Empowered Living: My Year Without Sugar

This post has been a year in the making.  For those of you recently joining the Neary blog, here is where I was a year ago, and here is where I was six months ago.  I followed the 100 Days of Real Food guideline for refined sugar that said to only eat something where sugar was NOT in the top three ingredients.  I followed that rule, but did eat fruit and goods sweetened with honey.

Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure what I want to say, so I will just begin writing.  I'm finding it incredibly difficult to adequately explain the change in my life over the last year: from one of weakness and sickness and helplessness, to one of empowerment, loving myself, and feeling like my best self.

Now over the last six months since I last reported, this journey has become more than just cutting out refined sugars in my diet.  After those first six months, I realized what a huge difference a small (big) change had made in my life, like cutting out sugar.  I decided to go past that.  I slowly (very slowly) began cutting out processed food entirely from my diet (and that of my family).  This included switching to 100% whole grain foods, making many things from scratch to avoid harmful ingredients, and eating a largely vegetable and fruit based diet.

Now here's where I find myself inadequate to explain the change over the last year.  I have gone from using food as a pleasure outlet, as an emotional bandaid to something that fuels my entire system.  Does that make sense?  I was constantly thinking about food, trying to use food as an emotional outlet, and feeling out of control around food.  I look back now and realize I had a serious problem.  The types and amount of food I would eat was incredibly unhealthy, and it was affecting me more than I ever cared to admit.  Now I'm at the point where I use every piece of food I put into my body to make myself feel better.  I know exactly the effect that each type of food has on me, and it literally has become easy to choose those foods that are best for me.  I know how I felt then, and I know how I feel now.  There is no food on earth that is worth going back to the tired, achy, sick old me.  For the first time in my life I feel healthy--truly healthy!  My body is finally responding to the kindness of the things that I give it.

Now that I've explained how I feel, here is where my body is now:

I literally have more energy than I have ever had in my life.  We're talking double what I had a year ago. I feel like this is what it must feel like to drink energy drinks and coffee all the time, but without the major crash afterwards!  I used to have a really productive, busy day, then I would have to take a few days to recover from it afterwards.  Now I literally have those days 6-7 times a week!  I feel like I am finally giving my husband and my children the best version of myself: the one that can serve, play, cook, love, and laugh all the time!  Obviously I still have days where I get tired, or cranky, or need an extra nap, but they are few and far between (especially when compared to a year ago).

My autoimmune diseases are almost non-existent.  My joints don't hurt from rheumatoid arthritis, and my I haven't gotten strep throat at all this year (a common side affect of my psoriasis).  Now to be fair, I still do have some psoriasis spots that have persisted ever since my last pregnancy.  I can't get rid of them no matter what I do.  But at least I don't have the pain associated with them any more!  Oh, and no more acne.  Who knew?  (I wish my teenage self did!)

Beyond not feeling sick from autoimmune issues, I just don't feel sick, period.  I used to wake up with nausea, stomach pains, headaches, heart burn,  cramps, you name it.  It was always sort of a given for me that I felt that way.  Not any more!  It is very uncommon for me to feel sick anymore, and boy do I love feeling good all the time! 

I know I've mentioned this before, but my whole life has become incredibly more disciplined.  Learning to do what's best for my body has leaked into other parts of my life.  I have been much more able to choose activities based on what is best for me in the long run, rather than what is most appealing at that moment.  My ability to set and reach goals has become much better, and I find it easier to do so.

Last, but not least, I've lost 55 pounds since cutting out sugar.   Truthfully, the weight loss is a side effect of all the other lifestyle changes.  I've found it pretty easy, actually, to maintain the weight loss while eating real food.  Someone once told me that it didn't matter what you ate: calories were calories.  I am here to say that for me, at least, that is very untrue.  I find that I can eat hundreds more calories each day of real food than I could in the past of junk food, and still maintain my weight.

Now don't think this this happened all at once.  It has definitely taken me a year to get here.  But I urge you to take a look at what you eat, and see what small changes you could make to help yourself feel so much better.  It is well worth it!  This change has made such a difference in my life, that I am not going back.  It is simply not worth it.  So what are we going to do now?  Well Joseph is going to eat his candy bar from my sister in Finland, and I'll be over here eating my black bean brownie.  I've decided that I am not going to eat refined sugar ever again.  It's simply not worth it.  I like where I am and am not giving that up for anything.

If you're interested in changing your diet, the 100daysofrealfood.com is an amazing resource.  I almost exclusively get all my resources from that site.  Well that and superhealthykids.com.

Also, I've had a lot of people ask for the black bean brownies recipe. It is seriously the easiest and is my go to dessert when I need something.  I got it from a friend (Thanks Samantha!) so I have no one to credit it to.  Hopefully I didn't steal it!

3 Eggs
1 Can Black Beans (Rinsed)
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (You can use butter too if you don't need it to be dairy free)
3/4 Cup Honey
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder

Just blend it all up in a blender and cook for 25-30 min at 350.

Now that was the original recipe, but just a few weeks ago we go the bright idea to put in mint extract with it, and it was amazing! Just something to try.

Word for 2014 Check-Up: DELIBERATE

I have really been meaning to write this post for months now.  Originally my intent was to report how my goals and such were doing each month, but somehow time slipped away.  Better late than never!  (Warning, this post turned out a lot longer than I was expecting)

Joseph and I had seen many friends of ours choose personal or family "words" for the year.  Something that exemplified their intent and goals for the coming year.  While deliberating about which word should be our family motto for the year, I heard a John Bytheway talk in which he says something like this (I'm paraphrasing) "Weeds grow in your garden by simply doing nothing.  Flowers only grow if you plant them."  There were lots of flowers we wanted to plant and develop in our family, but we had to be extremely deliberate about it.  It takes work to get better health, it takes work to come closer to God, it takes work to raise a family.  Hence our word of the year: Deliberate meaning done consciously and intentionally.  

If you couldn't tell by now, we are an extremely goal-driven family.  I'm sure we take it too seriously, but it's the way that Joseph and I both tick.  We don't get anything done without a lot of planning and goal-setting.  When we set our weekly goals, we typically choose one from each category: spiritual, physical, and academic.  I (Melissa) can only report for myself since I'm the one writing this post.  I'll have Joseph report sometime if he's interested.

To set my goals, I actually started at the end.  What did I envision myself as at the end of the year?   When I was an events coordinator at BYU, that is how each planning meeting began.  What is our intent with this event?  What numbers do we want? What do we want to come from this?   I decided to do the same with myself.  Where did I want to be health wise?  Spiritually?  What did I want to teach my kids this year?  It was actually extremely easy to set goals after that.  Here's my end result, here's where I don't measure up yet, here's where I need to set my goals.  Probably the most difficult part was that it is easy to see all the different things I have yet to improve on.  Luckily Joseph helped me narrow down my aspirations to my three most important.  For health I wanted to go a year without refined sugar, and reach my goal weight.  For Spirituality I wanted to grow closer to God by praying morning and night, and reading thirty minutes of scriptures each day (habits I used to have, but have sadly gotten lax the last few years).  My academic goals primarily ranged around my children.  I wanted to make sure that I was teaching and loving them all that I could.  It's difficult to put those aspirations into measureable goals, so I chose to do some simple ones: family prayers, family home evening once a week, family scripture study, and reading them a certain number of books each day.

After my goals were set, I had to eliminate all the barriers currently set up that inhibited my goals.  My two biggest obstacles to exercising were kids and the weather, so we rearranged our finances so that I could get a membership at a gym with added day care.  What  a relief it has been to drop the kids off for an hour so i can exercise!  It's nice to get the break with the added endorphins, especially when Joseph is on alert for the Air Force.

The hardest one really is spiritually.  I was fantastic at waking up to my alarm, saying my morning prayers, then reading scriptures before I went off to class.  Then my alarm turned into a crying baby at 5am, and crying babies don't have snooze buttons.  It was difficult to find a time to myself to have scripture study.  I resolved to plan a specific time each day to make this happen, even if it meant that some cleaning or laundry or Joseph time went by the wayside.  

Now let's start with the things I did well, ok?  I think it's important to focus on successes first, haha.  I've done awesome at the health goals.  I did end up reaching my goal weight, and I am on track for a year without refined sugar (9 months in!).  I do exercise 4-5 times each week, and I feel better than ever!  This last time I went to the doctor's for a check-up, I was able to check "excellent" next to my health.  I've never done that before!

Now onto the not-so-well's.  I'm still struggling with planning and finding time for my personal devotional, especially in regards to scripture study.  It's a lot easier to find time for prayers than scripture study.  Sometimes I get to the end of the day, and realize I hadn't read at all that day.  By that time there's no way I can stay up another half hour, so I read for five or ten minutes, then fall asleep.  I'm trying to get more creative in how I get my spiritual outlet: listening to devotionals while I exercise, or conference talks while driving, or scriptures while showering.  It's definitely not the most effective or best way to study, but it's the best I've been able to do right now.  How do you mommies of little ones make time?  I'd love some insight into other's routines.

Same with family scripture study.  Prayers and book reading haven't been too much of a problem, but it turns out a very active toddler and an infant don't want to sit for more than sixty seconds.  Sometimes our devotional includes nothing but our testimony of some gospel truth, and I've decided if that's the best that's going to happen that day, I'm just going to have to accept that.  I've been trying to find ways throughout the day to teach gospel principles as things come up, rather than at a set time as a family.  This way we get family study, but in thirty second increments throughout the day, haha.

The word "Deliberate" took a very personal turn this year when we found out we were unable to have any more children. All of the sudden building a family wasn't going to be so easy.  Most couples don't have to think or prepare too hard to bring children into this world, and I really liked it that way.  Sitting there in front of the adoption application trying to begin it was one of the most difficult steps to take.  It was all or nothing, it or out, deliberate or not.  We've chosen to give it all we've got, which has taken an emotional and financial toll on our family, but I feel like we have been sustained by the Lord to make this all possible.  Somehow he has blessed us with capacities beyond our normal, with the ability to save and live with less so we can afford the adoption, ability to learn talents we did not have before (website designing anyone?), and I'm still currently working on the patience aspect of everything.  Waiting is so hard, especially when I have no control over it.

Overall I'm really excited about the "deliberate" mindset we've developed in our family, and hope it will be one we can carry on after this year.

Six Month Sugar Report

            Well it has been six months since I cut out refined sugars from my diet, and while that’s only half of the year I was going for, I feel like it is long enough to do a sort of “report” on my experiences with it.  Sorry if it feels a bit like a science report.  I guess I’ve never recovered from that “biochemistry major” thing.

What I did:

So I cut out refined sugars.  My guideline was not to eat anything with sugar in the first three ingredients.  I did eat fruit and foods sweetened with honey.

Challenges:

·      I realized a few weeks in that I had a serious sugar entitlement.  I felt entitled to having junk food on special occasions or when I had just gone through something difficult or emotional.  My thinking had to change from “It’s Thanksgiving, I deserve some pie” to “It’s Thanksgiving, no reason to treat my body badly”.  I was very proud of myself for not eating any sugar on holidays, or emotional days (like when we found out we couldn’t have any more children).  Sugar: 0  Melissa 1 

·      I also had to get over making people feel bad when I didn’t eat sugar.  Either they went out of their way to make me a delicious dessert, and I couldn’t eat it.  Or, they would feel guilt because I wasn’t eating sugar, and they felt like they shouldn’t be eating it either.  I’m sorry if I have ever offended anyone!  Sometimes I felt a bit left out, especially when it was an event that revolved around dessert or sweets.  I just had to get over it!

·      Last, sugar is in everything! Our salsa, bread, tortillas, dressing, etc… all had sugar in the top three ingredients!  I had to start making a lot of things from scratch, and most importantly, reading labels very carefully.  I learned all the words for sugar and sugar substitutes (there are a few dozen) and I feel like an expert in reading labels now, haha.

The Good:

·      I lost over 50 pounds!  Not eating sugar really helped me stick with a healthy diet overall.  Without sugar, I wouldn’t binge.  I was able to find other ways to express and deal with my emotions, and it shows!

·      I also have INCREDIBLE energy.  I literally have not had this much energy in my life!  It used to be that I would be tired all the time, have to take a nap almost every day, and I really was only productive about every other day or every few days.  Now I can get up at 6, go, go, go throughout the day, take care of two kids under 2, and get up 2—3 times at night without a nap!  I wish I had known this all sooner!  If I knew how good I would feel now, I would have cut sugar out years ago. 

·      Funny enough, my discipline overall has also increased.  Being so disciplined in eating has poured over into the physical, spiritual, and emotional discipline as well.  I can control my anger and emotions better, I’m a much more patient and laid back mother, I have master over my body, and I just feel really in control overall.

·      I also don’t feel sick all the time!  I used to have stomachaches, nausea, headaches, joint pains, all sorts of stuff almost constantly!  It was normal for me to wake up feeling sick, and go to bed feeling the same way!  Now I don’t ever get sick,  I haven’t had joint pain in months, and this past week when everyone got the flu, including Joseph who never gets sick, guess who didn’t?  Even when I was around them 24/7 and cleaning up all that throw up, I didn’t even get a stomachache.  I attribute it to my healthier immune system!

·      My skin has never been clearer.  I wish I knew as a teenager how much my acne was dependent on my diet.  I wouldn’t have suffered through it all those years!  Joseph and I are going on a pioneer trek this summer, and I realized I wasn’t even self-conscious about not wearing make up for three days.  It feels good.

·      Last, but not least, I have been the happiest I’ve ever been.  I didn’t realized the connection between my diet and my mood, but it is so easy to be positive!  I am able to handle emotional turmoil and trials so much better now.  Sugar has literally affected every area of my life. 

The Bad:

·      Now when all is said and done, cutting out sugar did not change the fact that we are unable to have more children.  That was a main reason why I started it in the first place, and it didn’t work.  I was quite sad about that.

·      Also, my psoriasis has not completely disappeared.  In years past when I cut out sugar for even a week or two, it would completely clear up.  I’m not entirely sure why it hasn’t this time, but I blame hormones since my psoriasis always got so much worse when I was pregnant, and my body still hasn’t returned to normal hormone levels after Hyrum’s birth.

I have become a huge advocate for cutting out refined sugar.  It has literally changed my life in dozens of ways.  I have never felt better, been happier, or had so much energy.  Please, please, please try it!  Give it a few months; I promise you will not regret it!  If you are looking for some magical sign from the heavens to do it, consider this to be it!  Here’s to another six great months!

Four Months That Have Changed my Life

In a rare moment of motherhood, both children are asleep and the house is clean, so I decided to update on how my life-style changes have been going.  In a few days it will have been four months since I cut out sugar (and later most processed foods), and let me tell you, it has changed my life.  I wish I could put into words how my body feels now.  Maybe the easiest way is just to list the benefits I've seen:

• I've lost forty pounds:  That's a huge one!  I want to post a before and after picture, but not until I hit my goal weight, which should happen this month.  It's amazing how much easier it is to lose weight when I don't binge on junk food or sugar.  
• My skin has never been clearer: I've always struggled with acne and psoriasis, and now my face is completely clear.  I haven't had this clear of skin ever!  I still have some psoriasis spots on my body, but I know that is due to hormones (it gets way worse for me with pregnancy/nursing) so I think once I stop nursing Hyrum those will go away too.
• I have the most energy and stamina I've ever had.  Really, I mean EVER!  Even though Hyrum wakes up several times a night, and Lydia does once or twice too, I haven't had to take a nap in months.  The old me has to take at least one a day, and I would be exhausted by the time night came.  Joseph even mentioned the other day that he had never seen me this energetic and outgoing ever (so in the last four years).  Little did I know I was holding the best me back from my husband and children by eating bad food!
• I haven't been sick in a really long time.  Joint pains, nausea, headaches, etc... were just sort of part of my life and they I never realized how big a part of my life until they were gone.  It's nice to not feel sick after eating or waking up sick or with a headache because I ate something bad the day before.  I feel good almost all the time!  
• I've never been happier.  My mood and emotions have been so much easier to control since I changed my diet.  Even things like PMS and such are almost non-existent. I am a much better wife and mother now, and I have a lot more patience.

Really this is the best, happiest, and healthiest I have felt in years, if not ever.  My original goal was to go a year without refined sugars, but now that I've seen what my life and body can be like without it, I don't think I could ever live with myself if I went back.  I don't think I'll eat refined sugar for the rest of my life.  It is just not worth it.  If this is what it takes to be happy, have energy, stay fit, not suffer from psoriasis and arthritis, etc..., well it is a very small price to pay.  This has easily been one of the best decisions I have ever made, and every single day I am glad I started four months ago.  Here's to a happy, healthy life!