What I'm Loving Wednesday

I've seen other friends do a post like this and thought it would be fun.  Here are a few things I'm loving today!

 #1 Wearing pants in a smaller size than what I wore in high school

 #2 Snuggling with my adorable nephew (don't you love his hair!)

#3 Being on day 66 of my 90 day workout plan.  I have NEVER stuck to something like this for this long!  And the best part is that in 66 days I have lost 11 inches!

What are you loving today?

You are Not an Accident

For the season of Lent, I am reading through The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.  I have had this book for many years and have yet to successfully read through the whole thing in 40 days.  Yesterdays reading really struck a nerve with me.  I distinctly remember reading this day previously and wanted to share with you one of Pastor Warren's most meaningful thoughts to me, on living life with a purpose.  Day Two is titled "You Are Not an Accident."  Now for me this has a little humor to it because I kind of was an accident, or as my parents say, an unexpected surprise.  But I know that God had and has big plans for me so it wasn't an accident.  But here is what Pastor Warren has to say about our origin.
"God had a plan creating you.  God know that those two individuals (your parents) possessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom "you" he had in mind.  They had the DNA God wanted to make you."
That is so cool to think about our lives and our origin that way.  I am thankful for my parents, but regardless of who they are and how they raised me, God hand picked them out for me before he created the world.  And he hand-picked out yours too!  I know many people who don't know their parents, or have strained or no relationship with their parents, but in the midst of all of this; it's refreshing to know that no matter your relationship, God picked those two people to make you!  And I am so thankful he did!
"I am your creator.  You were in my care even before you were born." Isaiah 44:2.

On a different note, I'm really really close to my goal...keep watching to see my progress!  My goal is not only a number on the scale, but also being in control with food and using it for nourishment instead of all the other crazy things I use it for (stress, success, boredom, etc.)

Cleaner Eating, part 2

So I just have to rant.  I have been trying really hard to eliminate the chemicals that we eat and I must say, it's really hard!  And here is the part that is the craziest to me.  Almost everything that is "reduced fat" "fat-free" or other various diet type foods are full of chemicals.  It makes sense because if they have to take the fat out they have to replace it with something to make it taste the same.  Makes you think that we may be making ourselves sicker by eating these diet foods.  Even today when I was looking at butter, it was shocking.  I have switched to real butter and use it only when necessary.  But I had some time today at the store and took a sec to look at the ingredients.  On the butter container, it said sweet cream, olive oil and salt.  Sweet, that's easy to read and understand.  Then I saw light butter and thought well that should be better, I'll check it out.  The ingredients on that were 4 lines long with plenty that I could not even pronounce.  Scary!
So my thoughts on this are, do we really know what we are putting into our bodies?  Many of these chemicals are newer to the market, so we don't really have clear research on how it affects the body.  One thought that keeps me focuses on making these better but sometimes more difficult and costly food choices is one that I heard last summer during the packing event for Feed My Starving Children.  The presenter talked about how the founder of the ministry started out by collecting food from the US and bringing it to the starving children in other countries.  Things like cereal bars, snack bars, and other packaged food.  Do you know what happened to the kids?  They got sicker than they were before.  Their starving bodies could not process the food!  If that doesn't say something about the crap we eat then I don't know what will.

So my conclusion to all of this...sometimes you have to make choices to eat things that might seem "unhealthier" as far as fat content or calories, but in the long run who is really benefiting?  Are we poisoning ourselves just to lose weight?  What if we just ate things in moderation and focused on the healthy foods such as fruits, veggies, lean protein and dairy, and whole grains?  That's one of the reasons why I love WW.