Blessed, holy, chosen, blameless, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, lavished with grace, have an inheritance, predestined, praise of his glory, sealed with the Holy Spirit… these are some words the Lord uses to describe me…us (Ephesians 1) all these names and not one time does He call me a failure!!
Recently I’ve really been studying and focusing on two things.
-what the Lord calls me/ says about me.
-how I’m called to care for my body as it is a temple.
Because of this I started doing a thing called Whole30, basically this is 30 days of no dairy, gluten, added sugar, legumes, grains, pretty much anything processed, and alcohol (that was an easy one). Basically… if it’s not natural I can’t have it. today would have been the last day. My main goal in doing this was to brake my addiction to sugar (Ice-cream is my love language) and see how different food effects mood and physical energy. Basically I wanted healthy mind healthy body. (Losing my “Asia weight” was also good motivation). Ultimately I wanted to pursue health.
THE BEGINNING-first 2 weeks
At first this wasn’t bad, I learned to cook a few things and frozen bananas are amazing!!! My energy quickly shot up and I was ready for anything!! One morning my team was even worried about me cause the energy level was outta control! I felt great!
THE END-week 3…
By the very end of week 2 and into week 3 I was dead! I didn’t have much energy during team bible study or during ministry. And after ministry I physically could not do anything but lay in bed. And mentally I was going crazy (extrovert stuck in bed=no good). I tried eating more food while staying in the “rules” of Whole30 but it didn’t help.
THE (NOT) FAILURE-day 24
After talking to my mom and my team leader (who had done Whole30) and after considering my past health record, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I started this to better my health but it was having the opposite effect which defeated the purpose.
THE DECISION
I HATE feeling like I fail at anything and I consider quitting to be the same as failing. So this decision actually came with an anxiety attack (or 3) (yikes). But despite my pride telling me to keep going I went with my knowledge and decided health was more important and so was making the most of my last week in Albania. So, 6 days early… I quit.
THE TAKEAWAY
I didn’t get into this without prayer so I had to finish it the same way. Before quitting I prayed about it and asked the Lord what he wanted me to get from this. His answer… I need to let go of my pride and fears. I am not a failure. Yes I stopped early but I feel like the Lord wanted me to learn health means more than pride. And taking care of myself comes first!
THE RESULTS
They say it only takes 21 days to break a habit, and for me this proves true! Yes I’ve had ice-cream since stopping but not 3 bowls in a day (yikes I just admitted to that…). My energy is back (my inner extrovert is loving it). And I’ve lost some of the infamous “Asia weight”. So id call it a success.
Side note: because of this I’m now looking into minoring in nutrition so that’s cool!!
