Friday, June 6, 2014

Mutiny Against Excess Week 1

If you missed last week, I am doing a blog series over this book

I am blogging for the next seven months about how we are simplifying our lives in order to get closer as a family and closer to Christ. 

This was the first week of our mutiny against excess in our lives. The first section in the book was on food. I wasn't really happy when I saw the title of the chapter. I was expecting to have a big closet clean out, or maybe purging of some kitchen cabinet items...what I was not expecting was having to look at the food we eat.
I was a little curious about what she mean by "decluttering" food. I quickly found out she was very serious about this project. The theme of the book is "7". For the first month she picked seven foods and only ate those for an entire month. She picked a variety of things that would keep her nutrition up, but wouldn't be excess. She chose chicken, eggs, avocados, water and a few other items. I was pretty amazed at her resolve in doing this for entire month.

Instead of picking items to only eat for a month, I decided to tackle one of our biggest issues, eating out. I have to say that one of my most favorite things is eating out, and especially doing it with people. I love to have good food that I didn't have to cook. I really enjoy cooking, but with 3 kids under 5 it gets to be more difficult that it's worth sometimes.

I decided for this first week we would not eat out at all. I had to be the voice of reason for us a few times when it was suggested, but we did it. I think if we can take it week by week it will be an easier thing to accomplish. One of the reasons I wanted to stop doing this so much is because it takes away a lot of the money that we could be putting towards something better. We have recently been talking about giving more or our money away. This is one area where we felt like we could cut something out to have more to give.

It's nice to look back at the week and realize that we have so much more money that we would have normally spent on eating out. I'm definitely going to continue on with this, but making a few changes like eating out only once a week. We can still go out and enjoy ourselves with friends, but we can do it in moderation.

Next week I will be choosing 7 foods to give up for the week. Most of what is on my list will be junk foods and processed things. One of the obvious reasons for doing this will be to lose some of the remaining baby weight. I eat far too much chocolate for that to happen with my current diet. I also want to do this to feel some sacrifice in my eating. This is sort of like a fast if you want to call it that. One of the reasons to fast is so you will pray more often and spend time with God. Every time I think about wanting to eat one of my seven forbidden foods I will pray. I have two specific things on my heart; that God will give our family a direction and that He will give us more of a heart for people. 

 I feel like I am totally addicted to sugar, so I am going to cut out things with added sugar.  I will still have fruits and things with natural sugar, but this means no sweet tea, snacks or chocolate. I'm excited and a little nervous to get started. I can't wait to post next week and tell you how it goes.

2 comments:

  1. We really need to cut down on our eating out as well. I find that when I menu plan, it is a lot easier to eat at home. This is such a challenge for me. And I don't want to NEVER eat out, like you said fellowshipping with friends, or going on a date with my husband, is so much more than eating out. But I want to be aware of how often we just grab food to go because "it's easier."

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  2. It is such a convenience thing for me and usually brought on by a lack of planning on my part. There is never a time where I wouldn't rather eat out though, I love cooking, but there is just something magical about going to a place and have them prepare/cleanup for you :-) That being said, we are doing much better on our budgeting and eating out less.

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