I am just coming around the corner from my "annual-allergy-sickness-that-makes-me-so-sick-I-can't-function" bout. It happened while Dave was out of town which made it even worse to drag myself to urgent care and try to keep the house together. BUT I'm happy to report that I can walk and wipe down counters now and there's nothing like bouts with sickness that make you thank your lucky stars that you can walk and run and sleep and DO things you need to do.
I'm SO grateful for regular health...being sick is such a giant waste of time :).
Which is sort of vaguely related to what I want to record today...as my little journal to top off the month of January (yes, I know it's almost March...).
I mentioned this a couple times, but during a family council right at the beginning of the new year, Dave proclaimed he was going off sugar for the month of January.
I was quick to join right in because I'll tell you what, we went a little crazy with sugar around the holidays. People were dropping off holiday treats right and left and at every gathering there was more and more...tastier and more decadent deliciousness.
We needed to put a dead halt on all that asap.
We challenged the kids to join us and they all jumped on the bandwagon. Ok, never mind, they didn't all jump. Some took a little convincing. Namely Lucy.
Now, before you get too impressed, it was just desserts, not everything with any sugar, and also, we had four cheat days taking into account Max's farewell and three birthdays coming up.
We didn't want to overdo it, but we wanted to train ourselves to reach for good things that sustain and build muscle and brains rather than reaching first for junk food like we had been.
Dave took our deal a level higher and decided to go on a "cleanse" for a week.
He made it look pretty glamorous with his morning shakes and yummy cut-up fruits and veggies...glamorous enough that Max and Grace were motivated enough to join in.
Little did he know he worked himself into a full-time job whipping up the shakes and helping with the food prep.
He loved every second of it though.
There is something so validating and wonderful about having self-control.
Our meals were pretty comical, the three on the cleanse had to count all their calories pretty exactly and the rest of us were trying to figure out how to eat not to make them drool. I could go into lots of details but suffice it to say that we all lost a few pounds in January, the ones on the cleanse and the ones trying to get by on the sidelines.
We all felt so much better without all that sugar clogging our bodies up.
We were especially so dang proud of Lucy who is borderline obsessed with sugar. One of the biggest things kids with her syndrome struggle with is weight which makes the rampant sugar craze all around extra rough for her...and for us trying to help her navigate through it. She loves it like nothing else.
But she stayed strong over and over in school and in her church class (we had both sets of teachers let us know how strong she on multiple occasions). Claire too. It seems like every gathering with her friends involved candy and soda and a run for some kind of treat or another. Makes you realize just how much sugar makes our world go around. You don't realize how much it infiltrates so much of daily life until you're craving it at all hours of the day.
But those girls stayed strong. And we are still all alive to tell about it! Ha! It is amazing how much confidence is gained through doing something difficult like that. I love that Lucy was sure to write Max a little reminder when he headed to the MTC to stay strong through the end of the month:
Anyway, I'm not sure the point of this post except to say that I loved watching the confidence of all of us grow and I loved how much better we felt as we made deliberate choices as to what we put in our bodies. I personally fell off the bandwagon in February so now I'm revamping. Is healthy eating always a balance for you too? I just feel like I need to constantly re-evaluate the things we let come into our homes and our bodies.
I'm off to start on my "green smoothies" more religiously once again. SO many great recipes and ideas in the comments of this post back HERE.