Day 3 - It's Over

     So, here is sit, 3 days later and it's over. I did it. My first cleanse. I am not sure how much weight I lost total but when I stepped on the scale this morning, I was at 5. Bringing my total weight loss since Jan to 12lbs. Not too bad. I am cleansed and ready to start all over with a renewed vision for my health.

     I am not going to lie, it was hard. I have a food addiction problem so this was really really hard for me. This after noon, around 3, I had a handful of pretzels and little hummus and then tonight, after my last drink was done, I had about a half a cup of pasta salad. It's true, I celebrated a little too early but I followed it with 30 minutes of cardio so surely that counts for something!

     I am so proud of myself for completing this and upset that I didn't do it perfectly for the entire 3 days. I can say that my cleansing days are not over. I was encouraged to do this cleanse once a month however, I know I don't have that in me nor do I want to attempt it. I can probably make it a once a year thing though.

     It seems like March is the month I re-evaluate my health and make necessary changes. 2 years ago, in March, I made the choice to become Vegan for a year. I did. After 1 year, I made the choice to add meat back into my diet. That was a huge mistake. I did not tolerate red meat very well and I knew better for my cholesterol issues. So, I went back off meat. Now, this March, I did a cleanse and have been introduced to the world of juicing. Some might look at my choices over the past 2 years and wonder why I can't seem to stick with anything. I have a much different argument. I always want to keep getting better. I want to keep improving my life. In every single way. The woman I want to be, exists. Somewhere, she is out there. She doesn't have a look but she has an attitude. She is confident, healthy, makes wise choices for her and her family, is good to her body and does what she needs to stay that way.

     It is with that knowledge that I relinquish the title of Vegan. The only title I want to have is healthy. I am adding chicken and turkey to help with my protein intake and am going to continue juicing. I realized how many fruits and veggies I am not actually eating! It's amazing! Perhaps once a month I might have a day where I juice all day and forego actually chewing food but that is not a promise I'm making to myself.

     I want to thank all of my reader who continue to follow me through all of these health changes I make. It is my constant prayer that whatever battles you are facing, that you find yourself always trying to be the best you can be and never being afraid of changing to do so.

     To the conclusion of this journey and to the start of so many more... I bid you... Goodnight!

Day 2

     Here I am... over the halfway point. I never realized how long 3 days actually was until it was 3 days without food! I woke up this morning feeling really good. The morning drink is my favorite so I was able to enjoy every sip. Then... listen to this... I met my Aunt in town for lunch! Yes I did! At one of my very very favorite places to eat, ever! However, she ordered her food and I ordered water and I sat there, drinking my water, watching her eat! WOW! I can honestly say that I'm not sure I have ever had discipline like that before, in my life! But I did it. I was enjoying the day and really doing just fine until the dreaded 3:00 hour came. Then 4:00... Not fun. I was so hungry. I cannot describe to you the hunger. What made it worse? I made BLT's for my family tonight. We have BLT's every Wednesday night of course I always skip the traditional bacon and opt for my own however, it's still BLT night! Who doesn't like a good BLT? But, I served my family then whipped up my drink and sat there around the bar sipping on my purple colored liquid while my family enjoyed their meal.

     I did feel really good today and I'm pretty sure this is helping me break through the 10 lb mark on the WW diet. I have been since Jan 1st trying to reach 10lb weight loss. So, I am really hoping that when I weigh tomorrow night or Fri morning, it will show that and I will be on a good track to continued health success.

     I can say, which much confidence, that I am going to add Turkey and Chicken back into my diet. So, I'm not sure if I'm actually considered Vegan now and that's ok. Still no dairy, at all, no red meat or pork (in any of it's forms). The occasional fish, lean turkey and chicken with a diet consisting mostly of fruits and veggies. I'm so thankful that I'm able to change. I'm thankful that I'm able to grow. In everything that I do, I want to be the best at it. The best wife, mom, homemaker, teacher, camp director, co-worker, sister, daughter and friend. The only way that is done is constantly evaluate my current way of doing things and find out if they are the best. That's why we go to marriage seminars, parenting seminars, why I read health books, because information is always changing and there is always someone out there who does it better. With any luck, I will find that person and find out how they live and do that!

     I am discovering a lot about myself during this time. You know, since I'm not eating, I have a ton of time to self evaluate! I will talk more about that tomorrow night. But for now, I plan on sleeping really well and being very proud of the choices I made today. I pray that where you find yourself also.

Day 1

     Here I sit, at the foot of my bed, having completed Day 1 of this 3 day cleanse. By far, the best part of the day was the Epsom Salt/Lavender bath I just took! The premise of this cleanse is 4 drinks a day for 3 days. It's basically juicing but done with a blender. I must say, the breakfast drink was not that bad. It was pretty tasty and I actually finished all of it. I cannot say the same for the lunch and dinner. Even still, I did it.
 
   The hardest part of the day was around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Which, isn't that the hardest part of the day for everyone? I mean, seriously. Regardless of whether or not I'm on a cleanse, around that time every single day, I want nothing more than to sit down and polish off and entire bag of chips! Right? Another very difficult thing for me to handle was the fact that drinks are sweet. In order to mask the cup of spinach, kale, cucumber and celery, they have to throw in a raspberry or two so every drink had a sweet flavor. Unfortunately for me, I am not a sweets person. I am salty person. Which no component of this cleanse is.  Not one drink calls for salt! Moving forward, I can see that being my biggest hurdle. I do feel a little tired but I don't have a horrible headache or nausea. I'm just still waiting for it all to do it's job, I guess.
    
     I did get outside and play with my son today. We rode bikes and went for a walk. We drew on the road with sidewalk chalk. We drove around on the golf cart and after I cleaned up from dinner, I went for a walk. I did not want to just sit inside thinking about how hungry I was.

    
     Anyway, I did survive it and now I only have 2 more days to go through. I am believing that this will end up doing what I need it to do. I want a reset in my system and a clean slate to start over on. I am looking forward to good night sleep and then another day tomorrow. I am going to try and keep myself busier than I did today. So, who knows, maybe tomorrow night post will be even better. Allow me to bottom line this for you:
I am starving
I am craving salting stuff
I am not happy I'm doing this
I do not have boundless energy

     In 2 more days, I pray all of that changes! Good luck to you in whatever you are endeavoring to do!

Day 0

     Well, I'm at it again. For those of you who have followed my quest for health over the past 2 years, you already know that I am constantly re-evaluating my lifestyle. I always want to improve and get better and learn more. Whereas loosing weight would be just be lovely, the ultimate goal is overall health. I owe it to my kids and husband to do my best to stay healthy the longest I can. This brings me to... well... tonight.

     For the past couple of months I have been fighting nausea. It happens mostly at night. Around 5 until I fall asleep. I have been through a bottle of charcoal pills and Emotrol and all sorts of stuff trying to get it to subside. Finally, this a past weekend, I reached a tiny breaking point. It was starting in the morning and lasting all day. So, I told my husband about it. He told me to Google it and I did. The first thing that came up was issue with the gallbladder. That made sense to a lot of people who I mentioned it to so I thought I would start with a call to my Dr and a possible gallbladder cleanse. First thing this morning, I called my Dr and the first available appointment was April 1st. Awesome. So I called my mom and told her when I could get all of this checked out. She then began to ask  me about my vitamin regiment. I confessed that I was actually taking quite a few. All sorts of them actually. She told me that at one point, she had a little trouble with her stomach and someone had told her to get off all her pills for a while and her stomach fell back into line. So, that is what I did. I didn't take anything except the prescription ones today. This got me thinking. If my body was, in fact, on pill overload, maybe I needed to clean it all out and start over.

     Over the past 2 years, (this month, actually), I became a Vegan, then reintroduced meat and dairy, then took it back out of my diet again. I have gotten on and off processed carbs and a slew of other things that I have tried in order to propel me in my health quest. My sister said she felt like a juice cleanse would be a good idea just to, if nothing else, give my body a break from... well... myself! So, I got busy. Looking online for cleanses. Not just any cleanse, I wanted a cleanse with minimum pill intake. The point was to flush out all the garbage and kick start everything all over again. After a little bit of research, I found one. I called my sister and told her about it (because we always extend each other that courtesy), she jumped on board without me even having to talk her into it!

     So, I went to the store tonight and bought all the stuff we need to begin our 3 day juice cleanse tomorrow morning. I am under no premonition that this will be easy. I love food! Love it! I love to eat! (Hence the majority of my problems). I know this is going to take dedication and more effort than I have ever put into anything, however, that being said, I know this is the right step for me. I have decided that I will be blogging my daily efforts so you can keep up with how it's going.

     When this is over, I fully plan on resuming Weight Watchers. I have lost 9 pounds since January 1st. Although that puts my weight loss at the slow end of what they say will happen, at least it is happening and for that, I'm thankful! I am also going to take a look at my choice to be Vegan. Whereas it is never an option for me have dairy again, I am planning on adding a little lean chicken and possibly some turkey into my diet. Not a lot and I'm not 100% sold on that just yet. Still no red meat or pork. This month makes 2 years of my life altering decision to be sold out to health and it is good time to pause and re-evaluate.

     I do want to apoplogize, in advance, if I seem unusually irritable tomorrow or Wednesday. I am going to try to keep it together but I must say, I'm nervous and anxious. I will be so glad when Fri comes and I can say that I did it! So, until tomorrow... here's to health!

You Won't Believe This!

     And so the adventures in motherhood continue. I get everyone in bed last night, my son still running fever, meds taken and humidifier on. I was determined to get some rest so I took 2 Nyquil to help my efforts. Around 10:30, my daughter walks into our room and says her tummy hurts. You guessed it... this began another night of the stomach bug. Around 2 am, I was sitting on the end of our couch in our bed room scratching her back and wiping her face down with a cold rag and I asked her if she wanted me to start a movie on my little DVD player to try and get her mind off what was happening. She said so I went to work. Plugging it in, finding her a movie and getting it positioned just right. I turned it on and the screen said, "Loading" and what should happen next? The power goes out. Yep. So there we are. In the pitch black dark, my daughter crying, and then my son walks into our room to inform me that his fan had gone off.
   
      I tried explaining to him that we had lost power. So I leave Campbell's side long enough for me to get Carson back in bed and find a battery powered light so he would be able to see. I went and woke up my husband and told him we lost power. After assessing the situation, he realized that he was going to up in a couple hours so he would just wait until then to turn on the generator. When I got back to the room, CC had calmed down for the first time all night and I just couldn't bare to move her. So, I piled on the blankets and there we sat. She got a sick one more time and then around 4:30, we were able to finally get some sleep.

     When we woke up, the house was freezing and my husband already had a fire going and the generator on so things were turning around for sure. The day went pretty good. Carson is still so lethargic. Way more than usual so I made him a Dr appointment for in the morning. Campbell is doing great but I'm keeping her home again tomorrow to give her immune system time to recover.

     I am learning so much from this ordeal I have found myself in. I have learned that I was not as spiritually prepared for all that has transpired. I learned that motherhood is constantly listening to Holy Spirit and obeying that still small voice. I have learned how precious sleep is! The biggest lesson I have learned is that no one will ever care how much you sacrifice as much as you do. The reason they won't care is because there is only a select group of people in the world who understand the act of selflessness true motherhood is.

     There are lots of mothers who don't sacrifice to be a good mother. But if you want to be a great mom, you will learn to literally lay down your every desire, for the good of your children. It's difficult because after a weekend like I have had, I want a parade in my honor. I want banners that say, "Keep up the good work". I want balloons and confetti. I want flowers and red carpets. When the truth is, when it comes right down to it, I'm just doing my job. I'm doing what I'm called to do. There are not flowers or parades. There is no confetti or congratulations.

The praise will come when I meet the Father face to face and He tells me that I did good with my children.

The thanks will come when I get a call from my daughter telling me she just had that kind of a night with her daughter and she remembered what I had done for her and that is how she knew what to do. (Which was much of my phone call to my mom this morning).

Even though I'm tired and at  the end of my rope and can't see the end at this moment, I know that one day, when I have kids that love me and love the Lord, that all of these sacrifices that I make will prove to be worth it.

 

 

     No matter what mother issues you seem to be drowning in at the moment... I don't know when, but some day, it will prove to be worth it. I just has too! 

An Addendum to the Mommy Weekend....

     After I wrote the post yesterday about Carson and the weekend, he started running fever. It was 99.something but he was developing a pretty nasty cough. So, I decided to run him into the Dr. They did a strep test, which is horrid, and a flu test which is worse. Any of you mom's who have had to deal with those test know exactly what I mean. He did as well as a 4... year old would do. We made it past those and I was holding and trying to comfort my son the whole time. His fever at this point was at 101. I hadn't been able to give him anything for his fever because he still had eaten nothing. Both of the those test came back negative and the Dr felt it necessary to do a blood draw. He had never had his blood drawn before. It was not fun, for me or him. Now, keep in mind that I had to bring my daughter with me because my mom and sister we in church and my husband is still out of town so I'm on my own with my 2 children. CC is sitting in the chair holding her hands over hear ears so she doesn't have to listen to Carson screaming and the other one being held down by a papoose board and getting his blood drawn. After all of that had subsided, I picked up my son and just held him. He kept begging to go home so I told them to call me with the results.

 

     By that time, his fever was at 102. When I went to walk out of the clinic, it was pouring down rain so I held Carson with our umbrella and CC had her umbrella and the leap pads. By the time we got to the car, we were soaked and so was the inside of the car. We got loaded in the car and headed home. Once we got home, I got the kids in front of movie and made some lunch for them. Then I got the call with the results of the blood test and he has every mothers worst nightmare... A viral infection. Yes he does. More than likely, caused by the stomach bug. So it can't be treated with anything. I finally got him to eat something so I could give him some meds for his fever. It went down and we started improving a little.

 

     Everyone slept through the night but this morning, his cough is much worse and he can't breathe at all. Still, the blood results don't lie. It is viral. So, we are here, still trying to get some food down my son so I can' treat him with over the counter meds. After all of this, I find myself confused about what my next course of action is and yet, still totally at peace. This motherhood job seems to have very high highs and very low lows. The hard times seem to be really hard and yet, here are so many other moms who have it so much more difficult than I do.

 

     My children are here, in my home, we have fire in the fireplace, my son will be fine in just a couple of days. We will be way over this by next week. It seems in every difficult situation, there is always something to be thankful for. I am thankful that I am a mother and have children to care for. I am thankful that the biggest health issues I have with my kids are the occasional sinus infection and the few and far between stomach bugs. No one every promised that motherhood would be easy but one thing I can say... it is worth it. So, to all the moms out there defeated, alone and confused... you are victorious, you are apart of an elite group and you have the mind of Christ.

 

We can do this!

Being a Mom is Tough

     Well, its been a very tough mommy weekend. Except for a few hours on Friday morning, Mike has been gone for 7 days now. After the week with just me and the kids, I was in desperate need of some time away. So I got a babysitter and a friend and we were set to spend all Sat afternoon out. Well, Carson got the stomach bug and was sick from 7:40 Fri night until 4:20 Sat morning. It was a very long, heartbreaking night.

     Then, I had to cancel the babysitter and the friend and stay home doing loads of laundry, lysoling the house, sweeping, mopping and vacuuming, etc... Because I wasn't planning on not being able to go the grocery store, I had no food in the house. My daughter kept asking me for food last night and I had nothing to give her. My mom was gone with friends, my sister was out with her family and so I sat, crying in the chair of guest room. Overwhelmed and exhausted.

 

     You know that place in motherhood you come to when you are spent? You are literally all empty. Well, that's where I was. But, because I'm a mom, I had to do my job. So, I got up, washed my face, got the kids out of the bath and managed to find something to feed CC. Put the kids to bed and begged God for mercy. CC ended up in bed with me because she couldn't sleep and needed to some mommy time and Carson came in the room at 1:30 with what I thought was fever. The thermometer didn't say he had any but I gave him Advil anyway and treated him with oils. We all woke up better this morning. Carson has a bad cough and I can't give him meds because he still hasn't eaten anything. I feel better and CC is doing great. We are watching movies and my grandmother is going to the grocery store for me. I have always said that I'm going to write a book entitled,"What no one tells you when you're pregnant". This weekend would be in it!

    

     Motherhood is tough. Its heartbreaking and its the most unselfish thing you will ever do. You will wash sheets you've just finished washing, sweep floors you just finished sweeping, throw away food they didn't eat even when they said they were hungry and somehow, in the midst of all of it, make the right choices, have clear thoughts and have the strength to continue on. Most of all, these moments in motherhood will cause you to rely on the Lord like never before. You will learn to draw strength from Him because there is no other source. For me, these moments remind me of a saying that my mom has always said to me, "This too, shall pass". Man Alive! Am I glad they do!

 

     To motherhood... To all the moms having the same kind of weekend I am... It will be over soon. You are not alone. Neither am I.