New Journey

You know the idea of tough love? Well, I got a super dose of it just recently from both my earthly and heavenly parents. Basically, I'm being driven toward a path of better physical and spiritual health. Today was my first day of changing my eating habits. My sister, Rachel, plans on doing this with me in hopes of reaching her final goal. I plan to document our progress here in order to keep things organized and well planned.

We're starting a 12-week plan that eventually becomes a lifestyle, but it takes about 12 weeks to introduce your body to the new habits.

First, we're cleansing our bodies of toxins by eating only raw foods for 2 weeks. And when I say raw food, I mean raw fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts, beans, and cooking only with coconut or extra virgin olive oil. Not to mention plenty of drinking water. On top of that, we're supposed to do a 30 min brisk walk everyday.

So today was the first day of the 2-week cleanse. After the 2 weeks are up, we will go on 3 days without any food and only drink a lemonade detox throughout the day. Then, for another 3 days, we'll go back to raw foods, and then do a final 3 day lemonade detox. All of this will clean out our internal organs and get them in full working condition before we start the big diet change.

All of our information is coming from a chiropractor in Indiana who put together this 12-week program, to which he calls The Fat Loss Factor. I read the entire book/program in just 2 days, and if you know me at all, then you know that 2 days is pretty good. His main focus is retraining your mind and body to become a fat burning machine that it's made to be. However, over the years, bad habits of left our insides in terrible condition, and therefore cannot work to their full potential. He draws special attention to the liver, especially since one of the liver's main jobs is to break down fats. This is why he recommends the cleanse and detox before changing your eating habits.

Anyway, both Rachel and I did pretty good for the first day of the cleanse. I took a bunch of fruit with me to work this morning and snacked on them every 2 hours. I snacked on bing cherries, grapes, apples, and plums. I also took raw nuts; almonds and walnuts. On top of that, drank lots of water. There's a really nice water/ice machine downstairs where I work, so I made several trips down there to get refills, and that included walking up and down three flights of stairs....slowly, of course ;) They have an elevator, but I only use it if I absolutely have to, like this morning when my foot was aching pretty bad.

When I got home, I ate on some carrots, peaches, and nuts. You'd be surprised how raw nuts can curb your hunger when you drink water with them. I took a much needed nap, since I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before. I woke up feeling hungry, so I went upstairs and ate some pineapple, mango, cucumbers dipped in vinegar, and a small cup of pinto beans. I also threw in a couple of almonds on the side. That was three hours ago, and I'm just now starting to feel hungry again. I find that if I snack every two hours, I don't feel deprived of food. It took me a while to really believe that I could survive without meat and potatoes lol. After this, I'll probably grab an apple and some walnuts.

The eating part was fine, but the 30 min walk wasn't. I knew I didn't wanna walk outside because of the heat, so I put in Mama's walking DVD. I started off thinking I could do the 15 min gentle walk twice to make it a 30 min walk.....bad idea, at least for someone who's just recovered from a broken foot. But I'm also VERY out of shape, and once the first walk was over, I decided to leave it at that. I need to talk this slowly, otherwise I'll feel like giving up...and I'm running out of options to do that. So I figured this first week, I'll just do 15 min of walking. Perhaps next week, I'll try the full blown 30min walk.

Rachel and I also took our measurements, and tomorrow morning we'll weigh ourselves and get a calculation of our body fat percentage. I knew it'd be pointless to weigh in now since we're so full of water weight at the moment. Tomorrow morning will be good. I know I'm a high number, always have been, but I'm not letting the numbers get in the way. I see myself at 21 with a healthy body and a healthy mind with lots of energy to do God's work, specifically KBC.

We also took pictures:

My photos didn't surprise me, but I like the fact that I'm somewhat proportioned.

Rachel's isn't too bad, she just wants to firm up and turn flab to muscle.

We're going to be taking measurements once a week, but we won't be taking photos again until the end of the 12 weeks.

Well, that's the majority of it in a nutshell. The 4th of July festivities may proof to be difficult, but I'm reminding myself that this is only for 2 weeks. I will be able to eat my favorite food again, just not at the moment.

This is the end of day 1, I'm still alive, to God be the glory.