Wednesday, March 26, 2014

'Surviving' Mode vs. 'Thriving' Mode

I'm starting this blog series on surviving vs. thriving to record the journey we are currently going through. We've been in 'surviving' mode since June 2012, when my older son was born. The list of things that kept us in survival mode is pretty bananas...

*pre-eclampsia emergency hospital stay June 2012 (lasted 5 days)
*son was born June 2012, 4 weeks early
*gallbladder started acting up, was removed through emergency surgery and a 3 day hospital stay Sept 2012
*mom was diagnosed with leukemia October 2012
*moved 2 hours away with 4 month old, to care for mom's affairs and help with my younger siblings October 2012 - April 2012
*found out I was pregnant with baby2 Jan 2013
*put on bedrest Summer 2013
*developed pre-eclampsia August 2013
*son #2 born August 2013

Since baby #2's birth we have been in survival mode- transitioning to life with 2 closely spaced babies wasn't very easy. All that stuff sounds so terrible when I typed it out but watching my mom's battle through leukemia, while sobering, there was so much victory and joy in being able to cherish and serve her during that time. These challenging months we've been through have been a blessing long term and both my husband and I have had major growth spurts spiritually and emotionally during these times.

Here we are, 7 months later and finally getting to the point where we can start moving from just surviving and keeping our heads above the waves to really thriving personally and as a family.

Part 1 of this transition was getting our sons on a good schedule, which we have done finally!
Part 2 of this transition is getting our home under control.

This week we are taking the boys to a family member's home for a few days and purging and deep cleaning and organizing our disaster zone. I'm excited, nervous for the amount of work... and looking forward to getting a little more sleep than I usually do. Woot!

I'm excited to write more for this series. I didn't start this blog as a parenting blog because that's already 70% of my life and efforts, and while I'm passionate about raising my boys to be amazing and God-fearing adults, I really don't want to lose my true passion in that- fostering personal growth, health (spiritual and physical), and the growth of marriages- ours and others. A little bit of parenting stuff might bleed through into this and I'm gonna let that be okay.

Next up in this series is survival through 'surviving' mode

Monday, March 24, 2014

{AdvoCare} 10 Day Cleanse

11 days ago I did my first real postpartum, non-bfing AdvoCare Cleanse. As you know, I'm a distributor, so I do love the products, and I do share them with others as a business. But for my personal journey, the last 2.5 years I've been limited in the products I was able to use. So when I decided to be done pumping for Noah, I knew it was time to get serious about my health and reintroduce the products I'd been unable to use.

The Cleanse Overview

Spark: I don't know how I would have made it through my pregnancies without spark. I drink 1/2 a day while pregnant and 1 a day while breastfeeding. During the cleanse all you can drink is spark and water. 2 a day max and A gallon of water daily or more (shoot for half your body weight in h2o)

Omegaplex: This is an omega3 supplement and the best one I've found. I usually take 2-3 a day instead of the suggested 1 because everyone needs extra omegas. Great for skin, nails, hair, heart, brain, GI tract. I don't burp fishy after I take them, unlike other brands I tried.

 Herbal Cleanse: In the herbal cleanse box there are 3 products. Fiber drink (PLUG AND CHUG BABY), herbal cleanse tablets (full of all sorts of natural herbs and goodies to reduce toxins) and probiotic restore (replaces the bad gut flora with good gut flora).  

What I Ate

I usually try to make an interesting menu for myself because I'm a bit of a foodie and cooking is my hobby. But this time my mantra was "back to basics" so thats what I did. Super balanced meals, and I ate a lot of the same things. It wasn't bad at all and it really took the focus off my food. I pre-prepped everything.


Breakfasts were meal replacement shakes or boiled eggs and greens with a wee bit of hot sauce
Lunches were salads with boiled eggs, tuna or chicken, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a dash of hot sauce or lime juice and chili powder
Dinners were grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, and brussel sprouts or tilapia and asparagus.
Snacks were almonds and banana, almond butter and apple, or sweet potatoes w/ boiled egg and hot sauce

Results & Final Thoughts

My results were incredible. I lost 9.1lbs, which is great and all but it was pretty much the weight I had put back on while I was weaning from breastfeeding (which was stressful), the most important part for me is that I feel really good. My pants fit really loose and I can tell my vitamin absorption is higher than it was because when I eat, I feel energy and not the constant need to nap. As a mom of 2 under 2, that's more important than the weight dropped.

I really felt good this time while cleansing. It was my first real cleanse after babies and nursing and all that, and I felt like I was removing the food distraction by doing the meal prep. The 6 fiber drinks weren't my favorite moment during the day (first 3 days and last 3 days), but I plugged and chugged and they did their job! I did very good with the meal prepping and my family didn't suffer from having to eat lean meat and veggies for every meal because I made them their own dinner and it wasn't hard knowing I had a dinner ready for myself already.

Whats Next?

Consistency, thats whats next. Getting back to training for my 10k and half marathon early next year. Going on AdvoCare's MNS max C nutrition plus thermoplus. And thinking about trying 1 slim a day too. I am going to continue meal prepping for myself, with less basic meals this time.

Feeling blessed to have these products on my side and because I have momentum now I'm going to keep pushing this massive boulder up the hill, knowing its going to continue getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Its easy to get caught up in the mindset that its only the products working... I want you to know this plan requires consistency and hard work to achieve the results you desire. Diet mentality doesn't work here. But focus and determination mixed with consistency will always help you achieve your next milestone.

And praise the Lord for that!

Curious about trying the 24 Day Challenge with free coaching from me? Email me... chasingahundred [at] gmail DOT com

{Life Update} The one with the new season.

Its been awhile. I have a bazillion excuses why I haven't blogged... one because the destruction of my laptop. It was getting really slow and was really really old so we pulled out my desktop from college (it was majorly virus infected), pulled all the important stuff off it and reformatted it and it works now! So I have blogging capabilities. Anyway... onto the life update. God always makes it really apparent to me when we are transitioning into a new season. My desire for some massive changes in our home has really clued me in. We have the opportunity to send our boys to their grandparents house for three days so that we can do a deep purge of our home and minimize majorly. We have also started Dave Ramsey's baby steps. We had step 1 complete and then washer went out this morning, so we have to go back and re-add to the emergency fund depending on how much it costs to fix the silly thing. I am grateful the money is there! I stopped pumping exclusively. This is still a bit tender for me, but I don't regret the decision to discontinue. I'm so blessed I had the ability to provide both my boys breastmilk almost exclusively (ben had formula for 3 days as a newborn)for 6 months. Meaning I pumped 14 months for both boys and I'm proud of myself for getting there. Noah adjusted to formula and solids beautifully, just as Ben did and I'm grateful for the convenience and my newfound freedom from hanging with the pump 6-8 times a day. All parenting aside, my weight loss has been slow. I'm still hanging between the 35-40 mark. Weaning from the pump was stressful and during that 2 weeks I gained some, which is to be expected. I've cut back on working out for now until we get our four walls into check this week and then next week I start training again to run longer distances. The plan for now is 2 short (2 miles?) runs a week and one long run (4+) miles. Our busy summer is barreling quickly toward us. I'm trying to prepare! Oh and sleep. Yeah... not getting much of that these days. I mean I do have a 7 month old and a 21 month old but yeah. I'm pretty pooped ;) More on my most recently successful cleanse later. That one gets its own post!