Life is good!!!!

Hello! Hope your week is going well! I have had a GREAT week! I cannot believe the difference in my life! One week on Vanessa’s plan and I feel great!!!

I’ve lost 3 pounds!!!! But even better, I have no edema. I can see my ankles even after 12 hours on my feet. My rings are loose!!!! My knees don’t ache and my back doesn’t hurt! It has been years since I have felt this good.

The best part to me is that I don’t feel like I am on a diet. Vanessa assured me that this is a lifestyle change not a diet. Diets don’t work! I have not been hungry once this week!

One thing that I have learned though is that I have to think ahead.  Being gluten and cow dairy free is not difficult, however, it is sometimes a challenge to find a quick snack when you are out and about.  I am learning to take some portable snacks with me in my purse. I take nuts or my homemade trail mix with me in case I get hungry!

When I last blogged, I was working on my meals for the week. I wake up at 4am and I am at work at 0545 everyday. I get home somewhere between 5 and 7pm every night.  I do NOT want to cook when I get home. And as far as packing a lunch in the morning…. forget it! So, many years ago when my girls were small, I began cooking for the entire week on the weekends. Now, I am so glad that I have developed that habit.

This weekend, I prepared the following:

Grilled chicken breasts

Field peas,

Butter Beans,

Quinoa (for those of you who are not familiar with this food, it is a complete protein that I use in place of rice),

Spaghetti sauce

Spaghetti squash (again I use instead of pasta),

Red Curry Thai butternut squash soup,

Blue Cheese dressing for salad

Caesar Salad dressing for salad

Once I have everything cooked, I put it in Tupperware containers and place in the refrigerator. When I get home in the evening, I place dinner on a plate and microwave till hot. While dinner is heating, I pack our lunches from the menu above. I try to cook enough of each thing to feed us one dinner and one lunch each. On Thursdays we have a smorgasbord of whatever is left over and we go out to eat on Friday!

I had a great time cooking this weekend because I got to experiment using some of the different ingredients that Vanessa and I discussed to replace dairy and wheat.  The blue cheese dressing was the biggest success!  It tastes even better that the original recipe that I had. I used goat milk blue cheese, coconut buttermilk, and a goat milk sour cream. Shank complimented it several times and does not know that it is not cow dairy!

Life is good! Speaking of life being good, I want to show you the loves of my life!

Have a GREAT rest of the week! Talk to you soon!