Our road to health.

When I married my husband and started to make all kinds of yummy recipes in the kitchen, I did not know much about healthy eating, or the good fats, and eating more vegetables. All we knew was how to eat a lot of white pasta, potatoes, breads, cookies, pizza and lots of delicious Ukrainian/Russian dishes. So slowly and surely we started to gain weight. We joined a gym, but did not like to go there and the membership expired. We did not like vegetable or fruits much, the only things we ate were corn, cucumbers, apples and bananas. We had four children and the weight just got more cumbersome, until one day my husband started to have spells of double vision, dizziness and struggling to breathe normally. He got checked and realized that his blood pressure was very high, he had high cholesterol and was overweight. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, with abnormal lab results and was overweight myself, feeling very sluggish and with constant tiredness. It was a wake up call for us.

That was more that a year ago, when we bought our fancy blender and started to drink green smoothies every morning, started to eat more fruits and vegetables and learning about healthy eating and living.  By incorporating more fruits and greens into our daily routine, has made us crave a more healthier lifestyle.

I started to read a lot about plant based diets and raw vegan living. It is very interesting and has opened my eyes to a lot of problems with our food pyramid. We are told to eat more grains and meat, while fruits and vegetables fall off our plates and we don't think them very important. But truly where are the most vitamins and nutrients hidden? Mostly in fruits, vegetables, greens, seeds and nuts. That should be our main source of nourishment. Grains and meat should be a small portion of it.
We started to eat more healthy, more natural, less chemicals and are still striving more every day to enjoy more fresh produce and eat less foods that have the calories but hardly any nutrition. We started to exercise more, especially my husband who is lifting weights and doing a lot of cardio. He lost 30lbs so far! I lost 10lbs. Isn't it amazing! Our health improved, thanks be to God.

I am so trilled to share this with you and hope that you will find this helpful and that your health will improve as well.

No more coffee.

It has been a whole month now with no coffee. Can you believe it, me an avid coffee drinker, who could not function without my fist yummy cup of mocha, now is living without the black bitter goodness. I cant believe it myself. I still have a craving for it, and every time my coworkers are brewing a fresh mug of coffee, I feel my resolve wavering, but since I did this for health reasons, I am sticking to my no coffee road.

Here are the reasons why I quit:
1. Felt like it was an addiction for me, I could not function without my first sip.
2. The high of coffee would wear off by 10 am and I would be so tired.
2. I had insomnia, could not fall back asleep, even though I only had coffee in am.
3. My head felt heavy, muggy thoughts, could not concentrate.
4. It was getting to be an expensive treat, Mochas and frapuchinos add up.
5. I would get a migraine headache if for some reason I couldn't get my first sip of coffee by 9am.
6. Overall I did not care how it was affecting my body organs, read about the adrenal fatigue.

Here is how I feel a month with no coffee:
1. I feel great! I don't need to have my first sip and I can still function.
2. No more late morning fatigue, I feel energized and happy.
3. I lost 5 lbs, no mochas and no frapuchinos... tons of extra calories lost.
4. I sleep better, even if I do wake up, I fall back asleep faster.
5. I am happy that I am not stimulating my adrenal glands.
6. I am saving money.

So overall I am happy that I got to quit my coffee addiction, and even if in the future I would want a sip of coffee here and there, as long as I don't make it into a daily habit, it should be OK.

If you feel very tired and sleepy in the afternoon, it could be the coffee addiction.... or it could be the food we are eating, more on that in the future post.

This has become my drink of choice for the past few weeks. Green fruit smoothies!

Is watching tv good for you?

The dream my sister saw a few years ago. The first time I read this I got goosebumps, and it happened the second time around as well. If you have a tv in your house, please watch this. 

......I'd like to share my dream that I saw years ago. Back then, I had just one child. We had bought a small TV, and without realizing it, have become quite involved in it, watching it every evening, or whenever we had a moment free. Our daughter would sit with us, and watch with us whatever we were watching.

Then I started talking with my husband, I didn't think it was good that we were so involved with TV, and watching it often, and especially our daughter watching with us. We were loosing good quality time together as a family, and with God. My husband agreed with me, but didn't really do anything about it.

Every day I was getting more distressed about it, and prayed to God to help us deal with this.

One morning, I got up to help my husband get ready for work, and after he left, I went back to bed. And I saw a dream, or a vision, as some people say.

In my house, I see a man. He was horrid to look at. He was short, and had shaggy dirty clothes on him, he stood sort of bent- like an old man. He had dirty matted hair that hung to his shoulders. His face was scary, he had colorless eyes that kept twitching back and forth, and he had froth coming out of his mouth.

And instead of walking- he jumped- hopped from one place to another.

I got very upset and distressed seeing him in MY house, and opened the door, and made him leave.

He came back into the house THROUGH the walls, and no matter how much times I kept putting him outside , he kept coming back.

I was even more upset, because I couldn't get him to stay out.

Then I saw an even scarier picture. I saw the devil- for I knew by then that thats what he was- I saw him sitting on the floor, and in front of him sat my daughter, watching him, and beside her sat my future children, I saw their souls, and they were all sitting there in front of him, and he was feeding them each with a spoon. 

Why are we sick?

Why is there so much sickness in our churches? Why do people who are close to us, like relatives and friends get cancer, leukemia and have heart problems? When we do get sick why do we run to the doctors and start taking medications right away, and many times the medication does not help and we get more sick, more weak, more depressed, and more alone in our struggle. Why?

I was listening to some sermon the other day, where the preacher was saying that most sickness is from a sin in our life. That if our heart and soul is lovely, pure and clean, then we don't get sick. But if we have unforgiving, anger, jealousy, or strive in our heart, we are open to any kind of sickness.

There could be a small truth to it, but I believe that also our health is determined in what we eat. If we eat a lot of junk food, lots of sweets, with corn syrup in it, and our foods are full of chemicals and pesticides, then our health declines. Our immune system fails us, and we get sick.

I guess if you are sick, try to change the way you eat but also check out your soul and heart. Do you have someone who you cant forgive? Don't let them make you sick. Stay healthy -forgive them.

Spring is here.

I believe spring is my favorite time of the year. Everything is blooming, everything is green, and its getting much warmer, and I don't have to defrost my car every morning when I go to work.

Living a pure life.

Reading this post this morning, I started to think about my own childhood, how we were raised. My parents had a large family and our dad read the bible every day to us, we prayed every morning and before going to sleep. My dad always spoke about living for Jesus and being holy. I remember how he told us to save our self for marriage and to stay pure. I always had this fear of God in my heart that He was watching me, and I was shy to even think about kissing anyone outside of marriage. In high school I was supper shy, and had no problems in keeping my self pure and saved for someone special. When I turned 19 years old, I prayed to God to give me a present for my birth day. And He did. I met my husband on my birthday, well I actually invited him, a new boy at church to my birthday celebration. That's when we started to get to know each other, through phone calls, visits, and lots of wonderful trips. Then he had to move to CA and we kept in touch, kept the long distance romance going. It was wonderful when we finally decided to get married and after a 3 year romance-dating we got married. We talked about keeping ourselves pure for marriage, we were both raised that sex outside of marriage was a big "No-No". I am glad God kept us both to our promise and we entered our marriage as pure and untarnished virgins.

Now we have been married for almost 14 years, and God has blessed our, and our marriage is strong and loving, and I am thankful that God has given me such a wonderful gift when I turned 19.

Life.

What is life in general? It is a fast moving train, with occasional stops here and there. I am sure we are all super busy, with work, home, children, and church, but then comes a time when you glance out of your window and wonder what life is all about, why are we truly here? What is the sense of hurry and busyness? Life is what you make it, it could be either sweet and fun, or sad and demanding, something we put a lot of limitations on ourselves and our families, sometimes we try to put a lot of burdens on our selves, what she should be doing, and how our family should look, and how we should dress, and how we should act. But really, who are we trying to impress here? Is it someone else. I read somewhere that no matter what you do, and how you act, there will always be someone to criticize. There is just no way in making every one happy. The only true thing is to make God happy. If we live for Him, then no matter what happens, or what people say, it is truly no that important, when you know you did the will of God. God does not want us to be so busy with every day life, that we don't have time to notice the beautiful sunset, or laugh with your kids, or snuggle with your husband. Yes, I am sure that there are things that need to be done, but sometimes we think that some things just have to be done, we ourselves make the rules, the limitations, the burdens. And then we wonder why we are so unhappy, so worn out, and so bored. God made life beautiful, lets stop the craziness around us, and enjoy a nice time alone with God, with nature, with you little ones, with the love of your life.