.Day 15 of 7.

I've been thinking about food today. It's weird, for about a week now, I have not had any real cravings. Sure I grumble and complain a bit about the same 7 foods that I am eating, but I am just realizing that the cravings are gone. This seems wonderful, because I am just eating when I am "supposed" to eat. During the day I do not even think about eating or cravings or being hungry. Typically, in the afternoon especially, I will feel hungry or feel a desire for food, and  I will eat a snack, or I will watch the clock until my next meal. Ha! But these desires are gone right now - all of them - chocolate, coffee, chips and dip  - those are my main cravings. I even watch the Food Channel Network at night with Jim and the food looks good, but meh, whatever. It's weird, and nice as pounds are just falling off right now, although I am very consciously trying to make sure that is not the focus of this first fast. If that is my focus than I have surely missed out on something beautiful.

I think this 7 experiment is retraining my hunger, and really that is what a fast should do. A true biblical fast should retrain our hunger from food to Jesus. I didn't really expect that to happen with such a non-traditional kind of fast, but as I step back and process all of this I can see that it is happening.

7 is also showing me how much sin has distorted all of life - even food. With these 7 real, non-packaged, non-processed or preserved foods, I feel as if I am stronger, healthier, and able to think clearer. I realize now that I have been eating a distorted version of the food God created for us to enjoy. Now I am not saying that unhealthy food is sinful! I am merely working through my thoughts on all of this. I think God could have created us in a host of different ways to gain nourishment, but He chose to create us with the need for food. Food that tastes good and is pleasurable. But I feel like we have taken that and twisted it to such an extreme - just like sex, just like marriage, just like money - and all of these other things that God has blessed us with. I am not really sure where I am going with this, and I tread cautiously. I very easily get swept up into the organic/clean/whole food way of eating, and I am guilty of letting that consume me more than Jesus in the past. I do not think that pleases God any more than me shoveling Twinkies down my throat.

 So I guess I will just leave it at this: I am revisiting some of these food thoughts, thinking it through, praying about it, and reading up on a few things. I really am noticing a difference in me as we plow through this third week of the experiment. Maybe having all of these food choices and options available to us is more of a curse than a blessing. Maybe that was the whole point in reducing in this area of food - for me to realize what the excess is truly doing to my body, mind, and spirit. Not having to think about what I am eating has also given me back so much more time, but perhaps that is another post for another night.

.Day #5 of 7.

I am learning what an inappropriate relationship I have with food, and how much it consumes my life.

Now this 7 challenge is not at all a diet, it is not for the purpose of losing weight or getting healthy. Remember it is an open ended experiment, where we have cut back to 7 basic foods, and then we wait for the Holy Spirit to work. But today I realized just how much we center our life around food - speaking specifically about my family.

We awoke early to hit up a neighborhood/community yard sale. I have a needs list a mile long (we ran out of hand-me-downs for Scotty and Cadi. They need a fall/winter wardrobe and a start on the next spring/summer, and I am stocking up for a certain teenage boy - hopefully more to come on that later), so I felt like I could reconcile yard saling this summer. Last year I fasted from them - I had no needs list - and I am famous for picking up items just because they are cheap, and we may need them in the future. But all of those quarters add up to foolishly wasting our money, and really does my daughter need twenty dresses, or ten hoodies, or do I need another pair of jeans?? For my family, the answer is a firm no. So I am cautiously yard saling this summer, with needs list tightly in hand - trying to only focus on that list.

We did well today, and we had fun together as a family. We were there for a little over three hours this morning. By noon we were all hungry, so we walked to a home that was selling hot dogs, chips, and soda to support cancer research. Let me tell you how amazing those hot dogs smelled! I am not typically a hot dog lover either. We rarely eat them, but in that moment I wanted one so much. We were having fun, laughing, enjoying our time together, excited about some great deals we had found, and I wanted to celebrate the moment - the way we always celebrate - with good food. (Okay, okay, I know it has been only 5 days, but in that moment even a hot dog sounded like good food!) And I do this all of the time. I kick off our weekends with a Friday night family pizza party. We celebrate a fun, hot summer day with an ice cream cone. It's not necessarily wrong or bad, either. I was just alarmed that for a few moments while I threw a pity party inside my head, over not being able to eat the hot dog or Cheetos, I actually thought our whole experience was somehow ruined. Now the moment passed, and I regained clarity, along with a raging headache that an apple did little to cure, but it also startled me into realizing the inappropriate relationship I have with food.

Perhaps this little experiment is relearning how to tell myself No, Tiff, you do not need that hot dog. And then realizing that nothing changed. I still had an exceptionally fun day with my family and the food was inconsequential. Perhaps in this self discipline of 7 I am dusting off a little piece of my heart and clearing away some of the junk that has lived there when it comes to my relationship with food. Maybe in doing this I will start to see new growth. Maybe there will now be room for the Holy Spirit to move and grow me in a new direction  - in a way that I have never been able to grow before. I do not know, and I do not want to over spiritualize this experiment. But I feel something softening and stirring, and I feel more alert to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.

So for now I will take it. I think I have been distracted by so much of the excess in my life - food included. By eliminating, it seems I am emptying a lot of junk that has taken up residence in my heart. Little by little I pray to become more consumed with God and less enamored with all of these choices - this excess surrounding me, and if that means letting it go and giving up some of the choices and excess. So be it. I am willing.

Jim on day #5. Honestly, he is doing so great. It is a blessing to go through this with him by my side. I am excited to see what God has to teach us together in this experiment as well as individually.

.For the Love of all Things Nutritious & Delicious.

I love food.

I love making food, and I love eating food. I also love experimenting with different kinds of food. There is not too much that I won't try - once. And I have a very wide palate.

Except for

soda

marshmallows

coconut.

Those three things I just do not like. At. all.

I go in phases where I "health food binge". I become manic about researching health foods, trying new things, scrounging around our local health food store, and exploring new recipes, but then it consumes me. And I start to freak out when my children have a teaspoon of refined sugar or they go to someones house and have a pop tart or food dye in a cupcake that was made from a box. I think surely they will die from this unnatural awfulness, and then I panic and fear the worse and try to control every morsel they put in their mouth.... etc. It's an awful thing. I wish I was not an "all or nothing girl". I wish I knew how to be in the middle, because I don't want to live like that crazy mom I just described. Yes, I want to feed my family good food, I want to be healthy, I want my family to be healthy. I want to honor God by stewarding the body He gave me, and the family He entrusted me with, but I do not want to be mastered by anything except for God (Matthew 6:24). So this is a delicate dance for me. I write all of this to say, that I am cautiously dipping my toes back into the health food "pool", and balancing it with yummy indulgences and seeing them as a blessing when used in moderation. Because I will not be consumed by this. I won't be.

And with that here are a few healthy recipes that I have tried in the past few days that have been amazing. I thought I would pass them on. That is the real reason for this post. I just took a round about way to get here. {grin}

Homemade Breakfast Bars - except I replaced the slivered almonds with crushed cocoa almonds, and  shook two tablespoons of flax seed over the bars while they were still hot. I used almond nut butter, honey, and raisins in mine.

Black Bean Toss - This is an amazing, HUGE salad that is packed with protein and fiber. It was soooo good. We had it for dinner last night (the salad was the meal - it is completely a meal on its own), and I am officially adding it into our Monday night salad rotation.

Kale Chips - Ooooh my. These you must try! My children were stealing them off of the tray right out of the oven. They are amazing! Next time I am going to try making a salt and vinegar version.

 Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding - Yes, it is made from the seeds that chia pets grow from. Ha! I have been using chia seeds on and off for about a year, and I am so excited to find more uses for them - this being one. I added some natural peanut butter in mine. It was yummy.

You can follow me here on Pinterest to see some other healthy (and some not-so-healthy - balance, remember?!) recipes that I have tried, and I plan to try. Now, how about you share some of yours?!

(Cadi has another blood draw today, I will update the blog's facebook page with her count. You can get to it by clicking the facebook badge on my right sidebar. Thank you for praying for her.)

Food, Inc.

I am usually not into political "things". But while eating my Stonyfield Farm organic yogurt today (my yummy addiction), I read an ad for the movie Food, Inc.. This past year I started researching healthier eating for my family. It has become a huge passion of mine. I think that what we put into our bodies is so very important. And I have come to believe that the closer that food, and other things really, are to natural, the better. I struggle with this part of living at camp for five plus months, maybe the most. I have very little control over the foods my family eats while here. And no one else here shares my passion or desire to live and eat naturally. Our camp kitchen is full of foods laden with chemicals, preservatives, dyes, additives, artificial sweeteners, etc. And I am fully aware and understand that some of it is a necessity for camp ministry. We could not possibly budget an entire summers meal plan for hundreds of campers and staffers organically and naturally. *Pooey* So I do what I can while here. Lots of yogurt and lots of grace! {wink} But as the summer is slowly starting to fade, I have an itch to put my familys eating back in my own hands! I still have much to learn, and I am so excited to see this movie! Anyone else with me??