It's a beginning...

I've recently embarked on a new health expedition of sorts to kick my health up a notch, O.K. maybe 3 or 4 or 100 notches from what it's been. Starting this week, in particular, I've taken part in Vegan Hope 30 Day Summer Workshop, which has FAR exceeded my expectations. For more info check out her blog here. Make sure to look at her story...it's really AMAZING!

Anyway to keep myself accountable I've decided on the days I'm able to photograph what I'm eating.

Breakfast: none

Not exactly the most healthy choice, but I woke up late, took my meds (thyroid) & went to the gym. Those that don't know...I have to wait an hour before eating.

My workout: Hey, I know it's not much, but a good start, right. All I had was 25 minutes anyway before childcare closed.

Post workout snack: This was an organic fuji apple, firm, crisp, juicy & definitely hit the spot.

Natala (a.k.a. Vegan Hope Guru) has asked us to exercise 5 minutes before & 5 minutes after eating. Somehow I start of great, but by dinnertime...forget about it. I'm done. Today after my apple/before lunch I did day 3, week 1 of the hundred push up challenge. It's here. Please join me.

Lunch: 1st course, garden salad with organic romaine, orange peppers, & heirloom german johnson tomatoes from our garden with a raspberry vinaigrette. I wasn't sure how the tomatoes would taste with the vinaigrette, but the sweetness combined nicely.

"Mom, take a picture of MEEEEEE!"

Lunch: 2nd course, leftovers from last night a bbq pizza. Almost vegan, the crust had whey & the bbq sauce had honey, which made it too sweet actually.

After lunch I jogged around the house & in place while I finished unloading the dishwasher. A mom's gotta multi-task! No sharp objects were involved. :)

This is my sweet treat of choice nowadays. Supposedly the sweetener is "natural", but I haven't done any REAL research on it yet.

After swimming with the kids for about an hour, an at the pool snack: pure organic bar & baby carrots

Dinner: sweet potato with black beans & peach salsa. I liked it. I would have liked it better had the salsa been a little less spicy.

I was feeling a little too lazy, O.K. tired to fix greens...so grabbed these...a little TOO many of these.

Note to self: eating nuts out of a large bag = bad, bad nuts.

Dessert: so healthy & good. And anyone that knows me knows I LOOOOVVVEEE oatmeal. This dish contained a lot of it & no refined sugar...thank you very much.

This was my 1st serving: went back for more & couldn't finish it. As Ashleigh says, "my tummy didn't want any more."

During this challenge up until this point, I was not taking it as serious as I should. Then when Natala stepped it up a bit, I thought I've gotta do this. So today I did. I think I like eating healthy & moving my body.

Life is good.

The fastest growing women's cancer diagnosis...A MUST SEE!

This cancer has an excellent survival rate about 90% if caught early. It's also the fasting growing cancer among women...it's not what you think. And it only takes a doctor about 30 seconds to check for it. Most physicians don't check for it as you'll see in the video. Is it breast cancer? No. Is it uterine cancer? No. Is it lung cancer? No. If you guessed thyroid cancer, ding, ding, ding, that's right. Please pass this video along to your loved ones. And PLEASE ask you doctor to check your neck!

I would love to answer any questions as well, or minister to anyone going through this disease. Please don't hesitate to ask.

Your Total Health with Hoda Kotb featuring the Light Of Life Foundation from Joan Shey on Vimeo.

Great Cancer Advice!

This is a video Kris Carr, a.k.a Crazy Sexy Cancer Cowgirl. Although I really like her, I don't agree with everything she says, but this video is excellent spot on advice. Love it. Check it out:

Meat & Dairy cause cancer? Really?

http://

More info about T. Colin Campbell:
http://www.tcolincampbell.org/courses-resources/about/

Do you believe it?

Fiber One Coupons

Normally I check out other super cool coupon sites like this one: http://30dollarweeklygrocerychallenge.blogspot.com/

I found this one myself though: http://www.fiberone.com/Product/Cereals.aspx?WT.mc_id=paid_search_300301_636119&WT.srch=1

Garlic & Greens Soup, Yum-mo

I'm definitely going to try this recipe.

Diet Update & Aspartame

Right now I've decided to blog my food intake while trying to make healthy choices most of the time. I do have a 30 day vegan challenge blog, but I'm just not ready to do that right now. I'm not going to exclude any food groups, but instead try to use portion control. The one thing I am going to avoid, however is artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame. The FDA receives more complaints about Aspartame than anything else. Also in children it permanently alters their DNA!

29 Gifts

Update: gave for about 3 days, then was busy getting ready for the holidays...definitely want to try it again.

29 Days of Giving

Check out this site: http://www.29gifts.org/

This movement started with Cami, while battling MS, began giving 29 gifts in 29 days. She noticed changes in her heart & health. With Christmas coming & being a Christian, what better time to focus on giving.

I thought I'd document my giving here.

Fruit Fasting (update)

I maintained the fruit fast almost 24 hours. Now I feel much better. It was definitely harder than I expected...

Fruit Fasting

I've been feeling a little under the weather today, sinusitis, sore throat. I've read from many sources to help the body heal to drink only water and eat fruit. Hard core health enthusiast would say to water fast. Ok, that doesn't really appeal to me, not to mention the fact I have to keep up with 2 young children. So I'm planning to fruit fast until I feel better. Dinner tonight was an asian pear with clementines. The asian pear was super yummy, mmm. I'm thinking farmer's market tomorrow. We're really blessed to live near the state farmer's market...yes that's definitely in order for tomorrow.

One of my most favorite blogs, http://carrotsncake.com/ mentioned in a recent post she began blogging for accountability during a weight loss journey before her wedding. I thought, what great idea, you know even fun, in a cool, geeky sort of way.

So back to fruit fasting...I plan to continue until I feel normal again...OK, no wise cracks from those who know me. I don't want to ever go back to the typical SAD, but I don't see myself doing a totally clean, pure, diet either. Actually only God knows where my journey will take me. All I know is when I don't feel my best, to fruit fast & rest as much as possible, sort of a garden of Eden diet. I have been to the gym twice this week. It feels so good to exercise. However until I feel better, no exercising.

Bathroom Challenge

One of the challenges at sparkpeople.com is the bathroom exercise challenge. Basically every time you go to the bathroom commit to an exercise of some sort. I thought wow what a great idea. I think I can find time to do that. So I've decided that every time I use the bathroom at home I'll do 10 girlie push ups and at bathrooms elsewhere I'll do 25 wall push ups. Then I thought why not add a jumping jack every time I opened the fridge or squats at the pantry. I wonder what the neighbors will think, seeing me jumping around the house.

Now if only I could increase my cardio...maybe running in the shower? Knowing me though I'd probably fall & break something ;).

Getting busy...

...livin' or dyin'. In other words am I putting into my temple life giving or life depleting foods. Here lately it ain't been the life givin' foods. So I've been wondering, if one were eat life giving foods & only life giving foods what would be the outcome? I don't know the answer to that because I've never tried it. Would I feel better? Would some of my health maladies disappear? You know I can't wait to find out. Will I experience a healing crisis? Only time will tell? Can I do it without falling off the wagon? I know I can.

So what do I plan to do? It's not going to be a plan established by some diet guru. I just plan to eat food as close to the way God made them as possible, basically close to a genesis 1:29 diet, meaning as unrefined & unprocessed as possible. That means for me I will be eating predominantly vegan raw foods at home, but at someone's home I will enjoy vegan cooked foods occasionally. I really want to see what an optimal diet will do for my health.

I want this to encompass more than diet though, to impact all areas of my life: my walk with the Lord, exercise, sleep, sunshine, relaxation...you know all that is me. I want this to be so much more than weight loss.

I believe to see any benefit at all I need to practice this for at least 21 days. I try to post updates often.

So what are you doing for the next 21 days?

Wonderfully made

Psalm 139:14

I praise you because I am fearfully & wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

This verse is really speaking to me recently...Right now I just don't feel healthy. I think it's partly because I've not listened to my body that the Lord made. I've been prayerfully considering changes to make.

Choose health

It's finally occurred to me in my never ending search for the perfect diet for weight loss that my emphasis has been all wrong. Who wants to constantly weigh to see if you've succeeded, all the while maybe eating healthy, maybe not. After all our cells are made of the things we eat. In fact it takes about 7 years to get all new cells. Anyway I'm planning to think about health & not weight loss so much. No more weighing unless at the doctor's office of course. Make healthy choices, move more, love myself...not so radical, maybe even a little boring. Maybe others can pick the perfect diet for them: counting points, carbs, weighing food. That's not for me. I have more important things to do, like have a life, hello! I'm sick of researching diets & weighing etc! However, I do love reading about health, so why not continue doing what I enjoy.

I've had a lot of sickness, I'm so done with that. Now's the time for health & fun. CHOOSE HEALTH!

whole body scan results, drum roll please...

After a 2 week low iodine diet, a thyrogen shot on Monday, a thyrogen shot on Tuesday, a radioactive iodine pill on Wednesday & the whole body scan on Friday...NEGATIVE, woo-hoo!!! On Friday, as well, I was supposed to have my thyroglobulin levels checked, but I totally forgot. Actually the thyrogen shots put you in a very "blond" state, no offense blond friends. My mother, who was staying with us at the time to help with the girls, kept commenting about it. I definitely felt very "hypo". I can't believe people used to live that way! However, me forgetting about the thyroglobulin test was not the greatest move on my part. Thyroglobulin is something thyroid cells "give off", so for a thyroid cancer patient the result should be zero or undetectable. According to my Endo it's something they "like" to have done, but it's not as important with my scan results of negative. They'll check it in 6 months.

Being on the other end of the phone listening to a medical professional give results of cancer or not, puts a new perspective on life, God, kids, love, family, the important stuff. Waiting to hear...you have cancer, again or your scan is negative. How words can totally change your life & the lives of those who love you...pretty heavy stuff on a Thursday afternoon.

OK, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the big font at the top...wouldn't let me change it :(.

Cancer, a chronic condition?

....yes, well maybe. There's a lot of discussion about not curing cancer, but instead managing it as a chronic condition. It's really impossible to be "cured of cancer" or in other words to totally not have cancer cells. In fact most believe that everyone has cancer cells. It's just a matter of how your body responds with immune function, food, exercise, sunshine, etc. In most cases our amazing God given bodies' healthy cells will kill cancer cells. But if our immunity's lowered for some reason or our body's too acidic, cancer can get the upper hand. Cancer can't grow in an alkaline oxygenated environment & that goal, an alkaline body, is the goal for many people. Do I want to do what it takes to have a mostly alkaline body, uh not so sure. I think I just have to find my balance. I think I've swung to far in either direction. What a fascinating mind, body, spiritual journey!

Low Iodine Diet...here I come

It's low iodine diet time again...& in this country iodine is added to everything, if it's not in there already. So since a low iodine diet, for the most part, coincides with a very cleansing diet... I thought having to do the low iodine diet just may give me the extra will power to eat a really simple cleansing diet. It's time to get ready for some serious detox. I'm really pretty excited about it. Maybe it'll clear out those lymphs. My goal is to rebound for 15 minutes a day to help that along as well. More on this later.

O.K. this is the plan...very 80/10/10ish: all of the raw fruits & veggies I want to eat & limited raw nuts & seeds. I'll probably do a lot of smoothies, love those so do the kids. I may do some cooked veggies...we'll see. I won't be eating out in restaurants...they put iodized salt in everything. Maybe I'll experiment with some new fruits I've never tried. Too bad it's not summer with all the delicious local produce.

That's all for now...more on why I'm doing this in a later post.

update

OK, I haven't made a post in a while...Since my journey started I've fallen off the wagon several times, but managed to jump right back on. I've definitely discovered how deep my addictions are to meat, dairy, sugar & processed food. Ugh. I'm getting ready to start a new challenge...I'll let you know what that is in a separate post. Some people may think it's a little crazy, but don't worry it will be totally healthy.

Go Veggie Challenge, day 3

Weight 162...lost another pound...2 lbs. total.

Used inhaler twice.

I've gotta stop this late night eating...not good for me. Last night I had a Lara Bar & some peanuts & tonight another Lara Bar.

Confession time: I came soooooo close to having some Goldfish crackers today. I was hungry & in Target. I bought Julia some Goldfish & wanted some so bad.... but I resisted! Yay, me.

Oh, today I made a green smoothie (raw spinach, strawberries, bananas, H2O, ice & Stevia). I'll include a pic. After it was blended you couldn't even see the spinach nor taste it & it was a hit with the kids.

Tomorrow is Wednesday Cleanse Day... & since I'm coming from a SAD diet my cleanse will be eating 80/10/10. Eating a very natural diet...for more info check out this website, http://foodnsport.com. Most of you may be thinking Wednesday Cleanse Day, what? I got that from my thyroid cancer group at Kris Carr's website http://my.crazysexylife.com.

See ya tomorrow!