Week 2 - We are each unique - tweak your eating for YOUR health. Listen to your body.

Well - I am starting week 2.

I can't say I was perfect on week 1 - but 

I am pleased overall.

However, one thing that I have learned through the years - 

no matter how healthy an eating plan is - 

it is only healthy if it is healthy for YOU.

So as you are eating healthier - be aware of changes in your body,

or issues that you are having,

and find what changes you need to make and tweak your plan for you.

So - for week 2 - what changes am I going to make?

I am dropping fruit.

I have never done well with fruit.

Durn Candida.

I will try adding it back in a month -

and if I get desperate I will go to fruit before

I grab junk,

however, for now - it is hindering my healing. 

I don't like it - 

but Like I said last week - 

It just is what it is. 

The other thing is I will be getting consistent with my workouts this week.

So - today is my first day with no fruit - 

and i have done my Bursting workout

(Bursting and weights - 20 minutes and done)

and Stretching.

So how are you all doing with your eating?

What are the things you are wanting to change about your health?

Plan eating and workouts that are healthy for you!!  

Have an awesome week!

 

 

It is what it is.

Some people cannot stand that statement -

but I have found it very stabilizing in my life

It has helped me accept where I am at the moment.

For instance..

I don't think we realize just how much joy we find in food 

until we can't eat a lot of it. 

Please pardon me for a moment - as I regress into some 

Eeyore type thinking.

I am normally quite happy to be Tigger.

 

I realize that in my life, at least for this season in my life,

I need to replace the joy that I find in food,

with more fulfilling and less painful things.

I had a doctor appointment today for a med check, 

which was an hour and a half drive one way. 

So I had a lot of time to think.

On the way back I was thinking about 

what I was going to make for supper.

Some of you can just think - 

what do I feel like eating tonight?

I don't have that luxury.

Since I am on Day 2 of this new lifestyle - 

I was feeling a little irritated.

I have gone through this before though - 

dealing with eating the way I need to.

I am not gluten free - I am flour free. 

No flour.

No sugar.

No white potatoes or other nightshades

(which also rules out tomatoes and sauces with them).

No grains. 

 No dairy.

Very few raw veggies - and no leafy greens.

A limited amount of cooked veggies.

I have come to the conclusion, that along with

candida issues, and mold issues, 

that the digestive issues I have are most like IBS. 

So for me right now - 

that also means

No Berries

No nuts.

I gave up coffee a month ago.

I also gave up Eggs.

(For now at least)

Most of you would have a HUGE array of foods to choose from 

when doing the Whole 30.

There are some that you would miss at first - 

but you would get used to it

and enjoy the 

bounty of nature's food,

the way God intended it.

My goal is to be able to eat all those 

beautiful

 natural fruits and veggies

without pain.

To occasionally enjoy a special treat

without repercussions.

And  I am willing to do this,

because I want some things more.

I want to make something 

more beautiful.

I want to live out the rest of my life, healthy

and feel good about myself.

I want to fulfill my desire to work in the natural nutrition

field.

I want to have all the mental energy in the world,

so that I can be there for family and friends 

and enjoy every minute.

I want to develop some programs for the chronically ill -

that will help them feel better and 

regain some normalcy of life somewhere.

 I want to feel SO much Joy in the rest of my life

that food is just a side thought.

So -

when I have days that I am wanting something I know I don't need

or I am feeling irritated?

 

It just is what it is.

And by accepting that every day

and doing what i need to change it.

 

It WILL become what I make it.

I look forward to seeing good changes in my life. :)

  

So What DID I eat tonight?  

Well ....

I remembered that I had some Grass Fed Beef Hot dogs left in the freezer.

                                           mmMMMMmmm

That put a little Tigger spring back in my step.

I peeled and sliced thin a white sweet potato

melted some butter on the slices and broiled them in the oven.

Yum. 

I am going to enjoy this. 

 

             
 Day 1 of the Pared down Paleo Whole 30 has been good - and it has reminded me of exactly WHY I am committing to this long term.   I allowed myself a cheat last night before committing to this. and to say I am inflamed to day would be an understatement. I am not complaining - because on days that I am this inflamed I remind myself that my daughter lives with this x 100 daily. However, it is not comfortable - and no food is worth the feeling of being bruised inside and out all over. Exactly why I need to nix cheat days for however long it takes. 

    The chart above illustrates the great results that are seen following Paleo - and for me - paring it back even more is a requirement to see this.  I really want to heal my  digestion and body from  inflammation.   I have had trouble with this for years, but we lived in Black mold for 3 years before we knew what was causing the issues - and that ramped up the inflammation and damage in my body.  We moved for a new environment - and when we got here - we landed in another home with black mold - and this time it really did me in.  We moved out of that a year ago and have been blessed with a newer home that has a healthy environment - but it could take YEARS to reverse the damage that the mold did to my body.   But I am going to try to help it along. One thing you will learn about me - I am persistent - or stubborn - whichever - I am NOT giving up.I believe that there is a reason that God gave me a passion for natural nutrition, and the stubbornness to keep researching. And to keep trying.

Besides the inflammation - I would like to be able to recover my muscles. And lose the fat.  Another side affect of an unhealthy environment. I almost gave up on myself - but my spunk usually finds itself and I pick myself up and move forward.   My adrenals crashed during that crisis - that was one of the hardest things for me to deal with - I went from hard core workouts, to not recovering from workouts.  Working out suddenly resulted in migraine auras, flu like symptoms for days and depression. It took me a LONG time to readjust my thinking - and realize that our workouts can be stress too - good stress is still stress when our bodies are in crisis - so sometimes we need to back off and recover.  Learning to workout in order to benefit our health is something that a lot of us are faced with. I am in the middle of figuring that out for myself.

   There are a lot of you that have mysterious health issues too, or live with chronic illness - and this blog is for you.  It is so that you can follow me through however long it takes to see what health i can recover.   I will explore issues along the way that I have dealt with, or that fascinate me - and ways to help us all move on and see some light at the end of our health battle tunnels.

  I hope you will follow along - I want to hear your stories - I would love to have you share them with me .  We can find some answers together - reach goals together.

    And its not too late to join me in the health challenge.  I'd love to have you come along.
   

Managing ME

I have love other people for way longer than I have loved me. Of course - I am still in the process of learning to love me. 

I need to ramble a little today.

  I am just TOO much for people some times. Too complicated (healthwise), too talkative, too loud, too quiet, too scattered, too distracted, too deep, just too. Too too, you know what I mean?

 Right now at this very point in my life I am learning to be my own health coach. My own life coach. It's much easier to do this for someone else. 

  Things I have to manage - a sugar addiction despite the fact that I do not believe in eating it, compassion that goes WAY beyond the call of duty - which can lead to all sorts of issues - emotional eating none of which is the least. A tendency toward depression, mostly caused by environmental or food sensitivities, so when I am feeling the worst, is when it will rear up.

 The biggest thing that has messed with my life is an exteme mold sensitivity. Boy Oh Boy is it a fight.  If we find that there is mold in the house -guess what - time to move.  But I will fight that - why does my family have to suffer for MY sensitivity?  But what makes them suffer more is the fight that I put myself through.   I just get angry that I have this sensitivity. I feel like - why can't i just deal with it? Maybe I am just grumpy and moody and have to get over it (not my natural personality -I tend towards being an annoying cheerleader who can sing a few lines to a song you just reminded me of with something you said to me)  

I have been in this spot before - waking up extremely achy and depressed - cannot get my head wrapped around this gnawing depression that I know there is no reason for until I either leave the house, or get some fresh air for a while.  The inability to recover from workouts - which makes it really difficult to reach health goals i have set for myself.  the feeling of sunken eyes. Irritability. The ability to cry at the drop of a hat, despite not being a natural cryer and not having really cried much in years.  I don't even know why I'm crying. Don't bother asking. I have no answers.  Suddenly i have transformed into Eeyore despite being a natural Tigger.  I'm am not even too sure that I LIKE me right now. But its not me that i don't like, it is the situation. UGH.  Exactly WHAT happened here?

Just to review this situation. I have always been sensitive to molds. Can make me totally opposite of ME.  It is almost everywhere. Especially if you live in the country where you usually live if you are married to a country boy and have a (very handsome, very nice) redneck (with morals) son .   I have watched my husband give up everything he worked for to move half way across the country so that I could get more healthy. We found a house in the country to rent for a while - seemed  perfect for a while - until I found myself waking up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going into shock, hallucinated spiders on the wall, felt like I was having a heart attack from the skipped beats and racing heart that I get when I sleep near a moldy situation. Now understand this - its not like we are living in an obviously moldy place. We live in a nice house - and if you are not sensitive to mold - you may never have known it was here. You still may not have felt good, but wouldn't know what to attribute it to.. But I am experienced in mold.  Put that on a resume.  Lol. 

So now what? It limits my ability to use the morning hours to study the bible and nutrition, limits my ability to work out (workouts are only good for you if your body is not already at its stress limit), limits my ability to be the cheerful, energetic, supportive, encouraging, healthy person that I am.

I am not sure what God has for me with all of this - my plans were to be at my goal weight years ago - hard muscles, clear skin, energetic.  I have been working at this for 8 years.  But I know he is teaching me something. I know I have learned a LOT of perseverance. (I have natural stubbornness - but it had to be developed into perseverance - still have a way to go - but have come so far already..)

  I have been blessed along the way to have some great teachers.  My chiropractor in VA  ended up being my first nutrition doc/coach. 

The first thing I learned from her?  

It is what it is.

Some people hate that.

For me - it has rang true.

No matter how hard I push my body to be what i think it should be, 

it can only do what it is capable of at the time, according to what it has been through

prior, its ability to detoxify, what toxins it is in right now and how it is being fed.

Oh - I have to insert something here, because I have heard a lot of things about faith lately - I do believe that having faith CAN heal - I have heard that - illness has no authority in our bodies, if we just have enough faith we will heal.  Well I think that is nice to believe - but so far i have not found that to be true.  God could have chosen to heal my daughter years ago, he could have chosen to heal my sister instead of taken her home to be with Him. God could choose to take all these issues away from me and make this journey so much simpler - like it seems to be for all those dieters out there who just cut back and all of the sudden they are in shape and happy.

 Psh.

Sometimes God chooses not to.  Sometimes He wants us to learn other things.

We are still human in bodies that are subject to nature - so they will react to how they have been treated their whole lives.  So sometimes getting health is a longer battle than one would want. 

Trust me on that one.

So - what do I need to do? What do i need to learn?  It is so easy for me to get distracted from my goals by all of the adversity.  Well - I still want to be a health coach/food psychology coach.  I want to be in the Word of God studying what HE has to say about all of our health.  That means I have to MANAGE me and the things that I struggle with if i want to achieve them.

So looks like we need to move aready, and again, and soon.

 I need to be in an environment that does not inflame my brain so that I can wake up refreshed and ready to go for the day. So that my mind can think clearly. So that I am in control of my emotions, not an outer source of toxicity. So that I can workout and have my body build and recover.

Then I need to eat the way I know that my body needs to eat. No sugar, no flour, no grains, no chocolate. (Yep you heard that one right)

Then I need to workout to build this body back up to before all of this mess happened, and to detox and de-stress it. This means working out smart, not necessarily harder or longer - been there, been messed up by that. 

I need to spend time in the Word of God and with women who can lift me up and whom hopefully i can also lift up as well.

 

And work hard to make extra money so that we can recover from all of this and so i can continue to pursue some more training that i have wanted to do.

I also need to be doing some things that I enjoy.

 One thing that I enjoy is singing & acting. I haven't done either for several years now. So I am going to start practicing my voice and looking for opportunities to use it. This is a great outlet for me.

This is how to manage ME - all of me. Body, Soul & Spirit.

This will make me better for my family. I will be more supportive of my family, more encouraging to others, be able to use my talents and gifts to serve others and be able to be used wherever God has opportunities for me.

 

This is what my newest lesson has been -

 Managing me

 so that i can have an effective, fulfilling life.

'Nuff said.

New Starts

I have been kind of silent in my health journey for a while. Sometimes God just allows situations that don't make sense to me.  This journey has not been a simple one for me.  I have asked God many times - why is it that I have this passion for natural health, a passion for educating your people about it, a passion for helping others who struggle on their journeys, yet my own journey is such a treacherous one.  
    And how many times i have watched others just cut back on their eating and lose weight.  How many times I have watched people go on diet plans, just eat less and lose weight. How many "celebrities" have gone on a diet (of course with all of their trainers, cooks and consultants) and have lost their weight, while I trudge on. And still have a ways to go for my goal - have a I mentioned that this journey has been a good 8 years or so?  
    There have been many changes in those eight years. I have lost 80 pounds - okay - well 60. Because 20 of them creeped on this last year after a health crisis.  I have wanted to hide, I have felt like a failure, I have been mad at God at times, I have felt that God doesn't want me to succeed.  and yet...
    I keep remembering the story Brady told me (never mind that he doesn't remember it - and when I tell him he told me he is impressed with the wisdom of it.. lol) that he read about mama giraffes - when they have a baby and the baby tries to get up - the mama keeps pushing it back down.  How hard the baby struggles - and oh the frustration it must feel as it longs to get up on those legs and walk - then run - and mom pushes him down again.    Yet the mother is strengthening the baby - so that if the day comes - and it most likely  will - that a predator chases it - it will be strong. 
    So I keep that tucked away.  
This last year has been a downhill slope for me.  We had been exposed to mold for a while - and did not know we were - I had worked so hard and long to get in shape - and suddenly the harder I worked out the worse I felt - exhaustion, depression, aches and pains, digestive issues, neurological issues.   I eventually had to stop working out.  This was devastating to me as I loved hardcore workouts. We found and eradicated the mold the best we could, but the damage was there - and it takes time to heal.   The longer that I was not able to work out -  the sloppier I got with my natural eating.  To be honest - by most people's standards - my sloppy eating still looks healthy - but its not for me.  So 20 pounds crept on - and my muscles are somewhat of a memory.  It has been easy to feel that all is lost at times.  To feel like a failure - to want to hide. To just forget it - but  - alas. I am who I am.   I love to get healthy.  I love to learn about how foods affect my health and how I can change things by what I put in my mouth.  I love the feeling of health and being fit - so quitting is not an option.  
    It has been a process of getting myself to the point of moving forward again - but I have finally decided it is time to press on. Time to quit whining about the things I didn't ask for, and move ahead towards the goals that I desire. To what is ahead. That will require me tweaking my thinking again - reminding myself of why I believe in healthy eating - why I believe in eating the way that I do.  So that is why I have started this blog.   To remind myself.    Maybe no one will read it but me - and if that's the case - okay - but if some of you out there are at the same place - I hope it will be an encouragement to you. 
    I am calling the blog Trenchin' it because I am in the trenches - dug in.  I desire to be a wellness coach - training people in how to take care of their bodies by what they eat and how to work it into their days - and I kind of like the idea of calling myself a Trainer in the Trenches - because - I have to work it daily - nothing comes easy or fast for me in the world of health.  Perseverance and determination are something that I have learned  a lot about - and so -  here I am in the trenches daily - Trenchin' it.  
     I am also going to post a few pics of myself here to remind myself that all is not lost - to see that there is still a huge change from where I was to where I am now - and while I have had a setback - its just that.   So a before pic and a now pic.   

   The first pic is where I was when I just started to learn about how to take care of me. When I finally decided it was time to do something about my health.