Natural Remedies

I've had a bit of a cough over the last few days.  I'm so thankful there hasn't been a cold come on with it, just cough and chest congestion.  I've been coughing really bad at night.  Whenever Jeromy would make me laugh this weekend, I sounded like a smoker.  It was so funny! 

I finally decided to take some medicine yesterday and had to look up which ones I could take.  I had a list of approved medicines from my first doctor and found that Robitussin cough syrup was on the list.  My normal inclination would be to take the medicine without hesitation.  However I was a little hesitant because of the pregnancy.  I'm sure its fine if its on the list but I just wasn't sure what I wanted to put into my body and therefore the baby's body.  I have many friends that don't take "normal" over the counter medicines or antibiotics unless absolutely necessary.  I decided I would ask my friend Melissa what she would do in my case.  She suggested a hot shower, tea, warm brothy soups, and echinacea.  I had to google echinacea honestly because I didn't know what it was :) I found you can get it in many different forms so I had to ask Melissa again what she would do! I decided I would get the echinacea capsules and some tea with echinacea too on her recommendation.

This was the only kind of tea I could find with echinacea in it so I gave it a whirl.

 

 

I took a capsule and drank some tea when we got home from the store.  I could totally tell the tea was working, my chest was feeling much better afterwards.  I knew it probably wasn't going to last all night though so I did take some of the cough syrup for night time.  I ended up taking two doses throughout the night.  I'm not sure if it helped or not. 

 

I was determined to use just the natural remedies during the day today and try to keep the medicine at a minimum.  I took a hot shower this morning, drank more tea, took more capsules, had brothy soup at lunch and took no medicine.  I don't know if it was coincidence or not but I felt better today! I didn't cough quite as much in the afternoon after the soup.  We'll see how this evening goes, I don't think I'm going to take the cough syrup, just gonna drink more tea. 

 

I would like to try my best to go to more natural remedies first before going to medicine especially for Jonathan when he comes.  We'll see how it goes.  I would say today was a very successful first attempt! I'm proud of myself! 

Motivation

For the past two years, a big focus of mine has been trying  to live a healthy lifestyle. I am trying to continue on with that during my pregnancy but it's definitely hard not to think "we'll I'm pregnant, I can eat whatever."  I am often movtivated by weight loss shows such as the Biggest Loser and Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition.  I can't focus on losing weight right now obviously, but I can still try to focus on eating right for my health and the health of the baby.  I'm trying but it's not always easy. 

I watched the first two episodes of this season's Biggest Loser last week and it was so motivating as they try to tackle childhood obesity! The kids they have on the show are super cute and I am already enjoying hearing about the contestant's lives.  The one thing I don't like about this show is when it starts getting like a game and people are going against each other.  They had a lot of that last season and I feel like that takes away from the main focus of the show, to get these people healthy.  Anyways, I can't wait to watch more of it and get motivated to be more healthy.  I like to watch the show the following day on my iPad while I walk on my treadmill.  So thankful for a treadmill!  Do you watch the Biggest Loser?

Whole30 Complete!

I was looking back at my first post before I started the Whole30 and evaluating how I did compared to how I thought I would do. All in all, I am very proud of myself. I never thought I could stick to something so strict. I didn't complete the month with no cheats but I did almost the entire month. The last week or so I've been really irritated with not being able to enjoy things with family or friends and so I've been having some things like bread these past few days. I wish I could say I finished the whole thing with no cheating but it's ok because I still got great results! I do feel better and I am absolutely thrilled that some of my clothes are literally falling off me now. I got some new shorts the other day and they are already too big. For some odd reason, the scale doesn't seem to want to move but I can certainly tell my body is changing because of my clothes. I lost 7.5 pounds this month on the whole30. I started bootcamp on January 5 and since then I have lost 20 pounds. YAY!! My plan is to stick to my whole30 foods when I'm at home cooking dinner. We try not to go out to eat during the week so that should help me stay on track during the week. I plan to let myself have things like bread and cheese on the weekends. I still refuse to eat any fast food except for the occasional Chickfila because I feel like they have the healthiest, cleanest food options there and its just so darn good!! Anyways, so the month of April is over, I never thought it would end, and I'm going to wear a new and smaller dress to church today to celebrate :) I'll blog on how I'm doing in May soon, thanks for reading my Whole30 experience!

Days 18-21

Well it's been awhile! Lots of things have been going on since I last blogged. I'm feeling kinda blah about this program right now. I had been doing so well and not having cravings but all the sudden I want cheese and bread. Not even the dessert that bad, just cheese and bread. I was hoping by the end of this I wouldn't want those things so bad but I do. I'm also feeling discouraged because I haven't lost any more weight since I weighed at the halfway point. Which is exactly why they say don't weigh the whole month so you aren't focused on the numbers. BUT some GOOD news is that my jeans were so big yesterday, I was able to take them off without even unbuttoning and today I wore my smaller size! YAY!!!! Also some more good things to think about are that I am getting compliments every day about how I look :) Today a coworker came into my room and told me I was looking FABULOUS! That always makes me feel deteremined to keep it up. Still doing boot camp on Wednesday and Friday mornings, still doing zumba on Monday nights and going to start doing zumba on Thursday nights too starting next week! Yay for exercise, lol. Man, getting healthy is SO hard for some!! I haven't really tried anything new this week. One more week to go, woo hoo! I can't wait!

Halfway!

Friday marked the halfway point, April 15! Jeromy and I went out to Jason's Deli for dinner that night and I got a huge salad. There was so much good stuff on it, it didn't even need dressing. I have cooked all week and was ready to go out! So, during this Whole30 program, you're not supposed to weigh yourself during the entire month but that's just so hard not to do because I want to see some results. The creators of the program don't want you focusing on the numbers, they want you to focus more on the health. Yeah whatever, so anyways, it was halfway and I needed to see some number. I weighed and have lost 6.5 lbs since April 1. That's pretty good, if I can keep that up then I'll lose around 12-13 for one month and I've never done that before so that would make me very happy! OH! I made burgers for the first time last night. Well Jeromy grilled them :) but I bought regular ground beef, I didn't buy the patties. I put all the seasonings in and ground it up and made it into patties myself. There were soooo good! I had it without the bun but I made guacamole to have with it and lettuce and tomato. There were delicious. I also cooked zucchini and squash in the oven (thanks for the tip, Amanda!) I drizzled it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Yum! I need to eat more vegetables, I'm eating a lot of fruit which has sugar. It's just soooo good though! I made a fruit salad last night for dessert. It had 7 different types of fruit...strawberries, bananas, blackberries, apples, kiwi, oranges, and grapes! It was so good, it tastes so sweet like I had put sugar on top of it. I'm having a good mindset change on some foods but I don't think I'll ever change my mind on ice cream, its so delicious! I might just have less ice cream and add fruit in it :) you know, once I can have it again. I haven't thought too much of how I'm going put some foods back into my diet once April is over. I think I might try to stick pretty strict to Whole30 eating during the week and then have some cheats on the weekends only. We'll see how that goes. I'm excited because I love zumba and my instructors added a Thursday night class so now I can do zumba on Monday and Thursday nights and boot camp on Wednesday and Friday mornings. I will have to get myself used to Thursday night and then Friday morning. That might be hard but at least it will be the weekend after that to rest. Well it's time to go to church, don't wanna be late :) We are on time people!

Days 9-13

I hate to start off on a negative note but I can't avoid it. I had to cheat last night on my diet. I guess I didn't have to but a friend invited us over for dinner and I could have told her that I was on a strict diet or had them come to our house but I didn't want it to be a big deal. I figured I would just eat what I could and skip the rest. Well the whole meal turned out to be all the things I couldn't eat. The meal was wonderful, she worked so hard and it was delicious but I tried to eat as little as possible. I had bread, pasta, cheese, dressing, croutons, etc. oh man. I could have gone to town but my mind is already changing after 13 days and I'm not really wanting to eat all that as much, thats the good news about it! I hate that at the end of my 30 days I won't be able to say I didn't have any cheats. But oh well. It's still working and I'm still going to continue to eat exactly how I was before last nights meal. I think I'm going to fast this morning and afternoon and just have water because my stomach is very upset with me. Plus I can use my lunch time to spend some extra time in the word. So I can't really remember much about the other days this week. I do know that it was very hard on day 10 because we went to the Astros game and there was just junk food galore around me. My head is still saying, "oooo look at those nachos they look soooo good" but my stomach sees those same nachos and is like "ughhhh gross" lol. It was hard seeing all that stuff, so made me want to cheat but I knew there was no way I was going to. I'm getting a little tired of cooking so much. Makes me just not want to eat some nights so I don't have to cook, haha. But anyways, still going strong after days 9-13, even after the set back. Looking forward to the weekend, what will I cook next?!

Days 4-8

I received some encouraging words yesterday about my blog (didn't even know any one was really reading it!) and I realized it was probably time to write another one! The first week has been going good. I haven't had any slip ups or really any desire to because I know what I'm working toward. Most of my days start off with eggs and some fruit. That keeps me full all the way until lunch. I normally take left overs for lunch from the night before or a couple of times this week I've even cooked a second time at night so I will have something to eat the next day, gotta be prepared! My new favorite meal is something I whipped up without even knowing what to do. When I tell you I don't know how or what to cook, I'm not lying here! I honestly haven't cooked much before except the few little things I know of but other than that, I'm pretty clueless. It is so nice to have someone doing this with you to ask questions and talk about this with. I love my Lea! I call her often to ask her how to do this or what should I make with that. So Monday night I needed to make something really quick before Zumba class. I got out some chicken and asparagus (YUM) and sauted it in a pan with olive oil. It turned out so so good! I threw in some spices (salt, pepper, and garlic powder, that's it!) and it was delicious. I liked it so much, I went to the grocery store after Zumba and got some mushrooms so I could try it again. I made it again that night and took it for lunch the next day with a spinach and strawberry salad. This diet has some good eats! It's time for this week's grocery store trip and I'm searching for more ideas on what to make. I kinda made the same stuff over and over this week so I wouldn't waste my groceries. I don't mind eating the same thing more than once in a week but I figure I should change it up each week so I don't get bored. I had a lot of fun this week just throwing stuff into a pan and figuring it out! I might try that again this week. The only down side to this week is I had to eat out a few times. Well I guess I didn't have to but I chose to and even though I stuck with what I'm supposed to eat, I still didn't feel like it was the best because I didn't cook it and have no idea what it was cooked in. So I guess I'll be doing a lot of cooking this month which is good because I'm starting to like it and get faster at it. Anyways, I guess I will update again later. Thanks for reading!

Days 1-3

Howdy! I started my Whole30 on Friday and have been feeling very successful so far! It's actually not been hard at all. I always thought having a strict diet would be too hard and I would feel deprived but I'm actually liking it because I know exactly what is good for me to eat and what is not so I only eat the good things. It's working out very well! I am so happy to not have to count points or calories or anything because I know the food I'm eating is GOOD for me. I have to make sure I don't eat more than I need though. That would kind of defeat the purpose because even though I am working to change eating habits and tastes, I do have a goal to lose weight during this month as well so I have to be mindful of how much good food I'm eating. I have been doing Weight Watchers on and off for the past three years so I'm used to weighing myself once a week. On the Whole30 program, their goal is more to change your food habits rather than lose weight so the creators of the program don't want you to weigh yourself at all during the whole month. That is actually going to be the hardest thing for me, not the food. I want to see some results!! A lot of people on the Whole30 blog post that they get really bad headaches from the withdrawl of certain foods but I haven't had any yet, gladly. I have had crazy dreams about eating dessert though, LOL. That is so embarassing to say but true. I haven't really craved it when I'm awake...clearly its on the brain though! Anyways, I went to the grocery store today with Lea (again she rocks because she is doing this with me) and found some awesome things in the healthy living section that I didn't know were there. My new favorite thing is almond butter (like peanut butter but with almonds) They have a machine that grinds dry roasted almonds for you and you just print the label and go! It's so awesome! And there's no sugar in it like all the peanut butter jars on the shelf. That's my favorite find of the week. I got all my groceries for the week including some all natural chicken and beef and organic eggs and my grocery bill was just the same as it normally is! I was very excited about that as well. I guess it's because I wasn't buying crackers and cookies and all the stuff in the middle of the store, mostly just on the outside of the aisles. All in all, a very successful start to my Whole30 experience so far! (That is so nice to say because most of the people's blogs I read are dying after a few days of no coke or sugar so I feel really blessed that I'm not experiencing that!)

Onto a new journey! Whole30

Well I had completely fogotten about this blog! I was thinking about blogging my next 30 days and I remembered I had already have a blog! I am very excited about this new journey... Like lots of women, I am not at the health level I would like to be. I am working really hard on that. I decided at the beginning of this year to really work at it and start making changes. I started a boot camp at church that is at 5 am every Monday, Wednesday, Friday (that was a big adjustment!) I've been going to boot camp for 3 months now. I am seeing some good results too! I'm doing things that I didn't think I would be able to do and can really see myself getting stronger. I decided to stop eating fast food (after watching some interesting documentaries) and have done pretty good at it, have had it a few times this year. But I still feel like I'm not getting the full results that I want. I still feel like I'm constantly craving food that isn't good for me even though I have a goal and purpose in mind that is very important to me and my future. I have seen some friends on facebook lately that have been eating a lot better and seeing great results. I feel like I eat pretty well but could bump it up a few notches. I heard about a program called Whole30 and decided I would check it out. It's INTENSE. and a full MONTH! Ok, so I've never been good at doing something strict which is why I did weight watchers, still eat what you want! Well, that hasn't really been working out for me so it's time to go for it. Basically I'm going to be eating healthy natural foods and nothing processed. I'm not gonna go all into what I CAN'T eat because that's just not the route I want to take. I am looking at it in a positive light. I will be starting this 30 day program tomorrow, April 1 and going all the way to the end of the month. Scary. It's more of a "change the way you think about food" rather than a weight loss program. I have been preparing my mind and body ahead of time so I can really stay on track... I started eating more natural foods this week and less sugar so I can get ready and just have that mindset in place when I start tomorrow. I don't want to totally shock my system! I am also currently reading a book given to me by one of my best friends Lea. She rocks my socks because she's actually going to do this program with me! Yay for support! She gave me a book she read called Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst from Proverbs 31 ministries. I've only read a few chapters so far but its a good read. It's about craving God more than we crave food. Which is hard for me to be vulnerable and admit to but its true. So I am writing this blog because I need the accountability of other people knowing that I'll be doing this. I work best with accountability. So if you see me in April, ask me how its going! LOL. I don't know how often I'll blog about it, maybe every day, maybe once a week but I want to track how it goes. Thank you in advance for the support! :)