The Metabolic Clock – book review

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017 / 2punkshadabunchofkids / 2 Comments

I first stumbled upon the book ‘The Metabolic Clock by Julie Rennie’ on my mum’s bookshelf. While I was over at her house, I couldn’t stop reading it and when I left I took it home. I ~~stole~~ borrowed it. Since then I have read this book over and over again. After we moved mum just gave it to me!

It has helped me set some good habits – like not going to bed past 10pm. And it has inspired me to be the healthiest version of myself I can.

I love this book!

What it’s about:

It teaches you how to speed up you metabolism to help you lose weight based on the metabolic clock. It shows you how to change lifelong patterns that have been preventing you from living life to the full.

What I love:

The gluten free flourless chocolate cake recipe in the back of the book is yum! I use coconut oil instead of butter to make it dairy free too and it turns out great. It has the consistency of a mud cake and it makes a great treat. I’ve made the spicy bean stew many times too and it makes for a hearty filling vegetarian meal. Sometimes I don’t like to eat too much meat and it’s good to have a few vegetarian recipes up my sleeve.

The pictures in this book are beautiful – I love inspiring photography and nourishing food photography.

It teaches you how to think positively and how a negative view of yourself can impact your health and weight loss.

The 21 day lifestyle challenge has helped to go to bed before 10pm. I have struggled in the past with disciplining myself to get to bed at a decent hour. And with babies still waking me in the middle of the night – an early bedtime is essential to my well being and ability to function and think clearly throughout the day.

A few things I don’t agree with:

The book briefly mentions yoga and meditation. I choose not to do these things as they are associated with eastern evil religious practices. As a Christian I don’t want any part in stirring up the wrong spirits.

All in all – it’s a great read and the best thing is that it inspires me to keep up with my health regime. I’ve been riding my bike weekly and going for at least 3 power walks a week. Plus I’m always looking for ways to improve my diet.

Blessings, Peta

*I thought I’d do a review of a few of my favourite books. There’s no affiliate links.

Arrow turns 6! Including his birth story

March 21, 2017March 21, 2017 / 2punkshadabunchofkids / Leave a comment

March 2011 – Arrow’s first week of life outside the womb – I am 22 years old.

Arrow Truth Goddard….”you named him what??” Yes Arrow, his name is Arrow!! 🙂

Our strong Arrow turns 6 today!

Happy Birthday to our precious little man!

Arrow is physically strong yet kind and caring. He’s not afraid to kiss his mum and play babies with his little sisters. He’s as tough as nails and has still never needed to see a doctor. He is our warrior, strong willed and stubborn yet loving and tender. He’s serious and doesn’t always see the funny side,yet we can still make him laugh. We love him dearly and our family wouldn’t be complete without our Arrow.
Let me share with you his story which was posted on my old original blog (The Heart Of Our Home) – here is is again for you in case you missed it.

I fell pregnant with Arrow when our first bub Francis was around 8 months old. We were VERY excited to be expecting again, and we prayed and prayed for this baby after suffering a miscarriage only 3 months earlier. Right from the start I knew this baby was strong, though. I got through the first trimester with the usual morning sickness. Constant nausea but no vomiting. By 16 weeks I felt fantastic and we began planning a natural birth. I wanted more than anything to birth this baby into the world as naturally as possibly. This was the first birth that we really planned properly. I read many books on natural birthing, and God worked on my heart and helped to overcome my fears. I have ALWAYS had a terrifying fear of giving birth – especially without an epidural. And God gently worked on me and we did it! Would I do a natural birth again? Yes I would. Did it hurt? YES it did. But do I need to be afraid? NO I don’t. God designed women’s bodies to give birth, and I did it!! It was such a massive moment of transformation in my life.
Later in my pregnancy I couldn’t get away from the scripture in Psalm 127

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

God gave me a strong revelation about children that I believe is very different from the world’s thinking of children. Our children are VERY important.

From this moment on I decided that I would dedicate my life to raising children for the Lord. With full support from my husband. I decided that nothing would come in the way, no job, no career, no ministry would be more important to me than raising my family in the best way that God shows me.

This is why we named our son Arrow.

He is our Arrow, our weapon of defense against our enemies. He is our reward and gift from God. We are very blessed.

His middle name is ‘Truth.’ This stands for the truth of God’s word coming to pass as we birth our Arrow into the world. We dedicated our son completely to the Lord.

We didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl until after the birth, but during my later stages of pregnancy we had only picked one name – Arrow – I couldn’t even think of any girls names. God knew though, that we were having a son and he placed him in our womb for a special reason.

I was very over due – 2 weeks and 2 days in fact, before I finally gave in to the doctors and came into the hospital to be induced. Everyone thought I was crazy waiting for so long past my due date, but I knew in my heart that my baby needed more time.

The doctor broke my waters, and proclaimed that my baby has a head full of hair!! Wow, we were very excited, yet nervous for what was ahead of us.

The contractions came on steady all morning and Luke and I walked around and around the hospital grounds. I had a really strong contraction right in front of the waiting room of the medical clinic. I grabbed Luke by the scruff of his shirt and leaned over him, clamped my eyes shut and breathed deeply. “Okay, we need to go back into our room NOW.” So back inside we went, where we spent the entire length of our labour alone in our hospital room. We hardly saw a midwife and no doctors were in sight. I was doing quite well up until the last couple of hours of labour where I started to lose confidence. I sat on the birthing ball the entire time I was going through transition labour. Luke sat behind me, rubbing my back and praying. I began moaning like a cow, I couldn’t help it – I had to let the noise out, it was the only way I could cope. I was sweating, feeling sick & light-headed. I was fanning myself profusely with my orange pregnancy record book. My body was so exhausted that I almost dropped of to sleep sitting up between contractions. (I had no idea that I was probably fully dilated and ready to push for a while but I just kept sitting there on that ball!)

In agony I proclaimed to Luke that I had had enough and was going to see if the heat of a shower would help with the pain. Luke helped me into the shower. I was still moaning, and I stamped my feet in the water. I felt weird, I can’t explain it, but I had an overwhelming urge that …something…was about to fall out of my body. (I later discovered that that something was indeed a baby!) Luke pressed the button to call the midwife and she comes into the shower cubicle.

Midwife: “What’s the matter?”

Me: “I think it’s coming out!!”

Midwife: “Get out of the shower..”

Me: “Noooo”

Midwife: “You have to hop out now”

Me: “NOOOOO”

Midwife: “The baby is coming out and I’m not ready to catch it while you are standing in the shower, so hop out NOW”

Still moaning, but much louder now; I’m helped into a wheel chair and ran into the delivery room.

The midwife wants me to get up on the bed but I feel the baby literally dropping inside of me and I gag and drop to my knees on the floor.

In this moment I completely panicked, I looked in despair at my pale husband and yelped in a quiet voice: “Luke, help me!”

Everything else is pretty much a blur to me. I can remember the midwife telling me that I couldn’t give birth on the floor and she pulled out a birthing stool, which I sat on with Luke behind me.

Arrow shot out of me on that stool with such great force, I didn’t even push. He was living up to his name already.
He was out in – 2-3 minutes.I had a 2nd degree tear!

He was my biggest baby yet: 8lbs, 5oz,

Born 7:34pm on the 21st March 2011.

We were overjoyed. I needed rest, Arrow breastfed well and I showered and we all snuggled up together in our room exhausted, yet deeply satisfied.

6 years old now!

Our first sunflower and our Arrow

We are so glad he is a part of our family!

Blessings, Peta

Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook review

March 19, 2017March 19, 2017 / 2punkshadabunchofkids / Leave a comment

Image result for trim healthy mama cookbook

I’ve been following Trim Healthy Mama on and off for around 4 years just after the first book was released. Initially I followed it strictly and I lost the last of the weight I gained from my third pregnancy quite quickly.

Since then I seem follow THM passionately for a while, then I go off it for a time and go with Sarah Wilson’s JERF philosophy (Just Eat Real Food).

Right now I am losing weight from my fifth full term pregnancy. Once again I’ve been using THM, a bit loosely mind you. I have the original THM book but I also purchased the new cookbook.

In a nutshell here’s my review:

I didn’t like it at first – but now I do.

I opened the book when it first arrived and was horrified to see that the THM ladies had made their own sweeteners and baking blend. I’m not a fan of ‘fancy’ ingredients and I didn’t want to order their expensive products. I just wanted to make healthy recipes out of easy ingredients I could buy locally. I tried a couple of recipes that didn’t use the special ingredients and wasn’t that impressed. We got busy moving to a new house and location and I was pregnant with my fifth baby. I tossed it on the bookshelf for a year.

I tried again.

The summer school holidays just passed I pulled out my book and decided to give it another go. I even ordered the baking blend and some THM sweeteners. The recipes I tried this time – I really enjoyed.

The drinks ‘Shrinker’ and ‘Singing Canary’ – wow!

And I love the wicked white chilli, the lemon herb drummies and the pancakes. I love to eat, so eating pancakes while losing weight is a winner for me.

I won’t be ordering their baking blend again because, lets face it, it’s expensive. Instead I will make up my own baking blend based on almond meal. I’ll keep using stevia though. It’s a natural sweetener that’s very low calories and keeps your blood sugar low. Sounds good to me.

I think it is possible to follow THM without ordering the expensive products or using specialty ingredients. But if you want to buy the products then go ahead – they are top quality.

So what’s the verdict? Is it worth buying the cook book? I’ll say yes.

Blessings, Peta.

Garden therapy

March 3, 2017 / 2punkshadabunchofkids / 2 Comments

I love gardens and I love vegetables! The sunshine and fresh air and hard physical work from digging and weeding makes me feel so refreshed! I’ve been making gardening a priority this week, because I know I need it.

I’ve begun a project of growing my own seedlings from seeds instead of buying them from the nursery. While these little beauties grow, I’ll be busy preparing the soil with compost and blood and bone and removing all the weeds. dscf4524 dscf4525 dscf4527