Positive Change

I've decided it's time for me to reflect upon the recent recipes I'm trying and to keep track of what works and what doesn't. I first started a complete over-haul of my diet with the low fodmap and Paleo diet. I have fructose malabsorption and IBS so there are several things that irritate my stomach and I'm starting to think Johnathen is the same. I don't want to create a self-full filling diet issue here but being that I change his diapers I can tell when the poops are different or non-existent. ;). I'm following the low fodmap diet for irritation issues and the rest is just bonus. After four days of FREAKING out for sugar and bread I realized that absolutely no sugar is unrealistic in my life and no grains or basically carbs was making me weak, tired and I had the worst workout of my life Friday morning, so in entered old fashioned oats. Soon I realized there wasn't a whole lot I could do with oats  besides oatmeal given that I have zero baking or cooking skills. I made no bakes and after a week of no sugar having just one of these was too much. They were too sweet and I could not stop eating them. It was scary to consciously notice how my body reacted to this and how my mind couldn't control my mouth, a problem I have trouble with often...lol. Allowing myself to have the approved sugars meant I went on this kick of trying to make 'healthier'sweets, how fast and easy it was for me to lose focus of why I'm doing this and to let those damn no bakes direct me towards recipes that provided me a means to get sugar and sweets in my life...After assessing my diet I realized instead of going hard core on not eating much of anything I was going to take the healthier, less processed, no milk (cheese and I will be together until the day I die) more fruits and veggies route. As incentive I've considered that eating healthy now and introducing Johnathen to these 'flavors' early is only going to make him a healthier eater, attracted to a healthier lifestyle...that and  of course my ever frustrating waistline. ;) I don't like the idea of all these chemicals and preservatives in our food so I've also given up Wheat and Gluten....Now before you say well those are good for you, I kind of disagree, I did this because I knew it would start out as 'I'll just get whole wheat' then I would slowly slip back into my old lifestyle. Even those whole wheat breads have crap in them I can't pronounce. So in entered Quinoa (Keen-wa). Did I mention I can't bake? Yeah well this whole diet/lifestyle change has got me excited about baking and trying new recipes especially since Phil is gone. This is a very interesting thing to bake with and has a taste that I don't know if I like yet. I have yet to have a full success in my experiments but we're getting closer. So far in my week I've learned that eggs and cheese are great binders in bread-ish things, parchment paper and wax paper are different (slight burning in the oven) and Quinoa is a drier flour so I need more eggs or oil. It's a fun way to keep my busy while Phil's gone and I hope I can get some good things down before he comes back so it's not hard to convert him...;) Do we still have Club mini's for snack time? yeah...until I can bake a cracker delicious enough to replace them they're here to stay. Moderation is key to any change and since I've been able to stop myself from eating them they're good...for now. It's a process, but I'm excited to think that one day we will be eating all homemade foods with ingredients in them that we can pronounce and trust.