Food and Personal Goals of the Month - August 2010

August.  I still can't believe it's already August.  The summer is going by way too quickly.  And I feel like we've hardly been able to enjoy it.  I've been housebound for almost 2 weeks now.  Not fun at all.  It's tough to not be able to leave just because of how I look.  But hopefully we'll get more family time and more time outside this month.  How?  We're going on vacation!  And we need it!  Next week we're heading to WI for a week.  I'm looking forward to quality family time, sun and visiting "the farm" (my in-laws).  It will be just what we all need to unwind and recharge.  Then when we get back we will be energized and can get back into all the summer food preservation and preparing for more IVF stuff.

Like I said yesterday, I really haven't given much thought to goals for August.  There really won't be much new.  I'm still focusing on fertility as I gear up for the most important step in this process...a transfer!  I have to have my body totally ready.  And of course healing my gut.  That's always on the top of my list.  The added factor this month is travel.  My body doesn't do well with travel, more specifically my gut.  So for the first half of the month I am going to have to be very smart about what/how I eat to prepare for travel and to do what I can to make our trip as enjoyable as possible.  And of course trying to eat well while on vacation.  I hope we can find good food.  Overall this month I'm basically continuing on my healthy eating/body healing journey as best I can, with some big hurdles thrown in...travel and hormones :P

Here are the specifics.  I'll start off with food/fertility again.

FOOD

Fertility

1. Eat plenty of full fat dairy.  I need to get back into the habit of eating kefir and yogurt again as soon as I'm fully recovered.


2. Eat plenty of animal products/fats.  Looking forward to visiting my in-laws and getting an up close look at the pork that will fill our freezer at some point...we'll be seeing it live :)  One thing I've really been able to increase over the last couple months is my butter consumption.  I used to not think I liked it, except maybe on toast.  But maybe it's because I was scared of the fat (I now know it's very healthy fat!) or because I grew up eating margarine, not butter.  But whatever the case, I use it very liberally now :)  And love it!

3. Eat more seafood - I need to get back on track with this.  It's so critical for the health of mothers and babies...especially in the early stages of pregnancy when the brain develops.

4. Cod liver oil - Last month I started taking CLO.  I took it for about 3 weeks...until I got too sick to stomach it.  And I haven't started back up again.  I've read some stuff about the quality of different brands/kinds.  So I think I want to order the really good stuff...fermented.  And I think I'm going to go for the pill form this time.  It's just so tough to drink CLO.  Especially when you don't feel well.  My plan is to get the CLO that is combined with butter oil for better absorption.  I need to order this asap (hopefully today).  And maybe at some point I'll order the gummy fish for Rebecca to try :)

5. Eat more veggies, less fruit.

6. Eat plenty of lentils, nuts and beans.

7. Use unrefined sea salt each day.

8. Eat bone broth.

9. Naturally Knocked Up eCourse - It is just getting into the detailed fertility stuff now.  I'm looking forward to learning a lot.

Gut

1. Continue taking a probiotic.

2. Eat cultured dairy daily (i.e. yogurt, kefir) - get back into this habit.

3. Eat fermented foods and drinks daily.

4. Reduce sugar as much as possible (sugar feeds bad bacteria) - After hyperstimulation sugar did not appeal to me at all.  So I'm hoping that was my kick start to really cut back on sugar and continue to reach for salty snacks when I need something to munch on.  Which also means I need to make some salty snacks (with my daily dose of sea salt:).  I'll talk about that in the food section below.  I think over the last week of not eating much sugar I have noticed that it really does make a difference in my digestion.  So that's a good incentive.  Not to mention sugar decreases fertility.

5. Don't overdo on grains - what I do eat must be whole grain that is soaked, sprouted or sourdough.

6. Nothing refined, no chemicals, preservatives, nothing synthetic, etc. - only real food.

7. Eat bone broth.

Misc.

1. No microwave.

2. Limit oven use.  Which means lots of salads, sandwiches, grilling and crockpot.

3. Cast iron skillet - try it!

4. Food preservation - August is a pretty busy month for food preservation.  I'll definitely have to get started canning!  Peaches are in season.  I'd like to do a few batches of those again this year.  Our tomatoes are starting.  Thankfully those aren't as time critical since I store them in the freezer until I'm ready/until I have enough.  I want to do a lot of salsa and spaghetti sauce as usual.  I need a good stock.  For some reason when my hormones kick in I crave food with tomato.  Strange, but true.  I also want to freeze a lot more corn.  And keep freezing our beans and zucchini.  And freeze a lot of our peppers.  If my basil grows ok (it hasn't done too well in the heat so far this year) I'd like to make/freeze pesto too.

5. Pickling Lime - Find some if I have time.

6. Long term goals - My long term goals still remain: stop using miralax, overcome OCD, have a successful IVF cycle/pregnancy.  The miralax and OCD are always on hold when dealing with IVF stuff.  Let's hope by the end of August I can cross my successful IVF goal off my list as accomplished :)

7. Continue all of the healthy food prep and shopping - sprouting grains, sprouting beans, sourdough, fermenting, cultured dairy, bone broth, seafood, liver, homemade food, co-op, farmer's market.

8.  I don't have a specific food goal this month.  But I do want to continue to eat in season.  So in August we'll be eating lots of beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers and peaches.  A few things I would like to try making/have on our menu are:

*corn pesto
*crackers (keep experimenting to make the "perfect" crackers so I don't have to buy crackers anymore)
*new sourdough recipes
*chips (I want to start making homemade chips so I can have a healthy salty snack.  I'd like to make veggie chips.  I want to try making them in various ways...dehydrator, in oil, baking.  I have yet to find decent chips that don't use junky oils.  Even the "healthy" kind usually have canola, sunflower, safflower.)
*popcorn (This is another healthier salty snack.  I've been making it quite a bit over the last week.  Just the basic butter/salt.  But I want to experiment with different flavors.  I'm hoping to make some to bring on our trip.)
*breakfast foods (My stock of breakfast baked goods is getting low, so I need to make more.)
*new tortillas (My first batch didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.  I want to make a new batch and see if I can do a better job.  Tortillas can be used in so many ways, especially for easy meals in the summer.  It's nice to have a good stock on hand.)
*ranch dressing (I made the mix, but haven't made the dressing yet.)
*sauerkraut (If I see some decent cabage at the farmer's market this month I want to try making sauerkraut.  It's one of the best probiotic foods you can eat.)

COST REDUCTION

No changes here.

1. Continue recording spending and sales.

2. Food budget - $150/week.

3. Continue to plan meals based on sales/what we have on hand and on what's in season and doesn't need to be cooked in the oven.

4. Continue to make as much food as possible from scratch.

5. 2nd hand shopping - when the need arises.

6. Simplify - continue to minimize where possible.
 
MISC.

In addition to all of the food/health stuff, I want to keep focusing on family.  One main area is Rebecca's development.  Just recently she seems to be going through a big growth spurt in so many areas.  And I can tell it's time to get her some more advanced toys to keep her challenged.  So it's time to do a little shopping and maybe browse some garage sales.  I'd love to get her more blocks, a doll house (she just has a tiny Little People house that she LOVES and uses every day...but it just doesn't cut it when she's playing with Barbies :P  Or if she wants more than 2 people in the house at once.  She has such a big imagination, but is limited in what she can do with this.), more Barbie clothes (she only has a few old things from when I was little), a matching game (there is a really cute Dora one that she'd love), other age appropriate board games and some new books to help her continue to learn...science, history, geography, numbers, letters and simple words.  A few other fun things we've thought about that she would love are a flashlight, a watch and some kind of small Woody toy (she knows nothing about Toy Story, but has seen him in a book and a sale flier...and keeps asking for one.).  All of these bring me to the next thing...potty training.  We've been working on it for months now.  She knows how to go on the potty.  We have potty time many times a day.  She gets stickers every time she goes.  But she still thinks it's too inconvenient to stop playing to go potty.  So she doesn't initiate things/tell us when she has to go very often.  We keep telling her that if she does she'll get "presents"...some of the toys mentioned above.  It's starting to sink in.  When she's on the potty she talks about getting presents.  So hopefully soon we'll make more progess on that.  And after vacation maybe we'll put more effort in as well.  Try out the big girl underpants and see what she does :)

Other than that I want to get back into the habit of going to the library, the park and various other outings with friends.  We haven't been able to really do anything for the last month.  So it's time to get back to fun stuff.  One thing we for sure have to do in the next month or two is visit the GR Children's Museum.  They have a Curious George exhibit right now.  She LOVES CG.  So I can't wait to take her to it.  I think it goes until October.  It'd be nice to make a trip to the John Ball Zoo soon too.  And out to the lake/beach.  And we have yet to do any farm tours this summer.  We'll see if we can work something out or if we can schedule a visit to Uncle Gary's farm.

I guess that's all for now.  August will be another busy month with vacation, IVF and lots of food preservation.  Plus hopefully some fun activities too.  As always I pray for God's guidance and blessing on us as we continue on our journey.