Food for L.I.F.E.

Hi ya folks,

Food is everywhere and shows up in every area of life. I organize food into 4 main categories.
1) Food comfort/reward
2) Food celebration
3) Food for health
4) Food addiction/Food disorder

We will walk through each one of these together.  Tonight I wish to call out #3 food for health. We have a mandate from God to eat healthy, III John v2 beloved I desire above all else that you prosper and be in good health! That means its one of God's highest priorities that we are healthy! It needs to be our highest priority too! But its just so darn tough to do that right?!

How many sexy commercials have you seen that included some type of food product (what's the connection there I wonder?).  How many billboards do you drive by that tempt you to try some new food item?

If that is not enough, we are overwhelmed by confusing food marketing! Smart marketers label food in the stores as "fat free", "healthy", "all natural", "high fiber", "high protein", "can help lower cholesterol" and the list goes on. These labels also contain a whole host of ingredients that most of us have to use "Google" to look up.

There is a simple answer, run away from fast food, packaged foods, processed foods, and reduce the amount of eating out. Your food is hurting and potentially killing you. You are what you eat. Eat what your body was designed by God to eat'/process/use as fuel. Would you put diesel in your unleaded fuel gas tank, heavens know, why, because it would shut down and stop running, right? Right! So why is food any different!!!

I prefer to look at food as a lifestyle choice and the choice I have made is healthy eating. I have a plan for my food so that I have the best quality of life.  Healthy eating for me is a hybrid of 3 methodologies (in no particular order):

Clean eating -  http://www.eatcleandiet.com/what_is_the_eat-clean_diet.aspx#.Ucov8ju-pVU   
Eat clean, nutritionally packed meals 6x a day

Blood type  - ‎http://www.dadamo.com/program.htm‎   
understand the way your body processes and metabolizes food

Paleo - http://thepaleodiet.com/what-to-eat-on-the-paleo-diet/    
Eat the way hunter gatherers did, they ate from nature

Each one of these food plans are built on a foundation of eating from as close to the earth as possible and as naturally as possible. That's straight out of Genesis, chapters 2 and 3 eat from the fruit of the trees, plant gardens and eat from those.  I use a hybrid of all 3 because, I only sometimes eat meat (Paleo), I eat 6 nutritionally packed meals a day (clean eating), and there are just some foods my body either does not process well or absorb the nutrition from (blood type).

I hope this helps you to build a food plan that is right for you and your family.  I know it is a big up front cost but it has a great future payout putting your health back into your control and not the doctors or the pharmaceutical companies!  Make a plan each week on what you are going to eat each day.  These websites will help you and I will be giving you tips and recipes along the way as well.

1st step decide to eat healthy, step 2 look into these plans and start taking action today!

Blessings, Micki (aka Butterfly Wings)
L.I.F.E. Recovery International

Food for L.I.F.E

WHAT ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR?

Are your emotions growling? Many of us are hungry and do not understand what our emotions are growling for. I have been insatiably hungry before; craving sugar and carbohydrates when what I really needed was water. Most of us are just like that, our bodies are desperately trying to tell us that it needs something, but we have spent so much time trying to suppress those needs that we mistake that hunger for something else. We are no longer in tune to what we are really hungry for.

While you might have not come to the place in your healing to identify it yet, you have tried tirelessly to feed your hunger with alcohol, pornography, drugs, serial relationships and/or sex and have come up hungry. You have found yourself using these substances to deal with feelings and emotions that overwhelm you, because they alter your mood, or shift your focus to something more pleasurable than what is presently going on in your life. The truth of the matter is that while these substances temporarily relive the feelings of hunger, they do not deal with the root of the problem. You will soon find yourself hungry again.

There is hope. You do not have to live a life that is always hungry and never feeling satisfied. L.I.F.E. Recovery for Women and for Men is that place of hope. We will help you identify what it is that you are hungry for and help you find healthy ways of feeding that hunger and come to a place of contentment in your life like you have never known.

In my own experience I have resisted food during hard times and I have also used food to cope and comfort myself during trying times.  In what ways are you using food to ease your pain or cope with difficulty and disappointment? What are you really hungry for?

Post your comments now. 

Hugs, Micki aka Butterfly Wings

L.I.F.E. Recovery International

Food for L.I.F.E.

For those of you still hanging on a cliff for the rest of my story, I am still going to share it.  I was having trouble connecting all the fragmented pieces of my story into a cohesive one so I prayed on it and God lead me to use food as a focus to help me share my story in a way that is relateable and easy to follow. Each one of us struggles with food whether you are on the anorexic side or the bulimic side or sometimes a combination of both depending on what "stressors" are triggering you at the time. Most of my attitudes towards food has been anorexic with a few binges of bulimic in between. And many times subconsciously on  a mission of self-destruction with the careless way I took care of my body using fast food or not enough food. Although, I have had considerable healing along the way, I still struggle, as I am sure many of you do as well.

So my awareness began in 2006 when I was in my 30's, because I never dealt with the issue in adolescence. I went to the dentist in 2006 and my dentist asked me what on earth was I doing because he had never seen someone so young with such horrible gums.  I was shocked.  He began to explain that your total body health is in your mouth.  I told him that food was a necessary evil and I ate once a day because really it was a nuisance that got in the way because I would have to stop what I was doing to take/make time to eat. I think he was shocked at this point by my response. He wanted to put me on a nutrition plan and a very intense vitamin supplement regiment at the cost of several thousand dollars.  I said no thanks I can do this myself. I had been studying personal training and nutrition for years; I just had never applied to myself.

See funny thing about abuse survivors (especially sexual) is that you lose the mind body connection that goes with self-care.  You lose the connection that you are what you eat, and that your body is a very critical part of you that you need to get reconnected to and really cannot afford to ignore.

Over the next.... however long ... I want to use my story and my journey to heal others because today in 2013 I have reached optimum health in as little as six years. I saw results after the first year (2007) of making a quality decision to be a conscious eater and walk out the lifestyle of a healthy person.

We will discuss through this blog:

• origins of food issues
• food myths and definitions
• research on nutrition, fasting, meal plans, and connection between abuse and food
• helpful links for a healthy eating lifestyle
• what scripture says about food
• how good nutrition is key to your moods and recovery
• food preparation tips, plans and recipes
• more of my story
• virtually connect with a clean eating small group
• dinning out strategies that work
• recovery, additions and food

We are going to have a great time and get healed in the process.  I invite you to join me on the journey of healthy clean eating and for you to add to my knowledge base the things that you have learned through your own healing and recovery.

Hugs, Micki aka Butterfly Wings
L.I.F.E. Recovery International