Perserverance

This yeast cleanse diet has been putting us all to the test and for some reason I haven't prayed much about it until this morning when I stumbled upon this verse:

"Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face always." 1 Chronicles 16:11 (emphasis mine)

It seems so obvious now to seek the Lords strength as David did and not try to do this all on my own.

Amazingly, last night at dinner we all happily ate plain sweet potatoes and realized just how sweet they actually are on their own. (Previously we'd been adding cinnamon - no sugar or sweeteners, just cinnamon for flavor.) I never thought I'd see the day when my husband said, "You know, I'm not even craving ice cream tonight!"

Granted, we are taking one day at a time but I'm very happy that we've decided to do this - I'm sure we are losing weight as well, an added bonus! We don't own a scale - I don't really feel they tell anything. Personally, I've always weighed more than it looks like I do, probably dense bones run in our family and heavy muscle mass. My son weighs more than some other kids his size too. Even still just weighing less to me isn't an indicator of the "in shape" factor so I find having a scale around annoying! Now that I've gone way out on a tangent here...

I do have to say shame, shame, shame on you food industry. I've been reading and researching and I don't like what I'm learning. Processed food items have sugar and other sweeteners hidden in them - almost all of them. Today, I wanted to save a little time by purchasing store bought chicken broth instead of making my own. Only one brand did I find (even the natural/organic ones) without sugar or cane juice or some sweetener. The food industry is smart, very smart, and all about their bottom line. They know if there is sugar or sweeteners in food we will eat more of it - and that means more $$$ for them and more pounds, weight and health issues for us. I've seen this first hand in my family, we are all getting full faster and staying full longer eating more whole, less processed foods.

The food industry isn't going to change on their own, it's going to have to be us that does the changing. The average American eats (I've found conflicting numbers here) from 20 - 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. (Even if it's just 20 that's 300 empty calories a day). To give you an idea how fast it adds up, a 12 ounce soda contains about 10 teaspoons, a 2 ounce package of candy contains about 11 teaspoons of sugar and frosted flakes cereal provides more than 4 teaspoons of sugar. By the way none of these number include the sugars naturally occurring in milk or fruits.

We've started using stevia which is an extraordinarily sweet herb -- 200-300 times sweeter than sugar. It has a slight licorice-like flavor that is only evident in bland recipes and we are getting used to it's sweet flavor. It is almost calorie-free, does not cause tooth decay and is a ZERO on the glycemic index so it does not trigger a rise in blood sugar. You won't get a sudden burst of energy followed by fatigue and a need for another "fix." Most importantly, it does not feed yeast or other microorganisms, and it increases energy and aids digestion by stimulating the pancreas.

The yeast connectionis a good place to start if you are wanting of more info. this link explains a simple saliva test that you can do at home. If this is more information than you ever wanted to know about sugar or Candida (yeast) please just ignore!!!!