Healthy gut diet.

It is such a hassle to be healthy and to keep your scale happy, right? But according to Brenda Watson, who wrote “Skinny Gut Diet”, it is actually very simple as long as you keep your gut happy. What??? Keep who happy? Yes, by keeping your stomach happy, will make your stomach flat too. How does it work? Very easy, listen up. By eating and drinking foods that have good, beneficial bacteria in it, will make our gut happy.

Here are six reasons why gut bacteria is so amazing:

1. You lose weight, of course.
2. You keep the weight off for good.
3. It helps to reduce digestive distress and will make you regular….. I know right?
4. It reduces silent inflammation in your body.
5. It will improve your immune function, yea! Less times to get sick is always great, right?
6. It will help to reduce depression and anxiety.

This is just an outline, of the basics, which is amazing as is. By eating fermented vegetables, eating lots of salads, and drinking smoothies, kombucha tea, and eating less sugar will get our gut feeling much better, in return helping us to lose weight and keep it off. Sounds good to me, right?

 Healthy lifestyle is a way of life. It is not a diet that you try for a few months, but a way of living that will trigger a healthy lifestyle through out your whole life. It is important to have a healthy start from babyhood, but I know that we are not the ones who choose what our parents feed us, and how we were born into this world. The good news is it is never to late to start being healthy. Even if you are past your early years, into your later years, you are still able to start fresh and start being healthy today.

Staying Healthy.

It has been over a year now that we started to be more healthy, exercising, and eating more vegetables and fruits. We started making a green smoothie every day for breakfast, and a salad for lunch. Less sugar, less baked goods, and more exercise. We still have a long ways to go, but knowing that you are on the right healthy path is always rewarding. My husband has stopped taking any high blood pressure medication and lost 40 lbs. I lost 10 lbs and feel great when I eat healthy, instead of unhealthy. As soon as I stop eating healthy diet and go back to my unhealthy ways, I feel very tired, sluggish and weak. Thank God, we started when we did, and may God give us wisdom to go on.
We make a banana smoothie, that is very yummy, especially if you have frozen bananas.
Stay healthy! Eat healthy, especially more vegetables and fruits. Pray! God can heal anything.

Our road to health.

When I married my husband and started to make all kinds of yummy recipes in the kitchen, I did not know much about healthy eating, or the good fats, and eating more vegetables. All we knew was how to eat a lot of white pasta, potatoes, breads, cookies, pizza and lots of delicious Ukrainian/Russian dishes. So slowly and surely we started to gain weight. We joined a gym, but did not like to go there and the membership expired. We did not like vegetable or fruits much, the only things we ate were corn, cucumbers, apples and bananas. We had four children and the weight just got more cumbersome, until one day my husband started to have spells of double vision, dizziness and struggling to breathe normally. He got checked and realized that his blood pressure was very high, he had high cholesterol and was overweight. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, with abnormal lab results and was overweight myself, feeling very sluggish and with constant tiredness. It was a wake up call for us.

That was more that a year ago, when we bought our fancy blender and started to drink green smoothies every morning, started to eat more fruits and vegetables and learning about healthy eating and living.  By incorporating more fruits and greens into our daily routine, has made us crave a more healthier lifestyle.

I started to read a lot about plant based diets and raw vegan living. It is very interesting and has opened my eyes to a lot of problems with our food pyramid. We are told to eat more grains and meat, while fruits and vegetables fall off our plates and we don't think them very important. But truly where are the most vitamins and nutrients hidden? Mostly in fruits, vegetables, greens, seeds and nuts. That should be our main source of nourishment. Grains and meat should be a small portion of it.
We started to eat more healthy, more natural, less chemicals and are still striving more every day to enjoy more fresh produce and eat less foods that have the calories but hardly any nutrition. We started to exercise more, especially my husband who is lifting weights and doing a lot of cardio. He lost 30lbs so far! I lost 10lbs. Isn't it amazing! Our health improved, thanks be to God.

I am so trilled to share this with you and hope that you will find this helpful and that your health will improve as well.

No more coffee.

It has been a whole month now with no coffee. Can you believe it, me an avid coffee drinker, who could not function without my fist yummy cup of mocha, now is living without the black bitter goodness. I cant believe it myself. I still have a craving for it, and every time my coworkers are brewing a fresh mug of coffee, I feel my resolve wavering, but since I did this for health reasons, I am sticking to my no coffee road.

Here are the reasons why I quit:
1. Felt like it was an addiction for me, I could not function without my first sip.
2. The high of coffee would wear off by 10 am and I would be so tired.
2. I had insomnia, could not fall back asleep, even though I only had coffee in am.
3. My head felt heavy, muggy thoughts, could not concentrate.
4. It was getting to be an expensive treat, Mochas and frapuchinos add up.
5. I would get a migraine headache if for some reason I couldn't get my first sip of coffee by 9am.
6. Overall I did not care how it was affecting my body organs, read about the adrenal fatigue.

Here is how I feel a month with no coffee:
1. I feel great! I don't need to have my first sip and I can still function.
2. No more late morning fatigue, I feel energized and happy.
3. I lost 5 lbs, no mochas and no frapuchinos... tons of extra calories lost.
4. I sleep better, even if I do wake up, I fall back asleep faster.
5. I am happy that I am not stimulating my adrenal glands.
6. I am saving money.

So overall I am happy that I got to quit my coffee addiction, and even if in the future I would want a sip of coffee here and there, as long as I don't make it into a daily habit, it should be OK.

If you feel very tired and sleepy in the afternoon, it could be the coffee addiction.... or it could be the food we are eating, more on that in the future post.

This has become my drink of choice for the past few weeks. Green fruit smoothies!

The benefits of coconut oil.

Lately I have been studying on coconut oil, the benefits of it, how healthy it is for us. I have found that it has many unique health benefits. Here are just some of them:
-it has high amounts of lauric acid, that is also found in mothers milk
-it is a natural antibiotic
-it is an immune-enhancer
-it is anti inflammatory, helps with infections, and inflammation
-it is antibacterial, kills bacteria
-it is antiviral, kills viruses, helps with the flu
-it protects the body from protozoa (parasites)
-it provides energy and nutrition to the whole body
-it protects the body from fungi, worms and yeast
-it makes the body work better, function better, metabolize better, defend better, heal better
-it has no side effects, safe on babies all the way to the elderly
-it is very beneficial on skin, helps with rashes, infections, cuts, blisters, burns, stretch marks, cellulite
-it is very good for your face and hair, helps with blemishes, wrinkles and zits
-it is helpful with a lot of diseases, helps to regulate cholesterol without drugs, helps with depression, mood swings, diabetes, cardiovascular health, arthritis, joint pain, and many other health issues

Isn't it amazing? Just read these books and you will agree with me.

Coconut cures.
Amazing stories on benefits of coconut oil.
Eat fat, lose fat.

There are a lot of information online about the benefits of coconut oil. You can investigate on your own. Its a myth that it has bad cholesterol, and that it is an unhealthy fat. Yes it is bad for you if you buy the hydrogenated coconut oil and not the organic virgin coconut oil. After I read about the amazing benefits of coconut oil, from many different sources, I started to give a teaspoon a day to my girls. I put some on my face to prevent wrinkles, and blemishes. I rub it on my very pregnant belly now, it helps with itching and stretchmarks. I love the smell of it, it absorbers very fast, and doesn't leave a sticky or oily residue. Oh, and the best part it regulates my weight even when I am pregnant. The body feels satisfied faster, I don't have the hunger pangs, and helps in preventing me eating high sugary foods, which are not that good for me. The picture didn't really turn out as good as I hoped, it is kind of dark. But here I am 28 weeks pregnant.

Coffee or Tea?

Is coffee good for you or bad? I never really thought anything about it as I drank my 1st cup of steaming coffee with milk and sugar... It was actually the only thing that could give me a boost after a sleepless night with my little girls, or when I had to really get up early for work. But recently I read a very interesting post about coffee, and I went to my local natural store and bought some interesting alternatives to try out.... it tastes pretty good. Do you want to give it a try? Or is your cup of coffee, or mocha your saving grace? In any way you should stop over at Stephanie's blog and read a wonderful view on coffee.

Keeper of the Home : Breaking the Habit with Coffee Alternatives

You are what you eat.

We all heard the saying "You are what you eat." It is true in a lot of ways. If I eat healthy, and make wise choices, I am more healthier, skinnier, and feel better about myself. If I eat fast food, junk food, a lot of sweets, and drink soft drinks, then I feel tired, with no energy, depressed, and I hate to look at myself in the mirror.

In the spiritual world its the same way, we are what we feed our souls. If we read the bible, pray, sing hymns, go to church, we feel like we are Gods children. If we read fashion magazines, romance novels, listen to rock, sing to unchristian music, sleep-in instead of going to church, watch 'Next top Model' instead of pray... we are a sorry excuse for a christian. We don't feel close to God, we feel like He cant hear us, and our souls are starving for 'nutritious' food, to live. Its like when we eat junk food, we get sick, tired, and depressed, its the same way spiritually.

It is so hard, isn't it? My hand easily wants to grab a donut for breakfast, than make myself a whole wheat toast with peanut butter and honey.

It is easy to read some kind of fun interesting book, then to read the bible. It is easier to dream some more sweet dreams, than get up, get dressed and go to church. Why is it that the good, healthy things are harder for us to do, than the bad, sinful things?

The good thing is that we all have a choice. A choice to live or a choice to die. A choice to sin, or live for God. To walk the wide- easy road, or choose to walk the narrow path, to follow Jesus. I am so happy we do have that choice. I am so happy that I am still alive to make a choice.

'Enter through the narrow gate, For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.' Matthew 7:13