Busy Bee

Why is it that kids won't share their toys or licks of their ice cream cones but when it comes to germs, they share, share, share?

Ryan got the nasty nose/cough/fever/aches 2 weeks ago.  The last few times he's been sick it has settled in his chest.  Let's just say we've hung out a lot in the steamy bathroom this winter.

I, of course, am his mom, and knew it was a matter of time...it's hard not to kiss him, so I don't hold myself back...

Em got it second.  Thankfully her bout was pretty mild.

I got it third and am downing:  Wellness Formula, Vitamin C, EmergenC, Umcka, Chlorophyll, homeopathic respiratory tinctures, probiotics, with a swig of NyQuill here and there.

Today when I redeemed my birthday pedicure my left eye was watering like the floodgates of Heaven.  I really hope the guy, due to our language barrier, didn't think I was so moved by his leg massage and the new found smoothness of my feet that it had actually moved me to tears.  Left sided tears, that is...

Anyway.  I've been really working on eating 3 meals a day.  And for the most part, due to a lack of creativity and a super time crunch, I pretty much just eat 3 salads with lots of veggies and some meat on them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I've come up with some winners.  Others were for sure losers.  I'll share the winners when I have more time.  But NOT snacking, even on healthy snacks, has been a tough habit to change...

Last week I didn't weigh in because I didn't feel like it.  And I had my period.  Which is why I didn't feel like it.  But I went below the 140 mark again, so that felt good.

I won't be weighing in on Friday of this week because I'm headed out of town early tomorrow morning.  I felt like I should tell you this because, well, I just didn't want to be a slacker, that's all.

I'm craving sweets lately, trying to stave it off with dates and figs.  This works, especially since dates are so darn sweet, but it's still sugar, and I, for one, need to watch my sugar intake.  It doesn't work, staving it off that is, when I don't actually stave it off with dates and figs but instead make my hubby and kid a 1/2 batch of gluten free rice krispie treats that I help them polish off.

So, did I mention now Jason is sick?  And this sucks because I'm leaving town tomorrow morning through Sunday and he's the man in charge.  Thankfully the kids have already been sick so they won't be getting it again, but if you think of it, say a prayer for the guy as he single parents, works from home, and has a head full of snot.  Sweet.

But FOR SURE, he is husband of the year.  HANDS DOWN.  He knows how passionate I am about what I'm doing and he worked his schedule so I could go...

This is what I've been up to and what I'll be working on in Minneapolis over the weekend.  I'm headed there to meet an amazing volunteer group of women who are already praying for this endeavor!  More to come on this!  (The website isn't complete as there are a couple of pages yet to be published, but it gives you an idea of the overall vision and dream...)

I'm excited but have been so anxious all day that all I've wanted to do is eat.  I've chugged hot tea most of the day instead...

And for those of you who know me, it's definitely my M.O. to be typing a blog post at 10pm prior to leaving for a trip in the morning when I should be packing...because I work best under pressure...but I do need to go pack, so see ya!

*When you are stressed, or in a time crunch, what do you do to try to avoid it?  Or do you just tackle it head on?  Any tips or advice would be welcomed :)

A Fun Opportunity

So, I'm getting ready to re-launch my non-profit organization, Bevy, so I have been cleaning up some of my accounts.  I had neglected Twitter for several months because, well, frankly, I'm on Facebook more and hadn't really learned the ins and outs of Twitter...still don't really know them...

Anyway, yesterday I was updating my Twitter "bio" if you will, and took out the "Radio Show Host" part since I don't host my own show anymore.  Remember this:

Anyway, then, earlier this afternoon my friend Ginger sent me a text and asked if I wanted to jump in as a guest co-host on her friend's radio show tomorrow morning.

So, Jenny Dean Schmidt has graciously asked me to co-host her www.channelmom.com show bright and early on St. Patrick's Day.  And she didn't even know I'm a little Scotch-Irish...

We had a chance to speak earlier this afternoon and it was a great time of hearing each others' stories.  I'm looking forward to meeting her in person tomorrow as we interview two moms who are also both authors.

...And their topics:  Parenting and Food.

Huh....I'm a parent and I love to eat, so this should work out seemingly :)

Jenny was so excited because she had spent a little time on this blog and my Closet Eater Blog, so thinks I'll be a good fit for talking with the moms tomorrow.

We'll be interviewing Anne Wiggins, co-author of "Parenting from the Heights" and Beth Aldrich, author of "Real Moms Love to Eat."


So, who's with me?  Who wants to wake up at the crack of dawn and cheer me on LIVE?  Huh?  Huh?

Just go here tomorrow morning at 8:00 am Mountain Time:  www.channelmom.com and go to the channelmom Radio page and follow the instructions.

And, if you are local, it'll be on 93.7 FM

Goodnight!

Clean Cheating

My Naturopathic Doctor was making fun of me the other day. 

I guess it's all relative, but she was like, "Adrienne, bad eating to you would be clean eating for someone else.  There's got to be another reason for the weight gain other than what you are eating...I think it's stress related, but we'll need to investigate."

That could be true, but, this journey, my journey, is about this girl and her pursuit of health and life-giving choices.  So, yes, I suppose when I "splurge" on 5 brownies made of raw figs/dates/walnuts/cocoa/agave it's healthier than choosing 1/2 a box of Little Debbie's or something.  Or eating all but one bite of a Persian Key Lime Tartlet by Hail Merry might be better for my body than wolfing a piece of Key Lime pie by a certain female chef who has recently been diagnosed with diabetes for eating her own recipes...but not really.  Because sugar is sugar is sugar...and just because that tartlet doesn't have my key allergens in it doesn't mean it's necessarily a "better splurge"...anyway...

Maybe I do choose healthy binge food, but the key word there is binge.  No matter if my choice yesterday was 2 cups of popcorn, 3 Tbsp chocolate chips, 2 large "ants on a log", a dozen corn chips with salsa, and that tartlet, it's the why that gets me thinking...

I have noticed a pattern when I eat clean for 6 days and then have a couple of "whatever I want" meals on the 7th day, I feel great in general.

However, if I try to push it through more than those 6 days, like say a week and a half or two, then I have a "crazy day" and eat, or at least think about eating, outside the box, that is, my box.  I have also noticed that a "crazy day" is often the unforeseen prelude to that time of the month.  Case in point, apparently.

The part that makes me cranky, though, is I feel I've let a few friends down.  Several friends have given up sugar and white stuff for Lent and I've been encouraging them on their journeys.  They may or may not go back to eating from whence they came once Easter arrives, but for me, it's a lifestyle, not a 6 week change of course, so I'll still eat the same way.  Yeah, I had a rough go over the holidays and my birthday, but my goal and lifestyle are clean eating 90 - 95% of the time.  Not for legalism sake but because I know my body loves me when I love my body through healthful choices. 

Anyway, I feel better now and know what my trigger was.  I did give in, but this isn't legalism, this is love and I'm back to my 3 meals a day for a while because eating that way gives me plenty of energy.  And 6 days on, one day off...that helps keep my mind straight.  Glad Lent is set up that way anyhow.

It's all just one day at a time.  I'm just grateful for God's grace and strength in the journey...

50 First Dates

I've literally been thinking of loving myself along the lines of dating or getting to know me.

Imagine if your first date was supposed to be something simple, like meeting for lunch at a little local bistro on a sunny Spring day...you pick out a classic little dress, your favorite strand of pearls, and those cute little sandals you've been waiting to pull out of the closet all winter. 

What if once I got to the quaint little restaurant the hostess showed me to the kitchen, to a corner of the prep chef's counter, where a few random vegetables and bags of this and that were strewn nearby, along with a dish towel?

And what if my date walked in and said, "I bought those ingredients, so help yourself...they don't have any chairs back here, and I apologize for the mess and chaos, but it is the lunch hour, so I'm sure you understand...oh, we can share that dish towel for our napkin.  I also have a nice walk to the laundromat planned for after we're done eating..."  And so you stand there, in a fully functional kitchen, pick at some food you eat while standing up, but really don't take it all in because all you want to do is get out of that kitchen.  This is this guys idea of a date?!  #$%^&

Maybe you get the point, maybe you don't? 

I do.

If my husband had tried to woo me with a first date like that, it would have been our last.  Unless he owned the restaurant and was going to be preparing me gourmet  meals the rest of my life...but that wasn't the case.

The point is I am learning it is important to slow down and date me. 

For the last week I have only made two significant changes in my day to day routine, but as I said, they have been significant.  One is I have stopped snacking, therefore eating only 3 times a day.  As a result, I have taken the time to woo myself with the cutting board and chef's knife, chopping veggies and preparing meals for myself, not just eating Ryan's leftovers or stealing tastes while preparing dinner.  I have taken time to sit myself down at the table to eat all three meals (dinner easy b/c I do that with family) AND while I'm eating, I'm not multi-tasking.  I'm literally just eating.  Profound, huh?!

The other change I made last week was including Yoga workouts into my routine.  I did Yoga 4 times last week.  Man was I sore after the first official workout but since I stuck with it, my muscles felt great as the week progressed.

I always drink a ton of water, so that didn't change.  Everything else remained.  As a result, I lost 3.8 lbs. 

Taking time to have lunch with myself is a date unlike the one pictured above that usually is played out with me in my work out pants with three day old hair, slippers on, no bra, and fuzzy teeth sweaters. 

And my workouts have been an amount of time I have to squeeze in necessary exercise to help my heart and muscles, but it's been stressful to make the time.  Somehow the benefits of Yoga and how I feel during and afterwards have been worth it enough for me to make the time, and without the stress.

I think I'm on the right track as far as it relates to me.  Now to get rid of the 3 day old hair ;)

Salad for Breakfast, or Anytime!

Who says you can't have salad for breakfast?  I just made this salad below and it is by far one of my all time favorite!  I hope you take the time to make it for yourself in the near future.  And when you do, put it on a beautiful plate or in a pretty, large bowl, sit down on an actual chair for 15 minutes, and tastw it!  I ate it in a 100 year old bowl handed down to my husband from his Great Great Grandma.  It's an old Blue Ridge.  Anyway, the point is to slow down while you eat so you are actually conscious of the fact you are giving yourself nutrients!  It's worth it, and your body will thank you for chilling out and taking a break from the fast pace.

Enjoy!

TAKE TIME TO LOVE YOURSELF BY FEEDING YOURSELF REAL HEALTHY FOODS!

• On a bed of Romaine lettuce:  

1. 1/2 of a mango, diced
2. 1/4 cucumber, seeded and diced
3. 2 green onions, sliced
4. 1 Tbsp toasted raw pumpkin seeds (I did this in a hot mini iron skillet so they were good and fresh...)
5. 6 or 8 baby organic carrots
6. 2 ounces smoked salmon (I picked this up at Costco after I got suckered into a walk-by tasting...SO STINKING AWESOME!)

• Dressing, stir together in a small bowl, then drizzle over:

1. 4 Tbsp Hot Chipotle Frontera salsa (You know, from Rick Bayless...)
2. 1 Tbsp flax oil
3. 3 drops Stevia
4. Dash garlic powder 

I also posted this on my Recipe page, so it'll always be there when you have a craving for something delish!

Tonight we are going to a friend's house for dinner.  I'm taking these.


Enjoy!  Have a beautiful weekend!

Yogamama

So, last week marked an all time high in my stress levels. 

I've been building a website for my non-profit organization, cleaning up details on the business plan, recruiting volunteers who will in turn recruit more volunteers, shooting out emails to women around the country to ask for prayer over the whole picture, etc. etc.

So, anyway, I'm really excited for what I know God is doing in the hearts of women around the world.  I've never felt more alive and it's SO FRIGGIN' AWESOME to see a dream God placed in my heart over 10 years soon come to life.  This is the part that makes the stress worth it...

...but that's just the thing.  I don't have to have stress.  It's not a necessity just because I'm as busy as the next guy, trying to fit more into a day than actually possible. 

So, recently I've been doing some research on stress.  You see, I have gained 10 lbs over the last 2 months.  I currently have a fancy cold sore on my lip (damn herpes!  should NOT have kissed that one boy with the cooties way back when...).  The fact that my house is in disarray is actually bothering me (this is not usually the case...) and, the biggest, HUGEST factor:  I had the worst hip flare up in my history, but this came while I was eating cleaner than clean...at least so I thought.

As far as my hip, when I was probably Ryan's age, 1 1/2, I wore Forrest Gump leg braces while I slept.  Apparently my legs turned out when I was born...I could, like, turn my feet over to touch the ground.  I'm still "flexible" if you will, but the braces helped.  So, anyway, as long as I can remember, though, my right hip pops, probably as a result?  It was cool in Junior High to freak people out, but really, at 40, how cool is that?

It's just NOT.

So, usually it's fine.  But, once in a while, it feels like there is fire in my hip and I literally never gave it a thought that it could be related to diet or the kind of exercise I do. 

I'm NOT a runner.  Do you see lions or a creepy guy behind me?  Oh, me neither, so I really see no need for ME to run. 

If you run, sweet.  Run, you, Run!  Go!  Go!  GOOOOOOO!

But, I do work out pretty hard.  I enjoy the sweat and the extent to which I can push my body, that is why I choose workouts like P90X, Jillian Michaels, marathon walking, and lifting.  Over the years I have tried Yoga, Pilates, stretching, and even self-defense.  I like them all, but as far as sweat, only self-defense produced that as I threw a guy over my shoulder, kicked him in the balls, or gave him an elbow to the face, or something like that.

And then I turned 40 and didn't know how to handle some of my regular old daily stress.  And I had a hip flare up.  And I sounded like Great Aunt Ethel giving the low-down on her ailing geriatric bodily functions...

...and I decided I needed something that would help me on that road to loving myself I mentioned a few posts ago...

...and for me, it means I have to slow down, be mindful of what I'm doing, who I'm spending time with, what I'm spending my time on, laughing on purpose, sitting quietly as I enjoy a meal instead of wolfing it on the run or grazing (even on healthy stuff) all throughout the day (grazing or not giving your digestive tract a break isn't good on the system), listening to my body when it feels "off", sleeping more, breathing, saying "No" BEFORE my boundaries are crossed, and, as I've found out in the last week, working out in a way that is healing for my body instead of increasing the impact on my 40 year old joints.

Now, granted, I've done the P90X 90 minute Yoga routine, so the "X" may not sound like it's a "slow-down" but I tell you what!  HOLY SCHNIKEYS!  I FEEL AMAZING!  I realized a few of the food culprits that were on my Blood Type O "Avoid" list and took those out.  That made a HUGE difference!  The list actually stated those particular foods in "O's" produce inflammation and arthritic responses.  Yeah.  I had been eating cauliflower "rice" and Nightshades almost every day for a week.

So, taking those out doing Yoga has literally turned me 180 degrees in less than one week. 

Now, some Christians don't think doing Yoga is okay.  Fine.  Go RUN!  But not doing Yoga because it was birthed in Indian Hindu culture over 5000 years ago and you don't understand the names of the positions because they are originally in Sanskrit language is like not doing Aerobics, Running, or any other form of exercise because it originated in the Middle East, a predominantly Muslim or Babylonian/Pagan region of the world where God created the Garden when there was only one language on Earth, a language we don't even know still exists since the tower of Babel and all...

I'll write more about Yoga another time, but the point is, I am sore in a good way, I had no idea my body could do some of the things I've done in the last week, I am virtually stress-free though my busyness has not changed, I've sat down and enjoyed each meal since Sunday evening, done Yoga twice, walked more slowly on the treadmill, and even got my creative juices flowing as I made some jewelry for my Bebe&Boo business.

AND MY HIP IS TOTALLY AWESOME...and I've lost 3 lbs. 

So, I think I'm onto something. 

And that something is:  in order to love myself as I love my neighbor, the way Jesus instructed me, I need to "date" myself, get to know me, find out what my body likes and what things turn me off.  It's quite a journey, but I'm enjoying the ride.

Out of Whack

Some things are skew in my body, but I'm on the hunt to get to the bottom of it. 

Along with a few other friends, I am eating clean through Lent, but in truth, that doesn't mean a lot to me.  Lent means a lot to me, I don't mean that.  I mean, the time frame.  I like to eat clean 95% of the time because of how I feel, so when Easter comes around, I'm not going to go back to wanting to eat poorly, but, it gives me a time frame to walk with other friends on their journeys to health and healing, and enjoy their encouragement in return.

In the meantime, I'm discovering more and more about my body and how certain foods just aren't cut out for me...and that's okay...it's just a matter of NOT choosing them.  And I've done well for a week now, minus the Frontera Chips episode. 

Oh wait!  Last Saturday I went to High Tea at the Brown Palace with Emily, my little sister, her mother-in-love, and my mom to celebrate my mom's official diagnosis of being a "Breast Cancer Survivor."  I emailed ahead and requested gluten-free, but knew there would be egg, dairy, and sugar in most of the goodies, either way...and that I'd likely pay for it.  As a result, I literally gained 7 lbs in one day (I know a majority of it is water, but the fact is, when your body retains that much water after a simple tea party that the next lady didn't pack on the weight from, well, it's pretty clear my body is saying, "No way, Jose!  Stop giving me processed ANYTHING!") 

Funny how I could forget we went to tea, but my hubby has been out of town for over a week and so this week has been a blur...

Anyway, I'm teetering on this balance beam between frustration and doing this one day at a time.  I feel like my body is a bit out of whack and I KNOW when I'm in a clean eating routine those symptoms virtually disappear...it's just a matter of time in continuing to eat clean, distancing myself from having eaten poorly.

Symptoms.  I've had some newer symptoms lately are bugging me, so all the more reason to keep choosing clean.  One is a weird chemical taste in my mouth after I eat.  This could be the taste of detoxing my system.  Another, which I've had lots of in the past is my hip is totally flared up which means it's popping like corn in a hot kettle...it basically feels like fire in my hip.  And finally, I've been having more bouts of light headedness and some dizziness, which has become more frequent.  (Sheesh, how old do I sound?!)  So, hopefully these will pass as I continue to eat clean. 

And by "clean" I mean, nothing processed, no sugars, no dairy, no grains.  Lots of veggies, lean meats and fish, and some fruit, nuts and seeds.  Basically Paleo, and trying to eat the majority of my fruits and veggies RAW. 

So, if for some crazy reason I can't get myself cleaned up on the inside and healthy by Easter, I'm taking drastic measures...

...not sure what that means, but I know I want to grow old like this lady.