Does God work in your life?

Can I share something personal?

Yesterday, a lot came crashing down on me. I felt completely overwhelmed. I was tired, stressed, and feeling a lot of anxiety.

Between my kids, starting our food business, and just trying to stay on top of life and a household, I was and still am a bit burned out.

Jordan came home last night I just started crying. I quickly asked him for a blessing between the tears because I said I just can't do it ALL anymore. I'm failing in everything and I just need "something". When I don't know where to turn anymore, a blessing is something I always look forward to. (For those of you not LDS-Mormon, we believe that God has given righteous and worthy males the ability to act in God's name, giving blessings and such, it's more involved than that, but that's the gist of it) I desperately needed a blessing of comfort and peace, aside from what I was getting in my prayers and through my scriptures. I have too many plates I'm spinning and they are starting to crash around me. I didn't know a month and a half ago when I signed up to do all this I'd be trying to put a food business together.

The blessing gave me a lot peace and comfort, specifically telling me to enjoy my days and find something in each one that could bring me happiness. (My kids stress me out, and I find at times I am not enjoying them, I'm hurrying them on to the next part of the day)

So this morning, as I'm hurrying around the house putting  away laundry, getting kids dressed, unloading the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, starting another load of laundry, finding a show for Sean to watch, changing Kenzie's poopy bum, my phone rings. I don't recognize the number, but with all the people I'm calling about our food product, I answer NO matter what the number is in case I NEED to talk to them!

Well, it's my visiting teacher. She says "Hi Natalie, Keri and I are coming over on Monday and we are doing something for you, we will fold laundry, wash your cabinets, run an errand, whatever it is we are doing it, so you better have something for us to do."

Do you know how hard it is to talk NORMAL to someone when you are almost in tears. I immediatley think to myself, how in the WORLD did she know I needed someone to come and lift my heavy burden. (Any extra time right now is spent on phone calls to copackers or working on recipes, so as you can image, my house is a disaster!)

I think to myself, Jordan. He is in BIG trouble for telling my visiting teachers I'm stressed out to the max and a mess. So I'm not totally paying attention to what she is saying cause I am still trying not to cry and a little upset at my hubby for telling on me...

So I tell her I'll find something for her and Keri to do on Monday and I hang up.

Ring, ring, ring. "Jordan! did you say something to Kelly Dykes? Did you tell her I needed help?"

Of course his answer is no. And I just start crying once again.

It was like a flashing red bulb was going off in my head...God is aware of YOU. When you ask for My help, I will help you! It was such a faith builder. It isn't everyday I so openly see God working in my life. I feel his Spirit but I haven't had anything like this is a while. I am so grateful that Kelly followed her prompting and called me. How often have I pushed aside a nudging and not done what the Spirit has told me to do.

I felt great calmness come upon me and thanked my Heavenly Father for prompting her and reminding me who is really in charge. I like to think it's me, but it ain't!

So now that I've cried for the hundredth time today while writing this. I am going to tell you all about my exciting dinner! Yummy, yummy, yummy!

I started my meal with a DELICIOUS romaine salad with shredded raw, unpasturized cow's cheese (I just can't seem to do the Goat cheese anymore since visiting the farm with the Kindergartners. Did you know the cheese smells and tastes just like the animals do at the farm? Well now you DO!) So I'm loving that cheese...oh my so good! I included a tomato and my dressing was half a lemon juiced and not quite a packet of stevia.

That is a tomato seed on her chin. She eats all my tomatoes if I don't get to them fast enough!

I love her buck teeth, sooooo funny to me for some reason!

The salad...YUM!

Dinner was a Thai soup that I got from my girl Sara who is doing this cleanse too! To stay in the flesh category I added shrimp tonight. I also made quinoa for Jordan and the kids, but they forgot about it and ate theirs with toasted whole wheat bread with butter that they dipped in their soup. YUMMY! I love Asian food so much! It is sooooo good! I hope you try it and enjoy it! Go here for the recipe. I did coconut oil instead of vegetable oil. I used veggie broth instead of chicken, and did two cans of coconut milk instead of three, and it turned out amazing! So creamy, warm, and soothing! BTW coconut anything, milk, oil, butter, or shreds is neutral, meaning you can eat it with anything. So dive into some coconut soon. Your hair, nails, and skin will thank you for giving them such an amazing fat source to use to replenish your beauty!

Next time I think I will go without the mushrooms and the shrimp. The soup tasted so good on it's own!

xoxo Nat

Hungry for Change? The solution is literally in your hands.

Are you sick of being overweight?

Are you tired of being tired?

I want to share something from the book Hungry for Change.

Alejandro Junger, M.D. states the following:

          "The body has two ways of defending itself against these toxins. One is to produce mucus to coate these lipophilic, or fat-loving, chemicals so that they buffer the irritation. The second is when the body can't dissolve these chemicals, it responds by retaining or generating more fat."


Then the authors go on to say

         ""What this means, according to Jon Gabriel, is the body won't let you get rid of this excess fat because it needs these fat deposits to protect against chemicals. "As long as you're taking in more toxins than you're eliminating," he says, "your body won't let you burn fat, because burning fat will release more toxins into your body, putting strain on your liver and other organs. Before your body will let you lose weight, you have to eliminate the toxins from your body. So you have to address the fact that you're being assaulted with toxins before your body will start to let go of weight.""

This is why you can eat a certain number of calories, exercise like crazy and NOT lose one pound or stay the same.

Have I said how amazing this process is? Yes, I love cleansing. It can be tough, but once you commit and mentally know, no going back it is very enjoyable and thankfully my symptoms have been very mild this go round. I have eaten berries and some avacado some days before 3:00pm, but you know what!? Since last Wedensday I am down 4LBS! So I'm very happy about that. But remember folks, I am doing the WHOLE part to this cleansing thing, meaning liquids and juices and the E word, ENEMAS!

Tonight, again I had sushi, I am sorry for the "not so exciting" on that end of things but I will be delivering 3, yes 3 new recipes over the next 5 days, so hold on to your panties! Things are going to get VERY exciting! :)

I had a spinach salad with a tomato to start things off and then did my sushi rolls. Yummy, easy and predictable, which I need on Tuesdays, cause Jordan gets home close to 9pm!

I don't like green eggs and ham!

SOOOOOO I think I've made my omelet too much cause I was just not into it tonight.  It is super yummy I just can't eat eggs right now!

Here is the recipe in case you'd like it. The salad I had before, was really not great, so I ain't postin' that either!

But the most exciting thing that came today was my NEW Natalia Rose and Doris Choi cookbook

Go and buy the book!!!!! It's FULL of amazing recipes that I can't wait to try.

 My rebounding is going great and I'm actually surprised at how out of breath I am and sweating! Love it!


 Also, I finished an amazing book last night by the people that did the documentary Food Matters and Hungry for Change. I hope you will take the time to watch such films. I hope you will look out for books and literature that inform YOU about your health and what YOU need to do. Don't take my word for all of this, do your own research and see if what I am saying doesn't ring true.

Do you drool green?

So, my daughter is a pretty hard core rawist. She loves tomatoes, cucumbers, and my juices. I even try to feed her bad food sometimes, and I'm not kidding she totally turns her nose up to it! Can you believe it!? She's 18 months and that is just incredible to me!

Takes her first bite of cucumber...

She chews...(and she is a spitting image of her father, I only give life, nothing else to my children)

Commences drool sequence...

This is one girl who literally drools over her vegetables!

Since doing this cleanse I've learned I can be VERY satisfied with the simplest of foods and meals. Even on my last 30 day cleanse I felt like I had to have a big salad and then a big main course. Not any more (thankfully, cause that was a lot of freakin' work!)

So tonight I stayed in the grains/avocado category! So yummy! Both of tonight's foods came from Hungry For Change's cook book, which I LOVE by the way!

I also tried their Buckwheat Sesame Crackers, which were very good dipped in the extra dressing from the salad above!

Curry-ious about my dinner?

Tonight I made a detox friendly curry and it did not disappoint.

While at the store I saw these delicious looking strawberries and they did not disapoint. So yes I ate the whole 1 LB of strawberries myself.

Then I went on with dinner.

I did the simple lemon and stevia packet dressing with romaine and a tomato, yummy, but make sure you put on enough stevia. There was a complaint that it was a bit too tart...

Then I adapted my Massaman curry recipe to work for being on a detox. OOOOhhhhh my so good!

It really looks like "rice"

So first and foremost I love rice and I love rice with almost anything. So when I am not detoxing, I will typcially have rice with my massaman curry. So for the rest of the family they did get their black rice with the meal, but I decided to try cauliflower rice and it was actually pretty good. Now would I replace my rice with cauliflower rice forever? NO, I will not but for now it was a great substitute. Go here for detoxinista's direction on how to make cauliflower rice. You can also try her curry but I love my curry and will not depart from it cause I love it!

My cauliflower rice

My real peanut butter used in place of a store bought oily peanut butter

Dinner cooking away

I realized half way through stuffing my face I better take a picture!

Massaman Curry Original (substitutions in red)

2 tbsp vegetable oil                                                      2tbsp coconut oil
3tbsp massaman curry paste
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 pd chicken cubed                                                Omit
3 tbsp brown sugar                                                       Use 10 to 15 drops of liquid stevia
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp tomato paste or tamarind paste
1/3 cup peanut butter
3 cups peeled cubed potatoes                                      Omit
1 (13.5oz) can coconut milk
3tbsp fresh lime juice

Heat oil. Add curry paste and ginger. Cook and stir for 2 min. Stir in chicken and cook. Stir in brown sugar, fish sauce, tamaring paste, peanut butter, pototaes, and coconut milk. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to med. Low, cover, and simmer for about 20 min. Add lime juice coook additional 5 min.

Serve over jasmine rice. ENJOY!

I add chopped carrots, cauliflower, mushrooms, and peanuts, which I think make it super yummy. You might want to double sauce making ingredients if you want it runnier and more soup like. Massaman is more of a soupy curry.

 I hope you LOVE the above recipe, it is one of our families favorites! 

Also, I apologize for the lateness of my post. I met with our logo/brand designer and it was LATE when I got home and I didn't have it in me to do this post!

xoxo

News of the day...

Today was a good day!

Did fairly well with my symptoms and at dinner decided I had to try detoxinista's Tahini Dressing, and it DID NOT dissapoint.

But because nuts and seeds are their own category, I can't properly combine nuts and seeds with anything but raw veggies or more nuts and seeds. (saying nuts so many times makes me blush, haha)

So it was a HUGE, GINORMOUS, GARGANTUAN kind of dinner, salad...ok, dinner salad.

I'm pretty sure I used 3 smaller heads of romaine, or probably one and half of a BIG romaine head. Included in this monster of a salad was two tomatoes, half a cucumber, a lot of purple onion, 1 1/2 of a carrot, and the most dreamy, creamy, delicious salad dressing ever. I think I will be addicted to this dressing. The recipe is here.

This is Ms. Detoxinista's picture, not my own

I tried to leave some for Jordan...

I am feeling a bit hungry, even with the chocolate I've already had, so I might be having something else as the night goes on...

But really I should just have some more water or maybe I'll make a sparkling lime drink. Oooooo yes that is exactly what I'm going to do! Yummy! Sparkling water, lime juice, stevia and LOTS of ice! Delicious!

Also, something I've started, that sounds pretty dorky, but I am enjoying it thus far is jumping on our mini trampoline. Natalia extended a challenge to "rebound" for 20 min., 3x a week until the middle of November, I think. Well, I decided to take that on along with some stretching everyday and runs when I can/feel like it. I also plan to do pushups, tri-dips, lunges, squats, and situps, every other day.

So there is my exercise routine. I have some weight to get off, especially because I wasn't too disciplined with my family in town and family pictures coming up SOON!

I just have to say how excited I am about all the physical "good" things that come from doing this cleanse. I love how firm my skin is and how much energy I get from the raw, natural food I am eating. There is true power in the foods you eat, if they are the right foods. The key is finding ways to cook these natural foods so they don't taste boring and like dirt, yes, I do think some vegetables still taste like the ground they came out of.

And lastly, my phone call today with the co packer went well. They are pretty far away so shipping could be very spendy if we are to go with them which will only make our product more expensive. Thankfully, the man was extremely nice and gave me two co packer references to call that are on the West coast, namely the Denver area and shockingly enough, one in Woods Cross (Bountiful, North Salt Lake City). Using these facilities would greatly cut down on shipping costs. So much to think about and figure out...I can do this, I can do this, I CAN DO THIS!

Night!

Sushi day

So today, not too exciting.

I had a bad headache start around 10am but by 12pm it was gone and I was grateful for that!

Around 4:30pm I started prepping my veggies and getting dinner going...

Sushi!

It was awesome.

I started with my salad. Romaine, tomato, lemon juice, and a packet of stevia sprinkled on top...so good and so easy!

I probably had two rolls and Jordan had the other two. (my sushi is from detoxinista.com if you are looking, it is the spicy "tuna" sushi)

But the most exciting thing is a little food project I'm working on. I FINALLY, after calling 50+ companies, got a response from a co packer out of Ohio that could package my IDEA and I am so excited!!!!!

So I'm sure as I am doing this blog more things will come to fruition and I cannot wait to tell you all about it when I can! But I can't right now, unless you want to sign a non disclosure agreement. :)

Have you ever felt like EVERYTHING in your life has led you to this EXACT point? If we weren't living in Utah, a lot of this wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't met Ginger, I KNOW I wouldn't even be thinking of this opportunity, and so many other things that I really can't say have put me on this path, and I am grateful for my Heavenly Father's guiding hand throughout all of this. I am especially grateful for Jordan and Ginger and all their support and slapping me around mentally to stay focused and get this thing done. (yes, I am flighty and have a hard time finishing a project)

So, I cannot wait until tomorrow I have a co packer to phone and discuss some very exciting things!

xoxo