidding but it is ok to have someone watch them while you nap. I have very big guilt about asking anyone for help, but its essential to being the best you you can be.

I am beautiful. I am worth ever second of someones help. I am freggin’ awesome.

I pray that everyone who reads this looks in the mirror today and sees how beautiful she is, I pray she feels how much she loves herself.