Sob Fest

     I am sitting here a weepy mess listening to the Bethel Live CD singing to the words, "More than the air I breathe, more than the song I sing, more than ANYTHING in this world, Lord I need you more." And I can honestly say that I am choosing, on one of the worst days I have had in a looong time, to praise Him and cry out to my comfort for His presence and His love to give me a really big hug. I am so broken. Maybe it is just hormones, maybe its the fact that I am neglecting my flesh and searching for something so much deeper than a food fix, maybe its because I have a two year old that refuses to listen to a word I say, and couldn't pee in a potty to save her life even though she IS potty trained, maybe its even that I stay home with no money and no friends and no car to get me anywhere all day every day and the most conversation I get most days is with Trinity about what snack she wants to what she is painting on her paper, or maybe if I wanted to face the facts, Jesus is beckoning me to Him and trying to dig something out of me that I need to be rid of. This cloud I am under moved in when I started reading this book by Beth Moore called 'So Long Insecurity, You've been A Bad Friend To Me.' The title explains itself, but I was in awe that by chapter two I was searching so deep inside my heart to go back to the root of my insecurities that it brought a lot of 'junk' to the surface. Praise the Lord that I am even acknowledging my flaws. I will spare you the details but lets just say I had no idea that the hurt and the rejection that sprouted the insecurities in my heart were so juvenile, yet legit, and they cut me deep. Funny how things in junior high and high school can still effect me even now when I am so far past that season of life. Yes, I have dealt with those things and have journaled, and repented, and forgiven, but my heart is raw and vulnerable. (I highly recommend that book, just FYI!)
     I am almost embarassed to admit that lately, today especially, that I questioned what my purpose is in life and why there is no excitement in what I do. I stay at home with my girls. Mind you I would never ever trade being with them for working or anything of the sort, but day after day with nothing to do, nowhere to be, and no money to go play with, I get bored. I feel the wave of depression moving in and as hard as I fight it, it always takes me under. No, I won't turn my back on or blame God for where I am at, because I know in my hurting and lonely heart that I am exactly where I need to be. Ever since I was a little girl, I have never imagined doing anything other than raising my babies. Mind you, when all my kids are in school, I will return to the college life and become an RN midwife, but thats years from now. I just feel like I am missing out on something. Then again, my greatest calling in life from the moment my Trinity Grace was conceived was to be a mother that nurtures my girls and trains them up to love the Lord and further His kingdom. My heart aches with love for them and I pray on a daily basis that they never lose sight of who they are and through me, they can learn to be that Proverbs 31 woman that makes an impact with their purity and joyful Spirits. See? I think I just talked myself out of my funk. There has been a million other things go wrong today, including dog bites, and backed up toilets full of crap, but in the scheme of life, they are so insignificant and there are so many other important things to focus on. I know deep inside that EVERYTHING will work out for the good because I love my God and want nothing more than seek Him and to be more like Him and in return He will bless that.
     A little something that I am praying about that I feel stirring in my heart is some little creative thing for me to do from home to make a little money to help pay at least one of the bills. I am still waiting and seeking because I have NO clue what this is going to look like or what it is going to be, but I know its there in my heart for a reason. I have no desire to work and have something take away from my time with my babies, but I KNOW its there.
     On a completely different note, tomorrow starts the beginning of my very own eating schedule. I am retarded enough to need something written on paper to tell me exactly what I need to eat from breakfast to a before bed snack when my stomach feels like it is eating itself. 10 days on, 1 day off and so on is my plan, and I even managed to get my hubby on board with this. I need support, and someone to tell me no when I reach for the cinnamon rolls or Oreos for 'just a bite' :) I am getting desperate for that shopping spree that is promised to me as soon as I reach that 140lb mark. (that seems sooo stinkin far away at this point). Winter is coming and I don't have any clothes to cover my chubby arms and legs and I will not buy any until they are no longer chubbs. I know I am not the only one out there that needs an idiot proof diet to teach me a lifelong lesson on health so don't you dare shame me. Sure, this would be so much easier if I was not breast feeding and forced to eat enough calories to make good and healthy milk for Mercy. If I wanted to, I could put her on formula, and in 40 days on the HCG shots and 500 calories a day I could be my skinny self again, but who wants something that easy? Geeze... I SURE DO! But its not gonna happen because I make it a goal to breast feed my babies for at least a year if not more for their benefit. Forget what I want :) Just as God has my best interest at heart, as do I for my children. So in approximately 7 or 8 months depending on the circumstances, after I have lost all my weight, and I WILL lose all my weight by then, I have decided I will do the HCG shots to rid my body of the yucky brown fat and retrain my metabolism and body to complete health.
     Yes, I am still gluten free and trying really hard to be sugar free. It is definately NOT that hard to do, the gluten free part that is. Ill get back to you on the whole sugar free thing. So along with this new eating plan, I will be doing intense weights and cardio to further my results. Ouch.

Menu for tomorrow:
Day 1) Eggs w/ fruit
Yogurt w/ flax seed
Salad
Fruit Salad
Steak & asparagus

Time Consuming Distractions

     Why is it that even a lifestyle of healthy eating is so difficult to maintain? Why can it not just come natural to me? I am asking the same question about my walk with the Lord. Why is it that so many other things can seem so important and needed and part of my daily schedule, but I cannot find 15 to 30 minutes at the end, or even beginning of my day to just sit and soak in His word. Sure, Misty Edwards and other worship CDs play almost constantly in my home as I tend to my babies, but that cannot be it. My heart aches to know more about the Lord and to seek out who I am as a woman and how to be more like His girl that I KNOW He has called me to be in the Kingdom. The only place I can find that is in the Word. DUH. Cool story as proof that the Lord really is at work and is speaking loud and clear, IF you sit tight and listen for him. I had a word spoken over me a couple of weeks ago that confirmed a desire that has been in my heart for years now. I have held on to the hopes that I would some day get to experience this, and my spiritual momma spoke this over me. Not even two days after she told me what the Lord wanted to do with me, He so blatantly confirmed His words. I do not want to go into intense details because it was so intimate for me,  but a little peak of what He spoke to me was that I was to begin writing,(hence me starting a blog, gotta start somewhere right?). I am a worshipper, I have been called since a little girl to sing and worship, but along with that I have desired to write love songs to my Jesus but I did not ever know where to start. Now I do.  His love song to us is His word, so why not look to the most beautiful writer for some tips. ;)
     On a completely different note, I cheated this weekend. On my diet that is. I definately went to the fair, but I won't dare tell you what I ate. My goodness. One thing I was proud of though is that because I have been away from fried food and unhealthy things for so long that the food for some reason did not taste as good as what I had remembered. Hm. Funny how that works. I know I started out this blog saying why can it not just be a natural lifestyle, but I think I have made progress! If those things do not even taste good, and I never crave them, then something must be changing, or perhaps I am just learning what self control is. I am also learning that the consequences of getting off my "eating plan" far outweigh the enjoyment at the time. Seriously, how much gas can a poor girl have?! Poor Mercy even has to reap the benefits of my splurge. Not cool momma.
     I watched part of Food Inc. again with my mom the other day, and can I just say, that I have made up my mind that I want to be a farmer girl and raise my own cattle and grow my own vegetables! I mean come on! The food industry is INSANE. I am in serious disbelief of how much they control. It is actually disturbing. And speaking of disturbing: fact, because feed lots are so jam packed full of cattle that are up to their knees in manure, ecoli is so infested in these cows that slaughter houses have to run our meat, that we put in our mouths and feed to our children, through ammonia to kill off all the bacteria. Now don't you dare criticize me and tell me that I am trying to be a vegetarian and that this document was written by vegans because I really like me some steak. I was raised in Texas and have grown up on beef my whole life and I do not plan on not eating it, I am just gonna seriously think twice about buying meat from the grocery store that is not organic, all natural, and grass fed beef. The biggest fight that I wanna start right now is why are we not supporting our local farmers markets and organic products in the grocery stores? I know, it is more expensive to purchase organic, but if enough people started demanding and buying organic products the costs would go down. This is America people, supply and demand. It is not a hard concept to understand. We will either pay now for healthy food or pay later at the doctor for medications and surgeries because our bodies cannot handle what we are shoving in them. One of the opening statements on Food Inc. is, "The food industry has changed more in the past 50 years than it has in the last 5000 years." Disgusting much? I know this may sound harsh, but I am so tired of people so threatened by being healthy saying well we(Americans, grandparents, great grandparents) have been eating like this for years and have survived. This is said by people that live on medications and continue to chow down on anything and everything they want. Something is not working! My grandpa Biehler died at the age of 66 from a heart attack. Lord bless my grandpa and I loved him very much but that man never ate a healthy thing in his whole life. I know at the age of 66, I would rather be a kickin grandma that can still play with my great grandchildren and really LIVE. Life is fragile and God tells us in His word that our bodies are His temple and that we are to take care of it, physically and spiritually.
     Food diary for today, lunch was mixed greens with tomatoes and almonds with a new dressing that my sweet friend Jenny Brooks gave me the recipe for. Olive oil, fresh lemon, lime, italian seasoning, sea salt and pepper. Season to taste. YUMMM!
For dinner I made asparagus drizzled with coconut oil and sprinkled with garlic salt and then some fresh parmesan and then baked for however long it takes to get it to however done you want. Along with some steamed carrots and turkey meatballs that I mixed with some mozzerella and Janes MixUp Salt. I was greatly impressed.
     I am still just a girl on a journey of getting healthy. Its funny how I have been craving knowledge of health, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually.

:)

Oof

      Definitely not gonna lie, today has been really rough. Do you ever have those days when you are eating healthy that you just wanna eat the walls off of your house? Well today is that day for me and luckily I didn't have any crap food sitting around to fulfill my badness. Now that the babies are in bed, hubby is at his soccer game, and the house is quiet, the Lord is taking me to a place of questioning why I want to run to food when I have an off day and can't quite pinpoint what is really driving me to eat. Why is it that food turns into a drug for me and for many, many, many people? My mom and her friend have recently been on this journey of learning what dopamine really is and why people stray from where we should really be getting our fix from. It starts when we are babies with our mothers when we nurse. Have you ever stopped for two seconds to focus on your babies face while she/he is nursing to see pure delight? My Mercy has been a pure testimony of what a dopamine fix should really be. There are some days that I cannot get her to nurse because she is so giddy and delighted to see me that all she can do is laugh. I think Jesus longs for us to look at Him, even in the midst of our bad days and just laugh with Him and smile with the joy of knowing  He is so good, and merciful, and just, and beautiful. Why would we turn to food, or music, or movies for comfort when HE is the ultimate comfort? I know this is so far fetched for some, but it is so real for me in my "journey to becoming healthy" because I am having to look to a new source to be content with myself and with my life, not FOOD.
     On a different note, I have decided you can turn just about any meal into a gluten free one. Thad and I had fajitas tonight and while I could have thrown everything into a tortilla, like I so wanted to do, I just got me some beans, guacamole, fajita meat and hot sauce and sprinkled it all with some cheese and ate it that way. YUM! I do understand that the best part of fajitas is the tortilla, especially if you are at Rosas, mmmm. But I did it, gluten free, and my belly was happy and full of food and gas :) The same goes with like burgers or sandwiches of some sort. Axe the bread people, it can be done.
    The last thing that I have learned today is that being a mom of two can possibly make a work-out schedule impossible to stick with. I generally try to do Biggest Loser bootcamp which uses weights and does like a million squats, 3 or 4 times a week, because we all know muscle speeds up metabolism and a speedy metabolism allows you to eat whatever you want. LoL I'm so kidding. But muscle really does help to lose weight and be fit and toned more so than just strictly cardio or running and such. The other days, I try to do some sort of cardio, and I am working on focusing on abs to burn off that baby belly that I and the mirror despise so much...
Back to my point. I learned today that it is not about beating yourself up if you don't get to do the workout you intended to do, as long as you try to stay active during the day with the babies. Today I chose to take a nap with the girls in the afternoon instead of working out like I normally do so tonight I loaded the girls up in the stroller and went and circled the park a few times. Just FYI, if you suck in your stomach and hold your core tight, even walking can make you feel firm and sore :) yippee!! Shoot, try sucking in and holding your core tight while you sit here and read this and look at Facebook and you will start to notice a little burn.
I am not perfect, nor do I know all of the answers, but I can say that getting healthy from the inside out can give you an entirely new outlook on life. Eating junk food, will not make you feel better. Heck, eating healthy food cannot make you happy. But seeking your dopamine fix in the Lord is where you find true peace. Today is the national day of peace. I'm not looking for the hippie kind of love and peace that today is probably intended to represent, I am looking for that perfect peace that passes all understanding, and tonight as I sit in silence listening to Kim Walker singing Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, I truly feel at peace in my heart, body, soul, and mind.

P.S- tomorrow is See You At The Pole. I know I am not in high school anymore but I do know that in the morning when I wake up, I can pray for our schools, that God be brought back in and that there be a radical impact and movement on students that are looking for a Saviour to rescue them. What if kids started praying and doing Bible studies and worship meetings instead of partying?

Lets Be Honest

     Lets be real here. I love to eat, I know what good food is and I have the perfect body to prove how much I love to eat bread, pasta, chips, beer, and all those yummy things.  I also have enough gas, bloating and snot to last a person a lifetime.

     I have recently discovered that my two babies and I have yeast infections. And if you did not think so before, let me assure you that this is a problem. Mercy has had thrush since she was two weeks old, and Trinity has recently showed discomfort and told me about it. I could just run to the doctor and get a prescription and be done with it within a couple of days, but I like to go a little deeper than that. I want to treat the cause, not just the symptom. And I would like to lose a little (LOT) of weight doing so.

     And so begins my journey to a gluten free diet, not just for me but for my girls. If you do not think this is any big deal, try going three days without any sort of food or drink with wheat or sugar in it and then come talk to me. It’s stinkin impossible! Or so I thought. I am discovering an entirely new world of food. Fruits and veggies are realllllly good, if you don’t have any other options. Gluten free pretzels, in the gluten free section at United in a red bag, rock! Seriously, dip them in hummus and your belly can be tickled with health, not to mention a little extra protein.

     I have been at this for a week and a day now and I have to say I am 12 lbs lighter and feeling great. I hardly have any gas J praise the Lord and if I do it is due to me eating broccoli or something, my clothes fit better, and I have more energy because I am eating things that give a real energy boost without a crash 30 minutes later. I am also excited because Mercy’s thrush is almost gone! Gluten and sugar feed yeast and make it thrive, so I have the girls and myself on colostrum(in powder form) and a probiotic 2 or 3 times a day. Yes, you read correctly. Colostrum is a natural yeast fighter, it may be a little pricey but it is no different than paying for a doctor’s visit and a prescription. I have also recently learned that coconut oil is a natural yeast fighter, so I drizzle some on at least 2 of our meals a day. Hurray for natural things that God initially intended for us to use!

     I am writing this blog to keep track of my progress and to maybe help others out that would like to put a halt to unhealthy eating habits, but that may not know how to go about doing so. My quest is not just about being gluten and sugar free, but about learning a whole new lifestyle to pass on to my kids so that they will grow up healthy and strong, not obese and at the doctor all the time for meds.

Starting weight: 180lbs :/

Currently weighing: 168lbs

Goal weight: 137lbs

Yummy recipe for dinner: Beef/Chicken and Veggie stirfry

Thin cut sirloin/chicken, Kikkomans Stirfry sauce, carrots, snap peas, broccoli, green beans, and any other veggie you prefer. Brown rice or whole grain rice is optional if you need more filler.

Yummy snacks that I have discovered so far:

Glutino Gluten free pretzels

Hummus

Light Piemento cheese with gluten free crackers

Larabars (found at United made without preservatives and entirely of fruit and nuts)

Cottage cheese (good for the tummy)

Greek yogurt with any kind of fresh fruit

FRUIT

VEGETABLES (dipped in Ranch J)