The post in which I proclaim donuts a health food. (AKA the best part of running).

So I take back what I've written in the past about vegetables. Yes, they're good for you...unless you're training for a marathon. In which case, (that being this case), throw detox to the wind and dine Dunkin' style! Sort of!

I'm glad I could clear that up for you.

(Not clear? Let's just say that an 8-miler on Thurs.- after a dinner w/ veggies- went a whole lot differently than an 8-miler today after a donut/coffee breakfast, baked potatoes/sports drink lunch. You can only run into and out of so many public potties surreptitiously on one run...).

Healthy food isn't the only hiccup these days, either. There's that little matter of time.

Honey, ummmmm, could you watch the kids for, like, four hours? 

No help that I'm the laziest marathon trainer ever in the history of marathon training. Get up and start running at 5am? Nope, but thanks for the invitation, World. (What's that Proverb about a sluggard's excuse...there's a lion at my front door? And it drank all my coffee? Something like that...).

On the plus side, I don't yet know what all the runner talk of chafing is about, and no blisters or black toenails to speak of! (I'm writing this hours before a 16-miler, so we can chat about these hot topics again then. Maybe I'll be more informed).

Another peculiarity to running is the underworld of packaged (and not cheap) glucose sources. I just watched a documentary about marathon running (by myself, obviously) and interestingly enough, they spent no time at all on GU. They hit on hydration and nutrition- even showed a very fit woman baking skewers of vegetables (oh, if only she knew!), but no dramatic music to the tearing-with-teeth packets of gel sugar. I'll be trying them for the first time tomorrow, but I have to say that I'm a little bit confused. Why not stop and eat a Snickers bar? Wouldn't that be a whole lot more fun? Sounds like a pretty good incentive to run for another three hours, anyway.

I tip my hat to all of you fellow joggers. May your roads be properly paved, may your GU be on sale, may the creepy staring people be blind to the likes of you, and may your last miles be downhill...

Happy moving!

What do "brave" and "cardiac arrest" have in common?

I'm about to find out! This is where I'll post updates on my San Diego Rock n' Roll marathon training. Join me! :)

Drills, Goats, and Radical Love.

You know you're an urban farmer when...
1. You grow your own food.
2. You share what you grow.
3. You've named your farm.

This definition was provided by Greg Peterson of The Urban Farm at the recent Jump Start Your Garden class, and I was finally ahead of the game.  Though I've yet to grow any food big enough to fill an actual salad bowl, my sign was in the ground weeks ago.  Yesss...

So Kevin recently went to Germany.  This left me ample time to buy wood at Home Depot and play with his power tools.  That experience went something like this:

Okay, found a drill. But what the heck is a bit, and where would I find one?  

      (About an hour later...) Googling "how to insert a bit"...

There are people in the world who operate on a "What is my time worth?" daily philosophy.  I am not one of those people.  Many, many hours later, I was quite proud to have accomplished the jerry-rigging (after google-based Drilling 101) of the following two raised beds:
        

                PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Girls should take shop in school!!!

In other news, did you know that you can get a free compost bin from the city?  It needs about three parts "brown" (carbon material like leaves) to one part "green" (the nitrogen supplies, like kitchen scraps and manure).  Here is our new compost bin:

I may not have my own goats, but that hasn't stopped us from having goat manure adventures!  (Jealous yet?  No, you say?  Permaculture schmernaculture!)  Anyway, it is easy, fun, and free!  Madison played on the property's trampoline and with the many adorable goats while I shoveled goat poo into bags.  You do what you can in the desert to try and get healthy soil...

Permaculture is REALLY neat.  Imagine your property as a self-sustaining space (chickens, veggies, herbs, water harvesting, composting, and how about a solar-powered pizza oven?).  Still, my personal dream is to have more dominion over what we're putting into our bodies, to cultivate heirloom versions of God's designs for our food, and to see a long-term, very healthy version of:

You got it.  The loves of my life.

For so much, I am thankful!!  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

The Secret Garden.

What happens when Jesus and Barbara Kingsolver sit down over an omelet and cappuccino?  Oh, how I would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation...They haven't invited me yet (Barbara is much harder to reach than Jesus), but I am at the ready, notebook in hand!

Of late, I've been trying to turn all of my prayer sessions into "Can we talk about farming now?" conversations.  I've scoured the libraries for gardening (on the sun) books.  I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  I've researched CSA boxes, took an Urban Farm class on fruit trees, called farms, visited the local farmer's market, tested my soil, raked rocks to start a plot, set out experimental seeds, and pestered (in the nicest way possible) our local AJs produce workers about where the food comes from.  I've even named my garden-to-be and made it a sign, the only thing currently growing in that particular (west-facing...sigh) plot.  But nothing, not any of these efforts, beats visually seeing the extraordinary little place I found with Madison the other day...(scroll down, if you will):

People, this is exciting!  LIFE, green things and beautiful things- but mainly for our purposes, delicious things- right here in the desert!  This secret space of wonder is actually the University of Arizona's Cooperative Extension garden (open to the public) off of Broadway.  Madison and I had the place to ourselves, so no need to act dignified or tree-savvy.  We scampered around from species to species taking ridiculous pictures, posing with purple eggplants and oohing and aahing loudly.  Hope springs eternal!

While I certainly didn't envision a new, overtaking interest in backyard farming at the onset of this blog, it has come upon us with force...and we are hooked.  Grow our own healthy food?  Not such a radical idea in the Bay area.  And not such a radical idea in the desert, if you're on the grapefruit and rattlesnake diet.  But variety, Lord?  Can you really do that here?  Don't we have to import our food from, I don't know, somewhere with a natural water source like rain?

Oh please, child.

Thanks to farmer boy Keefe's diligent watering, we have been growing citrus for the last three years.  We just added pomegranate to the mix, and hope to add apples, berries, peaches, plums, and a veggie garden in the months ahead.  Our growing seasons are quite short, and totally different from the directions on most every seed packet in America, but we are optimistic!  The Creator has graced even the badlands with some serious potential!

And as we continue along our path to sustainable family health, we have to think creatively with the less adventurous eaters in the clan.  Last week, the oldest kids were given five dollars each to spend at Sprouts however they wanted (no sweets allowed):

Keefe smelled his way to fresh bread, then rounded out his bounty with Sprouts' brand Cheese Puffs and six lemons.  

Our fruit girl didn't disappoint with watermelon, a pear, and an apple the size of her head.  

Three-year-olds may not be given the same $5 budget, but they're certainly not to be left out.   We turned these whole wheat muffins into pumpkin muffins w/ flax meal, almond milk, and Enjoy Life chocolate chips.  

Any of you locals who have gardened veggies successfully, I'd love to hear from you!  Be well!

Pilgrim's progress.

In our most recent post, we beat a horse to death.  It was bloody and controversial (Hi, Nancy! :)), but a necessary component in the healing process: "Enter grace."

A short recap before we move into more complicated (for me) territory:

Rules show us our weaknesses, and do nothing to strengthen us against temptation in the long run- unless, of course, we are perfectionists who thrive on the comfort of perfection-inducing rules, leading us to feel superior to mere mortals and to the utmost in self-deception, vanity, and hypocrisy upon breaking a precious rule.  (See empty carton of coconut ice cream for details).

For the most part, whether we admit it to others or not, our instinctual question ("How much can I get away with?") points to a base nature.  Seemingly despondent news.  That is, until we remember grace...

I've heard it said that the most wonderful human emotion is relief.  Our Lord is named many things in the Bible, one of which speaks so well into this mess of ours as we bounce between sloth and perfectionism: El Shaddai, the All Sufficient God.  He is enough!  His performance on our behalf is enough.  We don't have to earn ANYTHING.  Breathe again, let it out!  No performance anxiety required, He is perfect on our behalves!

And so we now enter the more confusing territory of making progress.  To work through an example here, let me first catch you up on my health status...

So, I pretty well underestimated this whole SIBO thing.  Small intestine bacterial overgrowth is not messing around.  Up until now, I have jotted notes here and there recording what I've eaten and how it's made me feel.  I've eaten healthily for the majority of my meals, lots of super greens and lovely fish. But I've also played games with my digestive system, "working the system" by making things move faster or slower as desired.  (There is more to it than that, of course, but we don't usually go into these specifics in polite company...).  This small amount of power gives me some comfort that I have control over my health.  Headed to a wedding?  Okay, eat from the following safe foods and take one of these OTC pills.  Ready to lose the bloat?  Coffee and running it is.  The problem is, it's a game.  It is always a temporary fix.  It doesn't equate to "healthy."

As I came to the depressing conclusion yesterday that I probably need another course of antibiotics, I had a conversation with God that went something like this:
THIS IS WAY, WAY, WAY TOO HARD!  I CAN'T, I CAN'T, I CAN'T!!!!!!!!  NO, NO NO!!!!

I don't want to take cyclical courses of antibiotics.  I don't want to cut out all sorts of food groups forever. But you see, I is the problem.  Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of...umm...who was that again?  Starts with a J-E, I think.  Jen, right?

My dear friend Kristen shared a wonderful book with me called The Holiest of All by Andrew Murray. And in it I have found the most beautiful paradigm shift of all:

He (Jesus) was in danger, just as we are, of using the body for His own service or pleasure, a means of gratifying self.  But He never did this.  He was filled with one thought- "God prepared this body for Me; I have it for His disposal, for His service and glory; I hold it ready every moment to be a sacrifice to Him.  The body comes from God; it belongs to Him; it has no object of existence but to please Him.  The one value My body has is that I can give it as a sacrifice to God."

Oh, Jesus, thank You!  I needed to hear this.  Maybe it will remind someone else, too.  Pour Yourself out in Me, Lord, and in everyone reading.  There is none like You!  I love you so much.  I'm sorry for loving myself more than You.  Please help me to get my eyes off of myself, onto the depths of Your life and love instead.

More on progress in the days to come...

On breaking up with the horse.

Remember that post a few days back a really long time ago about me missing wheat and replacing it with much healthier options, like avocado pudding and goat cheese peppers?  Well, I should take my advice more often.

(Awkward confession alert).  I fell off the horse the other night, big time.  There was tiramisu involved, people!  And frosting, and chocolate, and a whole lot of wheat.  I neglected to flee.  I rationalized, enjoyed, and then...was sick the whole night and part of the morning.  Grrr... OFF. THE. HORSE.

The following day, I was fired up to get right back on.  A pear salad made an amazing on-the-horse lunch, and I was almost done being mad at myself; almost ready to take the blog world by storm with some "Check out these amazing food pictures" food pictures.

So, let's recap.  Off the horse?  Not good.  On the horse?  Good.

But this ride is a bumpy one.  "Shake out your boots and get back up again!" sure sounds like the right advice after a fall.  And still, it lacks any power to overcome the next great temptation.

So, I'm shooting the horse today.  No more horse.  This blog will not be a great work of inspiration to my fellow sick people perfectionists about how to cook the perfect winter squash frittata, nor will it be a cover-up for candy-corn binge behavior.

Performance is dead.

So, um...you're just not going to try?

Ha, you give me much too much credit!  Of course I'm going to try.  It's a terrible prognosis.

Here is what it looks like to "try":
Messed up?  Okay.  Must fix immediately.  Super strict for next meals.  Self-absorb and scale-step at regular intervals.   Determine a way to tie personal value to process.  Don't forget to be a little grumpy.

Wow.  That is so very, very not why Christ exchanged His life for mine.   But I don't even really know how to make myself stop.

It's as though I need a Savior...
Ah ha!

So let's talk strategy for a minute.  I have officially "liked" an obscene number of healthy-foodie pages.  ("Obscene" = "You haven't seen posts from your mother in a while, and you are pretty sure the government shut down because of a chia seed shortage.")  Facebook was quite dizzying before.  Now, it borders on cult-status.

I'm weighing this strategy still.  I really enjoy the feeling that others are in this, too, with sweeter attitudes and yummy ideas.  Encourage one another and build each other up is a favorite verse of mine.  But the power to obey a good strategy- and it sure does help to have a strategy, like reading healthy recipes and unfriending chocoholic blogs- does not seem to come from me.  AS. MUCH. AS. I. WANT. IT. TO.  I am so profoundly prideful!  Who doesn't love personal glory?  

Oh, dear...

You will occasionally run into the phrase, "transformed by grace."  I have been poring over the Scriptures (Romans 6-8) and an old classic, The Normal Christian Life, in hopes of gaining clarity on this one.

Earlier this afternoon I was entrenched in a performance-based blog draft, and I asked Elle, age 5, for her favorite thing about God.  Her beautiful response:

"If we sin a googleplex, He still loves us because He loves us forever and ever, infinity on top, infinity on bottom.  That's how much He loves us, even more than that.  Infinity is way more than a google."

How could I phrase it any better?

The antidote is dependence on Jesus, my biggest fan, the one who created me with a purpose, the one who makes me beautiful, my best friend.  The antidote is powerlessness, vulnerability, trust.  All those things we're socialized to be very scared of.  But I have to give up caring what people think, and do this with Him.  As I scarfed down some really unhealthy things the other night?  He interrupted my own thoughts to tell me He loves me.

True story.  

How has His love transformed your struggles?

Jen & Kevin Eat Kale.

"We should do the Super Immunity diet!"
"We should do something," Kevin agreed.
And so, that's us.  A happily married couple of 14 years, really, really thankful for that "in sickness and health" vow, always looking for the right course of food-based action (and occasionally off-roaded by distractions such as candy corn.  For the love of mankind, who invented that stuff?).

We are thirty-something and prepared to start counting backwards at 40.  (Our 8-year-old son was genuinely shocked yesterday to find that Michael Phelps is in fact younger than I am.  Much younger? he wanted to know.   How do you know about Michael Phelps? I asked.  From the Wheaties box.).  Anyway, while it may be too late to have a run on the pro-tennis circuit, it is certainly early enough to be as healthy as possible, be an example for our kids, and give our eating to God.

What does God say about candy corn?  A burning question, but we'll have to address that one later...

And why are you writing a health blog?  That one, I can definitely answer.  Here's a bit of our story:

In 2011, Kevin got the ridiculously scary news that "the mole-looking thing" that he'd had for YEARS on the top of his ear was in fact malignant melanoma.  You probably won't die was the basic message he was getting from his oncologist.

In 2011, we also came to understand that I was suffering from OCD.  Not the hand-washing, Hollywood movie kind of OCD (which probably explains why it took us so long to figure it out), but a constant and highly debilitating inner battle with my busted caudate nucleus.  Not to be outdone by cancer or mental illness, we also experienced miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy in the same year.

I will interject here to say that 2012 ROCKED.  Nothing but happiness & ease!  I believe the Biblical word for that would be "rest."  He made us lie down in green pastures...and oh, was it nice!

In 2013, I had been working out diligently with a rockin' outfit down the road called Kosama.  (Original meaning: "Land of 1,000 Burpees" or "I Will Eat You For Breakfast").  I had also worked up to consistent runs, and was really enjoying the challenge.  But on a relaxing Wednesday in March, I began to have killer cramps on (what was supposed to be) a six-mile run.  By the next day, I thought I was dying and Kevin got intimately acquainted with the ambulance drivers and the local ER.

Tests were run.  Probably a virus.  Sent home.

Long and involved story short, I was being opened up the following Tuesday and the finding was something called volvulus (or twisted intestine).  Two and a half feet of dead small intestine were removed (sorry, you knew the TMI thing was going to happen at some point, right?), and I awoke with an ostomy bag, quite blessed to be alive.  Five days later, I was being put back together again (Can I get an "Amen" for not being around a hundred years ago?) and the long recovery began.

Each of our "health" stories, while sometimes silly (as in, yes, the EMT in our living room really did spend time counseling Kevin in how to clean blood off of the carpet, because he used to work in furniture...), have actually been momentous occasions of God's very specific intervention in our lives.  We are different now, fuller of faith, more often reminding each other of this precious miracle of TIME.  We've seen the hand of God, and it is good.  He lives and breathes and heals and loves and cares and counsels and comforts and IS.

Currently, as a result of the events of March, I have ulcers and something called Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth.  (Doesn't that sound fun?).  It causes all sorts of embarrassing stomach issues.
A dairy-free, grain/sugar-free diet would be my best natural course of action, as regular, cyclical courses of antibiotics are the current gold standard for treatment.

Back to the original question.  Why pen a health blog when there must be a googleplex of kale salad and goat cheese recipes, youtube workouts, personal health stories, and free nutritional advice out there?  

I don't know.  I'm handing the mic to God on this one.  And I'm pretty excited to see what He's going to do.
Can I go off dairy in my own power?  Sure, you bet.  Sort of.
Can I follow a sugar-free/grain-free diet in my own power?  No.  No, I can't.  But I sense that God is calling us to join Him on this one, to choose the health that is in reach with His strength.

Kevin would like to beat cancer for life.  He would like to experience relief from chronic pain from his neck down to his wrists (thoracic outlet syndrome).  And I would like to stop craving candy corn and go out in public again without frantically searching for a bathroom heal.

"Dear Friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well."  3 John 1:2

He cares.  He cares!  HOW COOL IS THAT?!

Thanks for joining us on this (overused word alert) journey!  I pray that God will encourage you on your own health journey, and I sure hope you'll share those stories with me, too!

God is faithful!
jen