the toenail An Important Part Of The Whole

Sick.And.Tired. of feeling sick and tired.
And I don’t want to start up something, yet again, that I can’t succeed at.
Because of this, I resolute to not start the new year with a commonplace resolution.
I planned ahead of today.
It may be the first day of a new year, but it’s not the first day of the latest, AND HOPEFULLY THE LAST, attempt to get healthier.
Meet me.  And meet my husband.  Here we are:

Me – Wife. Mom. Daughter. Co-worker. Neighbor.  Cousin.  Friend…
I’m so many of you out there in the virtual, I mean actual, world.
It’s time for me to lose the baby weight (my baby is now 12 years old) and feel healthier.  I want my energy back!  I want to be excited to pick out my clothes for the day, instead of dreading the task of finding a stretchy-enough pair of pants to be comfortable in, yet deceiving enough to on-lookers to be “cool”.  I want to eat lunch in front of people without feeling consciencious about putting food in my mouth.  I want to paint my toenails without the fear of getting a cramp in my leg.  And I want to be less tired and more rested.

Him – Husband.  Father.  Son.  Co-worker.  Neighbor.  Brother.  Friend…
He’s so many of you out there in the ACTUAL world (this is very real, very actual).
He wants to be able to tie his shoes without getting winded.
He wants to wear his dressy clothes that have been hidden in the attic for a few years.
And he wants to play with our sons.  And he wants to not plan his activities, or dread them, based on how far he has to walk or how many flights of stairs he’ll have to climb.

So how do we set forth in accomplishing this?

We.Make.Changes.

Changes in how we eat.
Changes in how we move.
Changes in how we think.

We started making changes actually 5 days ago.
You know, to avoid the cliche New Year’s Day start.
We are making changes using The Daniel Plan as a guideline to accomplish our goals.
We’ve also been educating ourselves on foods and the food industry in the USA, by reading books, articles and watching movies, as well as consulting with our family physician.

We feel ready.  Prepared.  And willing to stick with this…so here we go!

On Dec. 28th, I weighed about 204 pounds.  That’s obese.  Probably morbidly obese, if you use the BMI charts.  But that sounds so dreadful and hopeless, doesn’t it?  Why can’t we just say fat instead?  It is what it is.  My husband weighed about 300 pounds.  Ditto.  Ditto.  Both of us at the highest weights of our lives.  Ugh!

But today, on this first day of the new year, just 5 days after we put the brakes on and made a turn in the direction we’re looking, health-wise, we both already are noticing positives!  No kidding!  After 5 days of drinking ONLY water, and not having any white, starchy foods, and increasing our fresh veggie and fruit intake…we both have lost weight already!  For my husband, that’s 8 pounds!  Now, I know that’s probably water weight, or rather, weight loss from his having less inflammation, but that is good still!  GREAT, even!

I want to share in this blog our progress — and some awesome tips we figure out, and recipes we come up with – right here in these blog pages.  We hope you’ll be encouraged by our journey, and maybe even share in the humor we find in this as we go along.  I promise to be as transparent as possible in what we experience along the way…

Here’s a little peek from today’s food adventure.  We made cauliflower pizzas for the first time, with our friend, Pattie.  They were scrumptious – and so filling!  We were surprised at how full we got!  When we have ordered Marco’s pizza before, we could eat, and eat, and eat….but with this cauliflower pizza, we became full faster and were satisfied.  I mean, SATISFIED.  I don’t think I’ve ever been satisfied when I’ve eaten “normal” pizza.

Doesn’t that look amazing?
And you know what was even more fun than eating these?

Making them!

I’m glad you asked.

No, this pizza recipe does NOT have Sunbutter in it.  We also made gluten-free no-bake cookie bars for our dessert.  They were so delicious, I didn’t slow down to take a picture, but you can find the recipe by clicking here:  CLEAN EATING NO-BAKES.