What about Breakfast?

You see it on all the Facebook groups.  “Help, I’m eating x style now and what do I eat for breakfast???”
We really are programmed to think some foods are only good for the morning time.  That’s not true.

The only rules I think we need for eating are:

1.  Eat Real Food (follow previously given parameters if needed)
2. Chew completely (liquify your food!)
3. Eat protein every two hours if you have blood sugar issues

So, what about breakfast?  Here’s what I’m telling my friend who is a busy homeschooling mama:

1.  Leftovers
2. Meat Patties/Bacon/Pulled Rotisserie Chicken
3. Eggs (preferably yolks only)
4. Green Smoothie

 

VOMS and Gutter Foods

As previously explained, I’m severely limiting choice in recipes in order to help grow my friend’s abilities and confidence in the kitchen as she transitions from hurting to healing foods.

This is the personalized list of recipes I’m having her choose from.  She to make something from each category (two vegetables) each week, adjusting quantities for her family.  I’ve suggested writing them on index cards and just randomly grabbing so she doesn’t get bogged down in even these limited choices.

VOMS Chart

HWKIP = He Won’t Know It’s Paleo          WM = The Wellness Mama Cookbook

THK = The Healing Kitchen       APC = Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook

(Undesignated recipe sources are ones I share my personal cooking method with my friend)

 

I also want to give a reasonable list of Gutter Foods (keeps her at least inside the parameters laid out!) so that if overwhelming craving or family emergency comes up, leaving the new way of eating doesn’t have to happen:

Sweets

Coconut Milk Ice Cream (play with flavor – I prefer vanilla)

Hot “Chocolate”

Pumpkin Pudding

Carob Brownies, HWKIP

Dutch Apple Pie, HWKIP

Blackberry Cobbler, HWKIP

Costco Organic Fruit Pops (for kiddos)

 

Drinks

Kombucha

Kevita

Homemade ACV Water

Homemade Lemonade

 

Always On Hand (to stay in your lane!)

Protein: Rotisserie Chicken – pulled

Cooked Bacon

Meat Patties

Berries, Grapes, Apples, Clementines

Boulder Coconut Oil or Avocado Oil Chips

Jackson’s Sweet Potato Chips

Plantain Chips

Seed Butter (Costco has Nutzzo Seed Butter)

Costco Cocoa Krisp (for kiddos)

Lara Bars, fruit (for kiddos)

Honey

Maple Syrup

Coconut Milk

Pureed Pumpkin (canned)

 

Transition Parameters – Hurting to Healing Foods

Following last week’s blog post about helping my friend shift her paradigm, I’m sharing the parameters I have for her food consumption.

ULTIMATELY, my friend will land at AIP or Whole 30 or whatever personalized diet is best for her body.

This is designed to get her off a diet of hurting foods to healing foods.  Some specific tweaks that will need to happen over time include greater variety, less substitute type foods, eliminating nightshades, seeds, eggs, etc.  Ideally, keeping food preparation simple by just flavoring and cooking a real food is best.  But that is probably not going to be helpful for somebody accustomed to pizza and cheeseburgers  and tator tot casserole.

My goal for my friend is to stay in her food lane with specific parameters.  And just like a bowling lane, various spots on the lane lead to better results.  And there are gutters.  While I don’t want my friend to visit the gutters, at least I can offer some gutter foods that will keep her in the lane instead of jumping into somebody else’s lane or leaving the bowling alley altogether!  Over time, her planning and preparation skills will grow AND her body will heal enough that she will move past spending time in the gutter.  Plus, budgetary constraints mean that making specific sweets or always buying the acceptable potato chips will just not happen long-term.

Another very important point for my friend specifically is that she’s a mom with teenagers and elementary children.  They have well-formed habits and palates.  I want to be incredibly sensitive to how difficult it is to change not only her own lifestyle, but also the lifestyle of her children and husband.

Parameters

No Grains: rice and oats for kids

No Dairy

No Legumes (peanuts, green beans, peas, etc)

No Nuts

No Soy

All Meats

All Fish

All Vegetables except cooking white/red potatoes (sweet potatoes are good); I allow Boulder coconut oil or avocado oil potato chips as a gutter food

All Fruit except bananas, pineapple, mango

All mushrooms

All Herbs

All Spices

Seeds

Eggs: Pasture raised and gmo and abx free, prefer consuming yolks only

Sweeteners: Only maple syrup and honey (Commercial kombucha and kevita okay)

Over time, we will re-evaluate these food parameters and modify based on symptoms, abilities, and budget.  We may be able to become more lax in some areas or we may need to restrict further.

Sick

My friend is sick, her kids are sick.  They are always sick.  And she is sick of it.
We were able to have a sweet conversation about paradigm shifts concerning health and wellness.  And now I get to help her with that shift.  But, oh where to start?

I’ve been on my own journey of healing for ten years and more focused for the last five.  I’ve seen dramatic results and changes and the wisdom of my Great Gram isn’t dying out but being passed on to my own daughters!  Many of you who know me personally have watched this transformation up close and personal!

This is an abbreviated approach on purpose: my goal is to start with food.  And I’m not getting into specifics like organics and non-gmo and coconut oil extraction methods, etc, because that is not a good beginning place.  That’s later.  Right now, I want to move my friend into the realm of understanding food only hurts or heals and how a homeschooling wife and mama can have victory!  And it can be delicious!

I’ll be hitting these areas with her as well as sending her daily articles (educational and testimonial) to read:

1. Knowledge
   1. How the gut works and what is leaky gut?
   2. What things impact the gut?
      1. Foods (dividing into inflammatory or healing)
      2. Toxins (staying brief!)
      3. Medications (staying brief)
   3. How to heal the gut?
      1. Foods
      2. Supplements (staying brief!)
      3. Detoxification (staying brief!)
      4. Protection (staying brief!)
2.  Parameters
   1. Rules
   2. Contraction/Release
   3. The ALWAYS boundaries
   4. Gutter cheats while still in your lane – survival and danger
3. Application
   1. Meal Planning (for real!)
   2. Limit recipe selections (lots of good recipes out there, but too many choices! Get one great cookbook and stick with it!)
   3. VOMS method (my own creation!) – eat a buffet all week!
      1. Veggie dishes (at least two!)
      2. One pot meal
      3. Meat (just one!)
      4. Soup
   4. Foods to always have on hand
      1. Smoothie ingredients
      2. Pulled rotisserie chicken
      3. Plantain chips (let’s be real!)
      4. Kombucha, Kevita, or lemons
   5. Grocery List
      1. Write down all things from recipes
      2. Shop at your house first and cross off the list
      3. Reorganize your grocery list into sections at the grocery store (meats, produce, pantry)
         1. Try to buy all pantry online to be cheaper and to avoid danger zones at the store
         2. Be strategic and visualize walking through the grocery. AVOID the bakery area!  AVOID danger aisles!
         3. Get the small shopping cart.
   6. Execution
      1. Day One: Planning and Shopping
      2. Day Two: Prepping and cook One Pot meal
      3. Day Three/Remainder of Week: Cook other meals
         1. Initially, it helped me to do all my cooking on one day.
   7. Stretching/Exploring
      1. When/how to go outside your cookbook (NOT NOW!)
4.  Basics
   1. Kitchen Tools
      1. Knife, Blender, Strainer, Reamer, microplaner – everything else is a luxury
   2. Pantry Items
      1. Fats – start with fats ALWAYS (coconut oil, evoo, avocado oil, lard, tallow, duck fat, controversial palm oil, sesame seed oil)
      2. Saucy liquidy stuff (ACV, Coconut Aminos, Coconut Milk)
      3. Herbs/Spices
      4. Snacks (this is a gutter and can be dangerous!)
   3. Make-food-taste-good basics:
      1. Marinade meats (it’s all in the brine!)
      2. Root Veggie basics (fat and salt)
      3. Leafy Green cooking (fat, salt, garlic)
      4. Stir Fry (fat, coconut aminos, lemon juice, water)

I know this is just an outline, but I hope this gives you an idea of how to pursue taking charge of your health!

Peace, Love, Jesus!

PS – Because I know my friend intimately, I’ve made her a selection of VOMS recipes to choose each week.  I selected from my own favorite cookbooks including:

The Healing Kitchen

Autoimmune Paleo

He Won’t Know It’s Paleo

The Wellness Mama Cookbook

UltraMetabolism Cookbook (only two recipes and I’ve modified both for her already – otherwise, this isn’t a particularly excellent cookbook.  But it’s near to my heart because it’s the first cookbook I ever bought after my typical amount of million hours of research and it started my understanding of the body and how delicious real foods could be.)

PPS – I am also offering AIP deserts initially because cutting that out altogether would be way too drastic of a shift for her family.  As you know AIP sweets tend to be costly, and I think that will be its own deterrent.  But I need to give her inside-the-parameters options so she doesn’t abandon eating well!  I’ll admit that my own wellness continued the first couple of months propelled only by another pan of carob brownies and coconut milk ice cream.  Ha!

PPPS – The picture above is baked kabocha squash: sliced, oiled, salted, and a little real cinnamon. Delicious!