Habitual Cravings

What better way to start the day than with some THM approved Strawberry Chocolate Bars. Who would have known or thought that there was a secret ingredient in the base of these bars? By the looks and the taste of them, I certainly would have never guessed. Just what is that secret ingredient, black beans. My husband and my children turned up their noses as I told them that I used the draining black beans in my yummy brownies. The end result was so much better than I ever would have anticipated. This post will be quite brief. I am so excited about this new lifestyle, I can eat foods that I never would have imagined and still lose weight. So let me just get straight to the guts of this yummy treat. For those following Trim Healthy Mama I ran the recipe past some experts in the plan. This was approved as an S and the serving size can be decreased to 9 instead of 16 and still be on plan. Personally, I find that a small serving of this is plenty. Strawberry Chocolate Bars Makes 16 Bars

Who remembers those clever little bundles of goodness that mothers used to make for us for breakfast as kids?  Come on; you know the ones with the slice of bread, with a hole in the center containing a little piece of the morning sunshine.  Wether your mother called them: Eggs in a Hole, Eggs in a Basket, Toads in the Hole, Sunshine Toast or Eggs in a Nest I think at one point in our lives we have all enjoyed these breakfast treat. I decided that there are enough of us Trim Healthy Mamas out there trying to teach our children the benefits of healthy eating the Trim Healthy Mama way, that I would share this combination of plan approved ingredients.  I love to make dippy (sloppy, runny or drippy) eggs and then dip my toast in the yolk.  For years at breakfast; if it wasn't dipping peanut butter toast in my coffee, then it was dipping gooey buttery toast in my sloppy egg yolk and then eating the remainder of the egg on a piece of toast.  With the Trim Healthy Mama way, what do you

I have always had a huge love for lemon and sweets.  Since I started Trim Healthy Mama, I have hesitated to eat a lot of dessert type foods because I know that eating sweets was something that I always enjoyed.  I, however, have been craving something with lemon as of late.  I searched and searched trying to find something that already existed, but nothing seemed just what I was looking for.  I ran ran across a recipe for a lemon poppy seed muffin by  Rohnda Sue  that gave me great inspiration.  I experimented with different sugar types and flour ratios hoping to come up with a bit of a dryer crumbly crust, similar to a graham cracker to no avail, then one particular time, this happened.  I believe this is due in part to the Xylitol, because other times this worked out just fine like a muffin should. The centers of the muffin sunk and I had a light bulb moment. The birth of the lemon tart, verified by Trim Healthy Mama trained folks as a Heavy S,  came together.  I remembered h

I have battled my weight since the birth of my first stubborn child, Megan, who is now 19.  Through the years, I have jumped on the bandwagon of many lifestyle diet plans. For me most have been successful for a short while and then I feel off of the bandwagon.  As you can see from the photos on the left, I have been up and down with my weight most of my life.  Recently with this new change in my lifestyle, I have a certain motivation to give my body an overhaul.  I want to be healthier and more physically fit. For years I have abused my body my spiraling up and down in my weight. My motivation is the fact that I have come to the realization that according to Psalms 139:14; I was fearfully and  wonderfully made. Now, I knew this before but the Sunday and decided to make some changes to my lifestyle, this verse struck me. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple

So I lost my sexy many years ago, now I am on a new mission to get that sexy back.  For quite a few years, I haven't felt sexy nor do I feel like I have looked sexy.  I am for certain I am not alone on this issue.  So what does this have to do with habitual cravings? Well, for me quite honestly it has everything to do with it.  It is what helped me to lose my sexy and it is what will help me find it again.  Years of giving in to the cravings for sweets, candy, breads, carbs and you name it the list could go on forever have been huge contributing factors to losing my sexy.  "The naive view has always been that cravings represent wisdom of the body," says Marcia Pelchat, PhD, a food researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. But it's not so. Pelchat’s work has shown that people have cravings even with a diet that's adequate in calories and nutrients. "People will often say things, like, ‘Gee, I'm craving potato chips. I must need the

When I began to ponder the idea of starting a blog to document my new lifestyle journey, the first dilemma I was faced with was how to title my blog.  When I look back over the ups and downs of my roller coaster weight loss and weight gain, I thought long and hard about what exactly it was that got me to where I am.  I also thought about what other people might find as interesting topics to read about.  So for myself, I know that there are many contributing factors that have been a source of my weight gain. Most of those factors where formed from habits that I have continued to feed throughout most of my life, childhood and adulthood. Thus the "Habitual" part of my blog name was formed. There are many habits that a person develops throughout their life time.  Some good, some maybe not so good.  I looked up the definition of habit in the trusty old Merrium-Webster Dictionary, this is what I found. 1 hab·it   noun   \ ˈ ha-bət\ : a usual way of behaving : somethin

As I sat on the couch about a month ago, reality began to sink in. The reality that as the days came and went, I continued to give in to the "Habitual Cravings" known to many as food.  Sweets, fatty foods, deep fried foods and anything else suitable to satisfy an almost undeniable fix. I found great joy in relying on those types of foods during times when I felt nothing else could make it all seem "okay". That Sunday, as I sat on the couch, I had an overwhelming desire to finally break the habit.  I discovered a new lifestyle trend known as THM (Trim Healthy Mama). The photo is me at the peak of my climbing weight. Please join me on my journey as I overcome many battles through this new lifestyle.  See the alternatives I rely on  to satisfy my cravings, watch the progress through my journey as I move onward toward my goals, offer encouragement, jump on the wagon with me or just come and find inspiration to change your own "Habitual Cravings".  Stand alon