Second Year Slump

It's been over two years of Eating to Live. I haven't blogged since a year ago. Much of the reason is that I hit a slump and didn't want to acknowledge it! My first year, I didn't 'taste' anything that wasn't purely Eat to Live. I wish I could say that for the second year. I also stopped exercising. Both those together caused me to gain 30 pounds! Yikes! My take-away from this slump year is that I need to be faithful to this lifestyle. I have soooo much energy if I'm faithful, and my mood is superior. I fall into a negative, depressed attitude if I 'taste' sugary desserts.

The other habit I had returned to, was FEAR. Fear of being hungry and not having food. (Goes back to childhood issues). So, I'd overeat on the good stuff, have a big chocolate (Eat to Live) smoothie AND a BIG bowl of (Eat to Live) oatmeal. Then I'd wait until I was hungry (most of the time) and eat too much again. That on top of my 'tasting' and not exercising is what caused me to pack on the pounds. My energy went way down and I was getting into negative self-talk because I felt like I was slipping down a horrible slope into my morbid obesity again. I couldn't fathom having to wake up each morning (again!!) with over a hundred pounds to lose! That's not to say that if you have 100 or more to lose, you should be depressed and down-trodden, NO, do the journey and learn from those of us that have goofed it up, and don't look back, work on your 'stuff', childhood issues, fears and feelings of failure, so that you can arrest the negative when it rears it's ugly head.

I'm so thankful that I caught it relatively early and I'm doing everything that I was doing in the first year. I signed up for a 10k to keep my running motivation high and I'm doing yoga at least twice a week. I'm making yummy recipes that I look forward to. My sweet friend has joined me on this journey and we are each making a soup or other food item and sharing with each other once a week. (Food not made by yourself tastes so good!) That keeps me accountable and excited to make yummy food. I'll have a list at the end of this post of some of the things I've been eating. The other thing I'm really working on, is having a good solid breakfast that sets me up right for the day, filling, and tasty. I make sure I listen to my body and stop before I'm super full. I don't drink during the meal, so I make sure that I haven't filled my stomach too much that I can't drink a good glass of water when I'm done.

My mood is unheard of good. My poop is great (TMI:)) and my energy is insane! I'm so thankful, because that is what is keeping me motivated to keep it up. I'm always amazed at how well life flows when I eat the way I'm designed to.

I'm super excited to be back to blogging and sharing in my journey, I sincerely hope that whoever reads this will feel the nudge to join me Eating to Live :)

Feel free to join me on my third year of this journey by subscribing to my blog :)

Recipe Links...
Lentil Soup (this is one my friend shared with me, sooo good)
Happy Herbivore Cookbook: Garden Chowder
Roasted Red Pepper Dressing
Red Beans and Rice
**I do NOT do affiliate links. Any links are for your convenience ONLY**

Being Skinny Hurts

I'm sitting here on the eve of my 1 year mark of living a whole foods, plant based life with no sugar, salt or oil. I'm also sobbing and feeling feelings that have not been felt in a long time. I was raped when I was barely 14 on December 29th. I'm 40 years old now and can go back to that place in seconds of being scared to death and knowing that my life had just ended. I knew I would never be the same and I wasn't. What does all this have to do with getting healthy? Well, my drug of sugar and overeating is gone and this looming anniversary is actually being felt this year.

The holiday season is hard, but this year has been even more so. It all came crashing down on me tonight as to why it's been so much harder. I have no crutches. I have no euphoria to delve into. There are no brownies or chocolate candies to help me sail through. I have to feel the yuck. I have to look at my daughter and grieve for myself as she nears the age that I was when a guy took what was not his. I have to be sad and cry.

BUT God is so good. Tonight I went to the back of the house, to be alone. I've been really OCD lately and needing everything clean and in it's place. I've wanted to re-organize. Well, I turned on my iPod to listen to Mercy Me and organize our school room. Their new album is called 'Welcome to the New'. How fitting is that...I'm living a new life. The song that hit me like a ton of bricks is 'Finish What He Started'. He is faithful to complete the good work he has started in my life with my husband and my kids and the softening of my heart that He created. He will complete the healing that He started 5 years ago when I went to therapy for this event. He has led me down this path of  healing in my body and He will continue with me down this path to emotional healing.

So I sit here, looking at my size 8 pants and cry. And I know that tomorrow I'll still be a size 8 and still eat healthy and if I need to cry tomorrow, I will. I stand on the promise that He will complete this work in me and next year I will be stronger, and if I'm not, I'll still be a size 8 (or smaller) and cry and that will be ok.

I was not the same after that night, but I wouldn't be the person today if it wasn't for that event. And I can honestly say that I like who God has made me. God is bigger than that guy's sin and I'm trying to live my life to show that.

**I'm praying that whoever has a story similar to mine will join me in grieving for the loss and just cry. He can repair those hurts, I'm counting on it! Let the tears flow!!

Being Sad

I've had food issues for as far as I can remember. My mom was always on some diet or another. She went (what seemed like years) drinking a diet shake for dinner. I was on 'The Rice Diet', 'The 3-Day Diet', 'The Grapefruit Diet' all before the 5th grade.  I remember sneaking junk food. A couple of times a year I would stay at a friends house and do you know the snack that was served when we got home from school?? It was an apple.  I thought I'd die until dinner. Looking back, I can see why that friend never had a weight issue and hasn't since. Things were a bit out of whack in other areas too. Which leads me to my revelation....I don't know how to be sad. I've used food to help me feel better for so many years, that I've not had to be truly sad ever! In my teen years, I used drugs and alcohol and other things. I've always covered up any yucky feelings and looking back, I've had a lot of yucky feelings for a very long time.

For about three years now, as soon as November hits, I just want to climb into a hole and not come out until January. I love my husband and kids and they give me so much joy, but there are some people that I have to see during the holidays that just zap away my feelings of joy. I'm determined this year to make this season better than last year and next year will be better than this year until I reach a point where I'm ok :) So this year November hit and I cowered in my corner and tried to figure out how to get through the next months without hurting my husband or kids. Talking to my husband has helped tremendously, but he is human and can only do so much. I'm working on coming up with a plan so that I can smile. One thing I'm being conscious of is when the negative thoughts come into my head about seeing certain people, I immediately replace it with my kids beaming faces on Christmas day and tell myself that they are my truth and that nothing that these other people say or do can take away the truth that I'm a good, loving mom and wife. I'm putting together a list of things that are my God-given qualities that make me who I am. I need a tangible list in front of me for when lies get spewed at me that I can look and say, 'No, I'm a nice person.' or 'No, I'm a gentle person.'

This all sounds like a dismal situation and you might be saying, 'Well, just don't see those people!' but I must clarify. Most of the time, these things are said within my head. I've been fed those lies for so long that I don't need anyone to say them to me out loud. I can take a look or anything and start the tape running about how worthless I am. But, I've got a plan and I realize what is happening so that I can combat it!

One other thing that I'm making a thoughtful choice in is my eating. Normally, I'd start medicating with food, but I'm choosing to continue on my Eat to Live path and not waver a tiny bit! I believe that eating clean and healthy is why I can make all these revelations about myself. I want to keep my brain as clear as possible so that I know when lies are being fed to me.

It's funny with the holidays, I'm finding that I get more sad this time of year because it reminds me of how I think things should be. I used to love getting together with extended family, but now it's a bleak reminder of how things have changed and how hurting the relationship is. So that's where I'm at, trying to figure out how to be sad in this time and still be able to smile at the true joys in my life. So far, this year has been better than last year. I'm still sad, but I'm ok with being sad. I'm cognicant of the fact that I'm sad and making sure I don't hurt those I love with any walls that I want to put up. I'm trying to smile for the most part and in the back of my mind just being ok being sad. Next year will be better,  and the year after that, and the year after that!!  If you struggle with the same holiday sadness, I'd love to hear how you cope with it :)

Tomatoes

 We have found some great, local pesticide-free farmers at our Farmer's Market. This seems to be the tomato season. I bought a ton of tomatoes, not really, but the bags were sure heavy. I was able to make 6  jars of spaghetti sauce and we had some left for dinner. There were a bunch of tomatoes left from making the sauce, so I pulled out my dehydrator and made sun-dried tomatoes.

On one batch, I sprinkled onion and garlic powder. The next batch, I left all that off and just did plain ol' tomatoes. They are so easy, I just sliced the tomatoes after washing them and took the yucky top off and put them on the trays. They are delicious! I can't wait to make dressing* and add them to salads. The sun-dried tomatoes I previously bought were not organic and they were a bit pricey. So to be able to make my own and know that they are clean and they are cheaper than the store is great!

The spaghetti sauce I make is Eat to Live friendly. Here's the link, but I made a couple changes. It calls for sugar and I switched for a couple tablespoons of honey, but on the next batch, I'll omit it completely, it's too sweet. The recipe calls for cooking the onions and peppers in oil, I just used nothing and cooked them in a cast iron pan. I also omitted the salt. My family loves this recipe and I love it too and knowing that it's fresh ingredients, locally grown without pesticides!

My husband and I love going to the Farmer's Market together. I love the feeling of filling my counters with fresh food that is going to keep me and my family healthy. It takes a while to process through it all...wrapping the lettuce for storage, adding to my salad bowl in my fridge, and like today, making sauces and drying tomatoes. My kids love scarfing up the fruits that we find. It's such a wonderful day :)

I wanted to share my Pinterest board again, so if you want to check out lot's of vegan, Eat to Live friendly recipes, check it out.

*Sun-dried Tomato Dressing for Nutritarians
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup water
2-3 cloves, peeled garlic
about 1/2 cup dried sun-dried tomatoes and 1/2 cup soaking liquid
1 tsp basil

Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in boiling water for about 15 minutes. While those soak, blend the cashews and  the 1 cup water for about 1 minute in a Vitamix or other high-powered blender. (If you don't have one, just blend on super high speed to achieve a creamy consistency. Add the sun-dried tomatoes with the hot water and the basil and blend until creamy. Refrigerate until ready to serve and keep in fridge for up to a week.

Day 4 of the 6-week Plan

Well, my husband and I have just started day 4 of the Eat to Live, 6-week Aggressive Weight loss plan. If you'd like to catch-up, look here and here. My husband got rid of his headache about mid-day 2 and feels good now. He's lost 4-1/2 pounds (in 3 days) and he wasn't a big guy to begin with. I've lost 2. I haven't had any detox symptoms which makes me feel really good that I've cleaned up my body enough to have very few toxic things left in my body. (At least that's my theory.) I feel even better following 'the plan' this strictly. The first 2 days, I wanted to eat, just to eat. But I trucked through it and now am very satisfied with the food at meal times and not thinking about eating in between.

So, what's been different these last 3 days that's different from that last 10 months? I've noticed that I was eating bread and pasta. And more nuts. The bread I was eating was whole wheat with very few ingredients, so I will go back to eating that when I've reached my ideal weight. That said, I was only having 1-3 slices a week, I rarely had pasta, so not worried about that. Nuts, though are where I think the stagnant weight issue lies. When I would eat them, I tried to be very aware about how many I was eating. It's easy to eat way to many and not realize it. But I wasn't looking at the cumulative nuts in my daily life. I was adding sunflower seeds to my salads, hemp seeds in my smoothie, plus almond milk in my dressing and smoothie, plus cashews with a banana after dinner and walnuts for breakfast. I didn't realize how much I was consuming in a day,  it's a wonder I didn't gain weight! Nuts are insanely healthy, just not that many when I still have weight to lose. I know that life isn't forever going to be this restrictive, so it's easier to enjoy this phase of restriction, knowing that everything will even out.

Some people have asked how much more I want to lose. My BMI is still in the overweight category, barely, but still there. I have 5 pounds to go before I'm in the normal weight category and I'll be at the top of that. Dr. Fuhrman suggests in his Eat to Live book that I should be around 111. I'm 149 now, so according to his research and recommendation, someone my height should still lose 38 pounds. I do believe his research and trust that this is the path God wants me on, so I know that I'll end up just where I need to be. I want to keep my eyes open and my ears listening to what God wants and not get stuck on a number or a size.

All this said, this is truly not all about the weight. I have my eyes fixed on seeing my Great-Grandchildren. The Lord might take me home before that, but I don't want to be digging my own grave by what goes into my mouth and what I'm addicted to. Honestly though, it is so nice to look decent and fit in a decent size. I hated being big and was constantly aware that I was the biggest person in the room and feeling guilty with every bite. For me, life was humiliating. So, for me, to not have the filter of self-perceived ugliness to see life through is such an added blessing.

Tuning Up

I've been following the Eat to Live lifestyle for 10 months now.  My health has improved tremendously. I'm so excited to get blood work next year to see how my numbers look now. I had blood work done when I was about three months in and it was amazing!! Super low cholesterol and my thyroid, which had been out of whack, was in the normal range!! My blood sugars were great too! So I can't wait to see what the next test will show. My blood pressure is great too, sometimes too great. My blood pressure runs 90/60.

When I first started Eat to Live I had been jogging for 8 months at a 13 minute pace. Now I jog at a 10 minute average. My next step in the journey is to focus on improving my pace and distance. But for now I'm focusing on consistency in getting out there and jogging. I aim for 7 days a week of activity and am happy with 6. I love to do Just Dance with my kids (or alone :)) and that kicks my butt! I also love yoga and I love that I love it because it takes care of stretching and strength training. I knew I needed to start strength training, but the thought of lifting weights did not thrill me, so finding a love for yoga was such a blessing.

I've been stuck at the same weight for a couple of months. I'm happy with where I'm at, but there is definitely some fat that needs to be gone. So I figured that after all this time, I might be doing things that I'm not aware of, so I decided to do the 6-week Aggressive Plan from the Eat to Live book. This is how I started Eat to Live and really thought I was still fully on it, but after a day of doing the Plan diligently, I realized that I had let things slip. Nothing too major, but enough to make the weight stop coming off. I must say, though that doing the Aggressive Plan hard core, no slipping is so much easier now. My sweet husband is doing it with me. He has a bit of fat he wants gone too, but his transition is so much rougher. He's in bed with a headache and nausea. He ate good before, but not Eat to Live good. His detox is really something :( I have no headache and no nausea, so thankfully we aren't both feeling yucky.

So you might be wondering, what was I doing that was keeping my weight stagnant? The answer is, I was eating too much. I was eating past full and eating at night, a couple hours after dinner. And I realized too, that I was eating too many seeds and nuts. I was still Eating to Live, just too much. Dr. Fuhrman is right that you can't gain weight eating this way (minus too many nuts), but if you have weight to lose, it won't come off very quickly if you are over-eating. Once I get to my ideal weight, I will be able to eat more seeds and nuts, just like I've been doing and maintain my weight. I know that because that's what I have been doing, maintaining! But I still have 20-30 pounds left to go, so it's not my time to maintain. This has caused an issue in my head. I have a hard time being content in life, so to have accomplished so much and be bummed that I can't lose more was a wake up call to just be content!! I've had to remember to be thankful to God for where He has me :)

I'm back to the basics, doing the exact menus in the Aggressive Plan. It's actually really great. I have been in a rut, so to have variety is a pleasant treat. And to have my husband doing it with me is an added bonus. We'll see how he feels once he wakes up from his detox! Detox is so hard!! I'll keep updating and sharing about our progress.

P.S. If you are on the fence about this lifestyle, I must give you encouragement and say "Go for it!" Let me know how you do :)

Eating to Live in an RV

I spent 3 weeks in an RV with my husband and 4 kids. It was the best thing ever! I loved the small space, or should I say, I loved the small space to vacuum. I also loved that we had a plan. We knew where we were going each day and how many miles it would take to get there. My sweet husband is an Excel wiz and he prepared a chart of all of our meals and what we would need to bring and made sure in his planning that all of it would fit in our small storage and the small fridge. He was so diligent to make sure I had enough room to fit 18 baggies of soup in the freezer. On top of making sure I had freezer space, he made room for 15 cans of beans and 5 cartons of almond milk and my Vitamix and all the nuts I brought. He spent a while trying to figure out a container for my salad makings in the fridge too.

On this journey, God has shaped my husband's heart as well. He has always been open to trying new things and supporting me on whatever adventure in food I take. This eating journey is no exception. He loves the changes in me. He loves my new confidence and he really loves my (for the most part) constant, peaceful mood. So to have him plan so well for me was no surprise, but a sweet treat none-the-less.

We hardly ever ate out on our trip, but the times that we did, I'd eat my food that I brought. That is the benefit of an RV, we always ate in the RV, so my food was always there. Walmart was a huge help. I wasn't expecting that. The Walmart I shop at doesn't have any organic produce, but the ones we found on the trip did!! I was so excited to have a resource for organic fruits and veggies. Thankfully, my family doesn't eat a bunch of junk, so there wasn't any temptations staring me in the face, plus my body was so nourished from my healthy diet that I wouldn't have been tempted anyway.

I said before that I brought my Vitamix. I also brought two bags of frozen bananas and kept refilling those bags with fresh bananas as I used them to make sure I was never out of them to use for Strawberry Ice cream* or Chocolate Banana Ice cream. Eating treats with the family is fun and I didn't want to miss out on any of it. I packed some brownies that I baked and froze them for the kids to have a non-processed treat. I'd eat my Ice cream right along with them. Most nights, they want my Ice cream instead. I love that!

We planned for the worst. We made sure I had enough soup to last in case we couldn't find a source for good veggies to cook. Walmart took care of that, but I knew I was taken care of, just in case. I kept my expectations very simple. I knew I'd have a cooked meal (soup) and a raw meal (salad). Another reason I brought my Vitamix was to make salad dressing. I pre-measured all the ingredients for the vegan ranch that I love. That was a huge relief to know that I had dressing. I do not like a dry salad, so dressing is a must for me!

We took a Rhino tour of Bryce...I didn't worry about not fitting in the seat!

The trip was amazing. We hiked for miles and miles in beautiful country. We hiked Zion, Mount Rushmore, Grand Tetons, through caves and the finale was Bryce Canyon. I thanked God the whole time that I was able to do the hikes. 100 pounds ago, it would have been a very different vacation. That finale at Bryce was so hard, but I was able to do it with no problem! We went on a 3 mile hike down into the canyon and you know, what goes down, must come up and for about half of the up part, I had my 40 pound daughter on my back! What a blessing to be the leader of my pack and finish strong with energy to spare. I'm still in awe of coming this far and accomplishing so much. Thank you, Lord!!

*Strawberry Ice cream
2 cups frozen strawberries
1 banana (not frozen)
3 dates
1/2 cup almond milk (more or less for desired consistency)

Blend all ingredients in high powered mixer until smooth.