New Year's Resolutions are harder in July, in case you were curious.

    I recently returned from a weekend retreat--"church camp"--with Willow Creek Community Church's high school youth ministry and discovered that I had undergone a lot of change in four days.  Through my small group, I grew closer to people and more open in general (which should make my transition to school in the fall a bit easier, or at least that's my hope), through the speakers, I grew closer to God and gained something of a new enlightenment in that area, and through my small group leader, I grew closer to eating healthy.  Kind of odd...but it's true.

    Rachel's husband, Ted, has ulcerative colitis, and so to combat it, he has taken up a gluten-, dairy-, and sugar-free diet and Rachel has adopted it too, for solidarity.  At meal times during camp, she would talk to us, gesturing rather wildly with a fork-speared cucumber, telling us about how much better the diet made her feel.  She had more energy, fewer random cravings, and had even lost some weight.  

    This got me thinking, I don't eat unhealthily really, but I certainly don't really pay attention to what I eat.  Whatever is put in front of me, I eat gladly, and whenever I'm hungry, I'll go searching for something suitable on which to munch.  What kind of difference could it make in my life if I stopped that and made a choice, like Rachel's, perhaps to pay more respect to my body.  I only get one, after all.

    The ulcerative colitis diet was my first thought, but realizing that that would mean giving up pizza and town house crackers and ham and cheese sandwiches, and struggling to find anything to eat but salad at restaurants and the dining hall at school, I decided to bring it back and just cut out added sugars.  

   I got home from camp on the 14th, and have done my best to go easy on the Pepsi, so to speak.  It was relatively simple at first: just say no to candy and soda and the like and I was in the clear.  But over the past eight days, some meals have caught me off guard with their sugar's ninja stealth skills.

   Ketchup, teriyaki, barbeque, some fruit juices, some chips, energy bars, some popcorn seasonings...all things that I have had to duck and cover at the very last second (sometimes at too late an hour) to avoid.  Things you'd never realize, things that make you question what sugar is really for....

   Anyway, my life has suddenly become much more interesting.  Every meal is an adventure, every snack an epic battle.  I went to Dominick's today and bought some lovely organic fruit leather, and tomorrow I'm going to experiment with pureeing my own tomatoes so I can have Bratwurst with the family.  

    Pray for me please.  This is very tiring work, and I have nothing to eat to give me a quick boost.

<3 spadeALLcross