The Wheat Factor

Hey Everybody!

This week is “No Wheat” week.

You’re probably wondering why we are doing a wheat-free week when we already did a gluten-free week. Well, it’s because wheat is derived from the wheat kernel, and gluten is not only found in wheat, but in rye and barley. So when you’re gluten-free, you give up more than just things that contain wheat, you give up anything that has rye or barley in it also. This leads to a vast elimination of foods that you can eat. We want to get to the bottom of this and find out if  fatigue, weight loss sabotage, lack of motivation,bloating and crankiness-which are typical symptoms of many illnesses-could be related to common foods we eat every day.  Could it be everything that contains gluten? Or is it just the wheat factor in things?

Here is a quote from Doctor William Davis, ” You may be wondering why wheat is so bad for your waistline. The answer is simple: Because it’s NOT really wheat anymore! In the 1960s a small group of scientists in Mexico set out to make wheat easier to grow and more pest resistant. Good for the farmers, but bad for your health and your weight! Genetic engineering transformed wheat into a super carbohydrate that wreaks havoc on your body and makes you fat.” -wheatbellybook.com

So, we are leaving off all forms of wheat this week because I absolutely believe what Doctor William Davis says is true. Everything in today’s culture has been so genetically modified that the processed items we eat should be called chemicals not food.

Join us this week on our “No Wheat” Adventure! Grow one step closer to your full potential!

Weeding Out What Works and What Doesn’t

Well! It’s the end of the Whole Foods Adventure!

Every new thing you try always opens the door to new experiences. This past week was definitely a new experience for me! There were hard times and good times, but everything I went through taught me a new lesson.

I have come to the conclusion that if I were a meat eater, living a whole foods lifestyle would be no problem at all! But since I am a vegan, it is a little bit harder because I don’t have the meat source for protein.

This is WHY I am trying out new things… to see what my body works best with! Weeding out what works and what doesn’t can sometimes be a hard thing, but stick with it because in the end it’s always worth it!

How did your week challenge go? Let me know!

Make Your Dreams Come True!

At some point in your life, you have probably had a dream that you have wanted to accomplish. At one moment you want it so bad, but after a few days or months that dream seems to slowly die away. Before you know it, the passionate desire that was inside of your best self has blown away in the whirlwind of your thoughts.

Don’t worry…you’re not the only human this has happened to. Many people around the world experience the loss of dreams. But how do we stop this growing epidemic?

Unfortunately, what happens is that we don’t have a plan to accomplish these dreams! We need a plan to succeed. Think of the areas in your life where you have given up on a dream. Did you have a plan? Or did you just think it would magically happen? There have been many times in my life where I have had to rekindle a dream because I let it die without a plan. Don’t worry! There is still hope. Passion follows vision and vision follows a plan! By a plan I mean write out the steps to your goal…be SPECIFIC.

This week write down your health goals. I do this at the beginning of every week, and it is amazing to see the results of writing something down. I do it by filling out something that I call the Great Plan, because with a great plan, you accomplish great things. Here is an example of what mine looked like this week:

Objective: To live a healthy vibrant life.

Description: When I am living a healthy vibrant life I will: Have energy to do everything I need to do and more, be confident in my body, be excited about life and be an example to those around me to be healthy.

Monthly Goals: Be energized about life, have clear skin and be eating healthy.

Weekly Goals: Eat only whole foods this Monday-Friday. Do not eat after 8:30pm. Get eight hours of sleep three times this week and observe how you feel. Drink at least 65 oz a day.

Okay, so don’t get too confused yet! Let me explain how you do this. Your objective is your main goal that you are striving for. The description is what it’s going to look like for you when you have accomplished your objective. Your monthly goal is what you need to accomplish every month in order to reach your objective and your weekly goal is what you need to accomplish every week in order to reach your monthly goal. See! Sweet and simple.

The main growth happens at the end of the week! Go through your weekly goals, evaluate and honestly tell yourself what you did and did not accomplish that week.  Then once one goal is completed. You move on to a greater goal! It is important that you make these goals realistic. For example, I can’t have one of my weekly goals be workout six days a week if I have never worked out before! Make them attainable for your life. While you’re writing these out, think about where you are going to place them in your life.

You have a 50% advantage if you write things down.  It is an amazing tool to use in order to stay accountable, motivated and get things done!

Good luck and please like or comment if this was helpful to you!

Check this out guys! Follow this girl… she has some good stuff to say!

Clarity

We have finally come to my favorite part of the entire goal setting process. Welcome to AFFIRMATIONS OF FAITH! Have you ever noticed that it is often easier for others to see your strengths and weaknesses than it is for you to see and understand them? Personal example: I have been interested in photography for eight plus years now. What started out as a hobby of taking picture of flowers has grown into a business in the last two years. God has been blessing me with an increasing demand for my work. A few days ago, a bride contacted me to see if I would photograph her wedding. She also said that if everything worked out, she had a friend getting married this summer as well who would be interested my services. My initial reaction was fear, then excitement and then wonder at how anyone would pay me for my…

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Adam and Eve had it right!

It’s the start of a new week and you know what that means- the start of a new eating adventure!

These past few days my family and I have been discussing what our next eating adventure would be for this week. We thought of almost every eating plan and ruled out all of them except for one: Whole Foods.

Developing the guidelines for this was was a bit of a challenge. Whole Foods? What is that? Does that mean we can’t eat anything in a package? Almost everything comes in a package! Well, we came to the conclusion that whole foods to us is any type of food that is in it’s original form. For example, all fresh veggies, fruit, legumes, nuts and grains. Or if you want the real definition, whole foods are, “Unprocessed and unrefined food products or processed and refined as little as possible before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, food dyes, artificial ingredients, fillers, etc.”  As you might guess, this means foods like protein powder, cereal, chips, noodles, honey (unless it is straight of the honey comb) and all processed sweeteners are out of the question. Think like Adam and Eve. They lived the prime example of a Whole Foods eating plan. Would Eve be sitting on a coach eating a donut? Probably not! If Eve walked into the kitchen in the Garden of Eden, what would she make for her and Adam to eat?

I confess, when we first decided to eat only whole foods for this week’s adventure I was hesitant. I questioned how it was even possible and what we would eat. The fact that I even had to question is actually really sad. Way back in the olden days, this is all they did! The focus of their diet was eating from the ground up. But in today’s world we eat from the shelf down. A lot of us don’t even know what whole foods are because almost everything we see comes in a package. Once I sorted some things out in my mind about what this would look like, I started to get excited. Imagine, only putting the types of food in your body that are whole. It’s almost like being royalty to know that all you will allow to put in your body are the most nutritious whole foods out there.

We would love it if you joined us for this adventure! Keep us updated on your progress!

Stay tuned for more posts on the whole foods eating plan. Remember, Whole Foods=Whole You!

4 Tips for a College Student on a Gluten-Free Diet

Here are 4 tips I would suggest for a college student on a gluten-free diet:

1. Have fresh foods on hand-

In college this is hard because you are always going going going. But try to keep a fridge full of safe, healthy, gluten-free foods that are fresh, not processed and ready to go at a moments notice. Let your dorm room be a safe-free zone for you where you can relax without being tempted.  An easy tip for always having fresh food on hand is to always make food in bulk. For example, when you make a salad, make one that will last you for a few days and keep it in your fridge so you have it whenever you need it.

2. Plan when and where you will eat-

Busy people a lot of times forget to eat, and then when they do, they go all out. There is a solution to this problem. Plan when and what you will eat and stick to it. For example, if my class was at 8am, instead of waiting till later to eat, I would eat at 7am right when I got up.

3. Pack a cooler-

 One of the main reasons any type of diet is hard is because we procrastinate. We leave for the day and expect not to eat until we get home. This is of course hardly ever happens and we end up filling our hungry bodies with junk food because there is no other alternative. My suggestion is to pack a cooler at the beginning of the day with all your meals in it. This might seem impossible because of the “time” factor, but it’s not. You just have to make it a priority. For example, my cooler meal for lunch could be salad, chicken breast and quinoa.

4. Team up with other gluten-free students-

Find other like-minded students at your college. Doing this will help you stay accountable and motivated. You can bulk shop together, eat together and create a gluten-free community within your college.

Remember, there is no quick fix for living a healthy lifestyle. You have to work at it. But when we work at it, we become a step closer to reaching our full potential! Stay strong and live the life you’ve always wanted to live!

The End…Or is It?

As I sit here writing this post, I reflect on the adventures of our gluten-free week. This has been an amazing experiment and though we are not gluten intolerant, we simply wanted to try how this eating style would make us feel. I believe that my body is thanking me for this experience!

When I ask myself what the most important food is for any diet, I always come to the same conclusion: Vegetables. And so, as you might expect, vegetables are also the most important food for a gluten-free diet! This nutritiously dense food is the key to opening the door to all healthy lifestyles! We eat a large quantity of vegetables each day. Vegetables fill up your body without adding a ton of carbs to your meal. It’s fantastic! They are the miracle food that contains several nutrients essential to your body. We also eat a lot of quinoa, rice, beans, tofu and healthy fats such as nuts and nut butters, avocado and salad oils. These foods compliment the vegetables on our plate.

I have discovered that it is immensely hard to experience the full benefits of your health if you don’t get enough sleep. These past few days I have been extremely sleep deprived. I am positive I would have gotten even better results with the gluten-free challenge if I had made sleep a higher priority. “No sleep= No six-pack.”  I definitely understand this as truth.

This is our last day of the gluten-free challenge and to be perfectly honest I am sad that it is coming to an end… or is it? There are many more adventures to come while we strive to find our health habits that will empower us reach our full potential in life!