BEFORE and AFTER

These weight loss changes are 100% due to changing what I eat. I have not worked out  during the course of these 5 months. 

So many of you have asked for the BEFORE and AFTER photos. This decision was a difficult one as growing up in my household was not one for the faint of heart for many reasons, one of them being weight. My mother has struggled with an eating disorder since she was 11 years old and things like that cannot help themselves but must spread to the other members of the family as well. My parents had 4 daughters and 1 son and all of us are very conscious of our appearance and weight. 

I was married in October 2010 to a wonderful man and over the next 2 years the demons of my past burst their way into our marriage and caused a lot of confusion, chaos, depression, anger, frustration, sadness and loss. I gained 50 pounds as lethargy and depression took over and eventually exhaustion as I poured myself into my work. 

Please understand I'm not making any excuses. I just want you to know that there are reasons for someone to go from a seemingly fit, healthy lifestyle to just "letting myself go" without so much as a whisper of a fight. It was the way I coped, pushed my husband away and thought I should be treated. 

I also want to add that my husband never gave up on me and has continued to pursue me throughout all of this. It hasn't been easy and nobody is perfect. However both of us have continuously been working on ourselves and our marriage and ARE more in love today, stronger and committed than we were in our first and even second year. Marriage is hard, but worth each moment, and an opportunity to grow, change and heal, love, accept and move on (and so much more). 

So here I am, before and in progress. I cary my goal picture around in my wallet so that I can see my potential and stay away from temptation. I hope it's inspiring and gives you the motivation to keep working toward your goals and to begin healing and to love yourself and to take care of yourself.

Thanks, 
I believe you can do it too! 
LAURA

@ 180 lbs 

@ 143 lbs

THESE PICTURES ARE NOT FOR PUBLICATION OF ANY SORT. THEY ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR ADDS OR TO BE PUBLISHED ANYWHERE ONLINE, PRINTED OUT OR PASSED AROUND. THESE ARE MY PICTURES AND ANY MISUSE OF THEM IS AN ILLEGAL ACT. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING MY RIGHTS TO MY PICTURES AND PRIVACY. I HOPE THEY INSPIRE AND ENCOURAGE YOU.

Cauliflower Crust Pizza - TOPPINGS

TOPPINGS (TIPS)

Choose your favorite toppings. I like: peppers, chicken, onion, tomatoes, goat cheese, mushrooms, steak, olives, spinach, Cheddar Cheese, bacon etc.

Make sure you precook your toppings before putting them on your pizza!

• Saute the onions in a bit of oil with s/p (you can put them on raw if you like them crunchy)
• Fry up your mushrooms with a bit of butter or with your bacon
• Saute your red or yellow peppers
• Precook any MEATS you are going to add as a topping: chicken, steak, bacon etc.

Things like; spinach, goat cheese, tomatoes, olives, cheddar cheese, or pineapple DO NOT PRE COOK.

1. Make your crust.
2. Cook your toppings.
3. Take your cooked crust, add your toppings and cheese, then put the whole pizza in the oven at 400 F until your cheese is melted and it's bubbly and brown.
4. Take out and EAT!

Extra Bonus:

Pizza Sauce - 2 large, firm tomatoes. 3 Fresh basil leaves. S/P to taste. BLEND together. Strain off any extra juice. Spread over your ALREADY COOKED pizza crust. Add Toppings. Bake. Eat.

Starting Out

So for anyone who has been going through life, eating whatever and whenever they wanted, a serious diet change for specific health reasons can be quite daunting. It's not easy to no longer be allowed to satisfy that craving for refined sugars (donuts, cakes, cookies, pop, juice etc), delicious starches (baked potato anyone), melt in your mouth grains (fresh cinnamon buns or baked bread), or cold, creamy dairy (ice cream, milk shakes, cheese). But I hope through my experiences, stories and recipes you will find that you don't have to be deprived of desserts and great cooking; you just have to be creative, and creativity needs inspiration and motivation.

Eleven weeks ago I ate cookies, cakes, donuts, ice cream, dressings, tarter sauce, breads, corn, chips and dips etc. I love food! Then my husband started talking about this restricted diet that could change his life and help his body to heal itself. I couldn't say no to the possibility of his being healed and whole; the strong, energetic, outgoing man I know he can be. So that weekend I got rid of $1000 worth of groceries both canned and fresh and we started all over again.

It wasn't easy saying goodbye to all that food that we had stock piled, especially since I come from a poor family and part of that was we didn't always have enough to eat. Food is important to me and if it's there I feel as if it will all be ok. You don't have to have a big fancy house, you don't have to have fancy cars or hundreds of different outfits, you don't even have to have the highest paying job. You do however HAVE to have food and clean drinking water!

So in saying all that, here's why I'm doing this. I began this journey in 100% support of my husband. Can you imagine your significant other or child being deprived of all their favorite things while you go ahead and munch on whatever you want every meal and snack? Or when you are out, if you want to go into a restaurant for a quick bite because you're hungry, but there is nothing on the menu that they can eat? I mean if they cheat, it could really mean life or death. They didn't "choose" to do this because they want to get healthier (at least not for the reasons most of us diet and exercise). No, they chose this way of life to try and get off medications that are destroying their bodies or because it's a last hope or attempt at being able to live a normal life. I couldn't just go on the way I was without him. I felt compelled to not only start this journey for him (giving away all our food and researching what he could / couldn't have) but to also start the journey with him.

Now that we are eleven weeks in I am so grateful for this change. There have been many changes beginning to take place in my family which include a career change, going down to one income and planning for our future children. The first two are givens, we cannot have the one without the other and we want to do this debt free! The third really relies on ME.

About a year ago I started thinking about getting pregnant (seriously considering all the factors) and the biggest thing on my mind was my body. I had gained 50 pounds and was living in depression, sadness and poor eating habits. I knew I didn't want to house my baby in the body I was currently supporting. I knew I had to make changes but I just couldn't seem to do something drastic enough for the weight to drop or the eating patterns to change and it was a vicious cycle of frustration and anger toward myself and my body. But when my husband started talking about this diet that could change his life forever I new I could do this for him and with him. So I did.

I have lost 20 pounds as of today, I feel so much better physically and my energy has gone way up. My joy has returned and my self confidence is seeping back in. Everything takes time. All we have is time, and as I thought about that question, "why not?" squeezed its way in. If all I have is time then why not do what I want with that time. If I want to lose weight and get a healthy body to cary my babies in, why not start today? If I wait until I'm ready to get pregnant and haven't done anything to change I will be in the same place I was 3 or 4 or 5 years ago but I won't have time to change what I should have been working on all that time ago.

So in conclusion, yes, I am doing this in support of my husband and that won't change. What has changed is my appreciation for what this way of eating is doing for me, what I couldn't do for myself. It's changing my life and I'm so grateful that my husband and I are going through this together and that it's something that is impacting our lives now and will have future blessings and benefits as well. So even though it didn't seem like a great thing at the beginning and it felt impossible (learning to cook and bake all over again) at times I am so glad and grateful to be eating this way and making these choices one day at a time.

I hope you can get to a place of peace about what you can eat and why you are doing it as well.

Have a wonderful Saturday!
Laura

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Cauliflower PizzaCrust 

Ingredients:

2 Heads of Cauliflower

1,1/2 Cups of Mozza Cheese (on our diet we have to use Cheddar Cheese)

1 tsp oregano (dried)

1 tsp basil (dried)

2 Eggs (beaten slightly)

Directions:

1. Chop up the Cauliflower into bite sized pieces and put them in your food processor until rice sized.
2. Put the ground up cauliflower into a pan on medium heat and saute it until translucent (it needs to be hot and change color)
3. Meanwhile in a bowl beat the egg and oregano and basil together, then add the cheese.
4. Have 2 cookie sheets ready with parchment paper on top (THE PARCHMENT PAPER IS IMPORTANT).
5. Mix the hot cauliflower with the egg and cheese mixture. Mix until it's equally blended and the cheese is melted.
6. Divide your dough onto the 2 trays equally.
7. Pat with your hands until you are satisfied with the size and thickness of your crusts.
8. In a preheated oven bake your crusts at 400 F for 25 minutes
9. Take cooked crust out of the oven, hold the pan in one hand (it's hot so wear an oven mitt) and the parchment paper in the other. Pull the parchment paper off the pan sideways and when it looks like there is room flip the pizza crust onto the pan and peel the parchment paper off. This should be done very easily without anything falling apart.

NOTES:

• IF YOUR CRUST IS TOO THIN IT WILL CRACK. 
• If you notice a lot of liquid coming out of your dough when it's in the raw stage just mix the liquid back in (no big deal, it will be gone after cooking). 

WHEN OPENING YOUR OVEN TO CHECK ON THIS CRUST STAND BACK! IT'S VERY MOIST AND YOU WILL GET A HUGE CLOUD OF STEAM COMING UP AT YOUR FACE WHEN YOU FIRST OPEN THE OVEN DOOR.

What To Do When Going Out

So I have a super fun dinner date coming up next week with a long time friend at a sushi restaurant, which by the way is my absolute FAVORITE! I have talked to my husband and he said it was okay for me to eat sushi even though RICE, SEA WEED, and I'm sure the IMITATION CRAB isn't included in our diet. Yes, I'm talking about California Rolls (a weakness of mine).

Now since I'm not actually allergic to anything or sick I've been really tempted to just go to dinner and enjoy these California Rolls. I already decided that I wouldn't indulge in Miso Soup or my favorite Explosion Roll due to the fact that the dressing is sure to have sugar and parts of it are deep fried. However rice and sea weed are not bad foods for you.

The dilemma I find myself in is that I am doing this diet purely in support of my husband. My first excuse is he doesn't like sushi and second is, he will not be at the dinner. I guess what I'm having a fight with in my conscious is that he cannot go to a favorite restaurant of his and indulge in a special dinner even if it's foods that are not "bad" for a person.

My alternative is to be SUPER ADVENTUROUS, order Sushimi and eat that WITHOUT the rice. This would be in keeping with our diet and would definitely stretch me and be something that he and I could do if he so chose to participate in tasting raw fish with nothing to go with it. My heart says that is what I will do. I don't want to be a stumbling block for him when he faces temptation later on down the road. It's different for him as it's his health on the line and I don't want the thought in his mind to be "well if she can't do it, what makes me think I can?"

Well dear readers, that settles it. My sushi date will be like no other I've ever been on. I may need to have a salad or something afterwards to fill up, as raw fish tastes okay but I really don't love the texture.

I hope this gives you the courage to keep going with your restrictions and that you will know that someone else is going through what you are, because she wants to support her husband and for right now, all of you!

Artichoke Dip - Amazing Stuff Here

Artichoke Dip

Inspiration from Martha Stewart recipes but completely adjusted by me, Laura Oosterom and written as such.

This dip is good with freshly chopped mushrooms and peppers. Cut them large enough to dip into this hot dish!

Ingredients:

2 cans (14 ounces each) artichoke hearts in water. Rinse, and Drain.

3/4 Cup Home Made Mayonnaise

1/2 of Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese

1/2 a Freshly Squeezed Lemon (take out the seeds!)

1-2 Garlic Cloves Crushed

1 Scallion Minced

Mushrooms, Peppers and other Veggies of your choice for dipping (or rice crackers if you can have them - I can't).

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F
2. In a Food Processor put all of the ingredients in together (may also add a bit of salt and pepper to taste if you want).
3. Transfer mixture to a 1 quart baking dish. Top with Extra Parmesan Cheese if you want to and place in the oven
4. Cook for 30-35 minutes or until golden and bubbly

This dish is rich and should be consumed sparingly or used as a party dish so many people will help you to eat it! Enjoy it as it's sooooo good!!!

Roasted Chicken

Roasted Chicken

Super Easy and will change the idea of dinner in your home forever!

Ingredients:

1 Roasting Chicken, 4-5 pounds

1/2 a Lemon

Salt and Pepper to Taste

1 Small Onion Quartered

Oil

Fresh Basil

Spices: Rosemary, Thyme, Parsley, Oregano, Onion, Basil, Cumin (if you like it)

Directions:

1. MAKE SURE YOUR CHICKEN IS 100% THAWED before the following steps are taken.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F
3. Check to make sure the guts and neck of the chicken are taken out of your chicken and wash your chicken in cold water. Let it drip dry and put it on the roasting pan.
4. Mix your herbs with a bit of oil and rub all over the outside and inside of the chicken.
5. Place onion, fresh basil and lemon inside the chicken cavity.
6. Sprinkle on the salt and pepper (put a little salt inside the chicken cavity too).
7. Bake for about 20 minutes per pound. The internal temperature of the chicken should be at least 165 F
8. Can baste with oil or butter occasionally to keep the skin moist

Notes:

• If your chicken has clear juices running out when you poke it, it's done.
• If the meat on the legs and thighs of the chicken has a slight pink tone to it, it's done (the dark meat tends to hold onto the pink color for some reason).
• If your chicken is looking a little darker than you like and still has time left to be cooking make a tin foil tent over it and put it back in the oven for the remaining time.