Saturday morning, and we tune into the cartoon show called Weigh In. In this weeks episode
Me UP 1.4
Hubby UP 1.2
Son UP 2.8
So I ask myself what is important here ? Is it better to have a number on a scale go lower, or cure my son from Autism ?
Obviously the latter, so the former is going to involve finding a new balance that works.I am not sure just what that is going to be yet.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Guest Chef
Mommy has not been feeling the greatest today . It's not anything as interesting as Swine Flu or a tropical fever, but rather a little gift from Mother Nature. Make that a jumbo load package sort of delivery. As you get older, things get very irregular, and comes in quantities that you never knew before. Needless to say there was no exercising today as a result, and it became an opportunity for son to work on some Life Skills. He really loves to cook, and I have been letting him try more complicated dishes. He still makes me very nervous when he uses a knife, but the only way you learn is through hands on experience. I belive every human being should have the skills enough to cook, grocery shop, do laundry, sew simple repairs,create and follow a budget, change a tire and balance a checkbook before they move on their own. Learning how to do grocery shopping and such are definate added bonuses. So that being said, son was given the opportunity to play cook today, and dinner was of his own design.
Nick's Crocpot Pasta Florentine- serves 3
1 jar spaghetti sauce
3 links chicken asiago sausage
6 oz whole wheat pasta, uncooked
1 c water
1 bag frozen spinach
Spray crockpot with Pam. Slice sausage into couins. Put 1/2 cup of sauce on the bottom of the crock pot. Add raw pasta, spinach , water and sauce. Mix, cover and cook on low for 6 hrs. Serve with shavings of Parmesagn cheese( can omit) Note- the pasta cooks in the sauce and comes out very tender.
1 jar spaghetti sauce
3 links chicken asiago sausage
6 oz whole wheat pasta, uncooked
1 c water
1 bag frozen spinach
Spray crockpot with Pam. Slice sausage into couins. Put 1/2 cup of sauce on the bottom of the crock pot. Add raw pasta, spinach , water and sauce. Mix, cover and cook on low for 6 hrs. Serve with shavings of Parmesagn cheese( can omit) Note- the pasta cooks in the sauce and comes out very tender.
He also made a tossed salad and lemon water to go with the meal. Admittedly, the recipe could use a little something, but it was tasty, filling and healthy. I think the boy did very well !
Tomorrow is weigh in. Other than tonight at dinner with the cheese, we have been dairy free for a week, and I am really curious to see it's affects.
Tomorrow is weigh in. Other than tonight at dinner with the cheese, we have been dairy free for a week, and I am really curious to see it's affects.
Weight loss not going as you expected ?
Experiencing a weight loss stall ? Even if you up the exercise, count calories and stay perfectly on your weight loss plan you either stall out or gain for a long period of time ?Thyroid okay ? If all of the above is true, This scary fact of life may be the reason.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Non scale victory
It has been said that you are what you eat, and I am learning entirely new meanings of that phrase, thanks to my son and his special needs. I am also getting an interesting little high five from the ghost of my father, who always told me that I could do anything I put my mind to. He also called me a hardhead, because once I caught a vision of something that I wanted, there was not a power in Heaven or Earth that could stop me. So these two forces met and challenged me through this very sweet channel, pictured wearing his brand new tye dyed tee shirt.
We have been working with supplementation and dietary changes to help him to lose a massive amount of weight , as well as come into the light from the darkness of Autism. So far we have seen a lot of small improvements, and today was another. This time it came in a medium that I am able to share with others.
Nick has never gotten the whole thing with art. First off, ,he has dysgraphya, which is a nerological weirdness that scrambles signals between his brain and hand muscles, so he struggles to write. It works something like this- decide to write the word love. Remeber how to spell it, and THEN remeber which direction the letters go, how to form them and struggle with your brain to get your hand muscles to coordinate. Now add autism's texuire issues that scream the pencil drags, the paper feels too loud and more. Handwriting has been a great struggle, and coloring or painting a nightmare. Enter in the "Mr Literal" factor of autism, where if you are told to color a picture, you do just that. Apply a mish mash of assorted colors onto the paper without any clue that you are supposed to stay in the lines or create something that is a representation of anything. Such as this picture, done by him roughly six months ago, at age 16 and a half
Today there happened to be an opportunity to do some coloring and drawing. For most kids, a collection of markers, crayons and such with a supply of paper or coloring sheets would provide some entertainment , but here they always brought great frustrtion, so i ignored them in the summer months. However an email led to a spontanious art lesson, which led into a coloring session, and a miracle happened
The very first picture, colored by my son in which color is used to bring a visual representation into existance . This is BIG stuff ! And while the scale may or may not be moing very fast for us, more important things are happening at lightning speed ,thanks to the dietary changes and supplements. Moms of these special guys- if you have the slightest inkling that biomedical intervention might work for your child, I would advise you to move Heaven and Earth to find a way to begin. Even if you cannot find a DAN! Doctor or Occupational Therapist, read all you can and apply what you can for your own child. It could make a world of difference !
We have been working with supplementation and dietary changes to help him to lose a massive amount of weight , as well as come into the light from the darkness of Autism. So far we have seen a lot of small improvements, and today was another. This time it came in a medium that I am able to share with others.
Nick has never gotten the whole thing with art. First off, ,he has dysgraphya, which is a nerological weirdness that scrambles signals between his brain and hand muscles, so he struggles to write. It works something like this- decide to write the word love. Remeber how to spell it, and THEN remeber which direction the letters go, how to form them and struggle with your brain to get your hand muscles to coordinate. Now add autism's texuire issues that scream the pencil drags, the paper feels too loud and more. Handwriting has been a great struggle, and coloring or painting a nightmare. Enter in the "Mr Literal" factor of autism, where if you are told to color a picture, you do just that. Apply a mish mash of assorted colors onto the paper without any clue that you are supposed to stay in the lines or create something that is a representation of anything. Such as this picture, done by him roughly six months ago, at age 16 and a half
Today there happened to be an opportunity to do some coloring and drawing. For most kids, a collection of markers, crayons and such with a supply of paper or coloring sheets would provide some entertainment , but here they always brought great frustrtion, so i ignored them in the summer months. However an email led to a spontanious art lesson, which led into a coloring session, and a miracle happened
The very first picture, colored by my son in which color is used to bring a visual representation into existance . This is BIG stuff ! And while the scale may or may not be moing very fast for us, more important things are happening at lightning speed ,thanks to the dietary changes and supplements. Moms of these special guys- if you have the slightest inkling that biomedical intervention might work for your child, I would advise you to move Heaven and Earth to find a way to begin. Even if you cannot find a DAN! Doctor or Occupational Therapist, read all you can and apply what you can for your own child. It could make a world of difference !
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Thinking
I was thinking this morning about food, health, the impact nutrition and additives have on our bodies. It started off with some reading I was doing about biomedical intervention to reverse Autism ( through gluten free/casein free diet, supplements and more) , and it led to thoughts about the obesity problem in our country today. Yes, mathematically in order to lose weight y9ou have to expend more calories than you ingest. But what if one of the unseen factors is the way our bodies process the new toxins that are so prevalent in our food systems ? Chemical additives, artificial sweeteners and more that are used to insure that we have an ample supply of o so yummy cheese doodles and an assortment of products designed to allow us to indulge in our bad eating habits with less guilt -aka the 100 calorie snack pack and such ? Did you know that one of the genetically modified crop strains is designed as a suicide strain - created to produce no seed offspring ? Many others are designed not to germinate untill they are sprayed with round up . Is this kind of food really and truely safe to ingest without serious affects on the way our bodies process food ? Are you really willing to take the risk and find out with your own health ?
That being said, I determined as I ate breakfast to cut out all non organic foods from our diets as quickly as possible. Only one of the items in my breakfast bowl is not organic, and that would be the Crasins. Time to find a new alternative once we run through our stash.
Son and I spent 45 minutes with Wii boxing after breakfast. I was feeling like punching a lot of somethings, and the Wii is a good way to safely get out agression. Son really likes to "fight" with mommy, so it made for a plesant morning for us both.
Morning snack consisted of chocolate Almond Dreams milk and grapes. Son prefers the Almond Milk, I prefer the Rice Dreams, but the Almond is lower in calories and a bit cleaner. Interestingly enough the Rice Dreams has more calcium than either the almond or cows milk.
Today was my planning day , and I decided we are going to try a second week dairy free. After looking at this weeks sales, inventorying the cabinets, creating a menu and a shopping list it was lunchtime.
Homemade lentil soup, carrot sticks, a turkey burger on an Arnolds Thin and leftover vanilla popcorn made from a local small buisness from Monday's snack stash. While Arnolds are not organic, they are free of trans-fatty acids and high fructose corn syrup, so i think I will make an exception with these unil i can find a comperable alternative. Buying organic meat is going to take some thinking. I do not know if our budget is going to stand for this one.
More puttering around the house and catching up some reading, and in the afternoon son reminded me it was snack break
So we had fresh strawberries and cocoa dusted almonds. The strawberries are organic , but not the nuts. I think this one will be easy to find alternatives to .
Dinner was an experiment that worked really well. We had some top round steak in the freezer that needed to be used. Steak happens to be the one food I cannot cook well, and when we had this last week it was officially chewy steak. This time I decided to turn it into kinda sorta an italian stir fry-ish thing. I sliced the steak thin, sauted it in a pan with olive oil, onions and garlic, then added a can of diced tomatoes, some italian seasoning and a shot of salt. Cover and let simmer for an hour, then serve on pasta with shavings of parmesagn. I uesd tricolored corn pasta amd served it with a side salad made from herb green mix, baby persian cucumbers, green onions and black olives. It must have been good, as the guys inhaled it.
No big plans for tonight except do some deep thinking while hubby is at a choir rehersal. Perhaps I will play some more Wii with my son. Tomorrow is the first day of Hollies Walking Challenge and I am signed up and ready to roll !
That being said, I determined as I ate breakfast to cut out all non organic foods from our diets as quickly as possible. Only one of the items in my breakfast bowl is not organic, and that would be the Crasins. Time to find a new alternative once we run through our stash.Son and I spent 45 minutes with Wii boxing after breakfast. I was feeling like punching a lot of somethings, and the Wii is a good way to safely get out agression. Son really likes to "fight" with mommy, so it made for a plesant morning for us both.
Morning snack consisted of chocolate Almond Dreams milk and grapes. Son prefers the Almond Milk, I prefer the Rice Dreams, but the Almond is lower in calories and a bit cleaner. Interestingly enough the Rice Dreams has more calcium than either the almond or cows milk.Today was my planning day , and I decided we are going to try a second week dairy free. After looking at this weeks sales, inventorying the cabinets, creating a menu and a shopping list it was lunchtime.
Homemade lentil soup, carrot sticks, a turkey burger on an Arnolds Thin and leftover vanilla popcorn made from a local small buisness from Monday's snack stash. While Arnolds are not organic, they are free of trans-fatty acids and high fructose corn syrup, so i think I will make an exception with these unil i can find a comperable alternative. Buying organic meat is going to take some thinking. I do not know if our budget is going to stand for this one.More puttering around the house and catching up some reading, and in the afternoon son reminded me it was snack break
So we had fresh strawberries and cocoa dusted almonds. The strawberries are organic , but not the nuts. I think this one will be easy to find alternatives to .Dinner was an experiment that worked really well. We had some top round steak in the freezer that needed to be used. Steak happens to be the one food I cannot cook well, and when we had this last week it was officially chewy steak. This time I decided to turn it into kinda sorta an italian stir fry-ish thing. I sliced the steak thin, sauted it in a pan with olive oil, onions and garlic, then added a can of diced tomatoes, some italian seasoning and a shot of salt. Cover and let simmer for an hour, then serve on pasta with shavings of parmesagn. I uesd tricolored corn pasta amd served it with a side salad made from herb green mix, baby persian cucumbers, green onions and black olives. It must have been good, as the guys inhaled it.
No big plans for tonight except do some deep thinking while hubby is at a choir rehersal. Perhaps I will play some more Wii with my son. Tomorrow is the first day of Hollies Walking Challenge and I am signed up and ready to roll !
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Cloudy with a chance of Tye Dye
Woke up today to another grey, raining cold morning. I think this is one of the wettest springs we have had in a long time ! We had plans for starting the day off with a walk, but postponed it for a while till the rain stopped. So meanwhile, we enjoyed our favorite breakfast- pumpkin oats with toppings
I won't list what all is in there because it is the same thing and I have written about it many times. The rain kept falling , so son and i played with a tye dye kit to make two funky tee shirts. I have done tye dye many times but this was a first for son, and he enjoyed the process. Finally the weather broke , so we went out for a 40 minute walk around the complex. Over the weekend we calculated how many times we were going to have to walk around the parking lot to know for certain we could walk to the library and back. That number and goal is 60 trips. Today we only made 10, and called it quits because it was starting to rain again and my knee was killing me.
We grabbed a snack of almond milk and cherries. For some reason we were both kind of hungry. I think it was because yesterday we were very low on protien, and our bodies were kind of craving more. Afterwords we both got involved in our own intrests. Ah, the joys of summer !
Lunch was a Sloppy Jose on Arnold's Thins ( leftover chicken breast heated in salsa), with a cup of homemade minestrone soup, carrots, cherry tomatoes and some sweet potato chips leftover from yesterday. I kind of chuckled to myself. Before this way of life we would have bought two huge bags of Sunchips and finished them in an afternoon. Now, we buy smarter snacks, portion them out, and they last a long time. Leftover chips were never seen in those days ! After lunch son and I decided to play some Wii boxing. So about 30 mintues of competing wit each other, throwing punches and getting a good work out.
Afternoon snack was fresh strawberries and cocoa dusted almonds. Almonds are a good source of calcium, and one that is easier absorbed by the body than dairy. We are choosing nuts and alternative milks to get our calcium while we try dropping the dairy. As far as my health , i am feeling calmer for some reason. Son has become quite moody, bt it is very possibly due to a further yeast die off in his system. Things can get a lot worse before they get better in these cases, so I am thinking I may continue the experiment for two weeks and then decide.
Dinner was quinoa pilaf ( green onions, carrots and garlic) Citrus marinated grilled chicken breast, california blend and a tossed salad of spring greens and baby persian cucumbers. Our market had these on sale and they are so cute ! These are an unwaxed cucumber, so no need to peel them before eating. They have a more mild cucumber flavor as well. After dinner hubby suggested we head out for a short walk. My knee was really bothering me because of the damp, so we only made it around 2 times. But hey- that is 2 times more than what we would have done sitting on or butts.
The plan for tonight is to catch more of what I call accident TV- The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Son likes to go watch his own stuff in his room in the evenings, so we are free to explore some of the strangest offerings available on TV. T really cannot wait till the next season of The Biggest Loser begins. Or some new offering by The Duggers (18 kids and counting). I will most likely snack on some more cherries later tonight.
I won't list what all is in there because it is the same thing and I have written about it many times. The rain kept falling , so son and i played with a tye dye kit to make two funky tee shirts. I have done tye dye many times but this was a first for son, and he enjoyed the process. Finally the weather broke , so we went out for a 40 minute walk around the complex. Over the weekend we calculated how many times we were going to have to walk around the parking lot to know for certain we could walk to the library and back. That number and goal is 60 trips. Today we only made 10, and called it quits because it was starting to rain again and my knee was killing me.
We grabbed a snack of almond milk and cherries. For some reason we were both kind of hungry. I think it was because yesterday we were very low on protien, and our bodies were kind of craving more. Afterwords we both got involved in our own intrests. Ah, the joys of summer !
Lunch was a Sloppy Jose on Arnold's Thins ( leftover chicken breast heated in salsa), with a cup of homemade minestrone soup, carrots, cherry tomatoes and some sweet potato chips leftover from yesterday. I kind of chuckled to myself. Before this way of life we would have bought two huge bags of Sunchips and finished them in an afternoon. Now, we buy smarter snacks, portion them out, and they last a long time. Leftover chips were never seen in those days ! After lunch son and I decided to play some Wii boxing. So about 30 mintues of competing wit each other, throwing punches and getting a good work out.
Afternoon snack was fresh strawberries and cocoa dusted almonds. Almonds are a good source of calcium, and one that is easier absorbed by the body than dairy. We are choosing nuts and alternative milks to get our calcium while we try dropping the dairy. As far as my health , i am feeling calmer for some reason. Son has become quite moody, bt it is very possibly due to a further yeast die off in his system. Things can get a lot worse before they get better in these cases, so I am thinking I may continue the experiment for two weeks and then decide.
Dinner was quinoa pilaf ( green onions, carrots and garlic) Citrus marinated grilled chicken breast, california blend and a tossed salad of spring greens and baby persian cucumbers. Our market had these on sale and they are so cute ! These are an unwaxed cucumber, so no need to peel them before eating. They have a more mild cucumber flavor as well. After dinner hubby suggested we head out for a short walk. My knee was really bothering me because of the damp, so we only made it around 2 times. But hey- that is 2 times more than what we would have done sitting on or butts.The plan for tonight is to catch more of what I call accident TV- The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Son likes to go watch his own stuff in his room in the evenings, so we are free to explore some of the strangest offerings available on TV. T really cannot wait till the next season of The Biggest Loser begins. Or some new offering by The Duggers (18 kids and counting). I will most likely snack on some more cherries later tonight.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Birthday and good times
Today was a day of relaxing celebration. I am not one who gets into big splashy celebrations or so forth. I think it is because I was the oldest of 5 kids and birthdays were kind of hard to distinguish from any other holiday, Then as I got older I kind of got turned off by the expense for things that lasted for one day and then forced you to pay longer for the indiscretion. I have nothing against those who see things otherwise, but it is just not me. So that being said, today I turned 51 and it was a perfect day !
Started the day off with Crockpot pumpkin grains. It is a mix of barley, brown rice, wheat berried and steel cut oats cooked in water and solid pack pumpkin and seasoned with cinnamon and ginger. Then you top it off with olive oil, ground flax, crasins, goji berries, wheat bran and coconut. We all adore this breakfast, it is really inexpensive and filling !
After breakfast we kind of mucked about watching silly Youtube videos with the happy Birthday song, silly babies and whatever else turned up. Silly kick back fun, and then we headed out to the woods for a walk. This time I actually remebered that we should take pictures of us ! So if you are wondering what 51 looks like, wonder no more !
Me and my son- he is a full head taller than me !
Hubby and I - I realized the other day that there are very few pictures of the two of us together for some reason.
After a walk and a bit of an impromptu botany lesson ( I showed hubby and son several medicinal plants) , we headed off to the Goodwill for some sport shopping. You never know what you are going to find at places like this ! I found several thick binders to store this year's lapbooking projects and had fun browsing through books, clothes and baby furnature. I found a couple of things that I wished I would have had when Nick was a baby !Then we headed down to Sweet Tomatoes- our facvorite all you can eat salad and soup bar.
For some reason this got only one of the plates of salad I had, and it is blurry . This one was spring greens, red cabbage, beets, butternut squash, broccoli,cucumbers, red onions, garbanzos, sesame seeds and several other things I cannot remeber.
Second pass was a half cup of Potato Barley lentil soup, two peices of roast red pepper whole wheat foccacia, fruity oat bran muffin, whole wheat buttermilk biscut. I had a blueberry acai vitamin water to drink- not that bad but not as good as their green tea strawberry blend! Normally we get just plain water but the last time had a deal that included one of the beverages, and we tried them and loved them.
Then we headed to the grocery store to pick up healthy snacks and thenback home for some pay per veiw movie watching and a sort of lazy afternoon. We saw White Noise( really good) and Nick and Nora's endless mix tape( stupid if you are older than 17). Between the two we all got a little nibbly and made a snack food sort of dinner
Sweet potato chips, vanilla popcorn, bing cherries, cocoa dusted almonds and sparkling mineral water.It comes out healthier than theater food, healthier, and you can get comfy and talk during the flick without disturbing anyone. It just works out better for us.
Tonight we plan on catching the soap opera that is John and Kate Plus Eight ( we have been watching them for about 3 years), and just hanging out.
Have a good one !
Started the day off with Crockpot pumpkin grains. It is a mix of barley, brown rice, wheat berried and steel cut oats cooked in water and solid pack pumpkin and seasoned with cinnamon and ginger. Then you top it off with olive oil, ground flax, crasins, goji berries, wheat bran and coconut. We all adore this breakfast, it is really inexpensive and filling !After breakfast we kind of mucked about watching silly Youtube videos with the happy Birthday song, silly babies and whatever else turned up. Silly kick back fun, and then we headed out to the woods for a walk. This time I actually remebered that we should take pictures of us ! So if you are wondering what 51 looks like, wonder no more !
Me and my son- he is a full head taller than me !
Hubby and I - I realized the other day that there are very few pictures of the two of us together for some reason.After a walk and a bit of an impromptu botany lesson ( I showed hubby and son several medicinal plants) , we headed off to the Goodwill for some sport shopping. You never know what you are going to find at places like this ! I found several thick binders to store this year's lapbooking projects and had fun browsing through books, clothes and baby furnature. I found a couple of things that I wished I would have had when Nick was a baby !Then we headed down to Sweet Tomatoes- our facvorite all you can eat salad and soup bar.
For some reason this got only one of the plates of salad I had, and it is blurry . This one was spring greens, red cabbage, beets, butternut squash, broccoli,cucumbers, red onions, garbanzos, sesame seeds and several other things I cannot remeber.
Second pass was a half cup of Potato Barley lentil soup, two peices of roast red pepper whole wheat foccacia, fruity oat bran muffin, whole wheat buttermilk biscut. I had a blueberry acai vitamin water to drink- not that bad but not as good as their green tea strawberry blend! Normally we get just plain water but the last time had a deal that included one of the beverages, and we tried them and loved them.Then we headed to the grocery store to pick up healthy snacks and thenback home for some pay per veiw movie watching and a sort of lazy afternoon. We saw White Noise( really good) and Nick and Nora's endless mix tape( stupid if you are older than 17). Between the two we all got a little nibbly and made a snack food sort of dinner
Sweet potato chips, vanilla popcorn, bing cherries, cocoa dusted almonds and sparkling mineral water.It comes out healthier than theater food, healthier, and you can get comfy and talk during the flick without disturbing anyone. It just works out better for us.Tonight we plan on catching the soap opera that is John and Kate Plus Eight ( we have been watching them for about 3 years), and just hanging out.
Have a good one !
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