If you follow me on facebook, you probably noticed that I've shared some comments about juicing and eating mostly raw lately. This isn't really anything new for me because it's something I've done off and on for the last couple of years but I stepped up my game a few weeks ago after watching, "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" with our son Jack who looked at me when it was over and said, "Mom. For the rest of the day I only want you to eat fruits and vegetables," which I agreed to do and have pretty much continued since that day. I've lost 7 pounds since then and have been feeling pretty good. Along with this, I've cut out processed food by about 90% and dairy altogether.
It hasn't really been that difficult and I've noticed a marked decrease in cravings for sweets and junk food. I have no problem getting up early in the morning and find that a big glass of fresh green juice gives me more of a lift than coffee ever did (and...without the negative side effects).
I've been making juices for Michael too and next week, we're going on a 10 day juice fast which I'm really looking forward to. Him? Well....he'll do it because he loves me, smile; he's a meat and potato guy at heart but with a willing and teachable spirit thanks to the last 4.5 years.
Something else that's been a big influence for me right now is that my cousin who's just three years older than me was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this month and next month will be the 10 year anniversary of Jeff passing away from cancer. Ugh! Sometimes I just feel like I'm surrounded by all of it and while I know that God is in control of my life, I also know that I can control what I do and don't put into my body; and with an amazing husband and five incredible kids to live for and love on, I want to be sure that I'm as healthy as I can be on the inside.
All that being said I have a really good friend who's been eating a paleo diet (pretty popular right now - just google it) and has been loving it and has lost over 40 pounds in 3 months and so we get together and talk shop about food and diets and organic and grass fed and raw and blogs and recipes and all that good stuff and she told me something about a company called Beyond Organic which was founded by Jordan Rubin who has an amazing health transformation story of his own and is the author of The Maker’s Diet, which you may know of, as well as several other books. I know of his book but have never read it so I really can't comment one way or another about it. All this to say that clearly, God had a hand in the restoration of Mr. Rubin's health and you know us....we're all about restoring; marriages, families, health...even furniture if I try my hand at that some day (which, who are kidding, I probably will. hello craft blog).
So, I'm going with my friend tonight to learn more about what this company stands for and I went on their website today to get directions for where I need to be and as I'm looking around on the site I notice that they had a gathering last month and one of their keynote speakers was a woman named Dr. Caroline Leaf who's written an amazing book called Who Switched Off My Brain which we have and always recommend during our Intensives and have mentioned on our weekly conference calls several times as it's one of the best resources out there explaining how and why the synapse in our brain function the way they do while completely bringing in the correlation to scripture. Yep. Not only is Dr. Leaf a scientist specializing in brain research, she's also a believer. Needless to say, my interest here is high.
I love finding out about how to take care of my body in healthy and delicious ways; and it has to be delicious or what's the point right? And on that note, I wanted to share a little blog site with you that I recently found that is full of great information on alkalizing foods (super important to have your internal environment be more alkalized than acidic) with great recipes and seriously mouth-watering pics. It was started by two sisters. You'll love it.
Completely gorgeous right?!? And if you have a way to stream movies, I definitely want to recommend Fat Sick and Nearly Dead as well as Forks Over Knives; both will definitely get you pausing before you drive through for favorite fast food restaurant.
Sorry. It's just cause I love ya!
