Happy New Year!

I am not one to make New Year resolutions, especially when it comes to health. I believe in leading an overall healthy lifestyle and benefiting the most from it so we can enjoy the rest of our lives.

This year, however, I am making a decision that I am going to make all efforts to:

`Live to the fullest
`Be spontaneous
`Do things that I have never done before for one reason or another [that would exclude eating dried insects, of course ;)]
`Go places I have never been before
`Be positive at ALL times
`Trust more
`RISK more
`Love more

This past year has been a bit trying, with us still settling in a new town, continuing to heal and the recession. However, I have nothing but high hopes for next year, right out of the gate. I have learned that patience and positive mindset pays off big dividends when it comes to health and well-being, so I plan to further improve in that area in 2010!

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. [Phil. 4:13]

And since no post is complete without pictures, here are a couple of images of my Mom opening her Christmas present, given to her by my sister. The canvas is huge and shows off all 16 members of our original family. We have grown by leaps and bounds since—our ranks have swollen to over 100!

May your next year be prosperous: spirit, soul and body!

How to healthy Lose Weight Fast

Do you want to lose some weight as quickly as possible? There are many different ways to lose weight fast, and choosing a healthy weight loss regimen can be very rewarding. These short simple steps will show you how to lose weight relatively fast.
Instructions Step 1
Get your attitude in check. A positive outlook is a great start to shedding the amount of weight you want to lose. Keep this in mind throughout the process.

Step 2
Look into gyms in the area if you haven't already and select one that looks like a place you'd like to work out. Most gyms offer a free trial membership so you can see if that gym is the place for you.

Step 3
Begin a regiment of intense cardio at least twice a week for at least 45 minutes as well as a weight training program three times a week. This is a very important step as exercise is the key to weight loss.
Step 4
Research different diet options. There are a variety of options online as well as in magazines and commercials. The Special K Challenge is a popular diet option, as well as the Atkins program.
Step 5
Select a diet based on your needs and specifications. It's important to pick a diet you are sure you can live with, because if you hate the diet it will be all to easy to quit. Programs like Jenny Craig are relatively stringent in their requirements. Some programs are also expensive and require you to buy specialized foods. The South Beach diet program is a relatively inexpensive program that is very popular.

Step 6
Stick with your diet and workout regiment. It takes time for weight loss to become visible and apparent. Good luck.

Raw Corn Bisque, Vegan Recipe

First of all, dear Readers, Merry Christmas! I hope that the light of the REASON of this holiday, the life of Christ, is found in your hearts. Of all things in the world that I am thankful today is the fact that He chose to come to our planet, to become like us, to get us back into our Father's arms. I am certainly most grateful for my lovely Savior, my Jesus, today.

I am also grateful for a lovely husband, without whom my life would not be as rich as it is now, and for my family and friends, for whom I am going to be slaving away in the kitchen today, to treat them with a 7 course meal.

The last several days Demetrye and I have been consuming more and more green smoothies [yeah for us during this season], and I had started to make more raw dishes, to bring back that wonderful light feeling into my body. Yesterday I whipped up a quick Corn Bisque. It is totally raw and takes only minutes to make.

To make this wonderful Raw Corn Bisque, which is also totally Vegan, you will need a high speed blender, I use my trusty Vita-Mix 5200.

So, here is the recipe. Enjoy it!

Raw Corn Bisque

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 3 cups corn [fresh or frozen; if using frozen let it thaw a bit before blending]
• 1 cup water
• 1 large clove garlic
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/4 favorite spice [I use organic Kirkland mix]
• Sea or Himalayan salt to taste

Preparation

• Place all ingredients in a blender
• Slowly increase blending speed to the highest available
• Blend until creamy smooth, and slightly warm
• Serve with your favorite raw crackers or homemade whole wheat bread

Enjoy! It is super delicious. If I did not use all of my corn last night I would be heading to the kitchen to make myself another bowl of it right now.

Merry Christmas to all, and a Blessed New Year!

How to Lose Stomach Weight Fast

Maybe you just had a baby or you've been trying to lose stomach weight for years. Whatever the case, it takes will power and determination to lose weight fast, especially in the stomach area. Here's how to lose stomach weight fast:


Instructions:
Step 1
Eliminate all white flour products from your diet and eat vegetables instead (preferably green leafy vegetables). Broccoli has protein and many health benefits so you can start with that, but don't forget the hundreds of other green leafy vegetables that are out on the market as well. Doing just the one step will help you lose stomach weight fast.

Step 2
Eliminate sugar from your eating plan. Chocolate, candies, cookies, etc are super fun while you're eating them, but they completely sabotage any healthy diet and make your stomach fat. Sugar also makes you tired. If you eliminate all simple sugars from your diet, you'll soon be amazed at how much stomach weight you'll lose.

Step 3
Be sure to eat five small meals a day. This takes some getting used to, but trust me, when you replace white flour products with vegetables and stop eating simple sugars, you will want that small healthy meal every 3-4 hours. Be sure to eat a source of protein at EVERY meal (eggs, meats, nuts, etc) since protein is the one thing that will keep you full until the next meal. If you think of your plate in thirds, one third will be protein, one third vegetables and one third complex carbohydrates (sweet potato, whole grain wild rice, etc). Eat things that look like they just came from the farm or field - the more natural it is, the healthier it is for you and the faster you will lose the stomach weight fast.

Step 4
Drink a lot of water to help increase your stomach fat weight loss. You should drink at least 3 tall glasses of water a day. Those sugar drinks, coffees and sodas are going to get you NOWHERE - you will not lose weight fast while consuming those products. They sabotage your healthy diet just like cookies, cakes and candies. Eliminate the sugar drinks and drink water, milk and not from concentrate orange juice instead. V8's are great too if you can stand the salt.

Step 5
Start exercising if you haven't already. Do cardio 4-5 times a week for 30-60 minute intervals. Do abdominal exercises too, but you need to realize that losing stomach weight fast has more to do with your diet than doing hundreds of crunches in the gym (and if you're doing hundreds of crunches, you're doing them wrong! - you should be exhausted at 12 reps per set). Weight training will help you burn fat fast too, so don't be afraid to pick up the weights.

Step 6
Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. The more rested you are, the better your body performs.

How to Lose weight fast on the go

Instructions:
Step 1
If you want to Lose Weight while living an on the go lifestyle there are a few steps to follow. First you want to walk when possible you do not need to jog just walk. Take a walk around the neighborhood. Jump on the trampoline with the kids. Try to get a least a little bit of physical activity.

Step 2
You will need to eat a lot of cereal including oatmeal, tuna on wheat with a little mayonnaise, fish, grains, fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables. This is the plain oatmeal add some honey and cinnamon for taste. Use skim milk with your cereal. You can eat small amounts of the cereal high in sugar. But mostly cherrios. You will need to cut out most starches. Try to limit these. Snack on fresh fruit and veggies or granola bars. Eat fish at dinner baked or salads with low fat dressing.

Step 3
You can still eat at fast food restaurants just eat a little healthier.
Eat a grilled chicken salad with low fat dressing and drink water or a diet soda. Or eat a sandwich on wheat with lots of vegetables and turkey with low fat dressing or none at all. You can enjoy some of those high fat foods occasionally just not daily. Limit yourself to one every two weeks. Watch the pounds begin to shed.

Green Smoothie Paradise: Persimmon Smoothie

I had a great workout today. While I was working out at home, Demetrye went off to the gym and had a power work out also. When he got home we thought it was a good time to refuel our muscles and get ready for a holiday detox at the same time [getting a head start is a great plan]. No better way to detox, of course, than with green smoothies, especially for beginners. While enjoying the sweet taste of fruit we can simultaneously enjoy the benefits of chlorophyll and multiple nutrients found in greens.

So, today's special, and super delicious smoothie was:

Persimmon Smoothie [YUM!]

makes 32 oz [3 servings]

[hand model: my husband]

Ingredients:
*2 cups water
*3 ripe persimmons
*3 stems [with leaves] mint
*4 cups [2 large handfuls] kale [I used purple kale]
*2 tbs hemp seed
*2 strands dulse

-Starting with water add greens add all ingredients into a high speed blender, and blend, slowly increasing speed to highest, until completely smooth.

The smoothie is very refreshing and you won't even know it has greens in it, if you are sensitive, or just starting out. So, enjoy it!

Have a stress free, UNPROCESSED Christmas and a New Year!

Let me know how you are planning to detox and shed extra pounds accumulated this holiday season. I am very interested to know.

How to lose weight fast

Drink a glass of water mixed with a little honey after get up in the morning. It not only replenishes liquids your body requires and takes good care of your throat, but also nourishes the intestines and stomach and prevents constipation. Then, drink a cup of yogurt (about 200ml), and have a piece of whole-wheat bread or a bowl of oatmeal.

Be attention: the yogurt which too cold may cause the diarrhea and stomach ache; strawberry yogurt is the best choice for losing the weight.
At 10:00 A.M., just have some fruit or a handful of dried fruit.
At noon, drink a bowl of soup, and have little porridge or two cookies. After that drink a cup of yogurt (about 200 ml), and have 100 gram of meat( including chicken, beef and mutton) or internal organs all that can complement iron that your body need. Then have some vegetables, and if there are no cooked ones, tomatoes and lettuces are ok. After the meal, a cup of Oolong is helpful for digestion.
At 16:00 P.M., drink a cup of yogurt if you feel hungry.
Before the supper, drink a glass of water or a bowl of soup first. And then, have some vegetables. At last drink a cup of yogurt just like at noon. .
Be attention:

1. Do not drink yogurt immediately if you are very hungry.
2. If you will have a sleepless night after drinking Oolong you can choose to chrysanthemum tea.
3. The vegetables are necessary because they can supply sufficient cellulose and vitamin C and then discharge excess body fat from the body.
Summary: right combination to lose weight lastingly
Yogurt: 800ml. grain: 50g, meat or fish:100g, vegetables: 400g, fruits:100g

It’s safe and healthy to control calorie between 1000 to 1200 in cal, protein between 65 to 70 in gram, and water more than 3000ml. you can have more fruits if drink the sugar-free yogurt .( carbohydrate of sugar-free yogurt is too little to rebound in losing-weight).It’s helpful for improving physical strength to have something with multi-nourishment after the breakfast.
In general, insisting on the method we mention above for one mouth, you can lose by 5 Jin in weight. It’s more perfect that if you do some exercise we introduced at the same time. Join us, if you like yogurt.

Taking a "THINKING" Break

Dear Readers, if you are out there, after much thought and contemplation I decided that I am going to take a break from food blogging. I have blogged for almost a year and a half on this blog, which was created with only one desire in my mind--to help others achieve better health through nutritional excellence. I was and still am very passionate about the topic of lifestyle and nutrition. However, like any other blogger, it is important for me to know that what I am doing actually helps people and that I am not talking to an empty space somewhere in the great big world wide net. As a result I want to take time away from blogging to make a few decisions and figure out what to do next: TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG ;).

If you had followed my blog up to this point--Thank You. I hope I was able to help and challenge you at least a little bit. Please know that I am not quitting blogging, but just taking a leave of absence to sort things out and to determine the future of this blog.

While I am going I will continue creating scrumptious recipes and improving my life and lives of those around me [those who need and want the help, of course]. You might still see Twitter updates on this blog with quick tips (see the right panel of this blog).

Merry upcoming Christmas and a wonderful New Year to all!

Until next time, whenever and however it might be: live and UNPROCESSED Life!

Thanksgiving Adventures!

Hello, blogosphere! I cannot believe that I had not blogged for almost two weeks. With Thanksgiving and many other things my life has been a whirl-wind. No excuse, but I had learned to take my life easy to maintain peace in my heart.

We had planned a small Thanksgiving dinner with a few family members—we were supposed to have 10 people total, so I was going to cook up a storm… A couple of days before Thanksgiving our guest list swelled up to 31 people, and on the day of the holiday we had 35 people neatly packed between our dining and living rooms. With only three vegans in the house: my husband, my sister and myself, we ended up asking every family to bring a couple of their favorite dishes (just imagine if I had to cook for 35 on Thanksgiving day!)

I ended up making mashed potatoes, an apple and celery salad (variation of what you will find here. Super delicious!); I made apple pies and Raw Alfredo Zucchini Noodles.

Apple and Celery Salad
• 3 large apples, chopped into small pieces, or sliced on a mandolin slicer
• 1 bunch of celery, cut in the same manner
• 2 cups of spinach, thinly sliced or chopped
• 1-2 large cucumber, sliced in a same manner as apples, only larger
• [cucumber can be substituted with a zucchini, or you can use both]
• 1 cup chopped cilantro
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons honey
• Dash of sea or Himalayan salt
• 1 cup walnut pieces [optional]
• 1-2 ripe avocados mashed up with a fork
Mix all ingredients together—serve immediately or refrigerate.

In the last few days I restarted my green smoothie intake. Today I had a very feeling smoothie for breakfast.

Chard and Banana Smoothie
Makes 3-4 servings
• 3-4 large leaves chard, stem included
• 2 cups water
• 2 large ripe bananas
• 3 tbsp hemp seeds
• 3 plums

Tomorrow I will add a review of an Gluten Free, fantastic new flour I discovered—it is super delicious, super moist and is my new favorite. Stay tuned!

How to Stop Drinking Soda and Lose Weight

Drinking large amounts of soda such as Coke, Pepsi, and Mountain Dew have been known to cause health problems. These health problems may include muscle fatigue, hypokalemia, gum disease, and sleep disturbances to name a few. Another problem with drinking soda is when you drink soda you are not drinking water. Our bodies need water to maintain homeostasis. The major difficulty in quitting drinking soda is caffeine addiction. When you drastically reduce your consumption of caffeine, you suffer from withdrawals most noticeably headaches.

Step1.When you first stop drinking soda water alone will not make for a good substitute because your taste buds are use to the sweetness of soda. A good alternative would be something as Crystal Light in does not contain any caffeine and consists of mostly water.

Step2.To help with headaches take ibuprofen. One of the ingredients in ibuprofen is caffeine, which is what your body is craving. If you are already taking aspirin daily for blood pressure or have, any medical conditions talk to your doctor before taking ibuprofen.

Step3.Start drinking different substitutes for soda to find one that you can live with. After a week you will not be chemically dependent to caffeine you will just mentally want the taste of soda. Just remember that in the end you will be healthier for not drinking soda.

The 6 Most Unhealthy Foods

The 6 Most Unhealthy Foods You Should Avoid at All Costs
Some people swear by the mantra "everything in moderation," but the truth is, some foods, no matter how good they taste, are better off left alone.

If you need a little motivation to stay away from these most unhealthy foods, consider that four of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States are related to diet (diabetes, heart disease, cancer and stroke). And if you're looking to improve yours, cutting back on these six foods is a great place to start.

1. Soda.
An average can of soda has 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, artificial food colors and sulphites. Diet sodas have the even-more-unhealthy artificial sweeteners. A major part of the problem is that sodas have become a staple in many people's diets. A study in the journal Pediatrics found that 56 percent to 85 percent of children consume at least one soft drink a day, and 20 percent of adolescent males drink four or more sodas a day.

"Parents and health officials need to recognize soft drinks for what they are -- liquid candy -- and do everything they can to return those beverages to their former role as an occasional treat," says the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a U.S. consumer group. In fact, CSPI has recently petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calling for cigarette-style warnings on soft drinks to warn people of their potential health risks (weight gain, diabetes, tooth decay and more).

2. Potato chips and French fries.
These popular snack foods contain acrylamide, a known carcinogen and neurotoxin that is formed when foods are baked or fried at high temperatures. "I estimate that acrylamide causes several thousand cancers per year in Americans," said Clark University research professor Dale Hattis.

When CSPI conducted tests on some popular brands of French fries and chips, they found that the acrylamide in a large order of fast food fries was at least 300 times the amount allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a glass of water.

"There has long been reason for Americans to eat less greasy French fries and snack chips," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Acrylamide is yet another reason to eat less of those foods."

But that's not all. These foods also contain trans fats, the artery-clogging fat that's been linked to raising bad cholesterol (and lowering the good kind), and increasing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer.

3. Doughnuts.
Tasty, yes. But break a doughnut down and you'll find nothing more than refined sugar and flour, artificial flavors and partially hydrogenated oil that's loaded with trans fats. They have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

"When it comes to health, the only thing good about them is the hole," said Carla Wolper, nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center.

4. Coffee Cake and Other Baked Goods.
This category actually includes all varieties of baked goods, including packaged cake and biscuit mixes. What makes these foods so bad is that they almost always contain high amounts of trans fats and a host of other unsavory additives including corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors and colors. In fact, commercial baked goods typically contain more trans fats than any other food because not only are they often made with hydrogenated oils, they're fried in them too.

If you're not ready to give up your morning treat just yet, opt for baked goods from your local bakery (which is less likely to use hydrogenated oil for a long shelf-life and is likely to use butter instead of margarine, which typically contains trans fat) or make them yourself.

5. Luncheon Meats/Hot Dogs.
Processed meats like these (and others including sausages, bacon, pepperoni and other processed meats) contain a carcinogenic precursor ingredient known as sodium nitrite (sodium nitrate is closely related).

"Sodium nitrite is a dangerous, cancer-causing ingredient that has no place in the human food supply," says nutritionist Mike Adams, author of the Grocery Warning Manual.

And, according to a University of Hawaii study that followed nearly 200,000 people for seven years, people who consumed the most processed meats (hot dogs and sausage) showed a 67 percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer over those who consumed little or no meat products.

Here's some good news: you can find various varieties of nitrite/nitrate-free meats in any health food store.

6. Canned Soup.
Here we're talking about the traditional, canned soups you find in your grocery store. This may come as a surprise, but most canned (and packaged) soups have high levels of trans fats, sodium and artificial preservatives like MSG. Just one cup of canned soup can have almost 1,000 milligrams of salt (and most people eat more than one cup), which is tons considering dietary guidelines recommend consuming no more than 2,400 milligrams for the entire day.

There are healthy options out there, particularly natural, organic brands, but be sure to read the label. The alternative is, of course, to make your own homemade variety.