Trim Healthy Mama Plan (35 page)

Don't overdo store-bought Frankenfood low-carb wraps that are enriched with the lectin-rich bran of various grains to raise the fiber high enough to lower net carbs in a normally carbohydrate-rich item. While they are an option on plan, they should not be a part of every meal. Boiling destroys more lectins than baking and since these products are neither boiled, sprouted, nor fermented, their lectin levels will still be high.

Avoid when possible, or at least don't overdo,
GMO foods like nonorganic corn. GMO foods have been modified for greater pest resistance, which consequentially heightens lectin levels above natural order. In saying this, if you want a little corn in your E-style Wicked White Chili and you can't afford the organic kind, don't stess, because the stress will harm ya just as much as the lectins will. You'll survive! Corn is not a big player in the Trim Healthy Mama life.

Are phytates like those pesky tonsils that no one appreciated in the 1960s and '70s? They just got in the road and got infected, so “off with their heads?” Or could it be that they have a purpose? This will be our last discussion about imbalanced diets and then we are sooo done; hopefully we'll never have to speak of all this craziness again.

Phytates are mostly located on the outside of the germ in grains and their purpose is to nourish the plant embryo with phosphorus so it can germinate and flourish. Phytates are considered to be part of the “nasties” group, but let's bring in balance for the final time. In the human body phytates do have a purpose! They bind with metals in your body and they are very skillful in their line of work. Yay for phytates! Metals won't be nearly as
harmful to you when phytates are around. But they also get name-called the “antinutrient” because they can bind to nutrients within your meal and prevent their absorption by your body. Boo for phytates, you foul things you!

Actually, this ability to bind with metals enables them to also eliminate some nasties from your body like the bad kind of cholesterol and triglycerides. Phytates in the human body are a potent and powerful antioxidant. They perform this talent by preventing ions such as iron and zinc from donating electrons that then become peroxides. Eventually this leads to dysfunctional lipids and excessive cholesterol levels. When viewed through a bigger lens, phytates are not as foul as their first mudsling suggests.

In a robust balanced diet the mineral pull of phytates is negligible. In Third World countries with extreme poverty, where people survive on rice, corn, or beans alone with nothing else to furnish the body, phytates are a bigger issue. Rather than blaming phytates for a lack of nutrition, it's more obviously the sad exclusion of other necessary nutrient-rich foods that is to blame.

We want you to be fully nourished, so encouraging you to prepare phytate-rich foods in more traditional fashions to help remove excess phytates makes some sense. But if you are a Drive Thru Sue and feel like giving up Your Trim Healthy Mama Plan because you can't imagine soaking your oats the night before, then don't throw in your towel. You aren't gonna die from unsoaked oatmeal or unsoaked lentil soup.

Here is a little feature that could make us even love a little bit of phytate from time to time (Serene the purist is almost choking as we type). Phytates also bind with amylase, which is the enzyme responsible for breaking down carbohydrates. When grains and tubers have their phytates attached, their insulin response is reduced by 50 percent. Whoa. You ain't foul no mo', phytates! But Serene wants to tell you to try to soak and sprout as much as possible to keep the natural balance in check.

Let's not make eating become something so difficult that regular folks are robbed of the satisfaction of knowing that they can attain a healthy diet without nitpicking up a storm or draining their last penny to do it. Where is their beacon of hope for a healthier life when all they read on the Internet are constant top-ten lists of what to avoid? It sounds
impossible and miserable, so it causes many to simply give up. We need to make feasible healthy food choices and let God take care of the rest.

It is sad that natural food has now become a thing to fear. Eating should be a simple joy, not a source of anxiety. We have seen Drive Thru Sues who have never, ever stepped foot into a health food market have their health revolutionized, watch their inflammation markers go way down, get off all their medications, and find their Trim Healthy Mama “glow” through regular foods. If you keep away from the basic junk we listed earlier, then you are doing better than those who eat packaged organic high-glycemic food from the health food store.

Let's leave loonyville far behind and bask in the land of Food Freedom, where we always keep it simple and sane. We EAT, DRINK, and are MERRY without fearing the monsters in God-given foods.

Rant is officially OVA! Phew.

W
e're so excited that you are taking this journey of Food Freedom and sanity with us. Encouragement and community will help you stay on track. Many Mamas have started local Trim Healthy Mama groups in homes and in churches. You can meet up with other Mamas doing the plan, exchange recipes, share victories and challenges, and be one another's
support systems. We soon hope to have study guides for groups to do together, but for now women are just sharing their personal experiences with one another and having a blast.

You'll also have wonderful support online at our website,
www.trimhealthymama.com
. There we have resources and teaching tools such as printable, searchable recipes, lots of cooking and question-and-answer videos by yours truly, additional menu ideas (along with a personal menu builder), helpful articles, support groups with official THM guides, and much more—all to help you streamline your Trim Healthy Mama journey.

But we need to stress again (otherwise we'll feel like salesy gals peddling wares and won't be able to live with ourselves): You don't HAVE to have a website membership for this plan to work. We are also launching a coaching program for those who want more personalized help and accountability, but you don't need a coach, either, unless you want one (many have begged us to get that program going as they long for one-on-one help).

The pages in this book will equip you with all the knowledge you need to be a Trim Healthy Mama. It was never our intention to go write a book and leave out important information so we could get thousands of people to give us some of their hard-earned money every month via a website. Repulsive! Mamas kept asking us for more Trim Healthy Mama in their lives. They wanted the extra resources, so we have worked hard on providing this for them.

Having said that, all the extra-fun help on the subscription side of our website has been priced at less than buying one cup of coffee per week—so enjoy it if you have a little bit of budget wiggle room or find a great certified Trim Healthy Mama coach in your area or online who can help you with your own unique challenges (once that program is up and running).

You can also find plenty of free support at our official Trim Healthy Mama Facebook page and in our Facebook groups, where Mamas discuss the plan and cheer one another on all day. These groups literally exploded on their own. They are safe, peaceful, encouraging places where Mamas can feel accepted and encouraged whether they are Drive Thru Sues or purists. There are plenty of other groups on the Internet where people debate issues all day, but we find that sort of thing tiresome and a big old joy buster. If we as sisters can call a truce with our differences—hey, there's hope for a group of women coming together and actually getting along. Other Mamas obviously feel the same way. These groups quickly became the size of cities, hundreds of thousands of women all talking about the way they do the plan without getting in one another's faces and all hot under the collar if they choose to take a different approach. Unheard of? Miracles do happen! Our amazing volunteer brigade of Trim Healthy Mama admins have been an incredible help on the Facebook groups.

After a while, though, it was evident we could no longer keep up with the volume of discussions posted in the main Trim Healthy Mama groups, especially the biggest one. The wall feed began moving too quickly. We essentially outgrew Facebook! Many posts from Trim Healthy Mama newbies got lost as soon as they were posted amid the high volume. We ended up having to move many of the official groups over to the website to control the pace of the Facebook groups' growth a little more and try to curtail the population.

The Facebook groups are still awesome places to hang out; you'll be inspired, find new recipes, and learn a thing or two from other women doing the plan. But despite our efforts to curtail growth, they are still large. So please don't feel hurt if your question gets missed or your response gets no comments. Posting a picture always helps gets some traction in the large groups; or find a local, smaller unofficial Trim Healthy Mama Facebook group where you can interact on a more personal level.

You can sign up for our free Trim Healthy Living Ezine at our website. That will come to your inbox every couple of months and contain articles from us, new recipes, tips, testimonials, and inspirational interviews with other Mamas doing the plan.

If you want to see and hear more from us two crazy sisters, we'll post up free videos
on our YouTube channel every so often. We'll also be making many of the recipes from the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
and other new recipes we come up with and be releasing those on the subscription side of our website. We'll also take your questions and answer them there, too, on video. In addition, check out our new radio show. Podcasts of that are available to listen to on our website.

We want to hear from you. Don't wait until you hit goal weight to share your story and your pictures with us. You're going to have many victories along the way and we want to celebrate them with you. We want to do a happy dance when you drop your first ten pounds…when you find yourself no longer a slave to sugar…when you have not lost anything on the scale for a month but you suddenly fit into the next size down…when you take that hike you never thought possible with the rest of your family…when your wedding ring fits again! Yeah…bring them on! Hearing from you makes all of this worth it for us.

Love you, Mamas!

See you soon,

Serene and Pearl

Build an S Meal

TIPS

Build an E Meal

TIPS

These are lighter foods that round out your plates and make your S and E meals complete (although they can be occasional full meals). They have low amounts of both fats and carbs.

Build a Fuel Pull Meal

TIPS

Crossovers merge the two fuels of fats and carbs for healthy tandem fueling. They keep to the E guidelines of carbs and add as many fats as desired.

Build a Crossover Meal

TIPS

Add a little carb to your S meal for pleasure's sake, but not enough that it becomes a Crossover.

TIP

People who may not be used to eating meals with lower amounts of carbs, or people who suffer with hypoglycemia, may at first need S Helpers to help their bodies gently adapt to the pure S meal.

Same Foods List as S Meals (with these additional options)

⅓ to ½ cup quinoa

¼ cup brown rice

⅓ to ½ cup oatmeal

⅓ to ½ cup beans or lentils

½ piece of fruit like an apple or orange

½ medium sweet potato

1 piece of whole-grain sprouted, dark rye, or artisan sourdough toast

½ sprouted wrap or tortilla