This is a horse at a barn that we visit. This horses name is Bubbles.

Back on the Wagon...again

I have been trying to write this blog for a month.  I was too overwhelmed but I am back now.  Here is what you've missed since I've been away:

I went to Vegas.
I did NOTHING healthy in Vegas.
I came home, got sick.  Was sick for two weeks.
Saw a nutritionist & found out I have Celiac Disease.
I went into panic mode and freaked out...a lot.
I stopped blogging.
I stopped exercising.
I continued to eat healthy. (Hey, at least I did one thing right!)
I stopped eating gluten.

And now you are all caught up.  ;)

As one of my good friends says, I fell off the wagon...HARD but I am ready to get back on.

Last month I had an appointment with a nutritionist and found out I have Celiac Disease.  According to Google's Dictionary, Celiac Disease is " A disease in which chronic failure to digest food is triggered by hypersensitivity of the small intestine to gluten."  In other words, I can't eat gluten - which can be found in wheat, rye and barley (cookies, pizza, beer, baked goods...you know...all the stuff I shouldn't be eating anyway). The good news is that while I was in Vegas and not being healthy, I had a whole lotta gluten - beer, desserts, bread, bread and more bread and got really, really sick.  Why, you ask, is this a good thing?  It is good because I KNOW why I got so sick for two weeks upon my return and it is a darn good reminder to never EVER do it again.

You see, I have been on a health kick or a diet for several of the past several years so I really don't eat a lot of carbs and I never drink beer because beer and carbs are bad, right.  Well, not really.  But that was my thought process.

This past month and a half I have been gluten free and I have not felt better in a very, very ling time.  I have more energy.  My skin is clear.  I can tell by touching my face, neck, arms and thighs that I am less swollen.  And I have lost a few pounds, too.

This weekend I had to drive a few hundred miles alone and forgot my ipod and ipad. For a stretch of about 60 miles I couldn't get a radio station to tune in so I listened to the only CD in my car that isn't scratched, a sermon I have listened to about 5 times.  The one that my pastors talk about this being the year of restoration.  I was reminded about how an old house is restored.  When you TRULY restore a home, you gut it out completely.  You start over from scratch.  Before you pick out the new colors of paint you have to take of all of the old layers of paint that have been put on year after year.  You sand the wood down so that you can see the grain.  I named this blog "Mission Restoration" because I am ready to be restored.  I agreed to allow God to be a part of my restoration and He opened the eyes of my health care providers who have been searching for unanswered questions for a very long time and for this I am grateful.  Finding out I am Celiac is just the beginning of my sanding down process...in order for me to truly be healthy from the inside out I am going to have to be restored from the inside out.  Going GF is going to be a whole new challenge and I'm sure it is going to get interesting and very challenging sometimes, but I am ready for my restoration so I am thankful to find out that I am Celiac because I know that God is working.

Source: facebook.com viaAmy on Pinterest

Week three was rough.  I not only was sick and tired, but it also (sorry guys) was "that time" so I was more hungry, more tired and more irritable than usual.  If you recall from one of my previous posts, I have issues with my hormones so I was feeling TOTALLY off my rocker and it was driving me insane! Glad to be going into week four so I can refocus.  I am traveling for work and I am sure there is going to be an abundance of food I shouldn't be eating so rather than focusing on my diet, my plan is to work on two specific things: my attitude and continuing to learn to love myself!

I seriously need to check my attitude at the door!  I noticed last week that I had a really negative attitude at work.  It's so weird.!  If you know me, you know that this is totally unlike me.  I am probably the most optimistic person I know.  Or maybe I used to be.  I don't know.  But the other day I called myself out to one of my friends at work and she...wait for it....agreed!  :-/  I guess I wanted her to disagree with me but when I said that I had had a bad attitude lately and she agreed with me it was a little like a punch in the gut with a big dose of the truth.  Ugh.  

Luckily it's all temporary and luckily my doctor started me on DHEA - which is supposed to help with the  hormonal madness... pray for me, please!  

I am also continuing to work on loving myself, rather than beat myself up.  I am going to give myself a break, even when I have bad weeks. This journey to health is not just about instantly becoming healthy, its also about fixing what's broken, healing old, deep wounds, learning to shine light on what I have been unable to see and learning how to love myself without blame and without shame. 

Last week I met with my pastor and at the end of our conversation she told me how important it is to love myself and that I cannot have a true relationship with Jesus or with other people until I do.  I told her that I had just blogged about that.  Then on the radio the following day I heard the same thing...they talked about how you cannot love your neighbors until you love yourself.  And then again, a group of young adults that I meet with from my church discussed THE SAME THING.  God is sending me a very clear message. 

When we met, my pastor also said that when we choose not to love ourselves and/or to forgive ourselves we are choosing to believe that we know better than God and we think we are right and He is wrong.  Ouch!  

God is opening my eyes to a lot of things so that I can learn to love myself but it is a process and won't all happen at one time; kind of like what happens to the blind man in Mark 8:23-25:

And he (Jesus) took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24And he looked up and said, “I see men, but they look like trees, walking.” 25Then Jesus^c laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Like the blind man, everything is starting to come into focus; I can see that I have a bad attitude and others are agreeing with me; I am starting to open my eyes and my perspective is becoming clear; but more work needs to be done before I can see totally clearly.  I imagine if my eyes, or the eyes of the blind man, were open all at once that the brightness would be too much.  Baby steps.

There are going to be rough weeks.  I am probably going to get sick again, there are going to be weeks that I am totally exhausted and once a month "Aunt Flo" is going to show up whether I like it or not.  Life is going to go on and I am going to continue this journey to health. You are not going to see THIS GIRL quit anytime soon.

Eye of The Tiger

Are you like me that when you read something or think of a certain word or phrase that you randomly brake into song?  I know I'm not completely alone in my insanity because my mom, my daughters, one of my best friends and my cubicle neighbor at work all do it too.

Let's try it:

She works hard...(for her money)

She's a....  (maniac/brick-house/man-killer)

Tragedy!

Magic (oh, oh, oh she's...)

Georgia

Changes (cha-cha-cha-changes)

Don't Stop Believin'!

So when I saw this today on Joyce Meyer's Facebook post, I immediately heard the famous theme song from Rocky III, Eye of the Tiger in my head...  

  Source: itstheskinny.tumblr.com via Amy on Pinterest

Dork-ish?  Maybe.

Sick and Tired

Week one and two went really well.  Week three (this week) not so much.  Toward the end of last week I felt a cold coming on.  I don't have time for life right now let alone time to get sick!  I was heading into a four day weekend, but my  four days were already booked to the max so rest was not an option.  Friday we had tickets already purchased to go to the Rodeo, right after the rodeo we were heading over to my friend's wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, Saturday was the wedding...and I was the photographer.  Sunday church and a lunch meeting with a church visitor from Vietnam and dinner plans with friends and Monday I promised my kids I would take them roller skating after driving across town to return some rented equipment.  I did it.  Looking back, I am not sure how but I did it all.  And this week I am paying for it. I think pray that I am over the cold part but I am exhausted and unmotivated.

I justified not working out on Friday because I walked around the National Western Stock Show for 2 hours before the rodeo.  Saturday I justified not working out because I was photographing the wedding - squatting  carrying what feels like 50 lbs around my neck and on my shoulders (I should weigh everything I carry someday).  Sunday was my off day and Monday I went rollerskating for three hours. ( Have you ever checked out how many calories you burn roller skating?!  Its crazy - and fun for the whole family!)  But yesterday and today when my alarm went off at 4:30 I have totally ignored it and continued to sleep for another hour.

Today I brought some extra clothes and walking shoes to work with me so I could walk at lunch and here I sit typing this blog because I cannot muster up the energy to even think about working out.  I don't want to make excuses, and it is a priority to me but I am just. so. tired.  I am allowing myself some time to get over the cold that I had and not beating myself up...yet.

Another problem is that I am STARVING.  I refuse to starve myself; I will do this the healthy way and i will not deprive myself   I think that is a big reason for past failed diets.  This is a lifestyle change, not a torture chamber.  My goal is to eat 1200 calories + whatever I work off - if I burn 300 calories working out, I eat 1500 instead of 1200.  The past four days I have gone WAY over what I am supposed to be eating.  Where I made my mistake though is that I stopped tracking what I was eating - probably because I thought to myself "what I don't know won't hurt me".  WRONG!  It will hurt me and eating blindly is why I am where I am today.

SO - I am slowly going to get back on track.  I started logging my calories again yesterday and even if i don't feel like it I WILL walk on the treadmill for at least 30 minutes tonight or play Just Dance with my kids on the Wii.  Maybe by the end of the week I will have my "umph" back and can get back on track.

And then comes the next problem - a work conference in Las Vegas next week.  Going to have to work out daily because I am sure there won't be many healthy choices for food.  Lord, help me!

Source: someecards.com via Amy on Pinterest

Love Your Neighbor...and Yourself

It was a great weekend and very busy.

In effort to stay active,  try to exercise on the weekends and to involve my kids in the activity (See my last blog post), I decided to take my kids ice skating.  Well, I think the high on Saturday was about 15 degrees, so we went with the alternative - roller skating.  I have not been roller skating in about 25 years but it came back to me pretty quickly and we had SO much fun!  After about an hour and a half into our two hour session I input "roller skating for 90 min" into myfitnesspal and was shocked to see that I had burned 1157 calories - and I was having fun!  Whoo-hoo!  Needless to say, we will be roller skating more often.  It was quality time spent with my girls, it was fun and it was healthy.  (We didn't go near the snack bar area).

Sunday was another story.  It began with running late for church (as always) and then suddenly it was 9pm.   I was completely exhausted.  Still had not worked out, lunches for the week had not been made, had not eaten dinner yet and not one load of laundry had been put in the washer. Then the negative self talk started...

I was upset that I had just said on Friday that "I don't have time" was no longer an excuse; exercising was going to be a priority and Saturday and Sundays were the two days I had time to do it so I committed myself to working out every Saturday and Sunday.  I started going down into my typical negative self talk spiral that seemed so familiar.  Before I even had a chance to THINK about grabbing something to eat to stuff the feelings down I made a quick decision to do what I could in two hours to get ready for the week, go to bed an hour early and set the alarm for 4:30am and try again in the morning.  And I did it!

Today I feel great - my workout is complete and I might even have the energy to walk on the treadmill a little bit tonight.  We'll see.

But back to that spiral I started to go down.  I was thinking today about how quickly I can go from feeling on top of the world to self pity-negative-self talk and getting down on myself.  Honestly, the things I say to myself I would NEVER say to another living being ...it wouldn't even cross my mind.  Then I had another thought - what does the Bible say about self esteem?

I know that was a term coined in the 20th century and the Bible says nothing about self esteem, but is self esteem important?  It doesn't really say.  Jesus does say that the two greatest commandments of all are to love Him will all of our hearts, souls, and minds and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. (Mark 12:30-31)  But what if we don't love our self?  Is that breaking one of the two greatest commandments?  In my opinion. yes it is.  How can we love our neighbors as we love ourselves if we don't love ourselves?  And how can nasty negative self talk be love?  Its not.

The most famous Biblical chapter on love is 1 Corinthians 13:1-13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Part of this process is going to have to also be a process of learning to love myself...on the days when I don't work out, on the days when I totally blow it and even on the dreaded days when I notice a 5lb weight gain.  I refuse to beat myself up over one missed workout. I will continue to do what I did last night - I will readjust and keep moving forward...or as Dori says "Just keep swimming!"

   

End of Week One & Getting My Priorities Straight

I survived week one of Mission Restoration!  I tracked calories on MyfitnessPal, started a program to read the Bible in a year, ate pretty healthy, worked out 3 times and I am down 2 pounds!  Of course there is room for improvement, but overall it was a great week.

My biggest struggle this week has been finding the time to exercise.  I was able to exercise 3 days - that is 3 more than I have done for several weeks so I am not going to beat myself up over it but I have to figure out a way to make this work and get in at least 5 days of exercise.   

Here is a snapshot of a typical day:

5:00am Alarm goes off & I hit snooze
5:30 I finally get up
5:30-6:45 Shower, get dressed/ready for work & pack lunches
6:45-7:15 Wake kids up, get them dressed & out the door
7:15-8:00 Drop kids off & commute to work
8:00-12:00 Work - sit at a desk/computer
12:00-1:00 Lunch - typically I read & eat
1:00-5:00 Work - sit at a desk/computer
5:00-6:30 Pick up kids, commute home
6:30-7:30 Cook & eat dinner
7:30-8:30 Help kids with homework, read books and if there is any time left we watch TV
8:30-9:30 Wrap up the day & put kids to bed
9:30-12:00 Sit at computer & work OR if I am caught up on work this is the time that I use to work out
12:00am go to sleep

I am not kidding when I say that my schedule is full and for the most part, it is not flexible but there are times the the day where I can get at least 20 minutes of exercise in but choose not too.  I really do try not to make being a busy single mom of two with two jobs as an excuse, but I do.  I am not lying when I say that I am tired and we really are a very busy family. But being busy is no longer an excuse of mine for not having time. I need to make the time.

Yesterday I found a new fitness blog, Nerd Fitness and have enjoyed reading it. Today, I found this article called "Why 'I Don't Have Time' is a Big Fat Lie".  It was quite an eye opener.  I highly suggest that you  read it.  To sum it up, he says to no longer say "I don't have time to..." and to replace it with "It's not a priority to me to...".

So , here it goes:

It is not a priority to me to exercise.

Eeek!  That sounds bad, doesn't it?  :/

My goal over the next few weeks is to make it a priority.  Here are some things I have come up with to help:

1.  In order to work out a minimum of 5 days a week I have no choice but to exercise both Saturday and Sunday.  We are always busy on weekends too but not to the extreme that we are during the week.  That leaves me with 3 days during the week to work out and 2 free days during the week when things are out of control crazy.

2.  Include the kids and make it fun; dance, play together on the Wii, see who can do the most sit ups, jumping jacks or push-ups etc.  I have it in my head that a workout has to include a DVD in the player or an hour on the treadmill.

3. If my plan is to work out in the morning, have workout clothes close and water bottle filled. I really prefer to work out at night but sometimes mornings are the only time when I can fit it in.  The problem is that when the fist thing that comes to mind is that I have to go to the basement to get clothes or downstairs to the kitchen for water, I'm done.

I know there are other ways that I can make it a priority but this is where I am going to start.

Love this quote from Beth Moore: “Whatever God is urging you to clear away cannot begin to be compared to what He ultimately wants to bring you.”  Sounds like a pretty darn good reason to get my priorities on order now - time to clear the path for bigger better things to come!  


Where I am Today: 

• Total weight loss: 2 lbs!
• Exercise - worked out 3 times this week for a total of 115 minutes, burned 1000 calories
• Something good -  Overall it was a great week!  I scratched an itch on my thigh this morning and could tell that I have lost weight.  Excellent start to restoration!

Health Goals: 

• Make exercise a priority 
• Lose 2 lbs by next Friday
• Exercise 5 days 
• Read the Bible daily 
• Start a "Good Stuff" jar to open next New Year Day
• Blog Twice

A little thing I saw on Pinterest that might be fun to do with my kiddos:

Source: grandpins.com via Amy on Pinterest