Journey to Health, Volume V

May 2016 -- May 2018

In honor of our anniversary this past weekend, I thought I’d share a quick update on our health journey. 

Together, we have lost 140 pounds… 140 POUNDS!!!

We got our mind right and got to it!  No harmful pills, no special food, no lifelong commitments to expensive programs and supplements loaded with toxins, no pre-packaged flavorless (or disgusting flavor) food… We made a decision to better our health, not for our looks, but for our wellbeing. Does it feel great to look better? Absolutely! But again, and as I’ve said before, it wasn’t about that. It’s not about being a certain size or a certain weight. It’s about feeling our best to be our best for each other, our children, our friends and family, our business and anyone we can serve throughout the rest of our life.

And for those of you who want to throw the “but you had surgery” card. You are right, I did. It was a tool that assisted me in my journey almost 2  years ago.  My mind-set was right long before I had the surgery and it has to remain set in this place forever or I will be right back where I started. The surgery isn’t keeping me from gaining the weight back, my mind is keeping me from it. As I mention in Journey to Health, Volume I, I lost quite  a bit of weight before having the surgery and contemplated cancelling it. I’m thankful I didn’t, as that would have been a lot of wasted money as it was already paid for, it has been a good tool in my journey.

I need to be very clear (as I’ve mentioned in my other Journey to Health posts), I’m not judging you if you’ve chosen to go with a program. They simply are not for me. Before I was educated on toxins and harmful products, I tried them (so many that I lost count). I lost weight, didn’t improve my mind set, and gained it back. Jeff too. Over and over and over again. It’s my opinion that this is how the programs work and unfortunately we’ve seen it time and time again.  That said, I loudly applaud anyone for choosing to take control of their health and wanting to make a change, even if that means using a program. It’s not easy to lose weight and make healthy choices all the time, especially with busy schedules, working full time, other activities, etc. I seriously applaud anyone who makes the decision to change bad habits to form new ones. I love hearing people’s stories and how they came from a dark place from unhealthy habits and have found a renewed love for life because of healthier habits. Being healthier is life changing in itself. When we eat healthy, we have more energy, we sleep better, we are not bitter or angry, we have a more patience during frustrating situations (like losing majority electronics in home from lightning) and a more positive outlook on everything.

Over a year ago, Jeff started a gym in the garage of our home. He initially started training a few high school boys, Jayden, Kiarra and some of her friends. It soon morphed into Jeff’s friends coming, several people from church and then neighbors joined as well. Some nights, he has 12+ people training with him and other nights there may only be 1 additional person… and some nights he works out solo.  He has made a decision to become healthy and I’m so proud of him for his commitment to his health, the health of our family and our friends.  If he sees you, he IS going to talk to you about coming over for workout!!  Run, just run!!  haha, just kidding. Although I’m impressed with his workout habits, I’m more impressed with the changes he’s made to his diet. He is eating more and more vegetables and fewer carbs. We still have traditional spaghetti and other carbs (who can live without carbs anyway) from time to time but he’s choosing to eat less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff. I changed the way I cook and we are eating out less and less (like hardly ever these days). Since I’m cooking healthier, we are all healthier.  Shhhh, don’t tell Jayden I put broccoli in the last burgers I made with ground turkey (haha, just kidding. Although I wish J would eat more veggies, I don't actually believe in hiding foods from kids (or anyone) to get them to eat them).  Do we still indulge in a chocolate chip cookie, or a scoop of ice cream from time to time, YES, we do, and that is ok! 

I am excited to jump back into working out as well. I was really good about it last year and then fell off the bandwagon during the time of Kiarra graduating high school (as in a year and a half ago).  A friend and I were walking a few times a week this spring (and then it got too hot, we are wusses in the heat) and that not only helped to get in a little exercise, it more importantly helped to de-stress. Simply talking to a friend and sharing burdens (while walking) is very therapeutic.  Since I’ve mostly been working from home all summer, I have not been as active as I normally am and the scale was up a couple of pounds. I’m not happy about this and certainly not proud of it. I literally sit here at my desk, all day long. The kitchen is 15 feet away, the toilet is 15 feet away, I’m just not getting in the steps I used to get when going to the office each day. Walking from my car to my desk in my office is probably 1,000 steps and currently I’m lucky if I have 1,000 steps at the end of my work day. I’m eager to get back into lifting weights (small ones) and running again.  I LOVE running. It’s very therapeutic for me and I always have the best days after I run.

This health journey we are on started years ago. When I was pregnant with Taryn, I learned for the first time what eating healthy looked like. I’ve mentioned before that I growing up we ate fried food, a ton of boxed food loaded with chemicals, frozen meals like they were going out of style and drank tons and tons of soda. I don’t fault my Mom for this, she did everything she could to put food on the table for us. I was (and still am) addicted to sugar. I’ve been reading many books and articles throughout the years about how bad sugar, processed food and chemicals are for us yet I ignored and had the horrible mind set of “we are going to die anyway”. This all changed when I realized I could take control of our health and the toxic load intake for me and my family. Now that we have lowered our toxic load intake from many things in our home (cleaning supplies, laundry soap, hand soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, face wash, OTC  medication, removal of candles, etc.), we are all feeling better, breathing better and really are living the best life we can live. Do we have bigger goals and dreams, YES!!  We have many more goals and dreams. We don’t get sick as often as we used to and this is a dream come true of its own. Is this a coincidence?? I think not!  We are using essential oils to not only support our needs to stay healthy but to also restore our health when we are feeling a certain way.  I never ever thought a drop of oil would be so powerful and so life changing. I prayed for years about a healthier lifestyle, trying product after product, program after program. I didn’t even really know I was dreaming and praying for a solution until it came knocking on my door.

I am thrilled to be on this journey and you know what, I am thrilled that Jeff is on it with me. He was super skeptical about oils at first (as was I). He wouldn’t really have anything to do with them until he got the flu (almost 2 years ago). Ha, I’ll show you Mr. flu bug!  I put a protocol together for him and was applying them topically every 3-4 hours, giving him oils in a veggie cap to take internally and diffusing constantly. This type of illness usually takes people down for a week (if not longer), but not in my house. We zapped it!  Poof, be gone!!  Last week when we were in Utah, 5,000 feet above sea level, smokey air from fires blazing nearby and super dry air, Jeff started to feel some sinus pressure and was sneezing every 5 minutes. He was not feeling his best but didn’t want to miss out on the amazing day ahead.  I lubed him up and we started our day. Around 4 pm, he was tired and feeling like he should lay down. He decided to miss the last 2 hours of convention that day and go back to the hotel. I told him exactly what to take and what to apply… When I returned after the day with my brand new convention kit that contained all of the new oils, my friend and I had him try two of the new ones. He went back to bed and we went to the street party.  The next day he was feeling so MUCH better. He wasn’t 100% but he was certainly better. He attended convention with me, as well as our team party.  By the following day, he was 100%.  Had we not of had these amazing oils, we would have resorted to OTC medication, full of junk with more side effects than effectiveness. We love our oils!

We celebrated our 19^th anniversary this past weekend and I’m grateful to have this man by my side.. walking hand in hand and enjoying life together…dreaming about our future and living our life to the fullest.