“If your health doesn’t get better by chance, it can get better by change.”

A quote from a monthly doTerra email I receive says the above quote.

I’ve been sharing about my health and wellness adventure on my facebook pages. For far too long I’ve been ‘hoping’ my health will get better, mainly because I actually felt really good for the most part! I haven’t been sick in a very long time, not since doTerra became a part of my life. The last time I was sick was well over a year ago now, no lie! I haven’t had a cold, flu or any other bacterial or viral sickness since. I’m able to do everything I want and need to do every day, from getting up at the crack of dawn to get my homestead and home business work done, to pulling hundreds of hay bales off a field and putting them up in the barn loft with the rest of the family every August. I keep up with the best of them! I even do better than some!

So the fact that I’m overweight has been something I’ve known that I ‘should’ take seriously for a good long time, but to be honest, I haven’t.

I sit at the sewing machines and cutting table for many hours a week. Easily 40-60+ hours a week, often 12 hours a day. I tell myself I’ll get up and walk mid-day, or I’ll do laps up and down the stairs. Instead I just keep working, and sitting. Often times I’ll sit there working for 4-6 hours straight without even so much as a bathroom break. I eat my lunch most days while I work. I’m blessed with two daughters who seem to enjoy making me lunch, so I just thank God they bring me food, and I keep on working.

Bad bad bad.
I have gotten better with eating habits with the help of my youngest two Shaylah & Julia (17 years of age) making our lunches now. They’ve fully jumped onto the healthy eating bandwagon, and love trying out new recipes.

But I still NEED to get moving more!

I had blood work done back in March and if I don’t find a way to make a big change, I’m at risk of coronary heart disease within the next 8 years. My bad cholesterol is well over THREE times the healthy range, and my good cholesterol is way too low. Oh oh.

Ouch.

Like REALLY ouch.

The dr gave me just 2.5 months to try and make an obvious change, or it’s onto meds. I will take meds if I can’t do this. However, I wanted to give it an earnest effort first! I’ve known for some time now that God’s been nudging me to stop procrastinating! I should have listened.

I decided I was going to openly share about this, even if I fail. If anyone wants to join me, I’d welcome the support!

My goal has been to change my lifestyle and eating habits in a way that suits our typical daily life. I’m not one to join any pre-made plan that’s all the rage at the moment. I wholeheartedly believe in two things, slow and steady wins the race and making small changes daily equals big changes overall. I also believe in all things in moderation, that all REAL foods are good but it’s up to us to not over indulge in any of them. I always have believed these things, but I was lazy and didn’t listen to my own advice. Now I no longer have a choice to continue being lazy, so I’m doing it.

After researching, reading, and praying, these are the steps I began in March when I first found out my blood test results. So far, so good. I’m down over 15 pounds already, averaging about 2 pounds every week, and I’ve dropped many inches already!

First, oils.
I’ve added myrrh, lemongrass, grapefruit & clove to my daily oil routine.

I’ve continued with my vitamins, I use the Lifelong Vitality pack from doTerra. and I HIGHLY recommend them. It’s since I made this step that I haven’t been sick in over a year.

I’ve added healthy oils, turmeric & garlic to my vitamin regimen as well as niacin. I’ve finally found the trick to not flushing when I take the niacin. I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day (also good for lowering cholesterol) and for some reason, taking the niacin with oatmeal for breakfast works. It’s the only thing that has worked for me. I’ve tried high protein breakfast with the niacin, and still flush. However, I really really miss my TrimShakes… so that’s a disappointment for me. Julia still makes me smoothies about every second day, so I still do add in shakes to my routine, just not my breakfast. I loved my TrimShake for breakfast though, super easy, and tasty. I’m still considering changing that up and possibly having oatmeal for lunch instead… Just not wanting to up my carbs too much. It’s all a work in progress.

I’ve stopped eating the fat on meats… I’m VERY VERY bad with this. I always ate the fat from my steak/pork chop/etc. AND from my husbands… (did I really just admit that publicly?)
My daughter said to me yesterday, as I was trimming ALL the fat off the prime rib roast once it was cooked, that she couldn’t believe that it was actually HARD for me to not eat it. lol I know, I know, most of you are agreeing with her and thinking “that’s so gross…” I grew up fighting my dad for the bones and fat from any meats we ate. lol It’s a hard habit to give up!

I still drink my two coffee’s every morning, it’s my whole reason for being able to jump out of bed as soon as the sun shines! However, I’ve switched to using maple syrup to sweeten it, instead of sugar. 🙂 I’ve been trying all sorts of natural sweeteners for years and nothing every tasted good, until I tried maple syrup one day! It’s SO good!

I’ve cut out all candy, chips, etc. from my daily diet except for the occasional piece or two of dark chocolate (over 70% dark) and once a week I allow myself a treat/cheat day.
I’ve cut out most carbs from my diet without even really intending to, simply because I stick to my allotted calories per day, plus I’m aiming for a good balance of healthy protein, fruits and veggies, so by the time I’m done adding all those into my diet, there’s not a whole lot of room left for carbs. Previously, on a typical day I easily ate 2-4 slices of white bread PER DAY, plus crackers (saltines of all things!) Now I’m down to eating about 2-4 slices of bread a WEEK. And most of the time at least half of those are sprouted grain bread, rather than white bread. About every second Saturday I allow myself a meal made with 2 slices of white bread, as part of my treat/cheat for the weekend. I still allow myself to have special things such as a piece of birthday cake (Elsa made black forest for hubby’s birthday last week, how could I say no??) but then I watch that I don’t eat any other ‘bad’ foods that day, and make sure that I still stay within my calorie budget.

Some extra things that are really helping me:

Lose It! app: https://www.loseit.com/
My girls and I all use this app now. I keep track of every bite of food I eat with this app. So much easier than journalling and it REALLY keeps me accountable.

FitBit app and band: https://www.fitbit.com
I
‘ve been using a fitbit band for quite some time, since my mom gave me one she had earned with points. Since then I’ve upgraded to a fitbit with a heart rate monitor because I had been having weird palpitations etc, and I just like to monitor things like that. I love my fitbit, and I have had nothing but great customer service from fitbit too, which makes me love my fitbit even more. It tracks my sleep (I actually sleep about 20 nights a month like a log. A literal log. As in, I fall asleep, and don’t even MOVE until I wake up. lol The other 10 nights a month, who knows what’s going on because those days I toss and turn lol, perhaps too much of a good thing the other nights??)

Between using those two apps daily, and my daughters and I looking up COUNTLESS great recipes online, we’ve all been doing extremely well and have really been enjoying this whole journey for the most part. I know that I am very blessed to have the support of my girls (the twins especially, they are 17) and that was kind of hard for me to accept because I’ve NEVER wanted them to ever have too much focus on ‘dieting’, but this time with it being due to health concerns for me, it’s been completely different. Now we’re all about getting HEALTHY! It’s not about loosing weight. Loosing weight is just a natural byproduct of the added health and wellness. So I am really glad we’re doing this together. Now it’s about letting my girls learn about health and wellness at a young age so that they don’t end up with a scare like this at 46 years of age, like I’ve had.  And their children will know even better and early than them. It’ll carry on for generations hopefully, a newfound respect for the health and wellness of our bodies. 🙂

Now that it’s spring, and we’ll be planting the garden soon, things will only get easier! I’ll be moving more due to planting, weeding, watering, etc. and it’ll be even easier to eat lots of fresh veggies, and even fruits, as we’ll be picking them straight from our homestead! We’ve always been about healthy eating, raising our own foods, even our own meats, but we kept eating lots of junk too. Times are changing. 🙂

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