So, what about the food?

My trip with my family to Argentina was now over 2 months ago - and its amazing how my food eating habits have changed throughout this time.

Now, I will begin this by stating that I am by no means perfect and that switching to healthier eating habits has and will continue to be a challenge - because lets face it: who doesn't love a little sugar?

Over the pat couple of months I would say I have faced two main struggles with making this eating change. The biggest part of this food eating makeover to deal with and adapt to has been eating with/around other people. If I just came in contact with myself (or other similarly nutrition conscious eaters) then I would probably be writing a post about how easy eating plant based and nutrition dense food is! Obviously though, I love people and God designed us to thrive in relationships WITH each other - so boxing myself into a perfect food eating bubble just isn't realistic.

My second food struggle has been not having my own kitchen - but visiting my family, Adam's family, and doing disaster relief all means eating food others have lovingly prepared. All of my friends and family have been very gracious and conscious of accommodating my eating needs - but its always hard to be around the possibility of eating non-healthy. It takes a lot of self-control to turn down delicious desserts and other meals - in contrast to having my own kitchen where I can control what is and isn't available for me snack on.

I have found it really encouraging to take time to read blogs of others who are making healthy eating choices as well as continuing to take and research healthy eating/living.

So bottom line: I'm still really positive about eating, and now I am working on how this will translate into my summer!

The next thing is how have I felt??

The more I eat lots of fruits, veggies, and nutrient dense foods the better I have felt - physically and emotionally. Days I don't eat well I can tell a difference in my mood - which is really encouraging to me that I am taking steps away from being so addicted to sugars and processed foods. :)

More importantly though - what about coffee??

I still LOVE the smell of coffee and know without a doubt that I would still love the taste if I was drinking it. That being said, I think I am through the worst of the battle at least with craving coffee all the time. I have come a long way in the area of being able to cope with mornings sans serveral cups of coffee and am working on being an avid tea drinker :) My favorites? Spiced chai or Mint tea! (Green tea would be a close 3rd)

I have appreciated all of the love, support, book/movie suggestions from many of you. Please continue to share - and I love sharing my food passion too :) and will continue to post updates on how I'll be making healthy eating work throughout my job this summer!

And, I'm back!

Whew. It's always amazing to me how quickly life can take over. As I look back on the last several weeks of mine I have been all over the place literally and figuratively. I will catch up from Easter to now and share how my eating has been in my next post.

For Easter this year I was blessed to spend the weekend with Adam and his family in Indiana - the Easter bunny even caught wind of my eating preferences and my basket was filled with dried fruit & nuts (and Vera Bradley!). Our Easter morning service was beautiful and Adam's grandparents surprised everyone by deciding to drive up from Alabama last minute to join us in celebrating the miracle of Easter!

After Easter break ended the remaining two weeks at school became almost a blur. Papers, projects, finals, meetings, work...a typical end of the semester list for any college student. On top of normal school stuff, Adam and I and two other friends from school - Ryan & Hannah - were involved in planning a 1 day community service event in the Chicago area that would be taking place May 7th (the day after our semester ended).We also were asked to be co-coordinators for a ministry program at our school this upcoming year and needed to begin immediate planning for that, mainly focusing on getting leaders applied & interviewed before we all left for the semester. Needless to say it was a very busy end of a semester but God continues to bless my life in new ways every day through all of the amazing opportunities he places in it!

Adam and I succeeded in interviewing all of our leader applicants (we did anywhere between 5-10 interviews a day for a week) and are incredibly excited to see how God will shape our ministry in the upcoming year.

The 1 day service event we were involved with was also a fantastic day and great way to end a semester. We helped plan 1ByYouth Chicago which saw over 600 youth spend the day in a Chicago neighborhood serving the residents through cleaning, picking up garbage, painting, and small home repair projects. For tons of pictures of the day go here.

With the completion of 1ByYouth and the semester being officially over  that meant next stop was Maryland to spend time with my family! After a brief stop at Adam's house in Indiana to drop off his school stuff, we road tripped back to my house. It is always amazing to me how much taller all of my brothers always are every time I see them! Our visit was cut a day short when we had the opportunity to go down to parts of Alabama where the recent tornadoes hit and help with disaster relief.

We packed up and headed to Indiana on Sunday and were on our way down to Gardendale, Alabama by 5am on Tuesday morning. As soon as I get the pictures uploaded to my laptop - look for a post on this as well - it was unbelievable the damage and devastation down there - but alongside of that it was also amazing how many stories we were told of God's power and love in the midst of the destruction.

I am now back up at Adam's house for a few days - as we both work to pack and finish up last minute things before flying out to our jobs for the summer on Monday.

So here we are, I will be posting shortly about how healthy eating has been through all of this and my recent trip down to Alabama!

“One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure” -William Feather