Big yawn
First bath
Already looking up to daddy

Brand new...
One awesome father
A very proud big sis

The Glutton in the Peach Tree

One day, four years ago, I was sitting in the kitchen on the phone with a friend. I heard a chainsaw outside and looked out the side window. Much to my dismay, Jason was outside 'trimming' our amazing peach tree. The tree the year before had yielded hundreds of peaches, but it was too overgrown and did need pruning. Jason was convinced that a peach tree should grow straight upwards. I thought it was supposed to be a low hanging tree. We had many discussions prior to his chainsaw extravaganza. There were two main branches, shaped much like a 'Y', and they were very large and hanging low. I pleaded with him to let me first research peach tree pruning before he went crazy with the power tools, but, alas, I took too long, and the smaller opposing branch was gone. I was one grumpy girl. He assured me that in pruning the tree it would yield more fruit in the future, and though I know that principle, the tree looked like a toddler with scissors! I remember being angry with Jason throughout most of that day. It wasn't even that peaches were my favorite fruit, either! Cherries, are, and we have two of those trees in the front yard. This was during a time in my life when I was very lonely for friendships and eating for company's sake...

That night I had a dream about the peach tree. It was very vivid...I can still see it clearly as I type tonight. In the dream I looked out the window to look at the peach tree. It was dark outside but a full moon lit the sky. I could see the tree shaking though there was no wind. As I looked more closely, I could see a dark figure in the tree. I took another step forward because I was mad that something was in my peach tree. The branches opened and there sat a dark brown, hairy, ferocious looking creature staring back at me. It was a wolverine. I had only seen wolverines in an animated fashion advertising for the University of Michigan. I had never even seen a picture of a real one, but I knew in my dream that a wolverine was in my peach tree and it was acting extremely territorial.

The next day I was reading the Bible and praying. I wasn't studying anything in particular but the word 'glutton' popped into my head. I was NOT studying about gluttony. It was the last thing I wanted to think about as I finished off the bag of 'Riesens'. Now, I've said before that when a thought pops into your head that is smarter than you, it's usually God so you should stop and listen. I got out my dictionary and looked up the word 'glutton'. (I'd quote the definition here as it reads in my dictionary but much to my dismay, I packed it when we were getting the house ready for showing! Regret!) Anyway, I read through the definition, and near the end where it gave examples of gluttonous things, it said, 'like a wolverine, a ferocious, territorial eater'...WHAM BAM.

This is more or less what followed..."Okay, Lord. I get it. I'm a glutton. You are right. I am sorry for filling my life with food instead of You. I am sorry for being a hypocrite. I repent of feeding my face and starving my soul. Satan, you don't have control over my life...the Lord rebuke you! I repent of sins passed on through my family relating to food obsession and gluttony. Lord, I thank you that Your grace is sufficient and that I am free. Give me strength to make the right choices to steward this temple with which you have entrusted me and thank You for opening my eyes."



That's the spiritual side of my journey with food. I had hungered and thirsted after food, drink, and things. I was not satisfied in any sense of the word, literally, because I was worshipping a false god and those things were incapable of satisfying.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled." Matthew 5:6

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14

"Give us today our daily bread." Matthew 6:11



Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has place his seal of approval." John 6:26-27

Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." John 6:29

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." John 6:32-33

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe." John 6:35-36

"No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:46-51

Lord, I pray for myself and everyone reading this, that our worth would be found in You alone, that our satisfaction would come from your living water, the Son, the Bread of Life. When we want to fill our faces out of emotional insecurity, let us draw near to you and be filled. Each of us, as humans, have different struggles, Lord, but anything that distracts us from our pursuit of You is a false god that will never suffice. Lead us by Your Holy Spirit. Give us eternal perspective. Stir up the gifts in each of us for Your glory and Your purpose and help us to enjoy food for what it is...

At a traditional bath house B & B in Japan eating dinner with our contacts.
Yummy veggies at the open air market in London.
Some people think sickness is only spiritual. Others think it is strictly genetic makeup, while others believe it is brought on through repeated self-destructive behaviors. I personally believe it can be a combination of all of the above, and probably then some...

My earliest memory of wanting food for more than food's sake was in second grade. I used to come home after school to my own private smorgasbord. You see, I was a latchkey kid in elementary school, and as normal as that is for many children, I used the solitude to soothe the munchies. My dad, with good intentions, had said things to us kids like, 'Don't eat that, it will make you fat'. For some reason with me, it made me relate food with body image and fat instead of nutrients and energy. I always thought I was fat but when I look back at pictures, I had believed lies.

To sum up a long story, for 15+ years, I tried most diets, I exercised, I fasted, and I ate pretty healthily with family, though not so socially. I was always the tallest friend and physically mature beyond my years. In 9th grade a guy I had a crush on told me I was built like a football center. My 6'5", 250 lb dad told me he was sorry I was built like him. He didn't say it to hurt me, it was because I said I wished I wasn't so tall. My grandma constantly commented on my broad shoulders and how strong I was. I had been a competitive swimmer for 12 years, so I had a huge back and most certainly wasn't a rail. My freshman year of college in P.E. class, we had our percent body fat taken. I was 140 lbs with a body fat percentage of 11. I thought I was fat. I spent most of my finances my freshman year at Subway and eating Twix bars daily while washing it down with a Dr. Pepper. I didn't drink pop until my freshman year, and let's just say, I went overboard! By the time I graduated from college, I was 150 lbs, but my percent body fat had changed from 11% to 25%. I had only gained 10 lbs, but my body composition had changed A LOT!

Skip forward to my mid-twenties and I was eating healthily again, and exercising, but my body composition would not change. I gained weight slowly and began having bad back pain, digestive problems, and was literally awake every night for 7 years between the hours of 1:00 am and 3:00 am. I went to a G.I. doctor, but they said I looked great. I had a CT scan, but they didn't see the culprit to my pain and sleeplessness. After Emily was born in 2002, several months later, I was having a lot of abdominal pain and my back would go out quite regularly. I also began obsessing about food. It was all I could think about and it was all I wanted to do...eat. Salty, sweet, salty, sweet, crunchy, creamy, salty, sweet. It was a crazy non-stop craving. My mind was foggy, I was constantly bloated, I was short-tempered, lethargic, and had no short term memory. I was also very depressed.

My primary physician integrated conventional medicine with acupuncture. I began to see him for acupuncture for back pain while also seeing a regular chiropractor. My back pain was gone, but I still wasn't sleeping through the night and was craving food and thinking about it non-stop. I read books about diet, supplements and exercise, I walked and did lots of ab work to support my lower back, but I was still obsessed about my weight and what stared back at me in the mirror.

God led me to a woman named Dr. Julie Marchiol. She's a chiropractor and acupuncturist. She's a christian, too, and has since become a treasured friend, but it was under her care that we solved a lot of physical problems and are still working on a few areas, of which I'll share later. Though the one endocrinologist from Arizona who commented recently said we need to study genetics more carefully, I concur, but will say that hearing that someone has 'good' genes because they are 5'8" and 135 doesn't encourage me regarding overeating or food obsession. When you finish off the boxes of Suzy-Q's, consume mass quantities of sugar in pop, candy, extra desserts, binge, purge, eat more food in volume than your stomach can contain at one given time, you send your body years of bad messages. Toxins build up and those toxins are eventually stored as not only fat but also disease. Call it genetics or bad programming, but just like we can't blame every quirk in our lives on someone else, we need to take responsibility for what we have put into our bodies and what we have left out. Instead of daily Twix indulgences for 2 years straight in college while watching 'Days of our Lives', I could have been feasting on the Bread of Life, growing healthy in my walk with God. God created our bodies as machines to run on healthy fuel. When most of what America eats comes from refined flours and sugars, it's as far away from the way God created it as possible...

Anyway, for me, Dr. Julie found that I had parasites, raging candida, storage and absorption problems, along with low serotonin levels AND I was eating and craving many of the foods to which I am allergic. Through a lot of hard work, I got rid of my sweet little parasites, got my candida in balance, have balanced out my serotonin levels, and, am finally digesting food properly. The way I know this is I've been tracking my BMI, intra- and extra-cellular fluids and my resting metabolism with Dr. Julie. For those who know what this all means, my BMI went from 98 lbs to 121 lbs in a month and a half. My intracellular fluids are now higher than my extracellular fluids and my resting metabolism has gone from 1517 to 1768. I have only lost 2.5 lbs, but it is all fat and not muscle.

It's really late, and I still haven't shared the story of when God called me out on my gluttony, which occurred one year after Emily was born, and is integral in my attitude toward food and my body image. I will share that in the next couple of days, but first wanted to lay down the history of my journey.

I know this is a lot of information, but my hope is that it rings a bell with many different people in one area or another and encourages you to take back your health. I'll leave you with this thought...If I were a crack addict or addicted to porn or alcohol, being a recovering addict would mean I needed to remove those culprits from my life. Crack in 'moderation' would not be an option! The problem with overcoming a food addiction is that removing it as the culprit is not optional. Food is necessary to live and is something we can also enjoy. It is not the culprit. Our minds and attitudes toward it are what cause the gift of food to be anything more that what it is.

I'm aware this is random, but this is 'Sara Lovey Dovey', Em's beta. I was taking pictures of her because her belly doesn't look that great and she hasn't been eating, so I wanted to show my sister who has a beta, and has a knack for 'reviving' fish. Anyway, I took the picture right up against her little bowl that it looks like she's floating on my kitchen window sill. Random, huh? (P.S. My sis gave her tea tree oil and she's doing great now...)

ANYWAY, it's been non-stop here. We went rafting and camping with some friends over the holiday weekend, then my folks have been in town so we've been having quality time with them, and now we are headed up to the mountains for the weekend with my folks and my sister and her family for a little R & R at a friend's cabin before my parents head back to Phoenix for a bit.

I am going to definitely share my story of my journey with food and gluttony, but since it's lengthy, I haven't been able to dive into it this past week.

As far as some of the comments and other people's opinions, one thing Jason taught me early in our relationship is that it is okay to disagree. Obviously on earth, we aren't all going to agree on the non-essentials all the time. That's the beauty of variety and also learning to live and love in the body of Christ despite our differences. Also, concerning people posting comments that lead to discussions, that is great. Just know that since it is my blog, if I don't want a particular comment, I'll just delete it, that's the beauty of being the author here, though I rarely do that. And, I will say this, my journey with food and gluttony integrates eastern and western medicine, prayer and acupuncture, herbs and natural supplements. I'm not a doctor, it is my experience, my years of research and tests, and it's also my personal opinion...So, if it doesn't line up with your moral conviction of whether the Chinese, who have been practicing medicine for 5000 years, know what they are talking about or if conventional drugs are the answer to everything, that's not really the point...the point is, I was a very sick person, physically, and spiritually, and now, I'm free.

Have a great weekend!