I got a donk...I got a donk....I got a donk.....

For a long time I have wanted to be healthier, skinnier, slimmer....not because I think I am a dog or because I am not self confident, but because I know what amount of weight feels good on me. Right now, my weight isn't feeling good. As I said the other day, doing lunges to fit in the jeans....just ain't pretty. Maybe it was when I was single getting dressed in my closet by myself....but um....not so fun when your husband is watching you get dressed and you creep into the bathroom and lock the door. HAHAHA. Sorry...bad visual.

I will never be a rail, nor do I want to. I got a donk....even if I lost 20 pounds, I'd still have a donk.
I got a donk....
I got a donk........
I got a donk, I got a donk, I got a donk, I got a donk.....
I think you get the picture.....

I have never been one of those people who is naturally thin...it just doesn't come really easy for me. Anyhow, the desire for GOOD food and HATRED of exercise always always always gets in the way of the desire to eat healthy and take care of myself. This is a BAD trait.

I'll always start some kind of plan and give up. I hate this quality about myself. You can call it lack of motivation, laziness, gluttony....the list goes on and on. What I've really come to realize is that unfortunately, my priority wasn't truly to be healthy....my priority was and still is sometimes to eat good. When I say good, I mean junk....eh.

Ok, so anyway....what is the point of the story? I'll get there soon enough. I am actually one of those people who ENJOYS healthy foods. While I love chocolate and sweets, I am the weirdo that loves brussel sprouts, asparagus, garlic, etc. So, why is this a constant battle for me? Sheesh. Heck...if...I...know....but this is genuinely one of my sin areas. God didn't intend for me to go cray cray like honey boo boo challl eating whatever I want all day long whenever I want. But...eating crap is convenient. I have never had a reason to literally be forced to eat better except that my pants get a little tight sometimes. Well, now that Lululemon is in my life....that doesn't really matter because everything has STRETCH.

STRETCH: I love you....and I hate you......
Lululemon,
Thank you for ruining my life....j/k.....LULULEMON FOREVER N EVER!!!!

Well, this past Thursday night, I had an allergic reaction. I talked about it here just a teeny bit. When I wrote that post, I had no clue what was coming up the pike.

Long story short, I attributed my little reaction to red bell pepper. I've never had a real problem with bell peppers before, but I'm not a huge fan of them so I don't eat them enough to know if I am allergic to them. This was the only food on Thursday night that I thought might have possibly caused the bad reaction. Then, Friday night, we went to dinner with some friends at a Thai restaurant. I wasn't thinking, but it probably wasn't a good idea to eat Thai that night. I had a steamed rice meal with coconut/peanut curry sauce that was divine, but it had a few little red peppers in it. After dinner, my friend fixed us some strawberry shortcake, which was also DIVINE...BUT, on the way home, I was itching miserably. I took an Aveeno bath that night the minute we got home which provided relief. Saturday all day I seemed to be fine, then that night....here we go again. I'm breaking out in hives and itching like crazy. I was miserable. This time I took a bath and didn't get relief. I took a Benadryl and passed out. Long story short, this viscious cycle continued, so yesterday I went to a holistic allergist! This was something different for me. It turned out to be a great experience. We came to the conclusion that I am allergic to salicylates. My first thought was, what the heck is salicsdlfkjsdfjjlates? After talking to the doctor and doing a whole bunch of research, salicylates are in A TON of food! They are in strawberries (which would explain my horrible reaction after strawberry shortcake) peanuts (curry), pineapple (I ate pineapple this weekend as well), apples, sodas, apricots...the list goes on and on. Salicylates are even in some products like toothpastes. Well, to make a long story short, I am going through some holistic treatments, but until I am cleared up, I am on a strict diet...I like to think of it as a lifestyle change.

If you are still reading, props to you. The point of this is to share that for the first time, something other then just me wanting to change my body is a motivating force. I genuinely believe that I was eating like crap and doing a huge disservice to my body. I also believe that I was dishonoring God by not taking care of my temple. Now I'm not saying that God cause this horrible allergic reaction and now He is punishing me by basically not being able to eat out and having to make/be very careful with all of my food intake, but what I am saying is that I think God might be preventing something deadly down the road. I am going to start taking way better care of my body and honoring God through that. He made our bodies to function and he made whole foods available to us so that we can keep our bodies strong to fight off illness/disease/cancer. I definitely don't want to come in contact with any of that stuff...and I'm not saying that just changing your diet will make you fight off all of the bad stuff....all I am saying is that I am going to do whatever is in my power to take care of my body and be healthy....especially before we have chillins. I want to get this all down pat, so that when we have kiddies, Josh and I train them up in the way they should go. Ok, I am all over the place right now, but consider this the start of my journey. As I learn, I will be sharing more info, because there aren't a whole lot of recipes and information that I have found out there. So, I will post what works for me and what I am doing to stay healthy and in shape!!! This is totally new for me and a HUGE challenge! I WILL mess up along the way, but I am here to help anyone else that is going through weird diet/body changes!!

Again, thanks for listening and here's a few shots of my messy kitchen tonight....I made potato pancakes (extremely low in salicylates) with tilapia filets :)
This is my new venture :)

First, I boiled and cut up some cabbage to pat in with the mashed potato patties :)

Sunflower Oil is one of the safe oils to use if going salicylic free....turns out I love this!!!

Boiling my potatoes

Frying up the patties with a little sunflower oil :)

Nice, golden brown, potato pancakes :) DELISH!