Day 4 - The Daniel Fast

I'm over 1/2 way done with the fast.  This gives me great confidence.  Here's some food for thought...

The other day I learned that a networking friend of mine was told he has 6 months to live because "there's nothing else we can do."  In October a co-work of mine, Eric, passes away at age 20 from leukemia.

I'm at that age (currently 27) where reality is hitting.  When I was a little girl there were wars, and worldly conflicts and death, but it was never part of my reality.  Now, knowing more and being more in tune with the world and other people, it's all becoming a reality.  This causes reflection and is a natural time for questions.  So I ask you (and am constantly asking myself) the following...

• What do you do when you know you're at the end of your life?
• What if we lived like we are dying?  Because we all are, right?
• Are you happy with what you've completed in life?
• At the end of your life looking back, were you obedient to God?
• What do you want to be "doing" when that time comes?  or when the rapture happens?

...it's tough facing a reality.  But lets really think about those questions, that way when it becomes a reality you're ready.  This is a tough conversation.  They're tough questions to answers.  And it's uncomfortable.

To be honest, I'm scared out of my mind.  I'm scared of letting God down, I'm scared of having regrets, and I'm scared of death.  But today at prayer I had a peace come over me.  I learned that when you're praying and drawing closer to God you becoming filled with his love.  When you become filled with his love you're overflowing with joy.  When you're joyous then you're happy in all things.  When you're joyous and happy in all things, then you can start sharing that love and joy with others.  That's powerful.

I hope this stirs up great conversation and thought.  Share with me on twitter @PBJsSincePreK or @Rocky_Bush.

Here was my dinner tonight during the Daniel Fast.  I juiced cucumber, spinach, lemon, celery and apple.

Day 3 - The Daniel Fast

What a crazy day, and it's almost the 1/2 way point in this Daniel Fast!

God has a great sense of humor.  This morning I made a smoothie for breakfast BEFORE prayer at 6am.  It had water, spinach, and apple.  Simple, right?  Wrong!  It was terrible.  Maybe too much spinach?  So I took a few sips and dumped it.  Then I went to church for the 6am prayer session.

It was a great service and what I took away was, "I don't need to know the outcome, I just need to know when and where to go."  It's about being less fearful and having more faith.  (Something I need to work on.)

I went to work at 7:30am and was really hungry.  My snacks were gone in no time: strawberries, banana, popcorn and pistachios.  By 11:30am I was juicing in the break room.  It went all wrong again. I experienced my first juicer jam and had to work through that.  Because of it there was more pulp in the juice than normal.  Plus, our break room sink can't handle the intensity of my juicer when cleaning.  So I didn't drink that either.

I had about 4 hours left of work and I knew I needed food.  I drove over to Jamba Juice super quick and picked something up with my gift card (Strawberries Wild:  Strawberry/Apple Juice and Strawberries).

Here comes God's humor...

By the time I got back I had an email from Celebration Church saying that I was officially accepted to go on the missions trip to Xai Xai in Mozambique Africa!!!!!  All day long I felt defeated and saddened by my failures of smoothies and juicing during this fast.  But I stayed faithful and loyal and God served up something even better than a Jamba Juice smoothie.

Going to Africa, especially Xai Xai with Celebration Church, has been on my heart for 3 years.  It's time to take action!  I need to do this before having kids.  I want to go over and serve.  And best of all, I know this is what God has planned for me.

There's still lots of prep work to do like meetings, trainings, some Portuguese, shots and paperwork, but I'm getting really excited.  Prayers welcomed.  Here's where I'll be going...

I'll be traveling to Mozambique which is the pink area in the south east side of Africa.

Day 2 - The Daniel Fast

Today I encountered my first "battle" if you will.  I had a full day of work (9 hours).  To give a delicious backgound, I work at Mel's Lone Star Lanes in Georgetown, TX as the events & marketing director.  There, we have CJ's sports bar & grill which serves up amazing pizza, french fries, mozzarella sticks, funnel cake, and more!  Needless to say, I'm in a sea of temptation daily, especially when fasting.  The smell of popcorn and freshly baked cookies always goes from the kitchen through the cracks of my office door.  How does it know to do that?

(Air high five!)  I survived!  With lots of prayer and a straight focus I give all the glory to God.  It would be super easy to give in, to have a little taste, but food does not own me. 

In general when eating well, planning is key.  I've always said that.  Now with this week of fasting, it's come down to intense planning.  I took my juicer to work.  It was my only solution to survive without starving and being grumpy about it (and that's not good for anyone involved).

For lunch at work I enjoyed the "Daneen Juice" which is Spinach, 2-3 Apples, 1-2 Celery, & 1 Lemon.  My co-workers were impressed and learned a lot about juicing during that lunch break.  I left it at work to juice again tomorrow.  Click here to view a quick 15 second video on this juice.

For breakfast I made a smoothie with my vitamix that includes:  1/2 c. water, 1 c. ice, 1 c. grapes, 1

pear, 1 banana and 1 c. kale.  With a vitamix they say to blend for 60 seconds on high.  They're serious! Make sure you do it!  This allows all the particles to break down so you don't have floating vegetables pieces. 

Here's what I've learned spiritually today...

You really can do all things through Christ who gives you strength.  He is your biggest cheerleader.  Your biggest rock.  Your best motivator.  Your greatest story.  Your best gift.  Your everything.

From an athletic background I've always been told "mind over matter".  This is true and your brain can do incredible things.  Put your mind in the right place and have God as your backbone and you're unstoppable.

Day 1 - Daniel Fast

DAY 1:  January 13, 2014

Breakfast:  Strawberry smoothie with 1 cup of freshly extracted apple juice (literally put fresh organic apples through a juicer) and about 1 cup of frozen strawberries and blend.  This is my new favorite!

Lunch:  Juiced kale, 1 large pear (or 2 small), 2 green apples and 1 lime.


Dinner:  Smoothie with 1 cup orange juice (freshly extracted), frozen strawberries, spinach and banana. This was pretty good, I think I'll use a different brand of oranges next time.

Click for more smoothie & juicing recipes.

Snacks today:  pistachios, popcorn (just popcorn kernels and sunflower seed oil), fruit.

LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF WATER!  Today I drank 72 oz. of water (but I also had a lot of other fluids from my juice and 2 smoothies.)  I will be trying to increase this ounce number throughout the week.

Stats:  I went to the dentist and had my blood pressure taken and it was 99 / 64.  Normal and healthy.

Exercise:  I did a 30-minute bike ride, about 15 minutes of stretching and a light 30-minute walk.  I'm not doing CrossFit during this week while fasting, but I will be doing little things like this to push all the "crap" out of my body.

Prayer:  I went to Celebration Church this morning for the prayer session they had from 6am - 7am.  This was a new experience for me.  My goal is to go 5 days (M-F) this week and to also reflect on the scripture they give.

We focused on 2 Chronicles 7:14 that says:

Throughout the day I never felt deprived or that I was "missing" anything.  Here's what I did realize:

• American television is a HOT mess!  I was getting a pedicure and the TV was on with no sound.  While watching it you learn more about the underlying messages because you're watching, not listening.  I learned that everything is so superficial.  How skinny can you get?  What anti-age products are you using?  This is what happy looks like!  Etc. Etc.
• I'm looking at food differently.  Sure, it's great to have moments where food gives you pleasure and happiness like a nice milk chocolate candy bar.  But as I do this Daniel fast, I think about the people of the New Testament and how they ate.  They only had what God provided for them.  None of this processed, GMO, superficial crap if you will.  
• You gotta do what God wants you to do.  Meaning... you need to do what's right.  Some people say Daniel Fasts includes nut butters, others don't.  Some people think/believe you need to pray for __ number of hours.  You need to set your personal and Godly goals that'll help you achieve your ultimate goal, which is getting closer to God.  Everyone has their own opinion, and that's okay, but you need to be able to live with your opinion.

So we today, as a society, are dealing more with the pressures to be skinny instead of healthy and be social and indulge more than ever before.  Where's the balance?  What's "normal?"  Am I the "normal" for fasting and eating more biblically, because as part of a fast you're supposed to disconnect from the world?  (And to clarify, I mean disconnect from the world on a food basis, not on a social media and blogging basis.)

The real test will be tomorrow when I'm back in the office.  I had today off so it was great to relax, squeeze in a nap, have 100% access to our kitchen to prepare all foods, and pray.

The Daniel Fast

I'm encountering a new adventure in my life.  I will be doing the Daniel Fast for 1 week starting tomorrow.  Our church (Celebration) is doing a week of Prayer & Fast.

PRAYER:  To connect with God.
FAST:  To disconnect with the world.

I chose the Daniel Fast which will includes all vegetables, all fruits, all whole grains, nuts & seeds, legumes, quality oils and of course lots and lots of water.

Weekly Meal List.

PERSONAL GOALS:

• #1 to grow closer to God during this week through prayer.
• Experiment and try new things (juices and smoothies).
• Blog daily to track my process and stir up a conversation about it.

Today was prep day.  We heard the message from Pastor Joe this morning, I hand wrote out my list on what my meals would be for the week and then I carefully constructed our grocery list.  We purchased most of the bulk stuff at Costco, and the rest at HEB.  Here is our entire grocery list:

• Frozen Strawberries
• 34 Apples
• Frozen mixed berries
• 1 zucchini
• Almonds
• 1 Cucumber
• Kale
• Blueberries
• 2 Green Apples

  

  Fridge full of fruits & veggies.

• 1 Avocado
• 1 Lime
• Whole Wheat Tortillas
• 7 Pear
• Strawberries
• 6 Organes
• Granola
• 9+ Bananas
• 15 cups Spinach
• Green Grapes
• 10 Celery
• 5 Lemon
• 4 Carrots
• Popcorn (all natural, no added sugars or ingredients)
• All natural peanut butter

I am all stocked up and ready to go for the week!  It's great to see our fridge totally stuffed with fruits and vegetables.  I also set up a nice "snack station" with fruit that doesn't need to be refrigerated, popcorn and nuts readily available.  This way I don't even need to open our pantry for anything.  I'll be blogging daily, stay tuned...

Snack station with nuts, popcorn and fruit.

An Organized Kitchen = Success

An organized kitchen means success.  I haven't always been this way.  I used to be a clutter freak, a "collector", a hoarder if you will when I was younger.  Everything had a memory and I didn't want to throw anything away.  Then, my neighbor Pam (a highly organized kind of person) came in and did a bedroom take over!  She threw away things I wouldn't dare, she folded clothes to declutter my closet and made more space than I could have ever imagined.  At the end of it all I felt freed with open space and organization.  So now, I would call myself organized.

So here are some tips.  I had a New Year Kickstart where I'm organizing our house room by room. It's always a good idea to have a "Spring Cleaning" twice per year.

Here's a picture of our pantry before and after:

Pantry tips:

• Use shelving units to to help utilize space.
• Put like items together (ex: drink mixes, oils, snacks, etc.)
• Create a snack box go-to to make snacks easily accessible
• Use your top shelf for minimal use products (paper towels, emergency kit, etc)
• We have things on the walls to help with organization (example: battery organizer, grocery bag container, cooking apron, etc.)
• Use containers to a good seal for items like sugar, granola, pastas, nuts, etc.
• Put all your medicines in one plastic box.  You shouldn't need more than 1 box.  If you do then that's another conversation...
• Store all your pet food in a closed container (don't leave it in the
  
  opened bag.)
• Use an open wicker or wooden basket to put all your munchies in.
• Keep all your lunch boxes in the pantry to pack in one place (if room permits)
• Have fun with it!

Here's our fridge and tips:

• Get a plastic bin to keep your meats in.  This helps with cross
  
  contamination.
• Utilize the fresh produce bins at the bottom.   You should have more food in here than anywhere else.
• Put egg on a shelf, not the door.  (Same with milk is suggested).  With the opening and closing of the door, the temperature fluctuates the most there, and you want to keep eggs about the same.
• Use a fridge deodorized box.  There's some for less an $1 that last 3 months.  It helps with any smells.

Spices Cabinet:

• Use this space for spices, cook books and extra storage. 
  
• Use a spinning rack to help see all your items.
• Keep the pretty rack (see in picture below) out on the counter top.  It'll encourage you to use it more and it looks nice.
• Have all your cook books (and smoothie & juicing books) all one place and remember to use them often.  We try to make a new recipe at least once a week that we find in a book or on Pinterest.
• Remember, cooking can be fun (and scary at first if you're new).  Set yourself up.

I also want to take this moment to brag on my parents for a moment. They got us a nice gas grill for Christmas.  It was more time consuming than difficult to put together but we did it and here's the final project.  Our first test is in a couple weeks when we have a BBQ planned with our neighbors.  (And yes, in that picture is my gorgeous hubby.)

Lastly, I found this great image online that I had to share.  It's becoming more and more relevant in my life.  I am not perfect, nor do I eat perfect.  But I'm going to eat the best I can when I can.  And the more I think about this the more it's true.  "Eat your medicine."  It's like what Hippocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."  Think about how much our food has been processed and changed.  Think about how chickens are being fed steroids to be grown plumper and faster to generate more revenue.  Think about how God made this earth with fruit and animals which is what we are supposed to be eating.  Just think about that... 

Merry Christmas (& Happy Birthday to Me!)

Breville Juicer.

It' been a BUSY December.  I realize that everyone says that, but seriously this is above all else.  We had a record number of private event parties at Mel's Lone Star Lanes where I work, and it called for late nights and long hours.  All worth it & fun, but exhausting.  But here's to quickly update you before the New Years...

I had a FABULOUS birthday (12/21) and Christmas.  My husband spoiled me with a Vitamix Blender which is simply the best!  My parents spoiled me with a new juicer (pictured).  I haven't tried that yet, but will soon!  Plus I got a ton of great juicing & smoothie books and ideas.

I cannot wait to jump back on the juicing & smoothie bandwagon and start blogging about it.

Here's a shout out to my cousin Carrie who's also a closet picky eater.  Thanks for coming to lunch today and catching up.  Can't wait to talk to you more about it!