I’m awake, refreshed and coherent-BEFORE my alarm goes off.  I quietly sneak downstairs, a plan has already formulated in my thoughts for Bible Study-which isn’t for another 3 hours.  This blog is sitting on my shoulder and demanding to be written.

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t as much get out of bed but fall out of it, dragging myself to the nearest coffee pot.  Planning through the morass of thoughts/insecurities/fears/pain was more like trying to run through a wall of cobwebs-sticky and binding.  Writing was an abstract, a luxury, a passion I had to steal from my other ‘worthier’ causes to spend time creating.

Why the drastic 180 degree change?  Did I suddenly find the will power my mother and others have always said was the only reason I was fat and unsuccessful?  Did I suddenly discover a pill to take away all the stresses, strains, pains and peeves which kept me under their thumbs?

Nope.  I simply started to eat real food.

Seriously, I’m a clean eater.

This blog is based on the premise of “Eat Less.  Pray More. Love Abundantly.”  A topic I rarely explore is eating.  The reason?  It’s hard to write about addressing your drug of choice and secret shame.  It’s an invitation for judgement when you say you are eating well and then reach for a cookie at an event.  It’s hard, disciplined work with moments of failure on display for all to see in your too-slowly changing sizes.

I wish I could say I had an epiphany towards health and eating.  I would love to have one of those inspirational stories where I suddenly realized I was worth it (cue instrumental music and images of people running through ocean surf).  I didn’t have one of those.  Instead it was more mini-moments of clarity which strung themselves together into one of those rope bridges across a cavern.  I simply chose to walk across the bridge and deal with the height, the wind blowing the ropes, and the churning waters beneath me.

I didn’t tell anybody except those I knew who were solidly in my corner.  I just shopped differently one week.  I cooked differently.  I ate differently.

10 pounds later (coincidentally the weight of spinach I’ve eaten AND the amount of weight the scale has gone down) I sit, in the early morning writing this blog.

When I hit publish, I’ll go and make special Sunday breakfast.  I’ll roll up quinoa and sausage in a lower fat, higher nutrition version of breakfast.   I’ll roll up my sleeves and package up a week’s worth of breakfast/lunches and dinners all made with mostly clean, whole ingredients.  I’ll bake with the apple sauce I made yesterday in my crock pot (I felt like a modern day Pioneer Woman).

Another thing I’ll do?  I’ll write.

Today, what will you do?  What’s one minor or momentous thing you can do to take  step towards health and wholeness?  Share with me.  Together we can take this journey to eat less.  Maybe share a recipe or two.