February 13, 2012

Good morning all,

Happy pre-Valentine's Day! Telling/showing others that you love them is critical but REALLY should be done MORE than once throughout the year. YIKES! HOWEVER, tomorrow is a special day to make someone really happy with something extraordinary. I love being creative. I have worked on red velvet cakes twice in the past two days. One was a total bomb and the other better, but still not good. I am tweaking as a go. :) I hate failure, so I am trying a third round today. Almond flour reacts differently with the oil and therefore the texture is different and things have to be adjusted. I am working diligently to get something right, but it may not be for Valentine's Day. Sorry.

I went to Outback yesterday to lunch with my family and watched my daughter order from the kids menu - grilled chicken on the barbie and steamed broccoli. Cheap and Phase 2 friendly. I am so thankful that restaurants are beginning to work with us. I told the lady I couldn't have sugar or starch and she had them grill some asparagus with a little oil and salt and pepper. YUM! So, there's another option for your Valentine Dinner.

Thinking about hearts, how about our heart? The heart is the strongest muscle in our body and as such, needs to be protected and well taken care of. Eating properly and drinking properly is a great start to heart health but managing stress is another key. Stress takes such a TOLL on our health. I want to really bring that forward today - there are more components to heart health than just wise food choices. Wise choices in the area of stress are also critical. We cannot claim we are desiring health for our bodies and allow stress to consume us. That still represents a prison cell. YES?

Take inventory today: what brings stress, what perpetuates stress, what induces stress in your life???? Some things cannot be changed in our life immediately, but our response to them CAN BE! Stress adds plague to our arteries and that stresses our heart and stress causes our heart to beat funky and that is dangerous and stress adds fat to our bellies and that stresses our heart also. A recent article I read said fat on our bellies is a far greater risk to our HEART than anywhere else. SOOOOO, for a Valentine's Day present to ourselves, let's eat well, hydrate well, and fight to speak to the stress in our lives and remind it that God is BIG, God is in control, and "STRESS, you're not the boss of me!"

Much love this day - you can do it! PK