Hello!  I have been absent for some time! I am back to sharing ideas and writing about random things.  Please feel free to check out this blog but come on over to Simplebutfabulous.com where you will find new material and some old as well!  

As always, Thanks for dropping by and please leave me a comment.

Melinda

simplebutfabulous.com

Are you in Pain, Brain Fog, Stiff, Achy Joints, Bloated, Can't Sleep and Can't Lose Weight?

Are you in Pain, Brain Fog, Stiff, Achy Joints, Bloated, Can't Sleep and Can't Lose Weight?  This is EXACTLY where I was in 2018.  I had been on some inflammatory drugs for 8 months for pain and they were no longer working. I don't even like to take medicine.  There should be another way.

I am  an active 50ish year old.  I ride horses competitively, barn chores, garden, moderate exercise and all the other normal stuff.  I could sit down to watch a movie and couldn't hardly move when I got up!  Sit in a Car for 2 hours and I walked like an old person. Going upstairs, painful!  The thought process that we are older, we are going to have aches and pains is Bull Shit!  I was worried.  If I hurt this bad now, what is 30 more years going to be like.  I was seriously thinking that I needed to move our bedroom downstairs and maybe giving up my beloved riding.

My daughter kept telling me that I didn't eat enough to loose weight.....maybe I needed to see a nutritionist.  Oh, I'm thinking heck no!  I felt that I ate pretty clean.  Haha!  I didn't consume junk every day and I cook every night.  But, I had 1-2 French Cappuccinos in the morning, then water and Sweet Tea the rest of the day, then there was that 5 o'clock Crown & Coke!

I remembered something about a Whole30 diet that a doctor had suggested when my daughter was having some health issues and couldn't come up with an answer, Which was not her diet.  Then, I saw a friend post something.  So I looked it UP.  People HEAR ME, your DIET is CAUSING your PROBLEMS!!

I've been dieting since I was in my twenties.  But, at this point I was heavier than I had ever been, except when pregnant.  I was 147lbs on my scales.  I wanted to get below 140lbs.  I'm active, but I don't want to go to the gym and don't want to commit to 30 min exercises. But, I do exercise for example...I'm standing at the stove, I will do leg lifts and arm exercises.  I do some weight lifting and stretching but not all at the same time, so I'm not doing cardio. NO, getting that heart rate up to help loose weight.  I sweat messing with horses, but don't want to exercise and sweat.....Funny right?

I read up on the diet, just Google Whole30.  The list of the foods you can have, is shorter than the food you can not!  NO processed period, No Sugar or Sweeteners, No Legumes, No Peanuts, No Vegetable Oil, No Corn, No Diary-mayo, sour cream, cheese, milk, cream cheese, NO Bread, NO Bacon/Sausage-unless you find no sugar added, NO JUNK...….OH I know your thinking your going to starve! WHY!!! Is the list so long?  Because all these foods cause Inflammation.  PLEASE listen to Me.  I have been dieting since my 20's, This is the easiest DIET, I have ever done!  It is really a Life CHANGER for Life.  I never got hungry!  No calorie counting or portion measuring.  I was eating more than I ever have and losing weight. Did I have cravings? Yes, What diet have you ever done, that you don't!   The reason for the 30 of the Whole30 is 30 days of cleansing all that junk out of your body.  You CAN DO IT and you will FEEL GREAT!

Baked Brussel Sprouts & Hamburger patti

What are you going to eat....FRESH!
Eggs
Fresh Veggies, I did Frozen as well, NO Canned
Fresh Fruit
Almonds
Olive Oil, Sesame Seed Oil, Avocado Oil, Ghee
Almond Flour
Almond Butter, NO Peanuts

You can find shopping list on the web, to help you.  And So Many Recipes!

It is 30 DAYS!  You Can DO IT for 30 days!  I immediately got the Sugar headache and you will to, because we do Not realize really how much ADDED sugar we consume daily! They put Sugar in EVERTHING.  But the second week, I was already feeling better, sleeping better.  Really? was this really possible that changing my diet could do this?  Yes it was! My stomach was flatter and the scale was moving!  This was in Jan and I was NOT exercising.  The First month, I lost 6lbs.  I felt so much better, I continued on the diet.  I lost 17lbs overall.  My expectations were so small, I had only wanted to get down below 140, but instead got down to 130lbs!  And what I was most surprised by is that I carry my weight in my hips.  Usually this is the last place to loose and I was losing there as well.   And my PAIN is basically gone!  Now there are days something will act up and it is Usually because of what I ate. Woo HOO!

So, What do you do after 30 Days?  You might want to continue as I did for awhile till you loose desired weight.  But, what do you do after that?  You need to figure out, What causes YOUR pain.  Something or all the foods that you eliminated are culprits to your problems.  When your ready, to add things back into your diet, You add one category a day.  Say you have really missed your Dairy, on Monday have Milk for Breakfast, some Cheese on your Salad, Sour Cream on a Potato and then your going to evaluate how you feel.  Did you Bloat you, make you feel sluggish, cause Pain?  Now for the next two days, Tues & Wed, you going to eat Whole30. On Thurs, you can try a different category, or eat your Dairy again to see the effects.

The culprit to my Pain is Sugar.  No more Sweet Tea for me.  I've gotten use to Non-sweet tea.  I mean that is not even a Southern thing. Does this mean that I never have a Donut? No, I may have a Donut or a small, small piece of cake, but I don't keep eating more sugar that day and I eat clean for days. In the past when I boiled veggies, everything got a pinch of Sugar and a Tablespoon of Butter.  Not any more.  I don't even miss it.  And I fried a LOT of summer veggies, not any more.  If I do fry, I use Olive Oil. Mainly now, I will saute veggies in a little olive oil.  I got on a little cheese and cracker lunch thing one week....at the end of the week, I was not feeling to good.  And Yes, I will have a crown & coke, but usually it messes with my sleep.  So eat inflammatory foods in moderation.  Why would I want to feel pain? I feel great so I am continuing on the life change of eating better.  The Whole30 makes you very conscious of what is going in your mouth.

As of today, 2/3/20, I weigh 135lbs and I am getting back on Whole30 hard, because I've let a little weight creep back on me over the holidays and I now know it is possible for me to weigh 130lbs in my 50's.

I will try to post some of the recipes that I have tried and Love.  Like Homemade Ranch dressing.  So stayed tuned.

Good Luck on your journey!  I would love to hear from you!

Scrambled Eggs with Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms and Banana with Cinnamon 

Kitchen Renovation

This kitchen in the house, that we finally bought, after looking at 25 houses!  I think, I may have been really tired of looking, because I didn't catch a couple of things.  But it would not have mattered really, because the house was in pretty good shape and the area of town that we wanted.

I just walked in and said, oh, I least this one has been updated....... We had looked at some with metal cabinets, or just old cabinets.  Someone had extended that tile backsplash down for the countertop.  But, down there in the corner where that microwave is, it was completely different tile!

And while we were sitting in the floor scrubbing grout, my daughter says, why is that door so dark.  The one under the sink.  I couldn't believe it.  Everything is raised panel doors and that one was a flat panel.

                                                    Who knew, that the grout was white.......

We had decided that we wanted to paint them white.  Off to Lowes to look at cabinets in stock to see if we could find a color that we liked. Then we went and picked out paint chips to find something close.  We used Valspar w/primer.  When you take your doors off, number them, so they can be put back in the right spot.  I did a light sanding before we painted.

 We had painted all the cabinets.  When you looked inside the cabinets, some of the sides seemed to be off.  My husband decided he just couldn't wait to get granite counter tops. When, we got an estimate for the granite, the guy mentioned that he hoped we could get the counter tops off without tearing up the cabinets.  We did, but then I could see why things looked weird.  I told hubs, we are not putting granite on this junk.  So, every bottom cabinet on that side came out.

 And it really was a good thing, because the wall had been patched back there and not very well.  We tore more sheet rock off and put in wall insulation around all those water lines.

             
                            At least we shut the door to the mice that had been coming in through there.

                               Back to Lowes for base cabinets and another gallon of the cabinet paint.

I guess this is the only picture that I took of new cabinets going back in.  This was not an easy task.  Shims, shims and shims to make everything level from the front to back and side to side.

Here is the finished product.  We went with the granite over the washer/dryer adding more countertop space.

There was some little crappy trim across the top of the cabinets that came down.  And I replaced it with chair rail.  I looked all over for something different, but nothing that would work was to be found.

                                                            It Turned out great!