Stephanie's Art: Daniel Fast and a bit of catch up.

Hello, beautiful people of Blogland!

I've missed you!

I honestly haven't even been reading blogs lately because it's been a time of working on me and getting life in order. Instead of trying to catch up on lost time I'm just going to show you what my current challenge is and hope you'll join me in taking a little time to better yourself and challenge what you believe is possible.

I have embarked on a Daniel Fast. Maybe you've heard of this, maybe not. There is a website that explains exactly what this entails, you can read about the official fast here. But I'm going to tell you what this means for me and what I'm doing with this process.

The guidelines:

Vegan

No sweeteners

No beverages aside from water

No Chemicals

(If you can't pronounce it you don't eat it)

My additions:

I am allowing myself herbal tea because I am a hard core coffee addict and I am socially accustomed to drinking a hot beverage with friends so caffeine free herbal tea is okay in my book.

I also justify this because herbal tea does not actually contain tea and is actually just spices and seasonings with boiling water so it could still be considered water by the guidelines on the website.

I am also considering allowing myself all natural organic sweeteners such as agave but so far I haven't needed it.

My Motivation:

I have wanted to do one of these fasts for a while but my addiction to coffee and habits of eating out have always prevented me. I wanted to see if my body could handle it and if I had the willpower but I didn't want to let go of my grip on coffee. (We're bffs, you know)

I was also scared to do this before because I don't cook much and though I might just end up fasting because I wouldn't actually cook anything. So for these reasons I've put this off but I've been feeling a need to try something new for a while.

Another motivation is health and fitness. I have struggled with my weight my whole life, especially the last few years. In general I maintain a pretty healthy diet, in fact better than many people who are actually trying to lose weight and the weight has just stuck.

I am not as diligent about fitness as I wish I could say I were but I have wondered if there were some little thing I could change about my diet to help facilitate a change and so by trying this program I am challenging my body to dare keep the weight on. If it does, then I can move on to seeing a doctor and working more on fitness but if it comes off, I will know that there is a nutritional difference that needs to be made.

Finally, there is a spiritual motivation. My faith has been dwindling lately. One of the lowest points that I've been at in a while and I feel that if I have to put my trust in God to get me through this I will grow and learn. I want God to break me and shape me and help me to work through the things that he knows I need to learn.

If you have any questions or comments please share them!