On coming back to healthy

Its been so long since Ive posted on my blog. And it hasnt been completely by accident. 

For the last couple of months Josh and I were basically unemployed. Although I had a job interpreting, those paychecks didnt come right away so of course, this made our food budget smaller. A lot smaller. 

Its a sad reality that people who have less money have really poor options at the grocery store. I tried to strech a dollar to make it give me the best options but sadly all the processed, fast, and really unhealthy foods were so readily available. Meanwhile, fruits and veggies most of the times, were not. 

Today I'm sitting in our new apartment so ready to come back to healthy. We started yesterday by eating an organic rotiserrie chicken, roasted red potatoes and a warm rainbow carrot salad. 

OMG! So delicious. 

I was so out of habit of even thinking about the blog that I neglected to take a picture. But we're so ready to have the means to take care of ourselves again. 

It's not like we entered the rich class by any means, but having real jobs according to our careers is going to be able to supply us with the means necessary to live comfortably. 

We have learned so much patience and faith in the last couple of months. The Lord made all of the peices fit and Im so grateful for His love. 

My testimony in the Lord has increased and I have felt his Spirit calm us down when we got desperate. The Lord had his eye on us the whole time. 

So, cheers to us! We're lifiting our cup (of delicious juice hahaha) to the stars and excited to start over on the right foot and with the right resources. 

I know with God's help, and with the guidance we have all around us we'll be able to make this journey count. 

Thanks for reading, and we'll catch up next time. 

Moving out and Moving on ---

As many of you know, Josh and I just moved from Idaho to Oregon. Our move was quite the emotional roller coaster and along with that came tears, frustrations, relief, happiness, a sense of completion and oh boy the list goes on...

Well, we tried so hard to keep on track with our healthy habits. We had our daily dose of green juices up until the day before our move, but eventually we had to pack our food, clean our kitchen and eat out. And can I just say... whoa did my stomach have it out for me later!

It's incredible the changes I saw in my body with just a month of juicing and just being more conscious of what I ate. I have more energy, my skin is clearing up, my nails and hair look prettier than ever, and my elimination was ... well not bad! Juicing is my favorite way to start any morning now. Looking at the picture below, it looks less than appetizing, however, juicing is great for you and once you get past the green -- it's pretty good.

However, the evening before our move we needed to eat something quick and easy -- we went for pizza. To be able to excuse that, we visited our favorite pizzeria in Idaho Falls - Lucy's Pizza - which is local pizza, New York style, and not filled with grease like a hot and ready or domino's. It was delicious!

The morning of our move we really did need something quick and fast. Jack in Box.... I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I'll ever eat there again!

Our drive started out fine, but after about an hour it all went downhill from there. My stomach felt queezy, I felt nauseous and I had to pull over to use the restroom... like 5 times during our trip! I felt lethargic all morning  and afternoon probably from all the liquid I was loosing during the day, and all of the snacks I had in my car made me want to vomit.

It was a terrible drive, to the point that when we saw this beautiful sign we decided to stop for the night and finish the rest of our 11+ hour drive home the next day. It took us about 8+ hours to get half way, which would normally be about 5.5 hours, so honestly I was done!

Moving was really hard on us not just with eating, but emotionally a well. Despite the fact that we were ready to move out of Idaho and finally settle down, we had to say goodbye to all of our friends. I met friends my first semester in Rexburg and some more recently but  we have nonetheless have grown closer with them as the years have gone by. It's really sad not knowing when we will see them again. We had lots of cupcakes, ice cream, and fried things as part of the dinners and times we said goodbyes. We love them and miss them so much already. But reality hit us, and now we're hoping to settle into our life in Oregon quickly and smoothly.



Josh and I made sure to not put our juicer in storage, as we're staying with my mom while we settle in to our new home. We have juiced for my mom the last few days and because we knew she'd be way more picky with the flavor of the juice than we were, Josh started looking for recipes online and I want to share one with you! -- It's by FAR my favorite juice Josh has made!

Ingredients:
1 very ripe Pineapple
1 head of Kale
1 small piece of ginger (about the thickness of your thumb)

Directions:
put all ingredients in a juicer
drink away!

We didn't have a juicer until about two weeks ago, but have been juicing for over a month. We used a blender and a strainer at first.  It wasn't as effective or flavorful since our blender can't handle just blending fruits and vegetables without water, but we made due with what we had and it worked for us. Now we have a really inexpensive juicer we found on sale at Fred Meyers. It doesn't work the best, but it's a step up from the juicer and strainer we started out with.

Happy juicing everyone! Let me know if you have any delicious recipes to share, and let me know what snacks have you found that work best on long road trips!

On the Word of Wisdom

http://fitnessnutritiondenverboulder.com/defining-whole-foods-redefining-healthy-eating

In my first post I think I made an error.

I said we had no specific plan on how to achieve health, but I have to say, we really do have a place to start!

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I consider the Word of Wisdom as sacred scripture with guidelines for our diet. I have the faith to know that if we follow the Word of Wisdom the way God would have us, we can achieve health.

I remember being in high school and being asked by one of my teachers, "I just don't understand the coffee rule, I mean what's so bad about coffee?" He didn't mean anything rude by it, he was honestly curious as to why a religion would look down in such a harmless food.

I said, "well it's really addicting and not the best for your health."
He responded, "well so is fast food but you eat that almost everyday!"

To be honest I was stunned at that moment. I had no comeback. But I went along and continued my ways. I didn't pay much attention to that comment since.

As this health journey has started, the word of wisdom and the conversation with my teacher have come back to my mind a few times. So what did I do? I re-read the Word of Wisdom, this time with a different perdpective. I read it not just to point the DON'Ts, but also to highlight the DO's. Here is what I found!

DO's                                                                        DONT's

Wholesome herbs	Drink alcohol
Herbs and fruit in season	Tobacco
All grain	Hot drinks
All fruit of the vine above or below ground (personally, I think of vegetables)	-which by revelation we know it’s to mean coffee and non-herbal tea
Animals  - sparingly  - in times of winter, cold, famine	Animals – in excess

And of course, my favorite part: the promises and the blessings that the Lord does promise us if we follow his counsel, which to mean sound like prime health!

18 And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones;

19 And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;

20 And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.

So that's our game plan! Where our diet contained animal products in every meal of every day, and where vegetables were often an afterthought we have applied three simple rules to our diet we're trying to follow. (Obviously, we don' partake of the items in the DON'Ts list! ) And again, this is all new for us, so we're learning as we go along. Here are our three rules:

• Reducing the amount of animals and animal products we eat to eventually understand what sparingly means 
• Prioritizing fruits and vegetables in our diet
• Being proactive in eating more plant based foods like lentils, rice, beans etc. 

What about any of you? Have you found health benefits and blessings by following the Word of Wisdom? Let me know what you think, and any advice you may have for us! 

The First Thoughts...

I LOVE FOOD!!

I have always enjoyed all things eating! -- My mom tells me stories of when I was a little girl, we would go to anyone's house and I knew to identify who was in charge of the kitchen and I stayed close. (seriously, I wonder if people wondered if my mom fed me or not!) My love for eating is clearly nothing new.

While I was on my mission in Northern Virginia, one of the MANY blessings I enjoyed was all the wonderful food I ate. I remember before I headed out, I was so worried that I would have to suffer through terrible meals and unsavory platters without the ability to say no. But that was actually never the case.

This is one delicious example! 

However, lately, I have started to truly be aware of the things I'm eating, and how it's affecting my body. I'm just so stubborn and don't want to change my ways that I haven't ever taken the time to examine my food. It took me getting married and a big NUDGE from my husband to finally accept that I'm lactose intolerant. Milk and I just don't get along. But it's sooo good right?! -- Another examples is Coke. I love SODA so much! Just recently I have come to accept a world in which I don't drink it nearly as often as I did before. But even still, my journey to health is still a long road ahead.  Just over a month ago  my husband and I have finally decided to together be conscious of our food and make changes for the better.

For a while now, my husband Josh and I have been saying things like,
"One day we'll eat healthy!"
"One day we'll afford to eat healthy!"

We sometimes make ridiculous goals like,
"We're going to be Vegetarian, because that's better!"

and one of my favorites, mostly because it's a complete lie
"we really do eat pretty healthy." (as we just ate a high fat, high carb, low vegetable/fruit meal.)

We have lied to ourselves like so many people do, and have fallen into this trap that somehow health is something unreachable and unobtainable. --- Do you find yourself in a similar predicament? I know that for us:

ITS TIME TO STOP!

I'm starting this Blog in hopes to share our journey with whoever is interested. I don't want for it to be a place where people feel judged or like we're pointing fingers, but rather, we want this to be a place of inspiration, learning, and collaboration. I'm hoping to share recipes, blogs of new food we discover, and how we make choices of what we eat on a daily basis.

So many people around me want to learn to eat healthy and we all have different ideas of how to come around to that. Some reduce fat, others sugar, others carbs, others calories --- whatever the method, so many of us are trying to read as many food blogs, watch Netflix documentaries, search recipes on YouTube... and basically we're trying to figure this health business out.

If you find yourself in the same place, and are figuring this out as well, we invite you to follow our blog and learn along with us. We're going to share our ups and downs and struggles as we strive to get away from processed and altered food and go back to eating delicious WHOLE FOODS! I don't know how long this will take, nor do we have a specific plan. However we do know this, we have ignored the signs our bodies have given us for far too long. We're tired of feeling tired, and overweight, and unattractive, and any other negative feeling that eating unhealthy leads to, and we're ready to actually make change.

And so, FRUITS FOR THOUGHT begins!