#WellnessWednesday – A Spoonful of Honey is Sweet in Many Ways

I started reading about the benefits of honey and decided I’d try it! Every couple of days I take a spoonful of local raw honey straight up or mix it in with my Greek yogurt and fruit. I’ve got a sweet tooth so it’s a welcome blessing, but honey has a number of health benefits like:

    1. Providing you energy for a workout
    2. Regulating blood sugar levels
    3. Immunity system booster
    4. Sleep aid
    5. Aids in wound healing
    6. Create resistance to local allergans (use local raw honey for this!)
    7. Soothe acid reflux
    8. Sooth sore throats and coughs
    9. Boost memory
    10. Anti-cancer (unlike regular sugars)

Thanks to Dailylifestyles.com, simplyhealth.io, and webmd for their input on the possible health benefits of honey.
health benefits of honey

Original Honey Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Slow Cooker Roast Pork #FoodieFriday

With the winter weather the other day, we had to stay home and shovel snow. Since I was home, I wanted to put together something warm and tasty for that night’s supper and hauled out the Crockpot. This was also another cleaning out the fridge meal and what I had on hand was a pork loin roast, so that’s what I decided to cook. After a visit to Pinterest, I adapted one of the recipes for you!

Ingredients

3-4 pound pork loin roast
1 apple thinly sliced
1 orange sectioned and sliced
2 large onions sliced
1 cup teriyaki sauce
1/2 cup honey
2 cloves finely minced garlic

Directions

I didn’t cook my onions first, but I really think you should. The dish will be that much more sweeter and full of goodness. Otherwise, here’s what to do:

Take the pork roast and cut slits about one inch apart. Place a slice of orange and one of apple in each slit.

Layer the slow cooker as follows:

All the onions. Half of the remaining apples. The pork roast you sliced and filled. Sprinkle the garlic over the pork roast and nstle the rest of the apples around the roast. Mix the teriyaki sauce and the honey and spoon this over the pork roast.

Cook on high for 6 -8 hours until tender. Serve with rice and/or vegetables! That’s it! Hope you all have a good weekend!

PorkRoast

Honey Cinnamon Roasted Chick Peas #Recipe #Healthy

Before we get to today’s recipe, please take a moment to visit with me at my Smartgirls SciFi interview and a spotlight at Books a la Mode!

Now for the recipe, kind of. My friends and I were chatting about diets in general and to be honest, it’s more about a lifestyle change and not just a diet. You go off diets and then you have that rebound that I’ve done more times than I care to think about.

So this time I am committing to a change that will be more permanent. I’ve almost eliminated soda from my life. I limit myself to one a day. I’m drinking more water and watching my carbs. I went off a bit this weekend and all I could think about on Monday were bagels, muffins, donuts and all those things that I know do not sit well with me.

I’m also trying to deal with cholesterol that’s a little too high and that prompted a discussion of honey and cinnamon. Apparently this combination has been touted as a cleanse, but apparently the two can also help lower your cholesterol.

So I’ve been having both in my coffee and oatmeal, but I thought I’d search out a fun way to combine these two! Lucky for you I found an interesting recipe for Honey Cinnamon Roasted Chick Peas!

Thanks to The Pastry Affair for the recipe. I can’t wait to try it out this weekend since I think I’ve got a can of chick peas sitting around. I usually use them to make hummus, but this sounds far tastier!

Tuesday Tip – Weight Loss Progress & Tricks

Both my husband and I used to say, give us good bread, tasty cheese and a yummy bottle of wine and we’d be set for life.

The truth is, we’ve found that only two of the three have been good for us — the dairy and wine part. The carbs, not so good.

In our desire to pursue a healthier lifestyle and control our weight, cholesterol, etc. we’ve been decidedly better at choosing what to eat, namely, lower fat dairy, lean meats, more vegetables and fruits and the occasional glass of red wine (and yes, I know 100% grape juice has the same benefits!)

But when it came to weight loss, the one sure thing that helped and also reduced our belly fat — lowering our carbohydrate intake. We haven’t totally eliminated it, but we are much more conscious of eating high fiber, whole grain, low calorie carbohydrate products.

Of course, each person’s metabolism is different, so it’s a give and take to find out what works best for you. To help you, here are some more tips for you to consider.

Chocolate milk is a wonderful choice. I had hubby substitute it for those expensive high protein supplements and not only is it working, it’s natural! You can read more about the health benefits of milk by clicking here.

Substitute tea and iced tea for coffee or soda. Tea is packed with antioxidants and the polyphenols in tea can help ward off cancer and diabetes while providing a gentle boost of energy. Just make sure not to steep the tea too long to avoid releasing tannins which can cause stomach upset and constipation. Here’s more on the benefits of tea in your diet!

Use honey in your tea or for your other sweetening needs. Honey is one of nature’s wonder products and you can find out more about the health benefits of honey here. I had tried using agave nectar and found it quite sweet. In retrospect, and beyond all the hype about its wonders, I’m starting to hear a lot of negative things about agave nectar. So, if you’ve got diabetes or problems with your tri-glycerides, you may want to avoid it.

In my case, I had reached a plateau where I was stuck at a certain weight. No matter what I did eating wise, I could not get that scale to budge which I have to do for health reasons and not for vanity’s sake. The solution for me — increasing my weight training by adding more weight and increasing the work during my aerobic workout by likewise adding resistance. Both helped me bust through a plateau! I’ve lost 13 pounds and am looking to keep on losing until I am a recommended weight for my height.

You can read some other tricks for busting through a plateau by clicking on this link!

I hope you found this Tuesday Tip helpful! I’ll keep you posted on my progress and if you’ve got any suggestions of your own about losing weight and getting healthier, please share them in the comments section. And as always, check with your doctor about what you can and can’t do in terms of diet and exercise.