continued prework...

"To the soul there is hardly anything more healing than friendship." -- Thomas Moore

Todays prework challenge from Crystal is Buddy Wake-up and Check-in Calls

Isn't having a buddy so important anyway? Having someone that will support you in all that you do is critical to being successful in life and in this challenge. I specifically picked my buddy as my husband because in life he is my rock in all things. I know that I can always count on him to be supportive and honest, and to help me stay on my chosen path :)  Now our "buddy call" will be in person, but other than that, I will be following exactly what the challenge requires.

I'm getting SUPER EXCITED about the challenge actually beginning! Only one more day of prework and then my challenge begins!!!

Some more prework

The theme of the 30 Day Challenge is "Early To Bed, Early To Rise, Makes A Man Healthly, Wealthy and Wise", which if you so choose.................will help you begin and end your day feeling completely balanced.  I LOVE the idea of that!!  I know I've heard that quote before, but for some reason today it means more to me than it ever has before!
The tasks for today are to print out the PDF file from her website and choose your "wake-up" time for the 30 day challenge. She would also like for you to find a friend to do this with. <--more on that tomorrow.

I've printed out the PDF and put it in my planner. My wake-up time will be 5am. Right now it is summer, but 5am is perfect for once school starts again for the kids, so this will need to be my wake up time for starting the challenge.  I don't want to have to get used to 2 different times! I envision this being painful at first, but we will see. :)

Over the next couple of days I will focus on the specific purposes of each one of the items in detail from her website.

30 Day Metamorphosis

"A year from now you will wish you had started today."  -- Karen Lamb

I came across a very interesting idea the other day from the website http://www.crystalwilkerson.com/ --- to take a 30 Day challenge to make small changes everyday to gain a more balanced life. Wouldn't we all want to be more balanced in life? Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave a talk at the October 2010 General Conference called "Of Things That Matter Most", where he focused on getting back to the basics of what matter most in "four key relationships; with our God, with our families, with our fellowman, and with ourselves".  If you haven't read this, I highly recommend it, and this talk along with others was the whole basis of the 30 day challenge that I found from this amazing LDS woman/blogger. Her 30 day challenge is actually something that was done back in February, but I will be doing the challenges that she has laid out, along with some of my own, taking one day at a time, in order to create new habits in my own life.  Through this process I hope to gain wisdom, strength and greater balance in my everyday existence.  If you haven't seen or heard of this website, check it out.  Even if you don't do everything that she did, there is no way that you can't come away with some amazing ideas. Also I am a sucker for a good planner and she has one on her website that is simply extrodinary and is christian based and centered specifically around balancing the areas that are so important in life that Brother Uchtdorf talked about.

Okay so on to the challenge (the prework): Ponder these questions:

• Why is this important to me? I believe that doing this challenge will greatly improve my life and what I get out of it. I'm tired of having my everyday be the same oh same oh, I want to live purposely!!
• Why should I take the time? By taking the time, I will reinforce my new habits that I am trying to develop --> which will replace old habits that are either unhealthy or unproductive.
• Why now and not later? I can't afford to wait!! I need more healthy, spiritual and balanced habits. 
• Why will this help me? Through this process it will help me push out the old and bring in the new, to create a more fulfilling, purposeful life.
• Why should I not give up? It will be an amazing journey of self discovery and the end results will be worth it!! Giving up is not an option.....

Operation: Sexy France

What is sexier than the idea of going to France in May? Hopefully the answer will be ME...............at least by the time I actually go!

Let me digress for a sec......

I'm sooooo super excited that thanks to all my hotel and airline points that I accumulated over the 2 years I traveled five days a week, Chris and I will be getting to take a LIFETIME of all trips!!! In May..........right at the time of our 9th year anniversary, we will be flying into Rome..................................6 days later..................flying out of Paris to come home, with a whole lot of awesomeness in between!!!!

So my lovely sister-in-law Lindsay came up with the best idea when I told her I wanted to be fit for this trip..

• 1st she came up with the awesome name Operation: Sexy France  (has a nice ring to it!)
• 2nd she put together a great workout schedule
• 3rd she said she would do it with me!!! LOVE IT!!
• 4th she tipped me off to an awesome Iphone app and website, My Fitness Pal, that tracks all my fitness and food!

I'm excited for this new change on the horizon! I'm REALLY excited about my trip!!  And the "smaller" me will have alot more fun in Europe, with all the walking!

Book of Mormon

It amazes me sometimes how influential your children can be on your life!!

A couple of weeks ago, we are sitting in church..........Madison fiddling with her dress, Chris squirming in his seat, and me sitting and listening diligently <---- hey, its my story, I'll tell how I want! haha
Anyway, we are sitting in sacrament and Madison, who usually pulls out pencils and a pad and begins to draw, pulled out the Book of Mormon instead. With no prompting from anyone, she opened it to the beginning and started to read.  Chris and I sat in amazement as she read it the whole service.

I believe the Spirit spoke to Chris' heart that day, because at the beginning of this week, he asked me to come into Madisons room.............. we were going to read the Book of Mormon together as a family - one or two chapters a night, until we were done.  Now experience has taught me just to roll with it with my mouth shut and let things play out, so thats what I did.  All this week we have read from the Book of Mormon, whether we were tired or busy...................didn't matter. 

I feel so thankful for my loving husband that he saw a need that Madison had and is filling it!!  As a result, we are all benefiting from the family one-on-one time, and being able to read the scriptures together and discuss them in small doses so that we can all absorb the meanings.

Truly blessed!!

Vegan what?

Now now..........no-one panic..yes it is true, I no longer eat animals or anything that came from an animal.

The typical reaction that I get is "WTF" (only they say the real thing) or "are you crazy?", and then "why would you do that?" 

Why?
Let me just say that I have been tinkering with this for many years, thinking and reading about it, but never really going all the way into it. I, like most people, thought that if I didn't have meat, fish, chicken, cheese, milk, eggs etc, then what would I eat..... there would be nothing left.  I have enjoyed meat for a long time, but it has never fully enjoyed me, in that, it never really gave me a full satisfaction, just typically a stomach ache. I would often eat a meal and then either have a "food hangover" or be in a "food coma". The only time this wasn't the case, was when I ate meals that were animal free, and I have known that for a long time, but just did nothing about it.

And then I saw an interview on Oprah about a month ago with an author named Kelly Freston who wrote the book Veganist. They were promoting trying to go animal free for 21 days, or a week, or even just a meatless Monday. So I bought and read the book and in it she encourages people to learn where their food comes from, read the labels on your food to really know what you are eating, and "lean into" eating less meat, fish, chicken, cheese, milk, etc....

I read in the book that I would feel better, weigh less, help the environment, and save some lives (animals). It was at that point that I decided I would give up animals for a while, with just the knowledge that at least I wouldn't have a stomach ache........but so much more has happened since then.

The Veganist book also recommended some documentaries and some websites to learn more, so me being the person who wants to know absolutely everything about a subject, I dove in!

Have you ever heard the term "ignorance is bliss?".......WOW, truer words have never been spoken in relationship to "where" your food comes from and how many products that you wouldn't think came from animals, actually have animals in them. An example, Jello.......that's right Jello! Jello has Gelatin in it....Gelatin is a protein obtained by boiling animal skins, tendons, ligaments and bones in water and then used as a "thickener". 
I could spend days, and many pages to describe everything I saw or read, but instead I will list them out at the end of this blog and if you are interested in knowing, you can go watch them or visit the websites for yourself. And if you don't, that's okay too.

Day 1 - Giving up animal products was easy for me because I had spent lots of time and energy into thinking and preparing my mind for it, but for my husband Chris, the transition was not so clear cut.  You see, I had never really discussed any of this with Chris before I decided to do it, I just figured that I wouldn't eat meat and he would.
 
Not so much.........

I would say that the reaction I got from Chris was almost exactly what I "wasn't" expecting. The first day, I ate a salad for dinner and he had ribs and after dinner we had a loooooooonnnnnnggggg discussion over "why" I wanted to give up eating animals.  You see, Chris comes from a part of the country, Oregon, where there are alot of "those kind of people", and he didn't necessarily agree or enjoy their company because they were way too judgemental, in his opinion. So in short........ I was turning into "them", and that not only made him uncomfortable, but it also made him suprisingly angry. We agreed that I would do everything to not become "them", and he would do everything to support me.

Day 4 - I sent Chris an email link (as a Joke) to go to PETA's website and take the 30 day animal free challenge ------- he didn't think it was funny and sent me a WTF text within 2.2 seconds, but what he did next would change everything................

I got a text from him about an hour later, saying that he would give me 30 days.........
HE TOOK THE CHALLENGE.......now I was saying WTF.........
You see, Chris dropped the subject after the 1st day I went Vegan, but he continued to think about it and decided that he wanted to support me and my efforts, and wanted us to do this together :-) He told me that night that he figured the most he would miss out on was 30 days of meat and then go right back to it, but supporting me was the most important thing to him, and it would be easier to cook for the two of us.

Let me digress for a sec.........do I not have the most amazing husband and best friend ever?
YES, YES I DO!

Anyway, we have spent the last 3 weeks discovering new foods, new recipes, watching documentaries and reading about where our food comes from and how we can get the most out of the nutrients we put in our bodies. For Chris, the transition wasn't as easy, but he has still embraced it full on, even though, he has to listen to a large amount of ribbing (pun intended) from the guys he works with. For me, my mind has never been clearer and I feel GREAT! Gone are the meals that make me feel like complete crap after, not just physically, but emotionally too! What I learned more than anything, was that I was addicted to the food that I was eating and my poor food choices was actually making me eat more of the very food that was making me feel the worst.  It was a vicious cycle.

In closing, let me just say that if you sit at a table with me for dinner, please don't think I am judging your food, because I'm seriously just enjoying mine.........
I just wanted to put it out there of what led me to where I am right now and if you don't want any part of it, that's cool too. :-) :-)






Documentaries -

Food Inc - discusses how 4 companies have taken over practically all of the food that goes to your plate and explores the food industry's detrimental effects on our health and environment.

Food Matters - takes a hard look at how food is helping or hurting our health, and what we can do to live (and eat) better

Tapped - discusses how just a few companies have taken over water, and what it is doing to the environment.

Super Size Me - a guy uses himself as a guinea pig to take a look at the effects of fast food on the body by eating at McDonalds everyday. - a hint (it doesn't make him healthier)

Earthlings - examins our dependence on animals for food, clothing, pets, entertainment and medical research and how that links to the world economy - Warning - this movie is graphic and fully explores cruelty to animals and it made me cry alot because of the graphic images, but I had no idea these things were taking place :(


Websites

http://www.peta.org/  - PETA's website
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/  - this website has alot of really awesome recipes
http://www.kellyfreston.com/  - Kelly Frestons "Veganist" website
http://www.thekindlife.com/ - Alicia Silverstones website that has recipes, products and info

Distracted

The title of this entry says it all...................Distracted!


It started out with Spring Break two weeks ago, which through me out of kilter, and I haven't fully got back into the swing of things.  Sure I've had some workouts, but not successful full out "fist pump" workouts!

So long story short.............I'm ready to get back into it!

Let's do this!!!