Life Lately (+ Our New Diet Plan)

It’s been awhile since I did a personal update, and I kind of miss it. I’ve decided that I’m going to be doing a weekly “life lately” post to include all that’s happened that week. (If you follow me on Instagram, some of my photos might look familiar!)

Every month I change the writing on my kitchen chalkboard. I don’t change it more often because this chalkboard hangs over a huge buffet in our kitchen, and it’s kind of hard to reach! For the month of February, I wanted to focus on love, and I found a photo online to copy.

My husband and I had an anniversary (19 years!) at the end of January, but we didn’t get to celebrate it then. I went ahead and hung up this anniversary banner for Valentine’s because it fit with the love theme. I’m still hoping we’ll be able to do something special for our anniversary eventually!

We’ve had a cold going around for about two weeks, so we haven’t left the house much lately.

We had a special family party around Valentine’s Day, and we played one of our favorite games, Ticket to Ride.

On Monday, I had to go get my license renewed. I drove about 30 minutes to get to the license bureau, only to find that they were closed “in honor of Lincoln’s birthday!” (I had no idea that was even a holiday, especially since it was on Sunday, and we even called before I left to make sure they were open, and the recording we got said nothing about being closed—it just said they were open Monday through Friday.)

I was so sad about wasting my time driving over there (and I had no errands I needed to run), so I went to the lake and enjoyed the beautiful weather. 🙂 The high on Friday was 76 degrees!

Our New Diet

Monday we also started our new diet! My husband and I have been preparing for this diet for awhile, so we were both pretty excited about it.

I’ve been doing Trim Healthy Mama for about 5 years, and I haven’t really lost any weight. When I first started, I lost 5 pounds. Later, I did a fuel cycle, but I only lost a couple pounds and gained them back when I went back to eating the regular THM way.

Mostly, we’re hoping to heal some health problems that have been bothering us for years. We’re using The 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse book, following it as closely as we can.

We got a lot of the ingredients from Aldi, and we also got some of them from Azure Standard, our food co-op.

All of the food we’ve eaten so far has been delicious. However, the recipes tend to be pretty time-consuming for a busy mom (or any busy person). Especially the breakfast recipes. I usually plan more time to make dinner, but chopping up onions and mushrooms and shredding cabbage is a bit more time-consuming than what I usually do for breakfast (usually I fry or scramble some eggs and that’s it!).

My husband is doing great on the diet so far, and I think he’s going to be able to lose weight on it. I, however, haven’t been doing so well on it.

I’ve had low blood sugar issues for about 20 years. I have always been able to control it with careful eating.

Monday night (the first day on the diet), I woke up in the middle of the night feeling miserable. With this plan, you only eat twice a day, once around 10 am and then between 4-6 pm. And then you’re not supposed to eat anything else until the next day.

I ate the two recommended meals, and I woke up that night feeling absolutely terrible. I was shaky and cold and nauseated. It felt just like I always do when I’m having a low blood sugar episode (which I usually don’t have since I’m careful to eat a bedtime snack with lots of protein before bed every night).

So I got up and drank some bone broth, which is one of the suggestions for when you get hungry. Then I ate two of the desserts (sweetened with stevia) that are the recommended snacks.

I went back to bed and woke up 30 minutes later feeling even worse than before. This time I decided my blood sugar needed some carbs rather than more fat or protein. So I ate an orange and then ate my daughter’s Greek yogurt (sweetened with sugar!). Both of those were no-no’s on this diet, but I was desperate so I ate them anyway.

About an hour or so later I started feeling a bit better and was finally able to go to sleep. The next night, I didn’t want to take any chances and I just ate a bedtime snack even though you’re not supposed to. And that’s what I’ve been doing every night this week.

Doesn’t this picture look like I’m dreaming of burgers and onion rings?! I had to take my girls to Burger King because we were out and there was no other place to eat nearby. I didn’t eat anything, because doing keto you just eat two meals a day, and I wasn’t even hungry. But this picture cracks me up! 🙂

I decided to write Maria (the author of the book) and ask her for help, and she suggested a few things I might try. I’ll let you know how it goes when I update next week!

Should I Color My Hair??

In other news, I’m going gray. I think I mentioned on the blog several years ago that I was thinking about coloring my hair. Well, I never did it, and now I have more gray hair than ever! It might seem kind of cool if I wasn’t so colorless already. I have several friends who have embraced their gray hair, and they look lovely with it.

I don’t like mine much, and I’m getting more and more tempted to color it. What has always kept me from it in the past was the cost and the hassle of upkeep. Also, I really wanted something more natural. If I had darker hair I would try henna, but I don’t think red would look good on me. I’ve been considering this one because the reviews are good, but I’m kind of scared to do it myself.

I’m leaning toward going to my daughter’s hair stylist because she does such a good job and she doesn’t charge much at all.

I Share a Birthday With Someone Very Special

One of the goals I had for 2017 was to find room in our budget to sponsor a child with Compassion. I set February as the target date to make that happen, and while doing our budget, we decided I could go ahead with that.

Since it was my idea, we decided I should pick the child. 🙂 When I got to the website I was overwhelmed with all of the precious faces of children waiting to be sponsored. I wanted so much to pick them all!

To narrow it down, I knew I wanted a child in Africa because that’s what my heart was telling me. My daughters insisted it should be a girl, and in the end I decided that was a good idea. I also knew I wanted to pick one of the children who had been waiting the longest, who was at the most risk and needed the most help. Since February is my birthday month, I decided to pick a child who shared my same birth date!

That narrowed down my choice to two girls. I wasn’t sure which girl to choose, so I prayed and asked God to show me which one. One of the girls disappeared from my search, which left me with the girl I was destined to sponsor. I love her already.

My child sponsorship packet came in the mail, and I read through it with tears. This little four-year-old girl (turning five this coming week on our shared birthday!) has captured my heart and I’m so thankful to be a very small part of God’s love and blessing in her life.

What I’m Reading

I haven’t read much this week since I had to go out twice to get my license renewed (finally got it done on Wednesday), and then I had to go out Friday for gymnastics and piano. Even though I didn’t finish any books, here’s what I’m reading. During my devotional time I’m reading 60 Days of Happiness. And during any other reading times I can sneak in, I’m working through 10 Gifts of Wisdom. Such an inspiring book! But then, any book by Sally Clarkson is inspiring to me. 🙂

What’s Been Happening in Your Life Lately?

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