Paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, THM Orange Cream Cookies!

These were a huge hit in my house today. Even my husband, who usually gets his carbs through drinks, pastas a breads and isn't really big on "sweets", thought these were pretty good and requested them again with chocolate chips. Ha! I would have made a second batch this evening, but I am almost out of almond flour. BOO!!!

These cookies hold together very well and have a nice texture. They fit into several categories; Paleo, Trim Healthy Mama (THM), gluten-free, dairy-free and Weston A. Price (WAP). Enjoy!

Orange Cream Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups almond meal
• 2 tablespoons coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 scoop of whey protein powder
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• Sweetener equivalent to 1 cup sugar (I used about 1/2 cup of birch xylitol and 2 squirts of SweetLeaf Stevia* extract, Vanila Crème flavor. These were VERY sweet, so if you like them less sweet, one squirt should be plenty!)
• 2 tablespoons finely-grated orange rind
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
• ½ cup whipping cream OR coconut milk

*If I didn't use Vanilla Crème Stevia, I would also add a tsp of vanilla extract

I also want to add a drop of Young Living orange essential oil next time. I was out today, but I just know it would be great! I will update this when I have a chance to add that in.

Directions:

1. Mix dry ingredients. (If you want the smoothest texture possible, try sifting the almond flour. You may have larger pieces that will be too big to go through the sifter. I just put mine back in the container and only use the finest flour for a smoother texture.) 
2. Mix wet ingredients.
3. Mix together.
4. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper. (I rolled mine into balls a little smaller than golf ball size.)
5. Gently press down with the back of a spoon.
6. Bake at 325° for about 18 minutes.
7. Let cool.
8. Enjoy with or without your favorite milk. Pictured is the rest of the can of coconut milk used from the cookies. YUM!

THM -- 25 pounds lost so far!

So, I can't really tell a huge difference, but there is some! The lighting was different because my hair color hasn't changed, but otherwise I tried to take them at the same angle and with no editing. Even though I can't see a drastic difference in the size/shape of my face, I think my skin looks much better!

Milestone!

I'll have to get new pics soon, but I wanted to say that I have hit the big 25 pound milestone of weight lost!!! Still a long way to go, but I have a great start! I am setting a couple of new, short-term goals: another 20 by the end of November, and then another 15 by the end of the year. That will put me at a 60 pound loss in 6 months. I CAN DO IT!!!!!!

I do need to exercise more, but I am eating mostly fatty meals, very little carbs, lots of good protein and really didn't exercise this past week. The weight is just melting away! I do feel better every day, and I could have lost more by now if I'd stop cheating (mostly when we eat out, i.e. DR. PEPPER)!!!

Update on the family

Everyone is doing great....happy, healthy, growing (except Mama and Papa, we're shrinking!), learning so much....Yah is so GOOD to us!!! \o/

Jonathan and Jacob will no longer be in Boy/Cub Scouts because of their policy change, but they will still do something. Jayla just started dance again last week. Jack is doing well in speech and will start horse riding therapy again in a few weeks. Joe is talking like crazy and loves his baby sister so much! And Jessica is always wanting to eat and always wanting Mama. :)

They all (except Jessi) just entered some crafts in the county fair. Jonathan won 2nd place on his set of tzitziot. Jayla won 3 2nd place ribbons on art made from nature, decoupage and a felt house/yard. Jacob won 2nd on his Lego racecar and 3rd on his decoupage. Jack won 2nd on his decoupage. Joe won 2nd on his Lego racecar and 1st on his decoupage! The only ones competing against each other were Jack and Joe with their decoupage. The only items that did not place in the top 3 were Jonathan's drawing and 3 more crafts by Jayla; a Lego rescue boat, a bead bracelet and a quilt she made for my mom. Now, this quilt was entirely her own work, and she did an excellent job, but they never unfolded it to look at it!!!! In fact, it was folded to where you could only see the back side of it! So she was pretty upset about that, but Grandma still has a quilt from her that she will cherish, and I'm sure Jayla will get it back someday.

Weight loss update

I am 9 weeks into my weight loss journey. I haven't stayed perfectly on plan, so the weight has been coming off much slower, but this past week I resolved to do better, and it paid off. I lost 4 pounds this past week!!!! I am getting close to the 20 pound mark, finally, so with no more cheating, I am hoping to reach that by next week. Yay!!!!

I have to say, the idea that fat people eat too much is sooooo blown out of the water! I wasn't eating ENOUGH or often enough, so my metabolism was slow. Now I am eating every 3-4 hours, am hungry all the time, exercise very little and the fat is melting away. I can lose 2 pounds in one day some days, when I stick to the plan, and eating more often is key for me.

Here is a side by side comparison of my face before starting THM at my highest (non-pregnancy) weight ever, and again at 5 weeks. I had lost around 15 pounds at this point. It's not a drastic change, but I can see a difference!!!

Update on weight loss

Apparently that big, sudden drop in weight was not accurate. It jumped right back to where it was, then I have slowly been losing since then, so I guess the scale was having a bad day!

But I am HAPPY to report a total loss of 14.2 pounds for my first month!!! I was hoping for more, but with all the little cheats I've had here and there, I am good with that! And I am losing at a steady pace, regardless of the occasional cheats, so I feel really good about it!

I'm not sure if I'll take pictures or not. Maybe just for my own viewing, we'll see, but I will definitely post some more updated pictures in the near future.

Bike Riding!

Though we do live in the country now, we have reasons for not letting our precious lambs ride their bikes in the neighborhood. So I decided to take them some place where they will have plenty of room to ride, now that we can load up all the bikes onto our shuttle bus!

Our New Ride!

We outgrew our Honda Odyssey 6 months ago when baby #6 was born. That van has been good to us, but we have to move on. Now a friend has it, so hopefully they will be able to build some great family memories with it as we did.

We have a good, reliable truck that my mom recently gave us, since she moved to the city and no longer had need of it. We will probably give it to Jonathan when he turns 16 (shhh!), but we are so thankful to have it for Myles to drive to work.

We decided to "keep" the van but turned in our HHR, after they were BOTH totalled for hail damage!!! We were shocked, but it has been such a blessing. It has enabled us to pay cash for our new family vehicle as well as have plenty of vacation money for September! YHWH always provides, and sometimes He will just blow you away! \o/

So here is our new ride, with 15 seats! Plenty of room for the whole family, some friends and neighbors! Well, not our current neighbors, as they are all snobs and we are plannng to move away from them ASAP. We tried for years to figure out how to get out of the city, but as much as I hated living there, all of our neighbors were AWESOME! I don't know what it is about these people here, but I digress.....

The kids have already claimed seats, and Jonathan claimed one for Rocket (the dog) as well for when we take him with us on vacation. Yep, we're going to have an awesome trip on that bus, building more great family memories. I can't wait!!!