Month: December 2017

Merry Christmas from Our Paleo Family

“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be upon his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9: 6 NIV

If visions of sugarplums aren’t dancing though your air space these days, you aren’t alone. Maybe there’s something you feel is lacking in your life. Maybe things just don’t seem to be going your way lately. If you don’t already know the real reason we are celebrating with all the lights and tinsel and silly songs, then I’d love to tell you!

That babe that was born over 2000 years ago, who came to be our Counselor, Prince of Peace, Father and Mighty God, that same baby wants you to know Him for your own.

No, it’s not magic. You won’t all of a sudden get that dream job or dream guy or dream dress size, but what you do get is the knowledge that your everlasting days are taken care of. And no matter how you’re feeling in this cooky world, there is someone on your side. Always! Fighting for you, wanting to be with you, loving you. Just the way you are.

So Merry Christmas from my home to yours.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about here, but it’s piqued your interest and you want to know more, just drop me a comment below or send a message to elizabeth@ourpaleofamily.com. I’d be more than happy to take some time telling you all about the best gift ever given.

Something to Think About Besides Food

I have a non-food related post for you today. The last thing I want to do is make you feel like I’m here to sell you something and I hope you know that by now. What I do want you to know is that my goal is to tell you all the things no one ever told me – or at least not for the first 35 years of my life. This lack of information left me very, very sick. I have a disease which doctors told me would leave me in and out of hospitals, enduring multiple surgeries and relying on extremely dangerous drugs for the rest of my life. Instead, I found the paleo diet, which is really more a lifestyle than a diet, and am now living a healthy and vibrant life. That’s the message I want to share.

When I first met my functional medicine doctor, I thought I would know most of what he was going to tell me because I was already following the paleo diet. However, much to my surprise, we spent a lot of time NOT talking about diet. He taught me how to choose safer kitchen equipment, how to filter my water, improve my sleep, change my shampoo, toothpaste, soap, etc. My head was spinning for a good long while. But three years later, I’ve made all of the changes he suggested. One of those changes was to all of my beauty products. To be honest, it takes a pretty big financial investment to make these switches, especially for a coupon clipper who was used to getting most beauty products for FREE! I had enough free Colgate to last a lifetime!

Through this process of overhauling every product that went on or in my body, I learned about BeautyCounter. This is a company whose mission is to use safer ingredients that do not compromise performance. BeautyCounter has a presence in Washington, fighting for legislation that will bring stronger regulation to an industry where currently there is very little. BeautyCounter currently bans over 1,500 ingredients from their products. Our government bans 30!  BUT – if the products didn’t perform, I would not be interested. I don’t need anything making my wrinkles more pronounced!

As I debated becoming a consultant for BeautyCounter, one of the things that pushed me over the edge was thinking about my kids and their future. They already have such a head start based on how I feed them. What they do with their diet when they leave my house is entirely up to them, but already they recognize how well they feel when they eat at home compared with the stomach upset and sluggishness that invariably follows a restaurant meal. So I’m pretty proud of how I’m teaching them to make better food decisions. BeautyCounter is working on a teen line of products and that has me super excited (they already have a baby care and kids line). I want my children to have a head start in this area of personal care products as well. If they grow up using these safer products, I think they are much more likely to continue using them the rest of their lives. BeautyCounter does have a mens line as well, but my husband has zero interest in using any “products.” Ha! I’m working on him. Some people are just a tough sell.

Being a salesperson of any kind was never something I would seek out, but I feel so strongly about the integrity of this company and the quality of their products that I made the decision to sign on as a consultant. If you’ve never heard of BeautyCounter, or safer beauty products in general, I’d love to chat sometime or meet one-on-one and let you try out the products for yourself. I’ll be hosting a couple launch parties for my business in January and I’ll post those dates when I have them. If you’ve been thinking about overhauling your makeup drawer, January is a great time. Of course, there’s no time like the present! So if you want to jump in and learn about BeautyCounter right now, let me know and we’ll find a time to talk!

Never fear, I will continue to create and post paleo recipes on the blog and instructional videos on YouTube. Bottom line, my goal is to help you in your quest for a healthier, more vibrant life. In fact, I’m just about to begin my training with the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy so that I can work as a functional medicine health coach. My hope and prayer is that, as a health coach, I can help more people make a lasting change to their health and well-being. Clearly, I am crazy to take on so much at one time! I hope that shows you how passionate I am about this message.

Regarding BeautyCounter, if you want to make your skin care/beauty routine a part of your healthier life, I’d love to help. You can find my BeautyCounter website here.  Or you can always send me a message through the blog or any of my social media channels, linked at the top of this page.

Never fear, I will be back to the regularly scheduled programming of Christmas cookies very soon!

Let’s Get Ready for Christmas Cookie Season!

If you’re new here, let me tell you something about my family: we like Christmas cookies. Correction: we LOVE Christmas cookies.

Paleo Molasses Gingerbread Cutouts

We try to have a family meeting once a week and during the first meeting after Thanksgiving, we make our list. We check it twice. We find out whose been naughty…oh wait. That’s the wrong kind of list. Everything is nice on this list!

Everyone gets to choose two “must have” Christmas goodies. That creates a total of eight types of cookie. (4 people x 2 cookies each = 8 types of cookies — See, I’m good at math.) And then since I have this food blog, we brainstorm a couple new treats we want to create or think of an old favorite that has never made the transition over to Paleo. For example: lemon bars. I’ve tried them for years and have never come up with a recipe that I felt was worthy of publishing. Will I try again? Yes, yes I will.

Last year’s version. Pretty, but didn’t make the cut.

Following this math, we should have 10-11 cookies on our list. I’m looking at the list right now. There are 15 cookies/candies/treats on this list. I think we need to knock a few off. Of course, I say this every year and it never happens.

In my defense, we cluster a lot of our baking into the week right before Christmas and we take these goodies to extended family. And this extended family can put away an incomprehensible number of cookies.

Serious and no fun side note: Way back at the beginning of this year, I did a series of posts on Insulin Resistance. My insulin resistance to be more specific. I’ll summarize for you:

  • my body is carbohydrate sensitive (it’s a real medical thing)
  • I had labs drawn the week after Christmas

Do you see the connection?

My blood work done immediately after Christmas showed that I was knocking on the door of insulin resistance. Perhaps I had indulged in a few too many Christmas goodies.

I cut sugar and most carbs (other than vegetables and some fruit) from my diet and in less than 6 months, all my labs were back to normal. To quote my doctor, “Not a sign of Insulin Resistance here at all.”

Does this mean I plan to go hog wild this Christmas knowing that I can reverse any damage over the following six months? No way. Especially considering how Insulin Resistance –> Pre-Diabetes –> Type 2 Diabetes. You can read all the details in one of my earlier posts, but basically, the body does not just infinitely bounce back from this sort of thing. It will eventually quit responding to the influx of sugar and you will end up with Diabetes.

So no, I can’t eat lots of cookies. I can’t even eat one every day. That stinks for sure, but honestly, none of this stuff holds as much appeal as it used to. I know what it does to my body and it’s just not worth it.

But paleo treats play a big part in helping those who are new to paleo realize that this is a sustainable diet/lifestyle for the long haul. You eat squeaky clean paleo (meat, vegetables, herbs, healthy fats) 98% of the time and sprinkle in a few treats here and there. That is a sustainable plan for most people.

Think about it – when you see all those shiny wrappers filled with chocolates and Christmas tree shaped cakes in the grocery store and your mouth starts watering – if you stop and really, really think about it, those foods are not very satisfying. AND they have been chemically designed to make your body crave more. Why not indulge intelligently? Choose one or two paleo treats per week that are totally worth it. The natural sugars, balanced with healthy fats, are much less likely to set in motion a sugar craving.

Please understand that just because I bake a lot of treats, I’m not eating all of these and I don’t recommend you do either. But I offer you lots of choices. Pick the recipes that appeal most to you and your family and enjoy (guilt-free) some amazing holiday treats.

You’ll see my whole list of goodies below, but if I had to choose just a few, these would be my picks:

  • gingerbread – spicy, sweet, chewy – the perfect cookie
  • fudge bars – for the chocolate lovers – perfect fudgey filling with a great oatmeal layer to balance out the chcolate
  • baklava – believe it or not, paleo baklava is possible and it is amazing, so amazing that a friend of mine labeled it, “Better than Baklava.” Look for an instructional video soon because it is a little complicated. But worth it!

Those are just my picks, but you might have totally different tastes. The sugar cookies are awesome and so fun to decorate with your kiddos.

Here are all the Christmas goodie recipes you can currently find on my website. If you don’t see something here you like, never fear. There are more coming. Hopefully, even those lemon bars!

And if you need help with the process of any of these, be sure to keep checking my YouTube channel (or subscribe for notifications) because I’ll be making videos as we prepare each of these.

Paleo Spritz Cookies
Peppermint Bark Cookies
Paleo Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Raspberry Almond Squares
Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Paleo Molasses Gingerbread Cutouts
Chocolate Orange Fudge
Fudge Bars