Move over Betty Crocker

My husband requested white chicken chili for dinner last night. Not a fan of that dish, I started looking for a new recipe for it that may be better than another I have had. Sweet success. Yes, it is summer but we sat on the deck and ate a bowl of this white chicken chili last night and it was fabulous to hear the birds chirping and the crickets singing and eating a traditionally winter food. You should try it :)

1 42 oz jar of great northern beans with juice

1 cup medium salsa

3 cups shredded chicken

8 oz block pepper jack cheese

2 t. Cumin

14oz can chicken broth

Dump in your crockpot and cook on low for 4 hours. Stir occasionally. 

Can't get any easier than that and this is what it looked like. 

Now here is the best part:  did you know that if you take a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar before eating beans there will be no gas?  Yep. Try it. 

Thanks so much for reading my blog. Have a fabulous day and enjoy some winter food on a summer day :)

Jennifer 

Coconut Oil Demystified, and a Healthy Recipe!

Revisiting the topic of Coconut Oil, I would like to go over what I do with it and define what a "chaw" is.  I have had more than a dozen people ask me in person or by text message to clarify.  Honestly, I am just simply amazed at how many people are reading and using the things in my blog.  I am just a regular person doing regular things.  I am so flattered that others like my stuff.  If you missed the blog about coconut oil and apple cider vinegar put either term in the search bar at the right of the blog and it will come up.

Here is how much I define as a "chaw".

When I get up in the morning, before I brush my teeth, I get this much coconut oil, let it dissolve in my mouth and swish it for about 3-5 minutes.  It has no flavor and melts at 73 degrees so it melts in your mouth very quickly.  After swishing, I spit it out.  This kills all toxins that build up in your mouth overnight as well as gets rid of and prevents tartar buildup on your teeth.  When I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned a few weeks ago, the hygienist did not scrape my teeth at all.  I felt amazing going in and just getting a quick lookover then getting polished, patted on the head and sent on my merry way.

2-3 other times during the day I get this size chaw of coconut oil and eat it.  Sometimes I just swallow it before it melts, and sometimes I let it melt in my mouth then swallow it.  The benefit here is it gives you energy and it is super good for your body.  Coconut oil is not stored in the body as fat.  It is excreted.  Other oils and crisco are stored as fat in the body.  This is one way I keep my body fat index low.

Coconut oil can be purchased locally as mentioned in the previous blog post, and also online from the link below.  Either one of these is good, but Nutrasource has the better price and you can order your Apple Cider Vinegar from the same place. :)

Apple Cider Vinegar needs to be unfiltered.  Makes it nastier to stomach!!  Seriously, it does need to be unfiltered.  All I can bear to consume is one tablespoon per day.  However, if you have an iron stomach, it is great to take a tablespoon before you eat each meal.  It curbs your appetite.  It really works.  But it sure is gross.  I am working up to a tablespoon each time I eat.  I know why it is good for curbing the appetite: because it is so gross it makes you not want to eat.  Seriously, it balances the ph in your body and somehow curbs your cravings.  Who knows, really.  Google it if you want to know the real reasons, but for me, it works and I don't really care why  :)  It can also be purchased locally, but if you are an online shopper, here is a link to purchase it also.

Tonight I tried a new recipe that was divine and was loved by everyone in the family, even the children. My aunt gave me this recipe while I was visiting there a few months ago. I thought some of you may enjoy it as well.  It is egg salad which is very good for you, has a lot of protein and also gives you the stinkiest gas you have ever hoped for in your life.  However, that is another great benefit of Apple Cider Vinegar.  It actually cuts down dramatically and even eliminates that pesky gas passing tendency we all get from eating eggs, beans, etc.  So here is the recipe for the egg salad.  I also made a black bean and corn salad to serve on the side.  YUMMY!!

Egg Salad

1/3 c. mayo

1T mustard

1/8 t crushed red pepper

8 hard boiled eggs

1/2 c. chopped green onions

flour tortillas

lettuce

cooked thick cut bacon

Mix mayo, mustard, and red pepper in medium bowl until blended.  Stir in eggs and onion.  Top Tortilla with lettuce, egg salad and bacon.  Fold up and enjoy!

On the left is Black bean and Corn Salad, on the Right is Egg Salad.

Black Bean and Corn Salad

1 can black beans

1 can whole kernel corn

chopped scallions 

chopped cilantro

Tuscan Italian dressing

Now this recipe is my own and I just throw some stuff in the bowl. I suppose I would guess 1/4 cup dressing.  Throw it all in the bowl and stir it up.  Yum Yum!!  I eat this by itself for lunch.  Low cal, high protein, and yummy!  Can't beat it with a stick.

One piece of bacon won't kill anyone and won't make anyone gain 5 pounds.  It is when we eat the whole pound or several pieces that it becomes a problem.  So enjoy the piece of bacon on this dish.  I know I did. Remember, eat what you want, just not a lot of it.

Thank you so much for reading my blog.  I am enjoying writing it so much and am humbled by the growing reader base.  Please share with your friends and subscribe to email updates on the right of the blog post.  I have a lot of stuff rolling around in my head right now to write about.  I am super excited to share my thoughts.  After all, everyone is entitled to my opinion, right??  

Now that is a point to ponder.

Fat Burning Solutions

Words cannot express how humbled I am at the outpouring of love and commentary about the story of my girl and her hearing loss.  Never in a million years did I realize that people would be so interested in my stories.  It is just everyday life to me.  I have some fabulous stories to share about her discovery of the world of hearing but today I have some more tips on burning fat.

Please share the link to my blog with anyone you would like to.  The more visits and commentary we get the closer I get to being able to getting advertisements on my blog that cause it to be a moneymaking site for me.  If you like what you read, then comment on the blog comments at the bottom of each post and subscribe to the blog which will allow you to get email or text message when I write a new post.  Thanks for all your support.  Now on to fat burning:

Fat burning is the most mysterious thing that I have ever encountered.  If you have read any of my blog thusfar, you know that I am anti-diet, anti-cardboard eating, anti-deprivation when it comes to losing weight. Before you fill up on yogurt this morning that you don't even really like, check the label of it.  Most yogurt is Full of SUGAR and will build belly fat faster than you can imagine.  Even Greek yogurt has a lot of sugar in it.  There are better choices.  ANYTHING that has a healthy label on it that you think is good for you, read how much sugar is in it.  It is astounding.  Greek yogurt is great for a dessert option because it has a lot of protein in it, most of the time around 11 grams.  Remember, higher protein, lower sugar.

Take your Apple Cider Vinegar and make sure it is undilluted(which makes it nastier and healthier).  Take your coconut oil like a good girl or boy.  Coconut oil speeds your metabolism.  Visit my pinterest page for more uses of coconut oil on my board "Products I Love"  Visit my pinterest page by clicking on the icon on the right top of my blog page.

NOW!!  Finally I am going to share the secret to fat burning.  I wish I had known this before now lest I would have never spent my life overweight.  I figured out the problem.  

When you use shampoo in the shower the suds run all down my body.  You can't help but let the suds run.  I read on the bottle of shampoo, and they all say it no matter what kind you use, "Adds volume and extra body"  This has been the problem all along.  My shampoo running down my body has been adding extra body and volume making me fat all my life.  Well, I have a solution for us.  I started washing my hair in Dawn dishwashing liquid.  On the label it reads, "Dissolves Fat that is otherwise Hard to Remove"  Problem solved!  And it is great for oily hair.

If you call me and I don't answer, I am in the shower.

Now this is a point to ponder.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Eat this, Not that! A Guide to Some Alternatives to Fattening Foods

Hey Hey Hey!!  So excited that some of you are sharing my blog on your Facebook pages and Twitter and with your friends!  Thank you so much for sharing.  It is the only way I will keep blogging because it takes time to write down everything and if no one is reading, then it is not worth the time :)  Got many more responses from the last blog than from earlier blogs.  Keep spreading the word.

Today's subject is some alternatives to fatty foods that satisfy.  Now the things I have to share are things that work for me.  Most are not things that I have read in a book, but rather things that I personally use to curb by appetite(I seriously can eat a whole large pizza and a dozen donuts in a sitting, but this behavior does not support my effort to maintain a girlish figure) and to satisfy my cravings for sweets and things that are bad for me.  I hope you get just one tip from my eating information today.  Who is on day 3 of the C25K program?  Let's get moving!

First of all, every morning, I drink two teaspoons of Apple Cider Vinegar.  It is totally nasty and my children laugh at the faces I make when I drink it.  Google the health benefits of it.  Proper dosage is 3 tablespoons per day.  I am sorry but I just can't drink that much of this stuff. I always say, do what you can and start small.  Well this is all I can do for now. :) You should start drinking it too.  Here is the kind I choke down every morning:

Now the main reason that I drink the apple cider vinegar every morning is because it curbs your appetite and significantly reduces cravings for sweets.  It does a lot of other stuff too, like balance your PH in your body and keep flu and germs from setting up residency in your body, but I just drink it so I don't eat a dozen donuts every day.  I'm telling you this stuff is NASTY!! and make sure you drink unfiltered, which is even worse than filtered.  Get it at Walmart in the vinegar or your grocery store.

Next, when I get out of bed in the morning, I take a chaw of Coconut Oil and let it melt in my mouth then swish with it before I brush my teeth.  The longer you swish with it, the better.  I swish for 5 minutes while I shower.  Then spit it out.  It takes all the toxins out of you mouth that build up overnight and it also gives you energy and speeds up your metabolism.  It really does!!  I also cook with this instead of vegatable oil, and I condition my hair with it, rub it on my hands for natural lotion, put it on zits to make them go away, etc.  Google it, it is amazing stuff too.  During the day, I eat about 2 tablespoons of Coconut oil by itself because it keeps my metabolism speedy.  It also has a host of other benefits but these are why I use it.  Buy it also at Walmart on the top shelf above the olive oil. By the way, it has no flavor whatsoever.  

The more protein you eat, the less hungry you are during the day.  I have tried every protein bar, shake, whatever on the market.  They almost all taste like cardboard but we need to shift from Living to eat to Eating to Live, so these are the best protein bars on the market:

They have 20 grams of protein per bar and taste good and even feel like a candy bar.  They have the least amount of sugar without tasting like cardboard you can get.  Get them in the pharmacy section of Walmart with the Health foods and bars, or the big box you see pictured came from Sams.  They end up being 80 cents per bar at Walmart, and around a dollar to $1.25 at Kroger or Target.  All flavors are good, I haven't found one I didn't like yet, and no cardboard so this is a win/win.

I eat a protein bar for breakfast and most of the time lunch.  Watch out with protein bars.  Some have a lot of calories and sugar in them.  Pure Protein is the best, low cal, high protein, low sugar.  The ones that have NO sugar at all are the cardboard variety.

I also like Oikos Greek Yogurt in Key Lime because it tastes like a piece of key lime pie and has 11 grams of protein in it.  If you sprinkle some ground flax seed in the yogurt and don't mix it up, just eat it like that, it is about as close to key lime pie you can get and it is SO yummy.  Flax seed keeps you regular like Mary Poopins.  Cleansing your colon thoroughly on a regular basis will help you keep your girlish figure.

Now to the unconventional way I have satisfied my craving for sweets.  I love cakes, and cake mix.  I have discovered that eating a cup of cake mix mixed with water only has about 100 calories and I feel like I have really had a great thing since I love eating cake mix when I am making a cake.  However, the eggs and oil we put in the cake mix are what bumps up calories and fat.  But when I just dump a cup of cake mix in a bowl right out of the box, and mix a little water with it and eat it with a spoon, I feel like I am getting cake mix and am very satisfied with it as a sweet, but have skipped the calories.  The eggs and oil are so that the cake will cook properly.  Not for taste.  So this works for me, what works for you?

If I want a candy bar, I eat a protein bar.  It has less calories than a snickers, but it has a ton of protein in it and tastes like and has the consistency of a candy bar. Now that is a point to ponder.

I hope you get some tips from today's blog post.  Let me know what you do to curb your cravings in comments!  Share the blog and let's go VIRAL!