It’s Temple Tuesday! My Food Philosophy.

Happy Temple Tuesday, everyone!

I hope you are well and have had your peach smoothie and chocolate chip granola bar this morning! That is what I ate for breakfast. I usually eat 2 boiled eggs or a bowl of oatmeal with butter and light brown sugar but I had a taste for something different today😉There are times when I am not in the mood for food when I wake up in the morning. I bought a juicer a few months ago from Amazon but I have yet to open it! There are times when I just get a cup of ice mixed with water and light OJ in one of my favorite mason jars. I am from the country and we use mason jars for everything!! AND then I sometimes drink pure, organic pineapple juice from Walmart. You can tell its organic because its in a glass jar. 

I always try to eat lunch, which is usually a salad with cheese and a protein. And dinner is usually salmon and some kind of starch. I have been eating salmon for dinner for years now! It makes me feel refreshed and it fills me up!

SO, I am telling you all of this because this is my food philosophy. My personal guide to eating, nutrition and wellness. I am from a very small town in Virginia and we did not have access to alot of different sorts of foods growing up. We made it work. It wasn't until I graduated from high school and enrolled at The University of Virginia that my food palate expanded. I was pretty much a vegetarian in college. I ate extremely healthy! I would say that that was the healthiest I have ever been inmy life. I ran like a maniac. Sometimes several times a day. lol. I ate lots of sushi, salads and peanut butter and jelly on bagels. I did not have alot of money to spend on food so I had to learn to shop on a budget. After graduating from college, I moved around alot. Life began to life and I became an emotional eater. My introduction to adulthood immediately started with trauma. During my periods of grief, I just found food to be so comforting. AND then in 2012, my twin brother, Julius saw me and saw that I was in need of a big change in my life. He told me about this weight loss facility in St. George, Utah and it turned out to be one of the Biggest Loser Resort facilities. He really loved me and wanted to see me happy. He paid a pretty penny for me to fly to Utah and spend 6 weeks retraining my mind on how to eat better. OH My Goodness, it was LAVISH!! We had a chef, trainers, therapists on call, hiking, a pool and just unlimited time to rest and reset! I learned how to swim there!! Every morning we had a 5 am call time to go hiking! We hiked Snow Canyon Park every morning. I met some of the wealthiest, most successful, kindest and most genuine people at the Biggest Loser Resort. We had a blast every single day. I think this was the first time in my life that I actually learned real self love and self respect

💓💓💓💓💓💓

We had group fitness classes together! We sang, danced, laughed, cried and were completely transparent those 6 weeks. It was so freeing. I met this dope chic named Sammy who turned out to be a former assistant to Beyonce!!! She was super cool and told me all these stories about Beyonce's work ethic and overall aura. After 6 weeks, I was ready to come home. I ended up losing 25 pounds during my stay. I will never forget my time there and all of the wonderful people I met. 

Now, I eat to live! I am still learning how to balance a healhy lifestyle while pursuing all of my hopes and dreams. I am moving my body on a regular basis. I go to bed at a decent hour. I am no longer an emotional eater. PRAISE HIM!! I am a more intuitive eater and I like to use different ingredients so that I can enjoy my food. I believe that when you truly enjoy your food, you do not have to eat as much! I eat real, whole foods and try to stay within the recommended guidelines for calories and etc.

Your body ia a temple--1 Corinthians 6:19

I think it takes alot of trial and error, along with prayer to learn how to eat better. If you are struggling to learn how to properly nourish your body in this season, do not be hard on yourself. It is a daily lesson and we can all do better. This is just a little about my food philosophy. Take what you need, love.

Take it one day at a time and be honest with yourself💗 

Navigating Seasons of Transition and Change!

Happy Mindset Monday, love!

Here we are, at the beginning of a brand new week! I hope you had an amazing weekend filled with all of the things that you love. I started learning Spanish a few weeks ago so I spent this past Saturday with my Spanish tutor! We are having an absolute blast and my Spanish is improving every time that we meet up. I used to speak Spanish pretty well when I was living and teaching in Mexico City, Mexico back in 2004 but I have forgotten most of the language. It is a huge blessing to get the opprtunity to learn all over again. 

While I am in a season of transition, I am trying to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone and try new things! Navigating seasons of transition and change can be very hard to figure out sometimes. I try to surround myself with people who genuinely love and care for me and my well being. I have about 6 or 7 really good girlfriends that I can go to when life is just hard and challenging. I also started going to physical therrapy a few months ago to help with overall mobility for my body. I run at the gym and practice yoga about 2 times a week. I have been consistently attending yoga since 2007. I believe in it. The breath work that we learn in yoga is so helpful when I find myself needing to calm down. I have really good coping skills to manage stress. I have learned those in the years of going to therapy!

Here are some suggestions I will give you to help you navigate difficult seasons of change and transition that work for me now:

• Go to bed at a decent hour
• Eliminate too much scrolling on social media
• Hydrate-I like drinking organic pineapple juice from Walmart
• Eat lots of fruits, veggies and protein, limit sugar intake
• Create a couple of good playlists, music is so healing
• Move your body!
• Get your Dr.'s visits in, meaning get bloodwork checked. I get me A1C checked every 3 months, ladies-get your mammogram and pap.
• Try to keep a clean space! It helps to reduce anxiety.

Last but not least, I have really been leaning on this scripture in this season of my life. 1 Peter 5:7, 'Cast all of your cares on the Lord for he cares for you!' AND he does!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a happy happy Monday and I will see you tomorrow!

love you, mean it. peace and blessings😘

It's Temple Tuesday! How To Stop Emotionally Eating!

Hi everyone👋🏾

This is my 1st Temple Tuesday post in a minute! I started this movement a few years ago and kinda stopped posting in it because life began to life! But then the Holy Spirit nudged me to bring it back to life again! SO, here we are. Temple Tuesday is my mantra! Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6:19, which means that it should be treated with respect✊🏾 I have talked about my relationship with food when I was blogging for SHEEN Magazine back in 2021! During my early 20’s to early 30’s, I was an emotional eater. I yo-yo dieted for years. I ate my feelings! It took years of therapy, renewing my mind through prayer and reading my Bible, and consistent exercise to reprogram my brain to not want to turn to food when I was in my feelings. I had to really dig deep and allow my faith in God to reign in my life! 

I understand that it’s natural to want to eat when you are upset about something, happy, or feeling anxiety! Women have raging hormones all of the time and it has been said that it’s easier for men to control their eating habits and can also lose weight faster and easier than women! When I was heavier, I had this all or nothing mentality that if I did not lose a significant amount of weight faster enough, I would just eat as a form of punishment. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect! I was a people pleaser and it was a straight up lie from the enemy. To break those beliefs, I started running again! I used to be a huge runner in college! I bought the audiobook, The Four Agreements, and listened to it everyday while out for an evening jog. It definitely allowed me to free my mind from those negative thoughts and allow positive affirmations to come in.

Some triggers that might cause you to emotionally eat could be: 

Relationship Conflict

Work or other stressors

Fatigue

Money Issues

Health Concerns 

When negative feelings threaten to trigger emotional eating, you can take these steps to manage cravings! To stop emotional eating, try these tips!

Keep a food diary

Tame your stress

Have a hunger reality check

Get support

Fight boredom

Take away temptation

Don’t deprive yourself

Snack healthy

Learn from setbacks

If you cannot control emotional eating on your own, consider seeking help with a mental health professional. Therapy can help you understand why you emotionally eat and teach you ways to cope. This is the route I took and it has worked wonders for my life and healing! ❤️‍🩹 

I hope this helped you in just a small way and let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to leave me a comment!! 

have a blessed day🥰 love you, mean it. 

peeeace✌🏾

Why You Should Really Be Thanking Your Haters!

Happy happy Mindset Monday, people!

I hope you are well rested and are ready to tackle this Monday with a vengeance💪🏾 I’m actually writing this post on Saturday because I was so excited to share it with you! I just finished working on a project that I was talking over with my therapist this past week! The assignment was to create my fantasy island! 🏝️ which means to write or draw out my personal fantasy island to include things I love to see, touch, hear, smell and taste. Kinda like a vision board but with a twist! I worked with a Canadian author named Melanie Maure several years ago about my goals and together we spent a few hours creating a vision board so this activity was kinda like a copy cat version of that. Mel and I talked about where I was then in my life, where I wanted to be and the gap/work I would need to put in to get each goal accomplished!! She sent me a picture of ‘My Beautiful Board’ to my email and I have had it in my inbox ever since! I dearly love and ADORE that board!!!! It has all my hopes and dreams on it and it is super sweet, specific and special to ME and MY journey🤩 

I have been working on my relationship with God more and I started watching Jerry Flowers 🌺 sermons on YouTube! They have literally broken years of pain off of my life!!! He is so anointed. Google him and you will see what I’m talking about! I was watching one of his sermons this week and he was talking about how we should ‘THANK’ our haters!!! First off, what they are saying to you is, we LOVE YOU!!!!! That’s what they really want to say to you but it comes out as Verbal Vomit instead🤢🤢🤢 They are really just mad at themselves for not being as cool as you are!! Instead, they should ask God about their specific path in life and explore their personal gifts and talents! It’s hard to look within sometimes! It’s easier to place the blame on someone else when you aren’t happy with yourself and your current situation! Haters are REALLY mad at themselves but it is turned towards YOU! Thank them, love! They are pushing you into YOUR destiny! YOUR calling! YOUR fire prayer life🔥🔥🔥🔥 YOUR strong and authentic relationship with the Lord! YOUR dream life and ALL of the blessings that were created to fall on you and your loved ones before you were even created in your Mother’s womb!!! It’s all working for your good! Romans 8:28 

Thank your haters! They are doing you a favor! Please, have a great week and I’ll see you next week! 

love you, mean it! peeeacce✌🏾

Verbal Vomit🤮

Happy happy Mindset Monday, everyone!

I hope you had an eventful weekend🤩 I did and it felt like I literally batted my eyes and it was over! I have been seeing a new therapist for the past month or so and it has been so therapeutic. She looks like me and is also my age. We have a really great time together just talking and trying to regulate my nervous system! And that we do very well!! Some days get pretty intense and I’ll leave needing to rest. And other days are a bit easier for me! We get deep in our sessions and that is the point! I want and need healing because I am not going there just for my health! My future self, husband and kids are depending on me to heal so I can create and build LEGACY! A legacy of healing, health, joy, wealth, etc. A few days after my session, I always feel 100% better about myself and my life. I started going to therapy in 2012 and have been going on and off up until now. I’m so glad I decided to love myself enough to begin therapy all those years ago because I am definitely reaping the benefits now. 

I decided to go to therapy in this season because I have experienced a lot of rejection! It has been so painful. I needed to get it all out to someone who is neutral and could see my story from a very transparent perspective. I know everyone will not be comfortable going to therapy but it is just what the Dr. ordered for me! It’s feels like a huge weight lifted when I am done and therapy also helps you to communicate more effectively! In the Bible, there is a scripture that says, ‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks!’-Luke 6:45 In other words, when you people speak to you negatively, they are speaking, Verbal Vomit! That is an old saying that I heard from my Dad years ago! Most of the time, what people say to you has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with them! I try not to take anything personal these days! Because most times, people who talk down to you are often speaking to you from an unhealed place! That is why I continue to advocate for and attend therapy every week! I don’t want verbal vomit to be my portion! Let that marinate for a minute! 

Maybe you are in a season where you are thinking about therapy and just don’t know how to get started. I suggest you start looking online for therapists in your area! Better Help has tons of therapists and you can even start online! Most of the time, your insurance will pay for it! Please, leave a comment if you are in need of advice on how to begin looking for a therapist in this season!! You’ve got this, love! I promise you, it will change your entire bloodline!!! Have a wonderful week✌🏾

My Faith Playlist!

Happy Wednesday, cool people!!

The sun is out and it’s about to be a great day! I have a semi-busy day today and got the chance to sleep in a little so I’m refreshed and ready to tackle this day🙏🏾 I’ve been in a season of trying to find more worship music when I’m writing, reading or working out at the gym! I found some good gems for you guys and have compiled a list of 20 songs to worship to! Hope you like it.  

20. Smokie Norful-Nothing Without You

19. Smokie Norful-Dear God

18. Smokie Norful-Run Til I Finish

17. Smokie Norful-In The Meantime

16. Embassy Worship-He’ll. Draw

15. Naomi Raine-Find My Peace

14. Naomi Raine-The Story I’ll Tell

13. Kirk Franklin-Without You

12. Naomi Raine-Definition of Good

11. Naomi Raine-I Love You

10. Naomi Raine-Wet Cement

09. Kirk Franklin-Love Theory

08. Kirk Franklin-Looking For You

07. Kirk Franklin-When

06. for King & Country-joy.

05. Fred Hammond-You Are The Living Word

04. for King & Country- TOGETHER 

03. Fred Hammond-More of You

02. Naomi Raine-Where You Lead

01. Fred Hammond-No Weapon

BONUS 2: Sunday Service Choir-More Than Anything

BONUS 1: Moses Akoh-Only One Thing Is Needed

Being Used By God.

Happy, Happy Mindset Monday, love muffin💕 AND a Happy Memorial Day to you + yours! I hope you are chilling by the pool with a cool, cool beverage! I am not a big fan of the traditional palate for Memorial Day but I do like a good hot dog, with chili, bbq sauce, mustard and ketchup! YUM! This holiday is very special to me for a number of reasons but it stands out most because it’s the anniversary of my 1st boyfriend’s death! Yes! I know! I have spoken about my experiences with grief in the past but most people don’t know that my 1st experience with grief was due to the death of my boyfriend! He was really ill due to diabetes, before I even knew what that was. We were very much in love when he passed away but I could kinda feel it coming! God put us together for only 9 months and it was blissful! We had a great time together but it was just his time to go! We all are predestined to die at some point in life! But what I did learn most from that experience was to take excellent care of my body!!!!

Diabetes is a silent killer, especially in the African American community. I am an advocate for diabetes prevention and soon I will have a blog post dedicated solely to that❤️ BUT today, I want to talk about being used by God. That experience of losing my boyfriend at 21 years old has taught me a lot about God and how he uses our pain for a greater purpose, usually later in life! I am now 44 and will be 45 in 2 months. I am a  COMPLETELY different woman since Jason and I were together! The evolution is extraordinary! I was scrolling on Instagram a few years ago and the great and beautiful, Lauryn Hill was saying that in order to be used by God, sometimes you have to literally be USED. You have to be humiliated, kicked and beaten and the person/people kicking and beating you are feeling worse than you! I can definitely relate to her in this moment! I know what it feels like to be humiliated, kicked and beaten by the ones you expect to be there for you! It’s such a downer. BUT it was in these moments that I was introduced to The KING OF KINGS🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 God has taken their places and he had a plan for all of that rejection! I am at a place in my life where I am literally in LOVE with Jesus🥰🥰🥰🥰 I just cannot explain it but by saying I hope and pray that this is something everyone will be able to experience in their lifetime❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️  I feel SO FREE! Some scriptures I want to leave with you. These strengthened me!

Psalm 34:18 (KJV): "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."

Psalm 27:10 (KJV): "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up."

Psalm 118:22 (KJV): "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.;''

I hope you continue enjoying this holiday with your loved ones! Please, take care of your bodies and your mental health! Life is so fragile and take it from someone who knows! I love you and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it! NOW, GO be great! peeeaceee✌🏾