King Arthur - Gluten Free

Before going gluten free I fell in love with King Arthur flours. Now I love their gluten free products. Seriously, the gluten free chocolate cake is really pretty amazing. And I like to make a basic vanilla frosting to go over it. You can hardly tell the difference. Sure, I can learn to make my own mixes, but sometimes a boxed mix is just easier and faster.

Another great thing about King Arthur Gluten Free products is that they are free of the 8 most common allergies, so it's totally safe for me and so many others. I don't have to worry about soy flour or soybean oil solids. It's great to have a safe product to go to when I'm craving a snack.

Hot Chocolate Recipe

It's been quite chilly and rainy this weekend in L.A. So, I wanted some hot chocolate. I didn't want to have to worry about gluten or soybean solids in a packet. So I looked it up and Martha Stewart hooked me up. I used this recipe. I would recommend making some fresh whipped cream to go with it. I would have, but I had run out of heavy cream. It tasted so rich and full. I'm sure if you want you could use a different type of milk, but we used whole milk as it said.

When boiling it, I added a dash of natural vanilla extract to it to balance flavors. Depending on your preference you could add more or less. Stay warm out there!

Gluten Free Creamy Chicken Soup with Vegetables

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
• 1/2 Onion, finely chopped
• 1 Button of Garlic, minced
• 1 chicken breast, chopped into bite size pieces or smaller.
• 2 boxes of Pacific condensed Cream of Chicken soup (this is gluten free)
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cans of veggies, or bag of frozen veggies
• Salt and Pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Pour olive oil into a deep frying pan. On low you can add the garlic and oil and let them cook up until aromatic.
2. Now add the raw chicken and cook until done. Make sure it all blends with the garlic and onions.
3. Once cooked through add the condensed soup and milk. You can adjust the amount of milk depending on how thin or creamy you want your soup to be. Play with it.
4. Season with some salt and pepper. A good sprinkling is a good place to start.
5. Add the drained or frozen veggies and stir together to heat through.
6. Once it's all warmed through you're done and ready to eat.

If you don't care about being gluten free you could probably just use regular condensed soups.  So it's not a fancy soup, but it worked great when I was craving a creamy soup. You could add rice or even some noodles to this to make more out of it.

Gluten Free

For health reasons I decided I needed to try to give up allergens for real this year. On January 1, 2013 I gave up soy. Including regular chocolates with soy lecithin. I haven't had a candy bar since then, at least not the standard ones. I did find some chocolate chips that are soy free, so that's been exciting. On January 6th I decided I needed to try going gluten free too just to see what would happen. So, I've been soy free and gluten free since then. Holy cow! Talk about a life change. Actually that's not true. It has been a reasonably easy transition. It makes going out to eat very tricky, but it's okay and less expensive to just eat at home. In n Out and Poquito Mas has been a life saver though. It's fun learning to cook differently. I'm learning new things and trying new recipes. It's really awesome. I still crave things that are normal, but I have to find a new way to make it or find recipes. It's not too hard, but I have fun. So, I think a lot of my posts from now on will be recipes and products I've found and tested myself. Just because you can't eat the standard American diet doesn't mean you have to miss out on favorites. That's for sure!!

So, challenge me. Ask me for ideas and recipes. I'd like to share as much as I can.

Word of Wisdom

I received a patriarchal blessing when I was 16 years old. In that blessing I was told to follow the Word of Wisdom. I quickly thought of all the things to avoid: alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc. I wasn't really tempted by those things so I was confused why it was in there. I thought maybe later in life I'd be tempted. So, I just put it out of my mind. Since moving to LA I've been offered wine and cocktails on numerous occasions, but never have I really considered it. And tobacco just isn't going to happen.

While driving to get gas the other day I had a thought, totally out of the blue this thought came to me. It was that my blessing wasn't talking about the things I shouldn't do, but the things I should do. I should eat fruits and vegetables with meat sparingly. Wheat is the staff of life and good for me to eat. Of course like anything, food must be eaten in moderation and I can't just eat carrots all day every day to be healthy. Everything together is a better diet. Anyway, I just realized that how I've changed my diet is really what it means, not that I need to avoid alcohol and drugs. I still will, but there is a lot more to it.

I don't know why I had that thought while driving, but I'm grateful for the realization. It only took 11 years for me to figure it out. Pretty amazing!

Healthy Changes

So, for anyone that follows along with my posts on FB you know that I've been in the process of making some healthy changes in my life the last few months. Although I'm seeing results it's not at all at the point I want the results to be at.  I still have plenty of work to do and getting more sleep so I feel like exercising is one of them. However, there have been so pretty exciting changes that I've personally noticed but maybe I should tell you how this journey has progressed first.

Near the end of February I knew I needed to make some changes and got just the right push I needed to make an effort. (I'll probably offer more details on that push later, just not yet.) Anyway, I wanted to find out my allergies and food sensitivities since that can prevent weight loss. I had known several people that had great success giving up gluten. So, I tried that first, but I was actually reacting more. The good thing though was that it made us start eating a lot more naturally and less processed. But as time went on I started noticing I had problems with all of the soy often found in gluten free food. So, at that point I went back to eating gluten and explored my soy allergy more. Overall I just do better when I reduce or eliminate soy from my diet. Then, I was making something with corn starch and it made my lips go numb like soy did. And I'd noticed a few other things with processed corn that bothered me. So, now I've eliminated processed corn (HFCS, corn starch, etc.) and soy products as much as I am aware of. And recently after reading an article about the connection between carbs and obesity I've reduced my daily intake of carbs and especially the times of day I eat them. No simple carbs at night, especially after dinner, and not even with dinner most nights. That has really helped.

 All of this time Eric and I have been doing P90X. Well, he does it 100% and works super hard. I do it at about 70% because I hate feeling sweaty. But I'm doing it and it's not as hard as it looks. Anyone can really do it. ANYONE!!! Just modify what you need to. Anyway, so it's been consistent exercise and eating better. Just yesterday we celebrated 3 months since we last ate at McDonald's. Go us! On top of that I've started taking some digestive enzymes, especially when I eat a lot of beans, which I do now. I also have a probiotic drink I like. All of these things help me get healthier and I like it. I still indulge from time to time, but it's a lot less frequent now.

So, to the results. I haven't lost nearly as much weight as I would have liked. Actually, I feel like I've hardly lost any weight since I started making these changes, but now it's getting better. These things take time. P90X has really helped town up and firm my muscles. Even with all of the fat I still have lots of me films firmer and less flabby. That's huge. It feels incredible. Another really unexpected change has been my finger nails. I've always had weak, brittle nails that ripped off before they ever got very long. Now they are long and strong all on their own. I attribute this to the healthy things I'm putting in my body. No more of this garbage in - garbage out that I was getting before. My bosoms feel larger, which was highly unexpected while trying to lose weight. I have no idea what to attribute that to, but I don't care. As long as I keep it up then it should stay that way. My cycles are now more "normal" and much less painful to get through. They are pretty easy-peasy these days. And the best thing of all is that at the beach on Saturday I actually felt pretty confident in a bathing suit. I still have tons of work to do, but I've already made some progress. I still have huge fat, white thighs, but I feel alright about the rest. I know this body isn't going to be like this forever if I keep up the good work, but it feels good to be confident in my own skin again.

So, that's basically how things have gone for the last three months. I haven't really had to buy new clothes yet (sadly) but the day will come soon enough. I couldn't have done this without Eric or my friend Claire to work out with. Anyone can do this, but it has to be when you're ready for it. Make little changes everyday and you'll see how these changes will impact your health. Good luck!