My Journey to Health

I always considered myself to be a healthy person. I was hardly ever sick as a child, never had any serious illness or injuries.

Then, a car accident at age 21 caused a whiplash injury, leaving me with chronic headaches. Giving birth for the second time at age 28 threw my hips and pelvis all out of whack, causing sciatic problems (tingling and pain shooting from my hip down my right leg). And around age 33 I developed plantar faciitis in both feet (tiny tears in the arch muscle, causing severe heel pain). I was a mess physically, but the pain was mostly manageable with ice, rest, the chiropractor, and plenty of Ibuprofen.

In February of 2012 (age 34) I went to the doctor convinced I had some kind of horrible heart or lung condition because I had all kinds of seemingly random symptoms, including a difficult time breathing. It turns out, I was having anxiety attacks. I had been struggling with anger and frustration for a few years already, and looking back, I believe I had some symptoms of depression (anger and anxiety both fall under the depression umbrella). I felt so frustrated with my children so often that I hardly had a chance to enjoy them. And then I felt guilty about that. I felt constantly behind on the daily household chores – dishes, laundry, paying bills, etc – that anything outside of what absolutely had to get done that day felt like too much to handle. Somebody wants a snack every time I turn around; the girls need help with chores or homework while I’m already in the middle of about three different things; somebody needs something for school TODAY.

The most stressful thing for me was the toddler shenanigans – somebody dumped all the shampoo down the drain. Somebody flushed toothbrushes down the toilet. Somebody got into their big sister’s bedroom and wiped her make up all over the place. Yep, all of these things actually happened, and much much more. Including about a full year when my youngest was constantly finding new ways to play with poop. All the while I felt guilty even for struggling with it, because after all, I chose it. I always wanted a large family, and I purposely conceived my two girls, and purposely adopted my two boys. The oldest came with the marriage package, so technically I chose that too. I never dreamed it would be SO hard. I thought it would be “climbing a mountain” hard, but for a while there it was more like “slogging through a sewer” hard. There didn’t seem to be any reward or “high” feeling of accomplishment after all that hard work. It was just more hard work. And poop. So much poop. And always a messy house. And never ending chores. And guilt.

Looking back, it’s no wonder I was struggling with stress, frustration, anger, and ultimately anxiety over not being the person and mother that I wanted to be. The doctor prescribed an anti-depressant for me. I had actually tried anti-depressants in the past for PMDD (really bad PMS, which I think was the beginning of my mental health problems), but the first one gave me migraines, and the second gave me a rash. So I wasn’t too excited about trying another. I went home from that appointment and talked it over (and cried a lot) with my husband, and we decided that since the anxiety was mostly stress-related, we should start by trying to lessen the stress in my life. I will never forget how wonderful my husband was that day. He asked me what the most stressful things were for me on a day to day basis, and immediately got to work  adding extra chores on the kids’ chore chart so I didn’t have quite as many tasks to do in a day. And I did some soul searching. I realized that it’s ok to not be awesome at everything. I can be awesome at a few things, and suck at everything else, and still be a really good mom and a likeable person.

Over the years I have been slowly leaning towards a more natural lifestyle, which is another reason I wasn’t too keen on taking prescription drugs. So I contacted a friend from high school who is a Naturopath (ND). I asked her to recommend some natural supplements that would help with my anxiety, but she said the best thing I could do was to clean up my diet. I thought I was pretty healthy already, but her advice sent me on a journey I never anticipated. The specifics she gave me were to eliminate processed foods, especially sugar and gluten (both cause inflammation), and to try to find sources for healthy animal fats (for example, raw milk and grass fed butter, and lard from clean, humanely raised pigs). Since I am an internet junkie, I researched everything I could find about “real food,” and made a huge effort to get in touch with some local farmers to try to find some good healthy meat, produce, eggs, and dairy. I have learned that so much of our society’s chronic health conditions – physical as well as mental and emotional – could be reduced, if not completely cured, by following a more natural lifestyle.

{BTW, I am in no way condemning modern science and/or medicine, or judging anyone who relies on anti depressants or any other prescription medicines. I’m just sharing my story.}

Fortunately for me, my husband is completely on board with this. And not just for my sake. He wants to be healthy too. He is awesome about going to the gym to work out 4 or 5 times a week. I usually go twice a week, but I wouldn’t go at all if it weren’t for him. He’s been reading books and articles about health, and making suggestions to help get our family healthy. He’s tried homemade toothpaste and deodorant because he really wants to (not just to humor me), and I can’t even tell you how thankful I am to have him as a true partner on this journey.

It’s been over a year since my “diagnosis,” and I am seeing some major improvements in my overall health. I sleep better. I have MUCH fewer headaches (about once a month now versus once or twice a week that it used to be), and I have noticed that when I do overload on sugar I almost always get a headache the next day. Before, headaches and sugar were such a normal part of my life that I never made the connection between the two. I hardly ever NEED to visit the chiropractor for pain anymore (though I do believe an adjustment is beneficial every now and then since we can throw our bodies out of whack through daily life activities). I can’t even remember the last time I had sciatic pain. My stress level is going down significantly, although I realize that it has somewhat to do with the kids getting older and less “toddler.” I feel more in control of my emotions. I have learned some coping skills for when I do start to feel anxiety coming on. My husband has the worst seasonal allergies of anyone I’ve ever known, but this year, after a year of change, his allergies are minimal. They are still there, but no where near the severity they have been his entire life.

I could go on and on. There is so much to know, and so much to learn. I am still very much in the learning stage, and do not even come close to having all the answers. I used to believe that all my physical problems (whiplash, sciatic, and pf) were a result of specific injuries that happened to me, and that the pain would be chronic and would probably never heal completely. Now, while I believe that is partly true, I also believe that putting toxins in my body through food as well as body care products (shampoo, deodorant, etc) puts extra stress on my body and causes inflammation that exacerbates the problematic areas, causing the chronic pain. Eliminating that stuff from my life has allowed my body and mind to focus on true health and healing.

From the Kitchen: Make Your Own Bread Crumbs

Bread crumbs. They come in a can, on the shelf, at the store. Seriously? Bread crumbs? I admit, I used to look at a recipe that called for bread crumbs, and run to the store to BUY bread crumbs. One day it occured to me how ridiculous that seemed, especially since I was often throwing out the ends of the loaf that nobody seemed to want.

Please excuse the photo quality here, but I quickly snapped this with my phone at the store. Do you see all those freaky ingredients? Omygoodness, why do we pay for that??

This is my method that is so simple it hardly seems worth a whole blog post, but here you go.

Take the ends of two or three loaves of bread (you can save them in the freezer if you need to), or a loaf that’s gone a bit stale, or a slice that didn’t cut very well, or a loaf that’s a bit crumbly. Put them in a blender or food processor. Hit the button. Now you have bread crumbs. Store them in a mason jar or plastic baggie in the freezer. If you make your own bread, the ingredient list is even smaller and better than a store-bought loaf of bread. And much cheaper. If you recipe calls for “seasoned” bread crumbs, you can season them yourself. I also use these in place of corn flakes or crackers or whatever bready toppings are called for in casseroles. Cheap AND easy? Yes please!

From the Kitchen: Mocha Fro-Yo

I broke out my ice cream maker after it sat on a high shelf in my kitchen for about 7 years. I got it as a birthday gift about 12 years ago, and used it a few times. Then I started having babies, then toddlers, then more babies, and toddlers again… and the thought of really learning how to make homemade ice cream felt too overwhelming. I had no idea how easy it actually is, and I regret letting that thing sit unused for so long. But now I’m making up for lost time. I’ve made several batches of ice cream already this season, and this is my first attempt at frozen yogurt. I used a smaller amount of honey, and the taste is quite tart. If you like your Fro-Yo tart and yogurty, then use a bit less honey. If you think you’ll want it sweeter, then use the full cup. If you’re not sure, I would recommend using a full cup of honey, and then decide if it’s too sweet, and you can adjust for next time.

you probably don’t want to sprinkle coffee beans on yours. unless you like to eat them, then go ahead.

 

Ingredients:

2 c. plain yogurt (how to make yogurt instructions here)

1 c. brewed coffee (use decaf if you’re worried about caffeine)

1/2 – 1 c. honey (raw and local is best, or you could use sugar) – to taste

2 T carob or cocoa powder

1/2 t salt

Directions:

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl, prepare in ice cream maker. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, get one. They’re fairly inexpensive (or can be), and ice cream is SO MUCH EASIER to make than you would imagine. Also you can make it super healthy, which is AWESOME!

My Adoption Story

When I was 15 I went on a week-long “mission trip” with my youth group to a slum town in Mexico. One day we visited an orphanage. Since we don’t have orphanages in the US, this was a shocking and life-changing experience for me. I had always loved children and the fact that these beautiful, precious little creatures had no parents to raise them broke my heart, and I never really recovered. I spent several years feeling that someday I wanted to be an orphanage worker (I don’t know the official word for that). Then one day I was home on Christmas break during my freshman year of college. I was praying about this particular topic. I don’t remember the words of the prayer, but it had to do with going to another country and working in an orphanage. I wanted to give love and care to children who didn’t have a family. I wanted to be that family. I was young and starry eyed at the time, thinking it sounded awfully romantic to travel to a foreign country and work in an orphanage full of unwanted kids – to fill a void in the lives of children who lacked so much, including love.

I don’t hear specific messages from God in my head very often. This is one of maybe two times in my life, before and since, that this has happened. I know it’s looked on as crazy by many to say “God spoke to me,” but I believe that He did in that moment, because what I thought was not at all in line with where my thought train was going, and it was so out of the blue and something I had never considered. What He said was, “Maybe the orphanage will come to you.” The word “maybe” was not a “maybe, maybe not,” kind of maybe, it was the maybe that means, “Did you ever think about that? How about thinking about your dreams and desires in a little bit different context.”  I was like if a child said “I really really really really want to go swimming for my birthday,” and the parent says, “well, maybe, we can go to Disney World instead!” Because Disney World is so much better. It was that kind of “Maybe.”

I had no idea at the time what that would mean for me, but I held on to that word, and I knew with all my heart that God would bring it to fruition. I envisioned somebody dropping babies on my doorstep; I envisioned running a “home for children” – kind of like an orphanage, but more modern and community oriented. I figured adoption was somewhere in my future, but didn’t know how it would come about. Fast forward another thirteen years – college, moving out of state for my first job after college, another job, marriage, step parenting, home ownership, and two biological daughters later.

I met my husband at a church that I was invited to by a mutual friend. It wasn’t a set up, it just worked out. There was another couple at the church who had been foster parents for years, and had adopted 5 kids from foster care (and 3 more since then!). It was never in my mind to be a foster parent, but the more we got to know this family, it just seemed like something we wanted to do. We started fostering in 2008 when our youngest daughter was about two. In April of 2009 we were placed with a baby boy. We picked him up from the hospital when he was just four days old. Five months later, we got a call for another 4-day-old baby boy, and for some crazy reason I said yes. I have to admit that if I could see the difficulty ahead of me in the next couple years, I probably would have said no. But I didn’t have much time to think about it, and I couldn’t get a hold of my husband at work, so I said a quick frantic prayer, and the answer I felt in my heart was, “This is what you’re here for. This is why you are foster parents.” So I said yes.

In December 2011, eighteen years after a seed was planted in my heart, and fifteen years after receiving a specific, if somewhat ambiguous, word from God, our two adoptions were finalized. FIFTEEN YEARS! If that’s not a lesson in God’s timing, I don’t know what is.

So here we are, raising our 5 amazing children. There was a time I thought I wanted 8 or 10 kids. Now that we have 5 I realize that I am a human with limitations, and five kids is my limit. And I’m ok with that. There have been ups and downs, as there are for everyone. Having two babies five months apart has been more challenging than I could have ever imagined, and in ways I never dreamed. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to most people, but I wouldn’t change it either. I know it’s been part of God’s plan for all of us all along.

From the Kitchen: Black Bean Hamburgers (with meat!)

Trying to eat healthy on a budget is HARD. Since I’m cooking for 7, plus I need left overs for the hubs to take to work, we normally need at least 2 pounds of beef to make hamburgers. The healthier the beef, the more expensive it gets, especially when you get into organic, grass fed, etc. My solution to this particular budgetary problem is to stretch that good expensive beef by adding black beans, which are high in protien, inexpensive, and delicious.

I recently cooked dried beans for the first time. I’ve always used canned black beans, but in the spirit of eliminating processed foods, I decided that dried/cooked is better than canned. And cheaper. I didn’t realize that the beans double in size when they’re cooked, so the “per oz” price is a little misleading (in a good way). Also, I heard that bean cans have BPA in them, which health foodies say we’re supposed to avoid. {Go here for my easy crock pot black beans instructions}

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

about 2 cups black beans (or 1 can)

1t cumin (if you’re a real cumin lover, as I am, go ahead and add an extra teaspoon – it’s yummy!)

dash of salt

{If you use canned beans, the mixture gets pretty goopy. You’ll want to add about 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. The dried beans that I cooked were much drier than the canned, and I did not need to add bread crumbs. You can sort of decide for yourself, if the patties stick together well, you don’t need crumbs. If they’re really crumbly and sticky, then add some. Just throw a couple slices of bread into the blender and whip them into crumbs. Easy peasy.}

Put beans into a bowl and mash with potato masher. Mine weren’t terribly mushy, there were definitely still some whole beans, and that’s fine.

Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well – I use my bare hands for this part.

Shape into patties, and cook on the grill, a skillet, or however you usually cook hamburgers.

This was a GREAT way to stretch a pound of beef. The burgers were tasty, everyone loved them. I added a couple sprigs of cilantro to mine, because I love cilantro. I was able to make 9 patties, when a pound of beef would normally only make 4 or 5 (some of mine are smallish because I have little ones). Instead of $8 or more (just for the meat), I spent less than $5 on these burgers. This is one way that helps me afford that good Grass Fed Organic Beef!!!

From the Kitchen: Black Bean Hummus

Summer weather is here, and I find myself in the mood for grilling and picnic food.

This is one of my favorite snack/picnic/party foods. And since I keep black beans on hand most of the time, it’s super easy to whip up in just a few minutes.

{go here for my super-easy, overnight crock pot black bean instructions} 

Ingredients:

2 cups black beans, with a little liquid (if they’re too dry, just add water or olive oil)

1 T minced garlic, or 1 large clove, or 1t garlic powder

1 T chili powder

1 t cumin (or more if you’re like me and can’t get enough cumin)

1 t onion powder

1/2 t salt

handful of fresh cilantro

1/2 c Tahini (optional)

Directions: Put all ingredients into food processor or blender and puree; garnish with sprigs of cilantro if desired. Dip crackers, tortilla chips, bread, or veggies.

Every ingredient can be adjusted “to taste.”

From the Kitchen: The Green Smoothie

You asked for it, you got it!

My Green Smoothie recipe.

I based this off a green juice I had at a local health cafe. I couldn’t remember exactly everything that was in it, and since I don’t have a juicer, mine has all the chunky fiber and pulp included, which I like because I feel fuller longer. Be forewarned, it sounds WEIRD! I was skeptical at first, and it took me a couple tries to really get a taste for it, but now I’m kind of addicted to it and super bummed that I’m out of bananas and won’t be able to have one this morning. It tastes vegetably. So if you’re looking for a fruit smoothie that has veggies hiding it, this is not it.

Here we go:

1 fresh kale leaf

1/2 to 1 celery stalk

2-3 fresh spinach leaves (optional)

1 banana

1 little finger-full bunch of cilantro

1 t grated fresh ginger

liquid of choice (I use kombucha, but you can use water, juice, milk, whatever)

Put everything into the blender, fill with liquid to cover about 2/3 of the solids

Blend. Drink. Be well.

I had one for breakfast at about 6am, and I was not hungry, nor did I even think about food until almost 11am. Pretty good!