Exercise - Have a walking group.

We all know the benefits of exercise for our bodies when we are trying to loss weight and get fit. It's great for our general health, mind, body and spirit.

I personally in the past have struggled at time to get out and exercise. I have been stuck in the idea that exercise takes up time, hard work, and is challenging with a large family and small children. Well I'm now proving myself wrong.

I'm a Mum of many which means living my life in multi tasking mode (which I'm sure many people do now in this fast paced world). So exercising in my mind was something that would not only take time away from the things that I need to be doing or would rather be doing if I had the time.  I have since discovered that I can still multi task while exercising.  I just need a few things.

We all need good shoes,  a double stroller, bikes, a beautiful park and some good friends!!

Homeschooling my children also means that I need to make sure that they are educated about how to look after there bodies. I have been doing that with food,  sharing with them food that helps to heal and build our bodies, but hadn't done a lot in the way of teaching them to care for there bodies with physical exercise until recently.  I hadn't given it much thought, but now that I am, know how much they are loving being more active and they love being active with ME.

Now that I am moving out of the darkness and into Life, I want to enjoy as much of it as I can, and share it with my children.  So while I'm training to be able to run 5 kms, So are they. They just don't know it yet. Well maybe they do and they are just not letting on.

So how do I multi task and exercise?  I have walking dates!!!!!!



I love catching up with friends and sharing our lives together, and I want my friendships to be ones that help inspire, grow, encourage, support, and generally share our burdens.  There is nothing like chatting with a good friend to help the weights of life lift.  There is also something to be said about the positive effects that exercise has on not only our bodies but our minds also. Releasing endorphins and reducing our stress levels.

So I get together with several friends each week to walk and talk.

My children benefit from this as well, they will bring there bikes and ride or walk and talk with us, learning how to have positive relationships in there lives.  They also benefit from a family walking group I have started.  Where each week several families come together to walk and have a BBQ/Picnic Dinner together.

This is one of my favourite days. I love getting together with other families but our house is small, and I hate cleaning LOL. So we don't do it that often. However I done need to have the house perfect and organised to met friends at the park, I just need to throw some things in a bag and go. Which I love!!!

So we meet Every Monday from around 4ish and stay until it's cold. Oh and what great fun we have together chatting, walking, catching up of each others week, and eating. Monday's it's easy to get our children to bed because they have used up there energy playing and we all sleep well. Well mostly, we do still have little ones.



Now what about bad weather. Well yes that is always an issue and when it's raining our walking dates are cancelled but I have made a deal with myself that when a walking date is cancelled I will still walk. However I take that walk with another group of friends. They are my podcast friends :) I jump on the treadmill that I have at home in our garage, and I listen to some of my favourite speakers.  So I use that time to help me grow in my learning, while doing something positive for my body at the same time.

There are many obstacles that can hold us back from doing things that are beneficial for us, maybe see if you can rethink some of the issues, and make some changes for the better. They don't have to be huge. You can start small. Lots of small changes all add up to help make a big difference. Start your journey to becoming the person that you long to be, and if you are already there. Smell the Roses and Enjoy it!.

- Lots of Blessings,

Christina

HCG and My journey to health.

Hi Lovelies!

I want to share with you changes that I have made and are in the process of making for my life. Most of you would know that last year I came very close to dying when I delivered my last baby, Marcella. During that delivery I was on life support and was left very weak while my body recovered. I can honestly say that it took a good year to really get my groove back. During those 12 months I experienced some of the lowest emotional moments of my life. There is something to be said about not having control over your body and needing help with basic tasks as having a giant effect on your mental health- Especially as the primary care giver, and then almost needing to be the primary care receiver. My ability to breastfeed my new baby was gone, and my ability to have another baby was also gone. I was literally in a state of emotional breakdown. I wanted to just pass away. At this point my hormones where all over the place as well, contributing to my feelings of hopelessness. In the state of mind that I was in I started to medicate with chocolate and was literally eating myself to death. In my mind I thought it was a socially acceptable way to die.

I was already overweight when I came out of hospital, but filling my emotional holes with food added another 30 kgs to my already excess weight.

Thankfully as time went on, my hormones settled and my mind and body calmed, I was able to think more clearly and start getting back into life. At first I wanted to get back into GAPS to help us get back on track with healing both for my husband and myself, but I still was not in the right frame of mind to be able to do it well and consistently. SO thankfully in my weakened frame of mind, a friend shared with me about how she was using HCG to regain her health, which began my journey into looking at it more closely.

I have been following Cyndi O'Meara and Changing Habits for a many years. I have really enjoyed the research that she had done and respect her integrity quite a lot, so when I saw that she has a protocol it really started to get me thinking. I read that Phase 2 of the Diet was for 43 days. 43 days! I can do that! I was struggling with the idea of 2 years (at that point) but I saw 43 days as something that I could manage. The more I read the more I realised that this wasn't just about losing weight, but focused heavily on removing inflammation and looking at foods that help your body, instead of hindering it. That part was super important to me, because while I wanted to lose weight I've never just been about losing weight, but more focused on gaining health.

So I jumped in, did my reading, and got started.

.....and I'm very glad that I did.

At the start of my first round I was 140kg! and pushing a size 26, at the end of that round I had lost 10 cms from my hips and waists each, and dropped 12.5 kgs, in the 6 weeks. It wasn't really super easy, I had my hard days when I would go to bed early so I could get into the next day, but then I would wake up and jump on the scales and see it move in the right direction, and that would motivate me to keep going.

The change helped encourage me to get moving more too. I had been pondering the idea of being able to run a 5 km fun run. Now that I am a President of the Australian Chapter of the Hope for Accreta Foundation, I know somewhere down the track, being able to run 5kms will be useful. Also I would love to get out and be active with my children, camping, hiking, and do long bike ride trips. To do that, I want to know that I have the fitness behind me to get through it. So dropping that weight in the first round helped make the next step of getting active and increasing my fitness much easier.

SO here are my Before and After Pics from Round one.



Since then I have started my second round and in total I'm at 19.5kg lost, with another 2.5 weeks to go. Getting very close to my first 20 kgs mark! I hope to lose around another 60 kgs. But more than that, I'm looking forward to things that I will be able to do more and more as I lose more fat and gain more muscle, and gain more Life!.

Before starting University I was very active person, I was able to do the splits and do cartwheels. I would like to get back to that- Getting back to being able to trust myself and my body again. We aren't done with GAPS at all, we will still at least be doing advanced GAPS, High Fat-Low Carb in between rounds, to help with our overall general health and healing, Particularly for my husband who has now joined me on the HCG Journey.

Something else I want to mention about the HCG Protocol for me is that I have found it has really helped with my hormones. After Marcella's birth and the hysterectomy my body was really struggling to be in balance again, but within a week of starting HCG it was like they came back into alignment, Which was an added bonus that I didn't expect!

For the benefit of myself and others that would like to follow my journey, I have started Vlogging my journey, and sharing some of the reasons that I have started... here is one major one :)





So I look forward to sharing the rest of my journey to life with you. You can keep up to date with my journey on my Facebook page, From Life Support to Life.

If you are reading this and want to take a look for yourself and start the journey you can follow the Link below. I look forward to hearing from you.

Blessings, Christina.

Grain Free Salmon Fish Cakes

BY CHRISTINA · SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

This is one of my quick go to meals for my family, when I haven’t been organised to get something out of the freezer for dinner or I have left over fish, from our favourite family meals of pan fried salmon. This is Full GAPS Friendly, and Paleo.

Ingredients

400 grams Canned or pre-cooked salmon (Remove Bones)

1 TB – Your Inspirations At Home  - Herb and Garlic

1 TB – Your Inspirations At Home - Dill and Onion

2 TB – Coconut flour

1/4 tsp – Salt

2 eggs

1/4 a cup of Peas

1. Combine all ingredients together in a bowl and let sit for 10 – 15 mins.  I use this time to make a salad, and Avocado Mash.

2. Using either your hands or spoons, shape batter into patties,  I make mine the size of a heaped Soup spoon.

3. Shallow fry in the coconut oil, butter or ghee.

4. Turn when browned on one side.

5. Serve and enjoy.

* Serves 5 – I doubt the recipe for my family.

** I have used YIAH Herbs, you can use fresh or dried herbs of your choice, these ones work great for us.

Homeschool Journal Writing

BY CHRISTINA · AUGUST 5, 2014

I shared recently about writing to pen friends as one the ways we try to make writing fun, another tool we use is Journaling.  I have done this for the last few years. I have my children draw about activities that we have done during the week, or at our homeschool get together, and depending on there age, they dictate what they want to write, or when old enough write it themselves.  I don’t correct the spelling in this journal like I do there other forms of writing activities, because I want it to be a good record of their abilities, and something we can look over and see how they have grown over time.  I am also hoping to help them develop the skills of keeping a record of there lives, and will aim to journal most days as they get older and older.

This is an example from my 9 years journal, I let her choose the ones that she wanted share.

Do you have your children keep a journal? How to do work it for them?

- Christina

And the Winners Are.............

Last week I ran a giveaway for two great books both written by Lee Holmes. 

 So today with the help of my lovely assistant Isaac we now have our winners. 

The Winner of Supercharged Food is .....................

Anita Morgan

And the winner of this awesome ebook is ..............

Kerry Mcgugan 

Congratulations to Anita Morgan and Kerry Mcgugan for being today's winners. Contact me via email and I'll arrange to get those prizes to you. Email: thejoyofthehome@gmail.com

Guest Post – Michelle Vogrinec

BY CHRISTINA · AUGUST 1, 2014

Welcome to the blog, today we have a guest post from …….

Michelle  Vogrinec.

Michelle is a mum of 3 and the creator and founder of the baby product range GAIA Skin Naturals.   At home in the Dandenong Ranges Michelle is an avid researcher of preventive health and sustainable living. Passionate about the environment, she uses complimentary medicine and growths her own fresh, organic fruit and veggies to support her family and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Established in 2002,  GAIA Baby was born out of necessity after Michelle’s first child Joshua developed eczema when he was  just 8 weeks old. After consulting many doctors for a safe and effective solution and unsuccessfully trying numerous products on the market. Michelle concocted her own lotions made from natural organic ingredients.

Today Michelle is going to share on two of her products, and the benefits of baby massage.

I hope you enjoy. Here is Michelle.

“According to the International Association of Infant Massage, there is both research and anecdotal evidence from families which shows that there are many ways that babies and parents may benefit from infant massage.

The relaxation benefits are well known – from assisting with sleep patterns, increased flexibility and muscle tone to calming and reduction of stress, but what may be lesser known is that massage may assist in the relief of gas and colic, constipation, growing pains, teething and muscular cramps.

Infant massage may also stimulate baby’s circulatory and digestive systems, hormonal and immune systems, coordination and balance, learning and concentration, muscular development and growth and even their mind and body awareness – so you may find it an important part of maintaining your baby’s total wellbeing.

In addition to the physical benefits for the baby, interaction between parent and child during massage may promote bonding and secure attachment, verbal/non-verbal communication, development of trust and confidence, and feelings of love and being valued – for both parties! This can be a particularly special time for dads that are away at work all day or an intimate “time-out” for first-time mums struggling to adjust to the huge demands of 24/7 parenting.

Your midwife, maternal health nurse or medical professional can advise you on the best oil to use for your baby but I suggest that you definitely avoid using oils which are meant for adult use or adult massage – they are not suitable for babies. Choose an oil which is free from petrochemicals, mineral oil, and artificial fragrances or heavy scents. A natural edible plant-based oil, as recommended by the Infant Massage Association, is best.

Some of our mums who prefer not to use an oil at all use GAIA Natural Baby Moisturiser as a massage lotion.  The moisturising properties of shea butter, cocoa butter combined with nourishing organic oils make a lovely non-greasy alternative.

Of course, if an irritation occurs, stop using any product immediately and consult your medical professional.

You don’t have to be an expert in baby massage.   You and your baby can benefit simply by setting up the scene and using gentle touch, such as massaging moisturiser or massage oil into your baby’s arms, body and legs, then turn them over onto their tummy and massage your moisturiser or oil into their back. I recommend doing this after baby’s bath.

Another great time to offer infant massage is as part of baby’s bedtime routine.  After a warm bath with a moisturising soap-free wash (ideally one with calming oils like lavender, chamomile or ylang ylang), pop on some soothing music and spend a few minutes gently massaging your oil or moisturiser into their skin while telling a bedtime story and slowly getting them dressed.  This routine often helps them relax and prepare for a peaceful night’s sleep. 

Michelle massaging Max – her third son and “face” of GAIA Natural Baby

The GAIA Range can be found in most leading supermarkets, pharmacies, baby products stores, and health food shops.

Milk Kefir

Milk Kefir Recipe

Ingredients

4 cups of full cream milk of your choice, whatever is available to you,
Raw, Pasteurized, Homogenised - if that's all you have, Also Goats milk is another great option.
1 Tbs Milk Kefir Grains
A clean Jar (5 cups) with lid or cloth cover.

Method

Put your Grains in the Jar.
Fill a clean glass jar with 4 cups of fresh milk.
Stir gently with plastic or wooden spoon 2 or 3 times during culturing to move the grains through the milk.

Depending on the temperature of the day the kefir will be ready in 12 to 24 hours in the summer.
Winter could take up to 48 hours.
When ready the kefir will smell sour and the kefir grains float to the top of the milk. The milk will have thickened. Thickness will depend on the milk used and the length of time you leave the kefir to culture. You can culture for a longer time till the milk separates into curds and whey and then strain. Very beneficial culturing to this stage. Do not throw out curdled kefir milk. This is what it does. Stir gently to mix it up with the separated liquid and then strain, using the grains for a new batch of kefir.

These grains will multiply and you will have spare to share with family and friends.

You can use a plastic strainer (hard to find) or a good SS strainer. Do not use any other kind of metal in contact with the kefir as it will harm the kefir.
Hygiene is important as you’re working with a living organism.
Keep kefir out of the sun.
Never squeeze the grains to get all the milk out. (this will harm the kefir grains) Always keep the grains in milk.

If you care for your grains, making sure they have food, they will keep growing and you can have them for a life time.
If you wish to take a break from kefir, simple put feed them and then place them in the fridge, for up to two weeks.
Also you can feed them and put the in the freezer for longer storage.

Enjoy your Milk kefir with all it's wonderful benefits, and the many delights that can be made with it.