Welcome to our journey. The purpose of my blog is not only to journal our life experience, but also to share what God is doing in our lives. I do not claim to be an expert in parenting, marriage, or even the Bible. But I do have a heart to share my experiences and the true love that God has for each and every one of us. You can read our testimony by clicking on the top of the page. And if you'd like to know about the Homeless Ministry my husband started, you can click on the Homeless tab. I hope you will comment freely on my posts and in my community.



Saturday, July 31, 2010

28 Day Challenge

Tomorrow I start a 28 day challenge. The challenge is to stop eating/drinking all the bad stuff and start replacing it with good stuff. I will be using Arbonne's 100% vegan nutrition line and will eat whole foods.

Why do we need to detoxify? The world we live in is full of toxins, including pesticides, herbicides and heavy metals in food, chemical scents in candles, chloride in drinking water, etc. Our bodies can not process all these toxins. Because of this nearly everyone has toxic buildup in their bodies. As a natural defense mechanism, toxins are pulled away from our vital organs and stored in our body fat. When weightloss stalls, in order to lose that unwanted fat weight, we must detoxify. It is important that we detoxify to prevent diseasee and maintain health.

How do we detoxify? This is going to be the hard part!!!!
The first step is "turning down the faucet" by eating whole non-allergenic foods. Eating whole foods gives our bodies a rest from digesting the processed foods commonly found in typical Western diets. (I don't even know what whole foods are! ha, ha! But I guess I'm about to find out!) This means not eating allergenic foods such as dairy, wheat and soy. The second step is "cleaning the drain." Our bodies detoxify via our liver, gallbladder, kidneys, lungs and skin. This should be interesting because I have been having issues with my gallbladder. I do not want to have another surgery and really don't want to have one of my organs removed that helps to cleanse my body. I'll let you know how that goes.

Here's an overview on what I'll be doing.
1. Day 1: weigh in and take measurments...eek!

2. Go shopping and get prepared - get rid of all the temptations in my house! Fill my kitchen with healthy whole foods. Tell friends and family so they can support me. That means you! :)

3. Eat whole foods that are low on the food chain - veggies first! Eat organic if possible. Vegies, fruits, grain, nuts, seeds. Wild cage free organic meat/fish. Well, I don't like fish and what in the world does wild, cage free mean?

4. Cut out toxic, addictive, and allergenic foods. The list of things I can't have for the next 4 weeks (ALL dairy (oh no!), wheat gluten, wheat, processed foods (including mints and gum), sugar (you can use stevia and/or xylitol), foods that promote yeast (bread, crackers, alcohol, vinegar, etc), alcohol, caffeine (oh man), soy, veal and pork. Deep breath...I can do this...right?

5. Water is your best friend. Drink at least 6 glasses of water a day.

6. Eat every 4 hours.

7. Don't obsess - over weight, over foods you can't eat. Be creative.

8. Do not over eat when eating meals. Fill your plate with veggies, add fist size protein and grains. No second servings! Take your time eating.

9. Track your success. Write a food journal and keep track of how you feel each day. Keep track of weight loss once a week. Try on clothes that were tight in the past.

10. Commit to 4 weeks. Stay focused and you will be amazed at how great you feel in the end! Yes...I'm looking forward to that.

As I'm looking over the whole foods list, I'm honestly getting a little scared. I don't like a lot of what's on there. :( But we'll see how it goes. I'm really going to give this a try. I do love vegies and fruit so I'll make sure to have plenty of that.

If you're interested in doing something like this, let me know and I will put you in touch with my friend. :)

If you have any advice as to the best (cheapest) place to purchase whole and organic foods, let me know. Or any other advice. This is all new to me. I usually avoid the organic/natural food sections as they are too expensive. I know this will be well worth the investment into my health, but any help you can give me will be very appreciated. And being that I live close to Valley Natural Foods, I guess I'll finally go to that store. :)

2 comments:

  1. good for you! sounds tough to get started, will be interested in hearing what you think of it

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  2. Stopping by to say Hi!.

    I'm your newest follower.

    Thank you for share nice blog I like your post :-),

    I just got back from short trip to Ban Chiang Heritage you can read on my post.

    http://beonefineday.blogspot.com/2010/08/whats-made-my-sunday-gone.html

    my community is http://theblogfrog.com/1233755

    Have a nice day.

    Nan
    PS. From; Follow New Friends Friday.

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