Hello and welcome to our blog!
We are a very happily (and just recently) married couple! We would like to introduce everyone to our blog we will be working on throughout our life's journey together! Alex and I (Brooke) have been married almost three months now! We have been best friends for a long time now and are always trying to give each other the best! Throughout this blog we intend to motivate all of you readers to live a healthier lifestyle, help encourage ourselves to continue this exciting journey together, and to let our creativity and hobbies flow!
Why did we create this blog? We created this blog for our journey in this unhealthy, American-style world (everything must be full of sugar, junk, and EXTRA large, you know!). We thought blogging would be a good way for me to enjoy my healthy lifestyle. Recently, we discovered that I have REALLY bad anxiety. I have stomach pains from stress, panic attacks, and really out-of-control emotions! For the past four to five years I have been struggling with these pains and didn't know what they were until a few weeks ago! Even after multiple doctor visits, an ER run, a "search surgery,' and etc., it took us until now! Crazy right? So we researched panic and anxiety quite a bit and found that a lot of it has to do with lifestyle! Because of this, we have challenged ourselves to exercise, do daily activities (such as walking, jogging, running, hiking, biking, etc.), eat WAY healthier (no more sugar!), and get spiritually closer to God! For those of you who do not understand anxiety, it causes me to feel overwhelmed and panicked a lot for no reason. Anxiety causes me to feel emotionally down a lot of the time, and it takes away my energy and motivation to do anything! I don't want to get too detailed, so for more information just simply Google search "panic attacks" or "anxiety"...
I didn't want to go to a therapist because I didn't want to pay someone money to talk about my problems and do nothing about them, and I also didn't want to pay a psychiatrist money to pay more money for medicine (may I add, ADDICTING medicine) that will only cover the surface of it all! I wanted to stop it completely and trust God that He Alone can take this struggle away from me! A lot of people don't realize how hard anxiety disorders can be on a person. I'm ready to tear Satan down with this! And I have Al's support to do so! So here's to gaining control of my life and making it a super happy one!
With this challenge I have found so many healthy alternatives and secrets so many of you should know! Here is a picture of just a few items we bought this weekend to start off!
Shown above: Parmesan cheese, starkist tuna (light), pita chips, sea salt, Green Goddess Kraft, Chicken and Dumplings soup, Wasabi & Soy Sauce Triscuits, Naturals sweetener, baby corn nuggets, strawberries, and Honey Vanilla Chamomile tea!
Some aweosome hints and tips:
1. Green Goddess dressing tastes like cucumbers and ranch mixed together (SUPER YUMMY and low in sugar!).
2. Parmesan cheese is a good substitute for shredded cheese on salads.
3. Naturals sweetener tastes just like real sugar but isn't sugar at all! (Stevia and fruit exctract!)
4. Chamomile tea has NO SUGAR and is all natural! Not to mention, the tea is VERY calming!
5. Sea salt is definitely better for you than regular salt!
6. I LOVE Asian foods, and these triscuits are a great alternative! They have the taste, but low sugar, no MSG, and they're brown rice based!
Some things that I noticed the past two days of my challenge:
1. I have been way hungrier eating healthy... My body isn't used to eating healthier and is constantly craving junk food! So to curb this hunger, I just continuously eat fruit and veggies all day!
2. I slipped up with the sugar and had quite a bit last night (I made a brownie cookie mixed dessert).. Lets just say I woke up twice in the night (once at 11pm and another at 5am) really emotional..
3. I noticed that when I make a meal and there's still a tiny bit of sugar in it, a cup of chamomile tea definitely offsets this emotion! (I'm totally drinking this right now..so good!)
We haven't had much time to walk or get out because of the rain, but we have been staying a bit active by working and cleaning the apartment up!
Another few ways I found to calm my anxiety down:
Candles! LOTS AND LOTS OF CANDLES!
Happy, good memory-filled pictures.
Something from Maine that involves seaglass!
And fresh flowers! (Alex is so sweet!)
Now we are off to get a good night's rest!
We hope this helps you all understand the importance of health and encourages you readers to live a healthier lifestyle as well!
~The Wife~
No comments:
Post a Comment