BEAUTY – What Is Between YOUR Ears???

Our mind, body, & spirit play a HUGE role in the affects on our emotions, attitude, and daily choices.  This is a big hurdle that I’m constantly seeing & fighting against in helping people with weight loss.   To be quite frank, weight loss is all in the mind…it’s what lies between the ears.   It DOES have a quick domino affect on our spirit & body.

The spirit and soul are held captive by our physical choices…and beauty is a physical manifestation of the spirit & soul.  So let me break it down even further…  how we “feel” about ourselves when we look in the mirror will reflect our spirit & soul.   Sometimes we just don’t know how to get out of the self-inflicted never-ending circle of emotional eating due to basing our beauty on how we “feel.”  If you are not happy with what you see in the mirror, then you must ask yourself, “Have I been making the right healthy physical choices?”    Think about that!  Then listen to me again… "The spirit and soul are held captive by our physical choices…beauty is a physical manifestation of the spirit and soul.”  

“The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness…” Matthew 6:22-23

Jesus used “eyes” as a metaphor for our spiritual lives; eyes are the door that affects our whole inner being.   Our choices on types of food, drinks, and the choice to be physically active is just the first step to feeling better about yourself – then your spirit & body will follow suit!

Food for Thought: 

1)   Have you asked God to show you where you have made unwise choices in life?

2)  Believe that others see the outward radiance of your inner life.  YOU have so much to offer… let your light shine for others to see! 

3)   If you have “dieted” in the past…have you found that it just doesn’t work?  When diets do not allow the foods God has provided for you, then that should be RED FLAGS!   Don’t “diet”...Instead, just avoid man-made processed foods with high calories & no vitamins/minerals.  Choose God-made foods…after all, He created you so He should know what your body needs, right??

4)  We are to be “good stewards”…of money and of our body.  Are you being a good steward of your body?  Is your only source of physical activity chasing kids or being taxi driver for everyone?  If so, this does NOT count as exercise.

Beauty - Can I Take a U-Turn?!

I woke up about a few months ago and noticed some crazy lines on my face.  ”Ugh, not those!” was my instant reaction.   Since I was 30, I’ve had to cover my pre-mature gray hair,  a couple years ago I had to get bifocals, and now that 40 is right around the corner, the wrinkles around my eyes are NOW wanting to remind me??!    Seriously?!  You don’t have to show me more!  I get the picture!!

Now, I know I’m not the only person out there that has had just a slight feeling of how I felt.  Lets take it a bit further…’beauty.’  Aren’t MOST women afraid of losing their body they had in their 20’s? Yes- you know what I’m talking about…the body you didn’t appreciate at the time and was wishing you had your teenage body back…yeah it’s that body!  We always seem to “want” what we don’t have yet when in reflection, we realized we had it good! 

I think I might break these blogs on “Beauty” down into several different ones. There’s so many areas of it, I just can’t get it all on one – I’m thinking you are on limiting reading times like me.

Women think differently than men…we tend to put ‘beauty’ and ‘appearance’ in one box and call them almost equal.  Women are afraid of losing love: afraid God will reject us if we overvalue our appearance, and we’re afraid others (society) will reject us if we don’t value it enough.   John 15:4,9 says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me…    As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.”      What this says is Jesus has us!  Unconditionally loves us!  He does NOT give requirements of NO wrinkles, NO gray hair, or NO blemishes before He offers His love.   Nor does he require us to have the perfect clothes or painted nails!   Now who’s love can you always be sure is there – unconditionally there?  Our Savior!!!   It’s not the same love that society has taught you though!  Society sadly puts way too much focus of the appearance on the outside-the name brand clothes you wear, manicures & pedicures, cars you drive, or houses you live in. 

His love flows in us.  And when they flow in us, others see it in our actions and efforts…but most of all in the way we carry ourselves!!   What they see is love of life…and the beauty behind it all is the by-product of our natural efforts when we have Christ as our true love.  Our worry lines will start to go away and our chin no longer drags the floor!  We stop turning to the refrigerator for comfort and stop seeking material things to fill the void.   Our faces will glow with peace and will be so much more alluring than what any cosmetic product can produce. 

I love how one author put it, “Any desire of our hearts – even the desire to be physically beautiful-is an invitation for God to reveal Himself to us.  By bringing this desire to God, we are moving beauty out of the shadows (and out of “society’s beauty) and into the light.  We can trust that God will teach us in this journey to root deeply down into His Love.”

Food for Thought:  

1) Have you ever asked God to reveal to you the true source of beauty?  

2) Do you think that maybe God is using your deep desire for ‘beauty’ to teach you about His constant, unconditionally love and affection He so longs for you to see?

5 Label Reading Steps at a QUICK Glance

There is so much confusion out there with food labels.  Let's just break it down to a "momma has little time level."  
Step 1 - ALWAYS ALWAYS look at the serving size & amount of servings in the container first!  If there are 2 servings in the container, such as the example below, you will need to double everything in the food label because the amounts listed are the "Amounts Per Serving."
Step 2 - To keep your fat intake in check, there's a rule of thumb to follow: For every 100 calories, you need to have 3 or less grams of fat (this keeps your fat intake to 30% or below for you math analyzers out there).   So...  100 calories - <3
                             200 calories - <6
                             300 calories - <9
You just add on 3 more grams of fat every time you add on 100 calories.
Take a look at the label below.  It has 250 calories, so the fat SHOULD BE around 7-8 grams. (200 calories is <6 and 300 calories is <9 so 250 is stuck right in the middle, this is how I got the 7-8grams).  Does this product have 7-8 grams of fat in it???  NO.  It has 12 - WAY MORE than the allowed 7-8 grams)!
So, this product is too high in fat!  AVOID PURCHASING IT!

Step 3 - Go HIGH on fiber, and LOW on sugar!  If there is fruit or milk in the product, these will show up as "sugar" on the food label because they have a natural sugar in them (fructose for fruit and lactose for milk).
Step 4 - Take a look at the ones in light yellow above - Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, & Sodium
Now take a look at the % to the right of them that is in the purple.  The GOAL is to keep these as close to 5% as possible!  The closer to 20%, the higher the risk of heart disease, diabetes, & obesity.
Step 5 - Take a glance at the "Ingredients list" which is usually placed near the food label on a package. If there are words in it that you can't pronounce, it would be wise to leave that package on the shelf!    Avoid disease causing/hormone imbalancing ingredients such as: asparatame, nitrate/nitrite, high fructose corn syrup & colored dyes.

In Tha Muthahood

Children & Eating on the GO!!

Raising children to eat healthy food has major hurdles when all they see on TV commercials is processed cereals loaded with sugars, and friends offering colas, and candy non-stop from parties & holidays. 

Do my children eat junk food?  Yes – the only way to avoid them from doing it is to live in a cabin in the middle of a non-civilized area with no TV and no friends – NOT PRACTICAL and not conducive to their emotional and psychological wellbeing!  So yes, they do get a McD’s happy meal every once in a while and yes, they do get a cola on a special occasion…but it’s not a daily or weekly deal.  I want my kids to feel “normal” like all their friends, yet teach them the whole time the reasons for “moderation” and “limiting” the junk.  We focus on what the healthy food can do for our bodies – such as better & stronger in sports, better grades in school, and more energy to outrun their siblings!  

Teaching our children the reasons for choosing healthy food just doesn’t seem to be the “in” thing now-a-days with the fast foods and two working parents.  A family meal with everyone sitting at the dinner table is almost extinct!  It IS tough!  I juggle several part-time contract dietitian jobs around my kids’ school events and attempt to be the coach in some sports.  My “taxi” cab schedule after school can leave anyone with a spinning head!   That’s why we, as moms(parents), need to think ahead a little bit and become “planners” even if we weren’t born with that way of thinking!  There are many cookbooks & internet sites out there that offer Crock-Pot Meal Recipes that can really come in handy!  I also try to cook enough food for 2 night’s worth of eating.  My husband was NOT a leftover food eater for years, but when he realized I couldn’t be super-mom every night, he caved in and is quite happy to have it a second night.  Some foods can be fixed, frozen, and thawed out a week later to make a quick meal too!   I’ve joined with two other friends where we all cooked different recipes out of the Eat Clean Cookbook .  We would triple our recipe and keep one for our own family while giving the other two portions to the other two families.  They would do the same!  This allowed us to have 2 other meals already fixed for us so we could have healthy meals on our busy nights! 

We seem to live at the ballfields…from softball/baseball to soccer to basketball to soccer(again) then back to softball/baseball.  Two kids in non-stop sports and extra specialized one-on-one lessons leaves me exhausted at night!  So, we have adjusted to some ice chest dinners many nights!  To cut back on time in making sandwiches at home, I just throw in whole wheat pita or Orowheat sandwich round bread in the cooler, along with some nitrite free meat (Hormel) OR natural peanut butter with all fruit spread, some water or juice boxes,  greek yogurt or high fructose corn syrup FREE yogurt sticks, and a piece of fruit.  Sometimes I have premixed protein drinks on ice!   And sometimes, we have the crockpot sitting in the cooler waiting on us! And whamo, we have a “fast food meal” when on the run and we know it’s healthy! 

Some DON’TS with children:

Do not make them “clean their plate”- this promotes obesity (yes, I was raised to clean my plate like most of my generation and my parent’s generation.  This all goes back to the Great Depression.  Keep in mind that you can always wrap it up and heat it up later when they are hungry again!)

Never use the word “fat” in reference to food intake!  Emphasize we eat “healthy” for strong muscles, strong bones, good grades, and so much energy that your school friends can’t keep up with you!

Some DO’S with children:

Continuously offer healthy snacks and meals – they might be resistant at first, but they will eventually give in!  Research has proven that the more it’s offered, the higher chance they will want to eat it.  Instead of a candy bowl on the counter, have a fruit bowl instead. 

LIMIT junk and colas.  No, I didn’t say avoid!  Let kids be kids!  But LIMIT.  Each person has their own version of “limiting” so here’s mine:  one sweet a day (a cola is a sweet too!), you must try each vegetable on the plate, colas are not kept in the house but can be consumed on our “dates” out as a special occasion. 

Keep in mind, children learn by what they SEE.  Walking the talk is most important!  And planning ahead is a must! 

Happy healthy eating!!