Wow, I got my product from www.drnatura.com and this is my 3rd day on it.  Already I'm starting to feel better!  You know the way American's eat in this day and age, and then they don't do any kind of cleanse, it's no wonder there are so many diseases!  If we want to be healthy we have to take care of our bodies.  Would we put water in the gas tank of our car?  Or sugar in the antifreeze tanks?  Of course not, we want out cars to perform their job and get us from place to place, yet we feed ourselves proccessed manufactured foods that are loaded with preservatives, fat, carbs and we expect to keep going?  Like I said, I'm only on my 3rd day with Dr Natura, but I'd recommend it to anyone!  It's so worth it!

WOW!  I'm so excited!  I have felt so good since I've been doing the Glycemic Impact diet through Ediets!  And I don't feel like I'm depriving myself!  Last night I had 1/2 of a homemade Brownie Earthquake and I still lost 2 1/2 # today from what I weighed yesterday!  Now I know that I'll eventually platue, but hear this, this program is exactly what I loved about Nutrisystem, but tons cheeper!  And I cook the meals for my whole family instead of still having to shop and cook for them, I just cook the same thing and we all eat it!  Last night we had Turkey Burgers today for lunch we had Hawaiian Chicken stir fry and brown rice!  Friday I had 2 1/2 pieces of Green Tomato Pie!  I splurged a little that day, that was a lot of calories, but I still lost a pound when I weighed on Saturday morning!  I'm down 8# since I started on Tuesday!  I have more energy because I'm not overloading my system with sugar!  I'm eating healthy well balanced meals and I'm not starving myself!  I didn't realize what a huge overeater I was till I started this diet!  I'm actaully losing faster than Ediets recommends, but I'm sure I'll slow down and won't want to weigh everyday anymore!  On top of all this, I also know I'm still doing the best diet I could to heal my Insulin Resistance and PCOS!  I'm still taking the Insulite system with this diet as well. 

Wednesday I'm going to start a 3 month Colonix program from www.drnatura.com  check out the products !  I have a friend who did it and she said she felt wonderful afterwards!  More energy, flatter tummy.....there's a lot of stuff in everybody's body that needs to be gotten rid of, I didn't realize that till I got on my health kick and started watching Valarie Saxion on the Church Channel!  I just wish I could get my DH to do this with me!  Pray for him, he really wants to lose weight and get healthy, but it's hard for him because he's a truck driver!

Well.....that's all for today.....

So for a long time I've been convinced that the Glycemic index diet is the best way to go, for me anyway.  With Insulin Resistance, I really need to be eating low GI foods so that I don't have sugar spikes and crashes.  It's really hard for me to eat the right foods when everyone around me is eating sugar, flour, potatoes and sweet corn!  But when I was on the Nutrisystem diet I was actually losing weight.  The only problem with that was I had special meals and then had to cook for the rest of the family.  It was very costly.  Then I got a couple GI cookbooks, I used those a few times, but there weren't many recipes in them that we really liked.  Or maybe we only tried the bad ones.  So yesterday DH and I were talking about what we could do to motivate us to lose weight.  I got on E-Diets to see what kind of diets they have!  And low and behold, they have the perfect one that I've been looking for!  And it's much cheeper!  The Glycemic Impact Diet.  I joined and got my first week of menu's, shopping list and recipes!  And the recipes are common stuff, not weird combinations!  It's actually very simular to the 40-30-30 diet that we did in CA.  That worked very well, but I hated how the cookbook was layed out.  It was hard to figure and there wasn't very many different recipes.  If it wasn't for my PCOS and IR I would be doing Weigh Down Workshop, but I really feel like I need to cut back my sugar and starch intake.  From what I've learned about Insulin Resistance, doing a low GI diet will reverse and heal!  So I'm going to start a week from today,  because I need to go shopping this week for next weeks food!  I'm so excited!  This is going to be so much cheeper because I'm not buying seperate food for me and the guys.  We can all eat this way!  It's not weird, it's actually just very balanced!  A supper of steak, brown rice and steamed broccoli?  Wow, that will be a family favorite!  We all really like steamed broccoli!  And I still get whole wheat bread!  Some diets completely cut out all bread, and I love my bread!  So check out the different diets you can try, all through e-diets!  http://www.ediets.com/

A regular workout routine is also so important for healing Insulin Resistance!  I'm trying to do cardio every other day and yoga everyother day.  I can tell I haven't worked out for a  while, I'm so out of shape.  I am so determined that I am going to do everything I can to feel great! Another thing I am doing is the Insulite elements.  http://www.pcos.insulitelabs.com/What-Causes-Insulin-Resistance.php  This website has tons of information about what PCOS and IR are and what causes them, the side effects and symptoms. 

I made another recipe tonight!  The colors reminded me of Christmas so that's where I got the name, but they also taste like a great Christmas side dish!  So here they are!

Sweet N Tangy Christmas Beans

2- 15 oz cans navy beans

2 cans fire roasted diced tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 red bell pepper diced

1 bunch green onions sliced

1/4 c. molasses

1/4 c. fructose

2 tbsp mustard

2 tsp chili powder

Heat Oil in skillet, saute peppers and green onions till tender crisp.  Add navy beans and tomatoes, cook till heated through, add remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer 20-30 minutes.

Sweetness can be adjusted to your taste, I like my tomatoey stuff sweeter but some don't care for the sweet.  You could also use honey in place of the molasses and fructose!

As you can tell from the last few recipes I'm trying to eat more and more all veggie dishes.  I feel so much better when I eat the "Almost" vegan way.  I still eat some meat, but have cut way back on it and I'm more picky what kinds of meats I eat!  Sweet desserts are a tough one, especially when my family is still eating Reese's pie and Blue Moon ice cream cones!  But I'm also incorporating a lot more fruits in my diet and less of those worthless carb loaded sweet treats.  If anybody has recipe's they'd like to share, feel free!

Here's a great vegan meal!  I made it for supper tonight, just by dumping stuff together and it turned out really good! 

Cook 1 c. balsmati rice in 2 c. chicken broth or veggie broth till rice is tender and broth is gone.

In skillet heat 2 tbsp olive oil. Add 1 small red onion and saute till tender.

add:

1- 15 oz can canelli beans partially drained (white kidney)

1- 15 oz can black beans partially drained

1- 8 oz can tomato sauce

chili powder

brown sugar or molasses

salt and pepper

Cook till bubbly and heated through.  Searve over rice

My 2 1/2 yr old loved these beans!  We all did, but I was really amazed that he liked them so well!

Try this instead of an icecream shake!  It's very tasty and nutritious!

Place Frozen Strawberries, blueberries, peaches and a banana (all frozen)  in blender.  Add a little almond milk.  Blend till smooth.  Add almond milk to desired consistancy! 

You can use any kind and any combination of fruit.  Fresh apples and grapes fresh or frozen can be used as well!  Be creative!  If you can use dairy, you can add yogurt instead of the almond milk.  A little orange juice concenrtate will jazz up the flavor too! 

Almond Milk

Soak 2 cups of raw almonds in 2 cups distilled water overnight.  In the morning slip skins off and discard.  Place almonds in blender with 2 c. distilled water and puree.  Squeeze through cheese cloth and discard pulp.  Store in refrigerator!  When ready to use shake well, it seperates just like fresh milk.

Today I worked on menus and a grocery list for next pay period.  I went through my GI Diet cookbooks and was pleasantly surprised at the yummy looking recipes!  I managed to get a dinner and a desset planned for 11 days!  I need to do 5 more days as we get paid bi weekly and I like to do all of our shopping at once.  That way I'm not constantly running to the grocery store for something we need!  Anyway it was fun planning today and I can't wait to start cooking the recipes!

Yesterday I made a recipe up that turned out really yummy!  Here it is:

Hawaiian Skillet

3 skinless boneless chicken breasts rubbed w/ seasoning salt

1 c. brown rice

1/2 c. wild rice

3 c. water

2 c. chicken broth

1/2 green pepper diced

1/4 c. green onion tops sliced

1 reg. can pineapple tidbits in juice, undrained

3 tbsp corn starch

1 tbsp frozen orange juice consentrate

Fructose, salt and pepper to taste

Cook rice in 3 c. water for 45 minutes or untill water is gone and rice is tender.  In saucepan, mix chicken broth, green peppers and onions and cook till tender.  Add pineapple and return to simmer.   Mix cornstarch with a small amount of water and add to broth.  Stir in OJ consentrate, fructose, salt and pepper. Cook till thickened.   Grill chicken breasts on grill or George Foreman.  George Foreman takes 9 minutes!  Dice and add to thickened broth mixture.  Stir in cooked rice.  Garnish with coconut and slivered almonds.  Serve with Chow Mein noodles if desired.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!  We loved it!

I had the best dessert tonight!  I made it up, since I love sweets and can't eat any refined sugars, I decided to get creative today!  So I made myself a banana split that I could eat!  And it was yummy!!!!

Split one banana in a bowl, or banana split boat

top with 3 scoops of vanilla yogurt, not frozen

sprinkle with fruit & nut granola, unsweetened coconut and drizzle with honey. 

I've lost 13#!!!  YAY!  Since I have started my journey to being healed of PCOS and IR and have cut out 99% of all refined sugar from my diet, (the only sugar I've had has been in salad dressings.)  I can already feel the effects of the life style change.  I didn't mention before that I have also had Geographic tongue since I was pregnant with Olo.  What is that, you ask....it is when you're taste buds collect together and form map shapes on your tongue, believe me the first time I looked at my tongue and saw those spots I was horrified, I thought I had an aweful disease.  But I found out that there's no known cause and no known remedy and it's painless.  So I didn't worry about it, except that mine hurt tremendously when I ate Strawberries, Pineapple, Chips, Lemon water and other very salty or very acidic foods and drinks.  I learned to just stear clear of them.  Since then I have discovered that there is a book you can get online that tells how to heal it and it is written by a man who had it and Dr's gave him the same diagnosis I got, there's no cure, it's nothing to worry about.      Anyway, since I've been on this sugar free diet, and eating more veggies and fruits, my tongue looks completely normal again!  And I've been eating STRAWBERRIES this spring!  And it hasn't bothered my tongue at all!  Oh, and another fruit that use to bother it that doesn't now is Bananas!  Perhaps with this new lifestyle it has gone away!  Now, is it going to get rid of my allergies too!  I'd love to stop sneezing all the time! 

My Insulite stuff hasn't come yet, but should be here tomorrow.  I'm really anxious to get it and get started taking it.  I talked to my Nurse friend again today and she assured me that she's confident that it will work!  That really boosted my excitment about it again.  Todo's not very possitive about it.  He does hope it works, but he said he'll believe it when he sees it.  He does want me to try it though, so I'm glad he's supportive in that way! 

I baked Pumpkin cookies this evening!  I like them!  They aren't as sweet as your normal cookies and they taste healthy, but if you're use to eating whole wheat and honey baked goods, you'll love them! 

If you want the recipe email me at shinescandles@iglide.net and I'll send it to you.

Now I need to fix supper for the boys, not sure what they're going to have yet, but I still have several Nutrisystem dinners so I'll will probably eat one of those.  I need to get to studying my Low GI cookbooks.  As soon as my food is gone I want to start cooking the Low GI for us all.

Today I took my family to our Natural Food Coop.  Here's our grocery list:

1# Ground Beef

1# Ground Turkey

2# Sausage

1 1/2 gal. milk 

2 doz brown eggs

Lettuce

Apricots

Radishes

Asparagas

Cookies

Sesame sticks

Snack mix

Sucanac

Wild Rice

Peanut Butter

Popcorn

Fruit Leather

Todo was surprised that our total was really not far off from what it would have been at our normal grocery store!  I was glad he went and that he was impressed!  It helps so much to not be in this alone. 

The boys had a ball, Berylac had a little shopping cart and Olo had a little car and they were running around the store just having a hayday!  Of course we were keeping an eye on them, but it's a small enough

store that they couldn't go too far. 

We did go out to eat for lunch today.  We had a gift certificate for Applebees and we don't get to do that very often, which I realize they don't use organic stuff, but once in a while.......I'm not going to be so strict that we can't eat anywhere but home, but as far as the dairy goes, I'm going to try to avoid any hormone infested milk, cheese, ect.  as much as possible. 

I got my GI diet cookbooks and shopping guide today, so I need to get to studying them now!  I'm excited, from what I've seen so far in the cookbooks, it's really not going to be hard to do at all!

We stopped at DQ on the way home and I got a brownie earthquake, that was major cheating, but I only ate a few bites and put the rest in the freezer, I haven't had sugar for long enough I didn't want to shoke my body and crash. 

Well it's Saturday night and about time to get to bed.  Church tomorrow!

Here I will attempt to keep track of my grocery shopping, recipes we're trying and the progress I make in overcoming PCOS and Insuline Resistance. 

A Natural and Organic Low GI diet and exersize program.  Insulite Elements  I will be taking to reverse the PCOS and IR.  Websites and information for you to look up as well!