The Final Frontier

Well, today is the last day of the detox part of the Daniel Plan way of eating we've started.  For 10 days now, we've had no sugar at all except for the natural sugar in our fruit, nothing processed, no dairy, and no wheat or gluten of any kind.  If I am being totally honest, I will admit that the first 2 days were hard for me.  I think it was more of a mental thing.  I would cringe when I would see a McDonald's commercial because I wanted it and I NEVER eat at McDonald's!!!  I think it was the whole "you want what you can't have" mentality.  I prayed a lot that God would give me HIS strength to do this because I really, truly wanted to make this lifestyle change.  My mom and one of her sisters have been having some scary heart issues lately and have been doing all kinds of tests and seeing a cardiologist. While some of the stuff is hereditary, I knew that really paying attention to everything that goes into my body would help me avoid a lot of health issues down the road.  This was our main motivation in doing this: to feel better and be healthier.  It is also really important for us to instill this way of living in Brian and Hudson.

So here I am.  10 days into this new life and completely detoxed :)  I feel great.  I used to wake up every morning with a sort of "heaviness"- mental, physical and emotional.  That is really the only way I know how to explain it.  I would be more tired and less motivated some days when I woke up than when I went to bed.  I hated it.  I have always tried to cook really healthy, but I never really looked into every single thing that we consumed.  And when I learned how to do that, it was pretty scary to me.  Over the past 10 days, I have had quite a few symptoms from detoxing; insomnia, aching, headaches.  But then around day 5 I started feeling a way that I hadn't felt in years- clear- headed, energized, rested. My skin was softer and the swelling I have a lot in my legs was gone, too. Anything that I thought was difficult about this has been 100% worth it.  Even though the detox is over, this plan is going to keep going the way it has with the exception of getting to have some dairy (natural cheese, yogurt) and natural sugar (honey, agave, coconut sugar).  I am more than ready to add those things in occasionally.  Oh, cheese, how I've missed you!

Now I'm really going to get honest. The one thing that has made this different for me is that my main motivation for doing this has not been to lose weight.  For my entire adult life, I have struggled a lot with body image.  I can't tell you where it came from or exactly when it started, but it has been something that I have to actively fight all the time.  I know of things that have contributed to me feeling this way, but not why it caused it to become such a focus for me.  I have always been so negative about my physical appearance.  It is like I see a completely different version of myself when I look in the mirror.  It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that if I don't have my mom or Wes around when I buy clothes, I will always buy everything one or two sizes bigger than I actually am because I truly think that is what size I need.  I still try to do that sometimes and Wes calls me out on it.  I always would think "if I could lose just 20 pounds, I would be completely happy with my weight."  But that wasn't really true.

Back in late 2010, I went on the HCG diet under direction of my doctor.  While I wasn't really a lot over my healthy weight, my doctor thought it would reset my system and help me to lose the weight that I had been trying to on my own.  He also thought it might allow me to reduce my blood pressure medication.  I have had extremely high blood pressure since age 22.  I have done every test possible to find the cause and they were all inconclusive.  My goal for the HCG diet was to lose 20 pounds.  Then I would be at what doctors call your "ideal weight" for my height.  I dropped 22 pounds in a month.  It was NOT easy.  All I had was 500 calories a day.  I think because it was so difficult for me, that is why 3 years later I have not gained a pound back.  I was really proud f myself for doing it and I was able to cut back on my medication.  However, deep down MY main reason for doing it wasn't for my health.  It was to lose weight and look better.  And even after losing 22 pounds which I thought was all I wanted, I  wanted to lose more.  It was almost like an obsession for me.  I tried to do another round of HCG on my own but my body would not budge from the weight I had gotten to before.  My doctor said when your body reaches its ideal weight, it likes to stay there.  The 2nd round of the diet was just making me weak and moody, so I stopped.  But I still weighed myself almost daily because I refused to gain a single pound over what I was. 

When I got pregnant with Hudson, I had a little anxiety about gaining weight.  I was really, really healthy with my pregnancy with Brian and only gained 15 pounds.  I wanted to be healthy for Hudson, too.  I was a lot more relaxed about what I ate with Hudson and allowed myself to have a lot of treats (sweets) but still only gained about 20 pounds.  After Huddie was born and was so sick, I literally dropped every single pound of baby weight within a week of having him.  I was just sick with worry and hardly ate at all.  I have stayed at that same weight since.  Like I said, my body likes it I guess. Now, most days I don't even think about my weight or the scale, but there are some days when I "feel" fat or get the urge to step on the scale and I have to fight back with the knowledge that my weight isn't who I am.  And that can be so hard sometimes.  It is a process that gets easier as time goes by.

Even though I know that we will probably lose some weight with this new way of eating, for the first time that is NOT what I'm focused on.  And I truly think that is one reason that has made such a difference in the way I've felt.  I would be lying if I said that losing a few pounds wouldn't be great.  But I am not obsessing over the scale anymore.  I am judging my success more on how good I feel.  The weight is just a bonus to me.  For the first time in my life, I am tracking calories to make sure I get enough of what I need instead of as a warning to eat less.  And I like that I can eat whenever I want because I know everything that I put in my mouth is going to be good for me, not something I'll regret later.    I honestly think I can keep this up for a lifetime.  Are there going to be some days every once in a while where we go out to eat with friends and we don't eat so clean? Sure.  Is there going to be a time when Brian wants to make cupcakes and I eat one?  Sure.  Are we going to go on vacation and eat what we want? Sure.  But what is different this time is that it isn't going to be the norm for us.  It will truly be a treat. And not a constant occurrence.

I'm not one to preach at people about their weight or their eating habits.  But if you are looking to feel better, please look into clean eating. Google it if you don't know what it is.  It doesn't have to be changing everything all at once like we did.  It can be that you replace one thing you eat a week.  And it doesn't have to be "The Daniel Plan" you follow.  There are so many free clean eating resources on the web that you could do it without buying any kind of book.  But it will be worth it.  It will completely change the way you look at food and yourself.  The Daniel Plan has helped me connect my physical health with my walk with God and that was the missing link in all my eating endeavors before.  I was doing it for purely selfish, superficial reasons.  This time, I am learning that it is my responsibility as a child of God to take care of my body because it is His temple.  I have not always honored God with my body.  I have not always taken care of it like I should have. And THAT is my motivation this time. With more energy and being healthy, I can be a better mom, wife, daughter and friend. 

A New Way of Eating

As a family, we decided to get healthier this new year.  Not to lose weight (although that is a nice bonus) but just to focus on our health and feel better.  We didn't really eat unhealthy to begin with, but we still had things in our diet that when it came down to it was just junk.  We also liked to eat out on the weekends.  We were pretty good at eating in moderation, but I started looking closely at labels and I was shocked.  A lot of things that you would think are supposed to be healthy really aren't.  For example, Hudson had some organic veggie crackers.  I looked at the ingredients after I started reading Rick Warren's "The Daniel Plan" book and I noticed that those "healthy" crackers had over 15 ingredients in them!  Some I couldn't even pronounce.  I started looking at all our labels and noticed that a lot of things have those kinds of ingredients.  I love to cook and I cook a lot from scratch, but even so, a lot of staple foods can have all that fake stuff if you aren't careful.  Another example is when I went to the store to buy corn tortillas, there was only ONE brand that had corn, lime and water as the ingredients.  Some of them had 10 weird ingredients! I started to really feel strongly about all these additives being bad for me.  Maybe that was contributing to me waking up every morning and still feeling tired. Or having a heavy feeling in my body.  Or all the headaches I have.  I could list more and more- muscle aches, bloating, canker sores.  I know a lot of my health issues were from me following the gluten-free diet I am supposed to be doing very lightly.  And by that, I mean eating something if I wanted it regardless of if it contained gluten or not.  I was very bad about that.  I didn't do it every day, but since I have been diagnosed with Celiac Disease after a biopsy, it is something that I shouldn't do at all.  Wes was on board with changing the way we eat too, so we decided to do it as a family.  I was pretty positive about staying off gluten this time since my entire family was going to do it with me.

Yesterday was our first day.  I had completely cleaned out my pantry and got rid of anything with junk (I was pretty excited that there were only two sacks full of it!).  Another part of the Daniel Plan is eliminating ALL sugar except natural sugar like raw honey or agave.  So out went all my baking supplies except my gluten-free flour.  I am not a doctor, but from what I have read, gluten isn't good for anyone, whether you have celiac disease or not.  So I am excited to get my kids gluten-free too.  We felt really good yesterday; didn't have any intense cravings or hunger, plenty of energy and motivation.  We had cage free scrambled eggs and fruit for breakfast, I made up a chicken fajita bowl for lunch (it was great!) with shredded chicken, black beans, bell peppers, quinoa and brown rice and Mexican seasonings.  For dinner we had thin pork chops with broccoli and mashed potatoes made with the homemade chicken stock that I had from our chicken from lunch.  I made lots of snack baggies of pre-measured almonds, cashews and raisins so if we started to get hungry, we'd have a snack right there.

I am starting to feel the effects of my body letting go of all that junk today.  Last night, I couldn't sleep at all.  I felt jittery.  And today I have felt very foggy and tired.  I know this is just my body's way of handling me getting rid of all the stuff that I have been eating for years and years.  I will be glad when this part is over!!!

Today, I had one serving of steel cut oats with a banana for breakfast.  For a snack I had some roasted almonds.  Lunch, I made guacamole and made my own baked chips with 2 corn tortillas in the oven.  We are having salmon for dinner.  I really haven't been starving yet which is surprising.  I guess it really is true that if you eat the right things, you stay full!

I know a lot of people are doing this plan too or one similar.  A lot of people start the new year off trying to be healthier.  I hope our journey helps!  Please share what you are doing!  It makes it so much easier to do this with others.