saying hello to change.

There's a shift happening.  A firm wind is blowing.  I can feel it swirling around me.  A shudder of anticipation mixed with fear shakes me.  Change.  It's staring me in the face and I cannot look away.  No matter how desperately I wish that I could.

I love change.  The way most of us do.  When it's happening to anyone else.  Unless, your shift effects my life, then let's be frank, not such a fan.

Even good change takes work.  Settling in, learning a new way.  Forming different habits.  I am a creature of habit.  Truly.  When I wake up, I want to stumble half blind to the kitchen where I brew a big cup of coffee and spend the next hour shooing my kids away.  This is not fully realistic.  In actuality I have to carry two growing children down the stairs, make them breakfast, get them settled, then have my coffee.  Which at this point I typically feel I deserve, and to enjoy it without having balls thrown at my head.

Have you ever been committed to something, to the point that even when it's causing you pain you'll continue?  There have been many harmful things in my life, that I've struggled to walk away from.  I have to say, the biggest for me swirls around food.  I LOVE junk food.  I can barely make it out of the grocery store without raiding the candy next to the checkout.  I'll fill up on ice cream then moan on the couch.  My poor husband often wonders why I continue when it makes me so sick.  I guess the truth is that it wasn't making me sick enough.  Until lately.

Suddenly, or maybe it's been getting worse the last few months, or years, my kidneys ache, my body can barely function, I'm crippled with exhaustion, my skin is broken out, and now if I even touch wheat my stomach cramps for hours.  sigh.

You know how people can be too educated?  This is one of those areas that I knew too much, but didn't want to change my diet.  I knew that how I ate was hurting me, but I just didn't care.  I could eat junk without gaining weight and while I frowned at my complexion I wasn't motivated by it.

My mom is a health food nut.  Though her education in food and vitamins and minerals stemmed from a need to heal herself, she raised us knowing how to protect and care for our bodies.   I hit 18, bought a couple spray cans of whipped cream, some coke, a few snickers and ate myself silly.  As, I have continued for the last 11 years.

Since having children, I am much more careful about eating junk food and prefer the closet approach to letting my kids in on my binge.  There've been some moments as an adult that my family has been g/f, s/f, and d/f, but after a few months of clean living and even feeling amazing I've found myself returning to my old habits.    Mainly because I haven't seen (or felt) the absolute value and necessity in it, until recently.  As I feel the pain from every bite so distinctly, I'm losing all desire to continue in my ways.

For a long time it was just about restriction.  How, I was never going to eat such and such foods again, usually after a late night ice cream feast.  This is more of a plan on what I will eat.  How I'm going to do things differently.  Carefully choosing how I'll nourish my body and the growing bodies around my table.

And so change blows itself through the door of my house and we square off in the kitchen.  I can feel the fear of failure, the sense that it's going to be harder than I realize.  I could just give up, but that option is no longer on the table.  I want to have complete health, I want to be the best version of myself, I want to live long, because this life is no longer about me.

I thought I'd share with all of you, as I will probably be posting more about this new adventure.  I'm scared.  But, I'm more desperate than I've ever been and that's exciting.

Welcoming change.  It's a deep breath.  A shift that has to happen.  A blank page of adventure.

Blessings.