Big Improvements!!

Since Monday, my body has done a 180 and I would say that things are basically back to normal! Praise the Lord! I haven't felt this good since October when this whole thing started. I can't say I'm absolutely loving this diet, but I love how I'm feeling! I don't know if or when I'll be able to add other foods back in, but I know that I need to keep making healthier choices and keep eating fruits + vegetables instead of just loading up on the carbs. I made my own pancakes this morning and ate them with homemade strawberry jam. I can't say they were amazing, but they were alright. Instead of flour, milk, and eggs, I used buckwheat flour, almond milk, and an egg substitute which comes in a powder form and then you just add water (I know, kind of weird). I'll probably try them with applesauce, too. I think they would be good with Nutella, but Nutella has skim milk powder in it, so I did find a dairy-free recipe for Nutella. Not sure if I'll do that, but at least the option is there. I'm looking forward to making my own mashed potatoes with almond milk next week and I found a tomato rice side dish at the store that I can eat, since I'm getting tired of eating rice with olive oil + spices. Olive oil + spices have become my new best friends! I made my own salad dressing (kind of like Italian dressing) using olive oil, vinegar, and spices because almost all salad dressings have soybean oil in them. I also made my own soup yesterday using vegetable broth, carrots, celery, rice, parsley, basil, salt, and pepper. It was pretty good and Blake even ate the veggies from it! Kiera won't eat veggies, so I'm thrilled that Blake does (sometimes). I got this idea originally from a friend and then was reminded of it by my Aunt who has a cookbook about how to hide vegetables in food. I cooked carrots, blended them up with water and then divided them into ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. I made pasta noodles with sauce for my family yesterday and added in a bag of blended up carrots and nobody noticed! HA! It worked! I'm also going to do cauliflower, too. Yay for healthy tricks! I'm SO thankful that I'm healthy again, not just for my own sake, but for the sake of my family, too. Everything is more difficult when you're not feeling well, as most of you know from the vicious flu + colds that have been going around. I'm also getting a break from Kiera today as she went to her grandparents' for today until tomorrow! Her behavior hasn't been great lately, so a little break is very nice! I'll leave you with a couple of short videos from our Christmas.