Post by Serene on Jan 7, 2013 21:02:51 GMT -5
I am in a wonderful mood today because it is my birthday! I used to get a little depressed every year on the day that told me I was older. This started at a very young age for me because I was the youngest of a big family and I was meant to stay cute and little forever. Being young was my identity.
It really got bad when I started to actually “feel” a little older each year. But that is a thing of the past. Ever since I learned to get my blood sugar in check I feel I have reversed the clock and feel better today at 36 than I did at sixteen. I am not exaggerating!
At sixteen and for many years after, I suffered with acute yeast infections that would go away only to come back to plague me. For most of my twenties I was a "carboholic" vegan who ate exclusively organic plant food. I was a little heavy in both sets of my cheeks (ha ha) after some years of whole grain and honey binging. I was not what could be called overweight back then but as I look back at photos now, I’d have to call myself “pleasantly plump” at my biggest.
Then I got a little more extreme in my diet, searching for the right way to eat and keep slim. I morphed into a raw food Nazi. But eventually my energy diminished and I suffered severe muscle wasting after completing two pregnancies on a raw, plant based diet exclusively. I was skinny but-with a bloated goat like belly full of fermenting roughage! Sometimes people would ask if I was pregnant when I wasn't. After all that will power to stick to such a stringent lifestyle I would want to sit down and cry.
But now, many years down the track when I am supposed to feel older and a little rusty, I feel FANTASTIC!!! I feel strong and youthful and energetic. I feel excited about next year and the year after. Come on birthdays, let me at ya! I am not afraid of age... of beautiful laugh lines and the wrinkles wrought by years of smiling at the joy of living. I am not caught up with body image -wanting to be skinny, that’s dangerous and more bondage. I love being at a healthy weight. A trim waistline means a reduction of risks for most diseases and that is no longer hard to achieve but fun, yummy - easy!
My whole point in sharing my birthday musings with you is to encourage you. You can reclaim your health and vitality. You can truly become more youthful with the coming years than you are today. Maybe you’ll have more grey hair, you won’t look twenty, but you don’t have to slide downhill either. My mother is 72 years old and looks and feels younger today than a few years back.
No diet is a fountain of youth. The seasons of life are created and ordained by God and are to be embraced. But we do not have to embrace the kind of miserable and speedy aging that we self inflict by abusive dietary and lifestyle habits.
In the book of Joshua, chapter 14: 10-13, Caleb speaks of how he feels better at 85 years of age than he did at 40. He describes how he felt strong enough for war, was ready to face the giants and wanted to claim the hill country.
Maybe thirty is behind you (or add a decade or three onto that). Has your energy disappeared along with the vigor for life that once surged through you? Don’t feel like it is only down hill from here. You do not have to embrace this theory. It is not a fact. It is actually a lie. God has given our bodies the ability to live for 120 years.
He is an excellent creator and doesn't make junk that breaks down before it is meant to when maintained correctly. And he has a lot to say in the Bible about how to do that. Yes, we live in a world where tragic diseases afflict some of us and we have no answers as to why. Healthy living is not a live forever potion as He hold the number of our days. But we must look after these bodies He has made and called “good”. He has created our bodies to completely renew themselves every seven years. I believe it surely must sadden God to see us throwing away good years and years of productive vigor by our almost insane way of modern eating.
Binging on refined sugar and stripped and naked carbohydrates is stealing from our God given gift of health and energy. Consuming food that does not nourish our body but instead drowns out any chance of flourishing with chemical cocktails perverts our wonderful design.
So I say, embrace God's divine design. That doesn’t mean misery. It is easy and his burden is light. He is a God of good gifts, celebration and even feasting! We celebrate food as Trim Healthy Mamas, satisfy ourselves with wonderful fats, sweet foods and hearty protein sources like meat and cultured dairy, energize ourselves with life giving plant foods and slow burning carbs so we can keep up with all the daily tasks our lives require of us. All food groups are included for our good, he has not made it hard for us. However he asks us to choose life and not death. It is a choice. It is not forced but offered. What will you decide today? What will you decide for this next year? To become older, allow more degeneration of your body? How about feeling younger? Or even looking younger?
Bring on the birthdays! Add a few more candles. It's time to celebrate the honor of another year of life. This journey only gets better with time!
Love Serene
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