January and a New Reality.

Well I have accomplished just over a month of working hard to change eating habits as well as ideas about health. I am certainly proud of this miraculous (for me) feat, however the hype is wearing off. Don't get me wrong, I have no interest in going back to eating wheat/rice/processed anything, but school has started and that means life beyond Paleo Pinterest recipes is happening. Life means if I want to eat well at breakfast I have to crack an egg rather than grab a protein bar. If I want to eat well at lunch I have to prepare food the night prior and if I want to eat well at dinner I have to prepare dinner rather than serving up a bowl of cereal or frozen pizza so I can get back to homework or decompressing from the day. Throw in extra curricular kids stuff, appointments, keeping a house clean, etc etc and LIFE seems quick to rob me of the opportunity to be as healthy as I would like. This is just reality people- sobering, frustrating, honest reality. Despite all of these things that at the moment are making me feel like Atlas, I am trucking along making the best choices I can.

Lets shuffle away from new reality for a moment and talk about the month of January. I really wanted to look back before we got too far away from it because it has been a REALLY productive and encouraging kick start to my year. So if you for any reason think you CANNOT start working towards goals for any reason I am here to prove you wrong. I am 100% non superhero, therefor if I can you can. Here is what January looked like for me:

1. I juiced for 12 days.

2. I cut out processed foods including anything with wheat and sugar.

3. I started cooking again and ENJOYING it.

4. I successfully reduced my meds from 100mg to 25mg and still going.

5. I found and committed myself to an awesome church- serving and small groups included.

6. I make it to the gym at least 3 days a week.

7. I am back at school taking 16 units, and TAing. 

8. I hiked Iron Mountain!

9. I made a new friend who is amazing and am working on building a relationship with 

her and her family. 

I think that covers it. That is A LOT of positivity in a really short amount of time. This month has had a bit of a rocky start for reasons I prefer not to go into here, but TODAY is new and I was blessed enough to have a really long and helpful conversation with the most wonderful man on the whole entire planet, my dad. (You thought I was gonna say husband huh? He's pretty wonderful but nobody beats daddy in the way of advice). He helped remind me to keep pushing into God and His promises despite feelings of any sort, and that is just what I plan to do. I say "he" helped me, but really God spoke amazingly through him and it was clearly God because he was even like, "I have no idea where any of that just came from." 

Moral of the blog today: YES YOU CAN, YES I CAN, EVERYDAY IS NEW, CHANGING YOUR THINKING CHANGES YOUR LIFE.

The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour
are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
You can turn over a new leaf every hour
if you choose.

-Arnold Bennett 

PS. I have discovered that sugar in any form is really addicting. I have had more raw sugar and or natural sugar in things lately and the more I have the more I want. Working on cutting back- but I was just really startled at how quickly I started craving it again even when most of what I was having was from things like honey or sugar in the raw...or Starbucks- which I have had a few too many times and need to exercise self control concerning. ALSO, the church I started going to has a gluten free pastor so I didn't even have to cheat in order to eat Jesus bread this Sunday!