Let me start off by saying I love to bake. I didn't always love cooking, but now that I can cook meals and lose weight, I find much more joy in it (though not in washing the pots and pans afterwards). Being overweight is something that I've struggled with for the past 25 years, since adolescence. My solution in my youth was to basically starve myself--eating too few calories. That worked as a 17 year old even though it was unhealthy. Now at 35, that doesn't work. I need food to keep up with my four active children and to keep my sanity! When I got pregnant with my oldest child ten years ago, I gained quite a bit of weight naively thinking that I could easily lose the weight once the baby came. I gained over 60 pounds and only lost about forty of them. Fast forward to today, and I am still about 20 pounds from where I'd like to be, but I am getting there, and I'm a lot closer to that goal than I have been in ten years! Friends introduced me to Trim Healthy Mama (www.trimhealthymama.com). I didn't really want to do it at first because it felt like just another fad and something that would be too hard to do, giving up sugar and breads and chips and crackers. I didn't realize that those things were the very things keeping me 50 pounds overweight. A snack here and there surely couldn't hurt. Here's where I had trouble though--those things were becoming my meals. I was eating empty carbohydrates all day long and seriously lacking protein and nutrients. If I did eat protein, it was usually in the form of dairy mixed with sugar of some sort (cottage cheese and jam or sugary yogurts). I was uninformed about how to eat healthy and tasty meals. I figured healthy meant tasteless, and I did not want tasteless meals that did not satisfy. Reading the Trim Healthy Mama (THM) cookbook and plan book changed everything. At first what they were saying did not click. The concept made sense to me, but I couldn't figure out how to apply it without going crazy and having to have my whole life planned out. Part of the fun of eating is making stuff that you're craving, not that you planned out three days before. I finally feel like I have that freedom to decide last minute what's for dinner, lunch, breakfast, snack (though that can be a little crazy if you don't have the ingredients at home--some foresight is good). I know how to choose foods that nourish the body and satisfy the taste buds. I know how to order when I'm eating out with friends and family. I know how to eat when I'm at someone else's house. I'm not saying that I do it correctly 100% of the time. I do allow myself to try things I know are not on plan, but I don't make that the pattern. My lifestyle has changed and for that I am grateful. If at this point, you have no idea what I'm talking about, read the books.
This brings me to the reason I decided to start this blog. I already said I love to bake, so a lot of the recipes on here will be desserts. Mostly they are recipes that already existed (either in the THM cookbook or in one of my other cookbooks) that I have tweaked to my tastes. I'm picky when it comes to flavors in desserts. It needs to taste good and not have a funny aftertaste or texture. Sugar is a major NO-NO. I don't need to tell you how good sugar tastes though ;). Nothing compares to the goodness of sugar and butter, but I am doing my best to do the next best thing for those of us trying to eat better and lose weight. I hope you enjoy the recipes I share here.
Have a happy Thanksgiving! May you be thankful for the life and the body God so carefully designed and gave to you.
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