My sweet friend Cindy at On Our Journey Westward has posted her MSG (that would be monosodium glutamate) story.  Please take time to head on over there and read it.  The Lord brought Cindy and I together in life for many reasons, and one of those reasons was that she was going to share with me her story about gaining freedom from MSG caused health problems.  And her story was to free me from years of chronic colon pain, digestive problems, and frequent violent vomiting.

I will not repeat everything she said, but just know that I could have wrote it myself!  The only difference was our exact symptoms varied a bit.  My problems also started in my young 20's, like Cindy said, perhaps that's when our bodies finally just have enough of the garbage, and similar to her, that's when my eating habits (living out on my own) became much worse.  I found myself frequenting my doctors office with colon and digestive pain, migraine headaches, and frequenting hospitals violently sick with unbearable stomach pain.  I too received lots of diagnosis' such as spastic colon, colonitis, gastroenteritis, and the sort.  I was put on a little blue pill to try and "calm" my colon down, which had undesireable side effects and only helped a bit and didn't keep the violent throwing up from happening.

I too, like Cindy, ended up on my knees praying for the Lord to help me find the truth and to set me free from this misery.  And one Sunday morning, I was in service, standing up at the doorways serving as an usher, and our pastor was speaking about healing.  And the whole time, I was having constant colon pain.  He said a prayer of healing and I reached down and held my stomach where it hurt and cried out in my heart for healing.  On to the scene He rushed His servant and my good friend Cindy!  In a simple sentence she ask me, "Have you thought about the possibility of it being MSG?"  The rest is history.

I did the same as her, researched, researched, and then did a "clean sweep" of my pantry, started cooking more from scratch, and started reading the ingredients in boxed and canned foods and pre-processed meats with a different view!  Read her story to know the rest of what I did, I do not want to be redundant!

Praise the Lord, since less than a week after changing my diet, I've not had any pains in my colon, NO violent throwing up, no severe stomach pain, and no migraine headaches (UNLESS I get ahold of some MSG unawaringly).

I so agree with her statement...whether or not you noticeably react to MSG or not, it's bad stuff for everyone!  If you have doubts about this statement please read what is MSG. And then do your own research to find the truth.  At first, the changes in diet are overwhelming, but it DOES get much easier.  From then on, I've been praying for God's Truth to reveal the dangers in trusting man when it comes to the choices of what we put in our bodies.

Stay tuned to Cindy's blog for great recipes she uses for replacing those nasty pre-packaged, pre-made spice mixes and more!  Perhaps I will pull a few out from my recipe book as well.

Almost exactly one year ago, I joined an eight week program through a local hospital's health and wellness program to help women with PCOS make lifestyle modifications to control symptoms.  In this program I worked with dieticians once a week and a physical trainer two times weekly.  This was the greatest thing I've ever done for my health.  During that eight weeks I lost 35 pounds and was strength training and working out 3 times weekly.  The dieticians worked to teach me healthy eating patterns (that are good for everyone) and the physical trainer helped me to learn the optimum way to work out for those who just want to be healthier overall. I felt like a new person!

Since then I've been able to keep the weight off, until the hospital ordeal with my son.  I was brave enough to get back on the scale the other day and realized that 5 pounds had crept back on during those 15 days, and I wasn't getting hardly any physical activity.  And knowing as well that I really need to loose an additional 25 more than I had previously, I've decided to get back on the wagon and informally put myself through the program again.

I will be starting food journaling again tomorrow.  This was the # 1 tool that I used for success in my weight loss.  It was essential for me to, at least for the first several weeks of new eating habits, track everything!  I choose to only keep strict track of carbohydrates (every 15g of carbs counts as 1 carb on my journal) that I eat, and loosely keep track of bad fats.  These are the two things that mattered the most in my journey.

If you're interested, on my side bar under "Files to Share", I've placed an Excel file which has the Food Journal that I was using before and will be using again to track my food consumption. 

I'm also planning on getting my exercising program going again, I have the basic tools here.  I plan on beginning exercising again 2-3 times per week.  I'm going to be making a chart which lists the strength training and basic exercises that I do and the frequencies.  As soon as I finish that, I'll post it too!

Happy Healthy Living!