To DIET or not to DIET, THAT is the REAL question!!

Deciding to go back to school and become a student of the Institute of Integrative Nutrition has been one of the very best decisions I've made in my life!  I'm learning more than I ever dreamed I would.  It is TOTALLY amazing as to how what we eat, exercise, stress, relationships, careers, etc. have such a HUGE impact on the health of a person!!!  I'm blown away each and every day I study!  I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and expand my knowledge and horizons! 
I've learned for myself that dieting is just a way that we have been brain washed by these big diet program businesses to set us up to fail so we will continue to come back and fill their pockets again and again! I've lost 40 lbs. without going on ANY diet!!  It's amazing to me that these diet companies are getting more and more sly and sneaky about how they market their programs.  Our nation is at least starting to talk about health in a more pro-active way and "Healthy" is becoming a word people are starting to pay attention to because each and everyone of us has been touched by what it's like NOT to be "healthy", whether it is our own health that is compromised or a loved ones health, we've seen for ourselves what that looks like. 
Now these companies as well as other companies are popping up and starting to use the words, "Healthy and Natural" on their products.  BUT DON'T BE FOOLED!! I think the thing that is bothering me the most right now are these new companies that are promoting products that are supposed to be "ALL NATURAL" and trying to make people think their program is not a "DIET" with all their shakes and other "natural" products.  Folks, if it acts like a diet, looks like a diet, and smells like a diet, IT'S A DIET!!!  I have no doubt that they do help people lose weight just like ALL the diets that we've had around for years and years BUT what is happening is the people that try these products and lose some weight on them are being brain washed to think that they have to stay on their products to continue to lose weight AND to keep it off.  How convenient for them!  When in reality we can lose weight ourselves that is TOTALLY sustainable for a LIFE time without having to depend upon ANY companies products.  All we need is a grocery store and the right information!!!!  Starting in September I will be certified to start coaching clients.  I am armed with the knowledge to help you STOP the battle with weight forever and help you to "de-program" your minds in thinking that the only way to reach your goal is to go on one of these diets and in order to sustain all the work you went through to get to the weight you want, you have to keep buying their products.  Your FREEDOM is in site!  I found mine and it is the most amazing, empowering feeling I've felt in my life!  Let me share it with you!  Contact me at: aspiringtofreedom@gmail.com to set up your FREE consultation now!

I'm learning more and more that getting healthy is SUCH a fun and wonderful experience!  The key is to become more open minded and start thinking "out of the box".  Who would have ever guessed that pizza made with a "Cauliflower" crust was SOOOO yummy and light!!!  Have you ever ventured out to try a new food before like Quinoa?  Remember, everything you put into your mouth helps to create your blood cells, your heart cells, your liver cells, your brain cells, etc.  If you are feeding your body junk, you are going to have JUNK cells and organs that will be very susceptible to disease!  I used to think that if a food is "healthy" then it has to taste terrible.  Boy was I wrong!!
 I'm teaching  "Healthy Cooking" classes in Sallisaw and Gore, OK.  Last night I demonstrated how to make an absolutely DELICIOUS pizza that has a crust made with Cauliflower. If you would have seen the faces on these wonderful women as they took their first bite of this pizza, you would know without a doubt that "healthy" IS delicious!!! It is so easy to prepare and doesn't take long to make it.  I have NO doubt that you and your family will just love it!  I will be posting healthy recipes on my blog once a month for you to try that have been tested by my Healthy Cooking class students.  Enjoy!  Please feel free to make a comment and let us know what you and your family thought of the recipe.


Cauliflower crust pizza - Grain Free, Gluten Free

1 cup cooked, chopped cauliflower

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp crushed garlic

1/2 tsp garlic salt

olive oil

Pizza sauce, shredded cheese and your choice of toppings.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Chop the cauliflower florets into chunks and steam them in a steamer or on the stove until slightly soft for 15 minutes. Place in a bowl and mash it with a fork into smaller chunks.One large head should produce approximately 3 cups of chopped cauliflower. The remainder can be used to make additional pizza crusts immediately, or can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.

To Make the Pizza Crust:

Prepare your baking pan by covering it with parchment paper and spreading a small amount of olive oil on top of it.
In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup cauliflower, egg and cheese. Add oregano, crushed garlic and garlic salt, stir. Transfer to the baking pan, and using your hands, pat out into a 9" round.
Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. To the crust, add sauce, favorite toppings and cheese. I use crumbled cooked Turkey sausage, sliced Tomato, Red Pepper, Yellow Pepper, Basil, Onions, Mushrooms, and Mozzarella Cheese. Place under a broiler at high heat for 4 minutes. Serve immediately. This pizza is so light, not like the traditional dough pizza!

I got this wonderful recipe from: http://whatsfordinner-momwhatsfordinner.blogspot.com/2012/05/cauliflower-crust-pizza.html?pfstyle=wp

Healthy News!

Just an update on what I've been doing lately.  I've gotten my license to be a Zumba instructor and plan on starting my classes the end of next month.  I'm just waiting to hear if I've gotten permission to use a couple of buildings in my area.  VERY excited about that!  I'm looking forward to spending time with people as we get in shape together and enjoy the energy that these classes produce.  I've also enrolled and a REALLY wonderful nutrition school.  My classes start the end of next month as well.  It will take me a year to get my certification but I will be ready to take clients in about 4 months.  I'm super excited about that as well!!!!  I will be offering the whole package.  I have SOOOO many plans for the future.  My mind has just been racing.  We have a couple of buildings that we are starting to build.  One is my new office and the other is my coaching room.  I'm looking forward to having  healthy cooking classes in there.  I'd like to plan a healthy weekend retreat at possibly the resort here on beautiful "Lake Tenkiller"!  The list goes on and on but wonderful things are going to be happening in the future so "STAY TUNED"!!

"But I HATE to eat vegetables!!!'

When was the last time you drank a glass of FRESHLY squeezed orange juice?  I'm not talking about the juice that you buy at the grocery store in a bottle or carton.  I'm talking about the kind that you've squeezed from the fruit?  Have you ever tried  the juice of a FRESH pineapple?  I don't remember even tasting a slice of fresh pineapple until a few years ago.  I'd only eaten it from a can.  Growing up we mainly ate a diet made up of mostly processed foods. When I got married I continued the same diet because that is all I knew.  But as Maya Angelou once said, "When you know better, you do better." And that is exactly what has happened to me.  I'm DOING better!
Only about 10% of the vital nutrients are left in the food once it reaches your dinner table!!!  About 10% folks!!  The reason is because as these foods are processed they are heated at such high temperatures that most of the vitamins and minerals are killed.  (Not to mention that the food may have been sitting in the store for a few weeks as well losing more and more nutrition every day.)  It's a known fact that when vital nutrients are deficient in our bodies, THEN that is when diseases start to form in our bodies!  With people eating less and less of the foods your body needs to replenish these nutrients, namely fruits and vegetables, and eat more and more of processed foods, NO WONDER obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases are on the rise!!!
I know some of you are thinking, "But I hate to eat my vegetables!"  One REALLY good and tasty way to get these healing vitamins and minerals into our bodies is by juicing our fruits and vegetables. You can mix your fruits and vegetables and hardly even know you are drinking them.   But don't let those fruit and vegetable juices you buy in the stores fool you into thinking that you are getting lots of vitamins and minerals when you drink them because you are NOT.  They add lots of sugar and other harmful ingredients plus they have to heat it as well and that kills most of the nutrition out of it.  I would LOVE to teach you how to do this and share the success I've had and others that I have worked with in getting healthy and losing weight.  Please visit my website at: www.aspiringtofreedom.com to learn more of what I offer and then go to my "Contact Me" page to set up a FREE consultation with me.

When was the last time you thought about good nutrution for yourself or your family?

How important is it to eat nutritionally?  Have you ever thought about that question?  We all know we should eat more healthy but do we know and understand WHY it is so important to eat meals that nourish our bodies? How important is your health to you??  I know as I grow older good health becomes more and more precious.  When I talk about good health to my grown children they are like everyone else.  They know they should eat more healthy but it isn't really a priority.  When I was their age I thought the same exact way.  "I feel good, I'm doing fine. Why worry about one more thing.  My life is busy enough."   But as we age, we don't feel quite so spunky.  We aren't quite so limber.  We feel a few more aches and pains.  We don't see quite as well.  We usually put on extra pounds and have a harder time getting it off.  We don't sleep as soundly at night.  We are a bit more tired.  Our minds drift more to worrying about diseases. 
I'm learning more and more how VERY important nutrition is!! Our bodies use the food to heal itself and re-build itself with the food we give it.  We HAVE to change our mind set!  Instead of thinking about food as a way to heal our bodies we think of food as a primary way of feeding our "emotions".  When we feel sad, we eat.  When we feel lonely, we eat.  When we feel stressed, we eat.  When we feel like celebrating, we eat.  When we feel over whelmed, we eat.  Do you get the picture?  And when we feel these emotions what do we reach for?  Carrots, Apples??  Not likely.  We go for the candy bars, the snack cakes, sugary sodas, JUNK FOOD.  Instead of mindlessly eating the junk food trying to fill that emotion, STOP for a minute and ask yourself, "What emotion you are trying to feed?"  Become more aware!  When you are aware, you have more choices.  You then can either make a wise choice of food or find something else to do.
When we are filling ourselves with junk food we are starving ourselves of CRITICAL nutrition!  How can your body heal itself if you are starving it of the vitamins and minerals it needs?  As the years go on and we continue in bad eating habits, then slowly the weight packs on and then disease smacks us in the face. Diabetes, Heart disease, cancers, high blood pressure, etc. all are good possibilities of becoming a big part of our lives.  I think that we tend to think, "Well these diseases don't run in my family so I'm safe."  But the true fact of the matter is we can all get these diseases.  They are not necessarily genetic.  Just by eating badly we can eventually inflict these diseases on ourselves!
In my next post I will share with you a great way to get your fruits and vegetables in a fun and DELICIOUS way!

What do you consider SUCCESS?

What do you consider success when it comes to weight loss? Are you just interested in losing weight? Every single program I went on, losing the weight was the main focus!  Is that what you consider success?  Just losing 10, 20, 50 lbs.?  I can't tell you how many times I lost the SAME 50 lbs.  I tried diet after diet.  They all had about the same focus, control what you eat and exercise, but they had a little different approach. Each time I would join one of these programs I would pray and wish that "This time was the LAST time I have to go on a diet!"  But every single time the weight came right back on.

Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  I know that there are some of you reading this blog post that want to lose weight but you don't want to try losing weight again out of fear of failing again.  There are some of you that have gotten the courage to try it one more time and joined another weight loss program hoping that this will be the "last time" to have to diet again. Well I'm here to tell you that there is a way to get off that road to "insanity"!  There is a BETTER way!  There is a way to take it off that is much less painful and stressful and you can keep the weight off forever!

When you are taught to count every point, every calorie, every fat gram, every carb you put into your mouth and you have to live that way for the rest of your life in order to keep the weight off, THAT is CRAZY to me!  You become consumed with food!  What you put in your mouth becomes a full time job!  Then there is the shake diets and the diet pill diets and the starve yourself diet and every other kind of crazy diet that you can think of out there!  BOTTOM LINE: You will lose weight with these other diet plans BUT you will have to count whatever FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE to KEEP the weight off!  Or you will have to drink those shakes, take those pills, starve or what ever FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE to KEEP the weight off!  If that doesn't make sense to you, if that is something you find you can't do for the rest of your life then you have to ask yourself , "are you starting that program to just lose that weight temporarily?  Or are you wanting to lose it for the LAST time?

Tomorrow I will tell you how I help you lose the weight for good!  Stay tuned!

Can you be carrying around 5-10 lbs of "False Fat"?

One of the GREAT benefits of learning to slow down while you eat is that you also learn to hear or feel signals that your body is telling you. Your body will send you signals that you really never caught before. It's super important to start listening to it and recognize what it's telling you!


Since I've been eating much more healthier, I've noticed a few things that my body has been telling me and I never made the connection. I read an article the other day that was talking about food sensitivity. We can store from 5-10 extra pounds or more because of the reaction our body has to some foods. That's a LOT! I noticed in the last few months every time I ate anything with a lot of sugar in it, my stomach would just burn. You can also feel bloated caused by swelling or inflammation. In the article there was a list of the 7 most reactive foods that cause the most sensitivity. Here it is:
                                                                            dairy
                                                                            wheat
                                                                            corn
                                                                            sugar
                                                                            soy
                                                                            eggs
                                                                            peanuts
I have a definite reaction to sugar and peanuts. I can't eat either one without my stomach just feeling like it was on fire. So you might want to pay attention when you eat any of these foods and if you have a negative reaction to them, they might be causing you to carry around extra weight!
If you would like some help in training yourself to listen to what your body is telling you, please contact me through my website: http://www.aspiringtofreedom.com/