Benjamin Franklin said that, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail“. Winston Churchill stated, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail“. The list could go on and on. Great men and women throughout our history have known that to have a goal without a plan to reach that goal, is nothing more than a dream.

For years I have had a dream of being well. Not just to be well physically, but spiritually and emotionally. To be a person that is well in my soul and my body. Until recently that dream felt like just that – a dream.

I like to consider myself a planner. For most everything in my life I have always had a plan, stuck to it, and followed through with that plan. But for some reason, when it comes to my own health and wellness I never made a plan.

• I just assumed I would lose the baby weight. I never imagined it wouldn’t just fall off of me with all the running around I do. Yet, here it is.
• Every time I would have to squeeze into the incoming season’s clothes, I would discover a wild motivation to try the newest diet fad to lose 20lbs and fit into those clothes again.
• When exhaustion settled in, and my body was sluggish and weary – I looked to a quick fix of energy drinks or the latest “spark” drink to pick me up.

4 Simple Steps – My Plan To Be Awesome and Well This Year

I was great at making plans for everyone and everything else, why not for myself? No wonder nothing ever stuck. I wasn’t prepared for the job at hand. I went in blind to what my obstacles would be, and when things got hard my lack of preparation stalled my efforts. What now seems like such an obvious need, never even made my to-do list in the past. I made the decision in mid-2016 that things had to change. A decision that said I was worthy of creating a plan that would work. A plan I could follow. And a plan that would lead to wellness.

Ya’ll know me well enough by now to know I can’t keep awesome things to myself right? So I want to share with you my 4 simple steps – my plan – for making these big changes in my life.

 

Make the mental shift to be well

We have heard it a million times, the first step is admitting you have a problem. In all honesty, for me I came to a place where I realized that in order to change my situation I was going to have to break off my emotional relationship with food. I know that sounds silly, but I have always been a major emotional eater. And my body is proof.

Even though I knew the things I was putting in my body were doing it harm, I continued to eat the way I was . . . because it made me feel better. That Route 44 coke was just the perfect ending to a day of hard work. And that hibachi fried rice made all my worries go away (for an hour maybe). It wasn’t a decision anyone else could make for me. I had to come to a place, for me it was a rather low place, where I knew I not only needed to change – but I wanted to.

This journey isn’t just about the physical. I can be as physically healthy and fit as anyone on the planet, but if my spiritual walk with Christ isn’t in sync with His steps I might as well lay down and give up. You see, my biggest convictions about my unhealthy lifestyle come from the realization that my physical condition is not honoring to the God who created me. Not at all. My work for His Kingdom is limited because of my physical limitations. I was running to food as my source of comfort when in distress instead of running to the Prince of Peace. I was trusting in the messed up, temporary vessel more than I was trusting in the King of Heaven. And that, my friends, just won’t do.

Once I knew in the depths of my soul that I needed change, I made a commitment to myself that I would do the work – that I was worthy of the work – to get better. I can’t explain it other than just a mental change in direction. My mind is made up. My future will not look like my past. I am worth it. My family is worth it. I will be the woman God created me to be!

You don’t know what you don’t know

The second step in turning my life around was figuring out what in the world had gone wrong, and then how in the world I could fix it. I faced several health issues, none of which doctors or medicines where able to help. I learned several years ago with our middle son, that sometimes you just have to take things into your own hands and be your own advocate. And that is exactly what I have done.

I began to dive into research on modern medicines, foods, and environmental factors that could be doing damage to my body and my children’s bodies.

I will pause right here and let you know, for years I have silently laughed at my “crunchy mom” friends. And thought their hippie ways and conspiracy theories were just way out there. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

The more I researched, not just for myself but also for our middle son with juvenile arthritis, the more in awe I became. This post isn’t about what’s in our food or medicines, what I found time and time again was how amazing our own bodies were at healing themselves when they are cared for properly.

You see, God is not dumb. He didn’t just pop us into existence without having a plan. Our bodies are so incredibly amazing! We are the ones who mess things up. They didn’t have coke in the garden of Eden. Probably didn’t have pizza, or energy drinks, or processed foods, chemical preservatives, and any of that stuff either. Their bodies were healthy when they were living within the lane God had given them.

I could go on and on about the things I am learning, but that is for another day. If you want to chat about it PLEASE feel free to shoot me a message!

What I want you to hear today is that turning a blind eye to the things we don’t want to know about isn’t the answer. That saying “ignorance is bliss” – that’s dumb. God gave us this life and these bodies to treasure and care for. He entrusted us with our children – His children – to raise and protect. Don’t burry your head in the sand. Take the time to learn about what is in your food and in your homes and how it is affecting your health. Even better, how changing those things can help your body heal itself!

Equip yourself with tools for success

Once I began growing in knowledge of the things around me it became painfully obvious that making the necessary changes was no small task. I was overwhelmed. If there was a way to health –the way God had designed for me – I wanted to take that path. But the steps to get there seemed so extreme. I can’t afford to feed my family organic! I don’t have time to DIY everything in life! I LOVE pizza!

In the same way that we are called as Christians to become a new creation in Christ, I needed to become a new creation in the way I treated my body. I had the head knowledge, now I needed some practical steps to take to put my plan into action. These 3 things have been, and will continue to be absolute life-savers for me on this journey. There is no way I could do this without a solid, daily relationship with God and the following few things:

1.  A community of supporting believers that are a step ahead of me. Not only did I need someone to guide me on where to start, but I needed some accountability. A lot of accountability. I needed someone who would continue to educate me, help me with my specific needs and issues, and someone who would show me grace in my weakness. Someone that would accept my vulnerabilities and love me through the ups and downs.

God never ceases to amaze me at the way He allows our paths to cross with just the right people at our perfect time of need! I met two beautiful ladies here in Ohio that have created an incredible program geared just for women. ReBalance is a 28 day (give or take depending on how you work it) program that effected my body and mind like nothing else I have ever been through. It isn’t some crazy pill or even a diet plan. No counting calories or anything like that. It’s about eating certain foods, and avoiding certain foods, as well as environmental factors in order to reset the hormones in our body and get down to the root cause of why our body is behaving the way it is. The science behind it is brilliant and I just love that it was created by two moms who were tired of living a less than victorious life!

ReBalance has completely changed my life! It gave me the emotional support I needed to work through some tough issues, the knowledge to start understanding what my body had been trying to tell me for years, and the grace to take one step at a time at my own pace. These ladies were with me every single step of the way and truly have a heart for helping women any way they can.

By the way, I am doing the ReBalance program again later this month and I would LOVE for you to join me! Click the image below to find out how.

2. Another tool that has helped me a great deal is Plan to Eat meal planning (affiliate link). I have always struggled with meal planning. I don’t know why it has felt so hard, but it just has. And my lack of planning usually led to us getting take out or eating junk for dinner. Not to mention what it did to our food budget! After sharing my struggles with her, one of the ladies from ReBalance pointed me toward this meal planning website and I have been so amazed by how much it has simplified our eating plans.

3. The biggest life changer for me over the last few months has been the addition of Juice Plus to our home. Juice Plus is not a supplement, but a whole food based nutrition, including juice powder concentrates from 30 different fruits, veggies, and grains. It helps bridge the gap between what we should be eating and what we are actually eating every day.

Now I am not going to lie to you – you know that right? I was a huge skeptic about this. I actually ordered some from a friend years ago . . . and then let it sit in my office and stockpile. But when the ladies in the ReBalance program began telling me how awesome this product was, I decided to take another look.

I could write a book about what this product is doing for us, but long story short here are some things we have seen in just a few months of using Juice Plus:

• Johnathan’s (age 6) broken are went from delayed healing to rapid healing in just 3 weeks after starting Juice Plus.
• Jacob’s (age 3) eczema is improving
• Ian (age 5) has been taking extra Juice Plus and for the first time in over 2 years his lab work from his arthritis came back showing ZERO inflammation in his body!!!! We are currently in the process of weaning him off of the harsh medicines he has been on for his arthritis because Juice Plus is bridging that gap for him and his body is healing the way God intended for it to.
• I have noticed more energy, less napping in the afternoons, better complexion, regularity in my bowels (ewe I know but seriously), less chronic pain, and for the first time in 8 years my inflammatory markers are completely normal!

Nothing else has changed other than this ReBalance program and our addition of Juice Plus!

I am at the beginning of my journey, and I still have a long way to go – but I am so excited about the changes we are making! I hope you are okay with me sharing them with you today. I just feel so incredibly blessed to have found these women that are pouring into my life, and allowing me to pour into others. So this is my plan for 2017! What does your plan look like? Can I answer any questions for you about any of this? And will you help me by praying for us and helping keep me accountable?

Oh, and my 4th simple step . . . GO!

 

This post is part of the Jesus and Coffee Linkup! Click on the little blue frog to link up your latest post!

 

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