This has to be quick as I’m cooking and getting ready to head out the door.

So, yesterday was our second full day wheat-free.  Here’s what we ate:

Smoothies for breakfast:  spinach, kale, mango, strawberries, blueberries, greek yogurt, and raw, unfiltered honey.

For lunch we had leftovers:  salad from the day before, mashed potatoes (from Sunday), and the leftover pork from Monday night’s dinner.  It was pretty tasty!

For dinner I made Chicken Taco salad:  chicken with homemade taco seasoning (many taco seasonings have wheat in it!), homemade spanish rice, black beans, corn, salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, and lettuce.  It was delicious!

Okay, gotta run!

~audrey

My hands are still a little shaky from sitting in on that conference call.  I’ve heard the names Sarah and Eliot for a few months now and to hear their voices on the other end of the line was so humbling and overwhelming.  A great deal of information was given throughout the hour-long call, but I’ll stick with the points that pertain to us specifically.

*Before the field investigation can begin for our specific case, the US Embassy has to receive our approved I-600.  Our I-600 paperwork/application has been sitting at our agency’s office in Denver for three weeks now waiting on a corrected document from DRC.  Please pray that they’ll receive this information TODAY.

*The US Embassy will be traveling to our girls’ region NEXT MONTH to perform field investigations.  They’ll place priority to cases with approved I-600’s, but they’ll be taking as many I171-H approved files with them as possible in efforts to begin, if not complete as many investigations from that region as possible since travel is so difficult.  We have had our approved I171-H since February, so at least they have a record of us.  Please pray that we’ll have our I-600 approval BEFORE they head to our girls’ region.

*Lastly, please pray for thorough, swift, and satisfactory investigations in our girls’ region.  I pray that they’re able to complete ALL of the cases that they bring with them next month.  What a miracle it would be to be able to bring our girls home in July or August!

GOD IS ABLE!!!!

This could potentially be a long post so I’m going to try really hard to stick with to the point.  First I have to throw in a little adoption news: WE HAVE A CONFERENCE CALL WITH THE US EMBASSY IN DRC IN ONE HOUR!!!!  It’s a conference call for all agencies and families in the midst of DRC adoptions.  They’ve always sent the not-so-great news via email through the State Dept, so we’re really hopeful that today’s call is to deliver encouraging news and plans to better streamline the process….maybe even as a result of all our contacts with our representatives!  I’ll update later.

Now back to the main topic.  I recently noticed a friend had lost quite a bit of weight and I’m always compelled to ask How did you do it? This time the answer was much different that I anticipated.  She said all she did was remove wheat from her diet.  That’s it??  She went on to tell me that she’s never really changed how she’s eaten, yet she slowly began to gain weight over the years (she’s in her 40’s) and began to see a decline in how she felt.  She also noted that she’s had a really hard time taking off pounds with normal methods (reduce caloric intake and exercise).  She mentioned the term (and also book title) Wheat Belly and the many ailments tied to wheat consumption.  All of this really intrigued me.  I mean I’m a sprouting, wheat grinding, make-my-own-bread-cuz-it’s-so-healthy-for-my-family kinda girl!  I decided to look up the information for myself and what I found was shocking.  I encourage you to watch the segments on Dr. Oz’s website entitled  “Are you addicted to wheat“.  From there you can watch the second and third part of the interview as well.  Here’s one thing that shocked me:

Dr. Oz was so puzzled by Dr. Davis’ claims against wheat that he decided to do his own test.  He brought in five people and took their blood sugar.  He gave them two slices of whole wheat bread and took their blood sugar again.  The next day he repeated the process except instead of bread, he gave them a Snickers bar.  The results were astonishing.  In three out of the five people, the bread caused twice the spike in blood sugar over the candy bar!

This inspired me to do my own experiment.  Here are some of our symptoms that Dr. Davis claims can be a result of wheat consumption:

tired throughout the day

achy joints and muscles

difficulty losing weight

cravings for bad foods (starches, sugar, carbs)

irritability

“wheat belly” carrying extra weight around your mid-section out of proportion to the rest of your body

gas pains

My oldest son is, without a doubt, addicted to wheat.  He literally wakes up asking for a piece of bread.  He’s not at all overweight yet we’ve noticed that his midsection has gotten “flabby” and “dimply” over the past year.  It has been very alarming.  We eat extremely healthy compared to many other people we know.  We don’t drink soda, we don’t drink milk, we don’t keep processed food in the house, I make everything from scratch, I grind our own organic wheat to make our bread and baked goods, we strictly limit our sugar intake, and we’re outside every single day.  What could we possibly be doing wrong?

We took Dr. Davis’ advice and quit wheat cold turkey.  I took my weight and waist measurements yesterday to mark my progress.  I also took my oldest son’s weight and waist measurements.  He’s excited to see if we get visible results.  Please know that we have never said anything to our son about looking like he’s gained weight or anything of that nature.  As someone who watched my parents “diet” my entire life, the last thing we want to do is put that on our children.  We stress the importance of eating healthy and being active–that’s it.

Here’s what we ate yesterday:

Breakfast-  two slices of organic, uncured bacon (from Earthfare–we buy it in bulk once a month)

Lunch-  Salad:  kale, spinach, swiss chard, boiled eggs, shredded cheddar, carrots, broccoli, nitrate-free turkey and ham, onion, and homemade honey mustard dressing.  I was shocked that all three of my kids gobbled it up!  Not only that, they were actually full when they finished.  They didn’t ask for a snack for hours!

When I boiled the eggs for the salad, I saved four to make deviled eggs for a late afternoon snack.  We have chickens, so fresh, clean eggs are always in abundance over here.  They each ate two deviled eggs (equivalent to one whole egg) around 4:00pm.

Dinner-Someone had given us some pork cube steaks last week.  I have never even heard of pork cube steak and we don’t eat pork very often outside of bacon so I had to look up a recipe on Pinterest.  What I found was Rosemary and Garlic crusted Pork Cube Steak.  All you have to do when going wheat-free is find an alternative.  For the “crust” on our steaks, I pulled some almonds out of the pantry, buzzed them through the Vitamix for about 15 seconds (don’t blend too long or you’ll have almond butter!) and I had almond flour to use in place of all-purpose flour.  Dinner was delicious!

Since it was our first day and the kids were champs through it all, I decided to make dessert.  I’ve made these chocolate chip “cookies” before and the kids and hubby had no idea what was in them, so I made them again.

I used organic, pure maple syrup instead of honey and I used a fork to flatten the dough balls slightly before baking.  They were a gooey, chocolatey treasure for the end of our day.  You do need to know that they taste like a chocolate chip cookie that wasn’t baked long enough so don’t be alarmed when they come out gooey and soft. They’re delicious!

I will post more tomorrow.  Right now I need to grab a pen and paper and gear up for our conference call in TEN MINUTES!!!

~audrey