2012 was a game changer year. That was the summer I did a Bible study on Proverbs 31 and became utterly convicted on the food I was feeing my family. We changed our diet and began eating real food, organic when we could. I was a Whole Foods shopping mama. I loved my Saturday night grocery trips to the Disneyland of health food. I lost weight. My husband lost weight. We felt better than we ever had. When we look back at pictures, it’s clear to see which ones were taken in that particular season.

I’m not sure how it all fell apart, to be honest. We had Asher in 2013. I still had strong convictions then because I was adamant that I must make all of his baby food. I guess I fell off the bandwagon in 2014 when I became pregnant with Eleanor. That was the beginning of two years of stress. We put our house on the market, made plans to build our house, birthed a baby, had house showings with a newborn, sold our house, packed up all of our possessions and lived in a rental home for three months, before, once again moving all of our possessions to this house. We ate out. A lot.

It’s amazing how quickly the healthy habits unraveled. I still remember that summer of 2012 with a fond smile. And as I pondered what my goals were for 2019, I knew I wanted to make this year a game changer year. I turn 40 in April. WHAT?!? I don’t want regrets at the end of this year. I don’t want to be at the end of 2019 and wonder why I let yet another year go by without being purposeful about my health. I have self control. It’s time to start using it.

January began. We went on vacation, came home, and I decided it was time to dive back into the world of real food and cut all of the processed food out. The problem was I had no clue how I wanted to go about it. Whole 30 for the fourth time, maybe? Keto? The five ingredient or less rule? I was rambling on about this very thing on my IG stories when Becca Brown sent me a message about Faster Way to Fat Loss and asked if I was interested in joining her next class. I glanced at the website she sent me and it really didn’t take much thought for me to know this was exactly what I needed.

FWTFL believes in real food eating. YES! FWTFL discourages gluten and dairy. YES! I have a sensitivity to those foods and really need to eliminate them. FWTFL has manageable workouts that I can do at home. YES!! The more I read, the more I liked. Yes, Becca, count me in.

FWTFL is a seven week program. You are in a private Facebook group with Becca and other women taking the class. The first week is entirely preparing to begin. Becca gives you the option of diving in, if you want, but you are completely free to just sit back and let it all sink in during that first week. I chose to let it sink in.

But it got real when it started on Monday this past week. I feel like the process is really hard to explain, but it makes perfect sense during that prep week. The gist is I track my carbs, fats, and proteins every day using My Fitness Pal app. I have counted Weight Watcher points before. And I’ve counted calories, but the whole counting macros was new to me. There are different goals to hit on different days, which means your foods vary. But one thing remains the same: you can eat anything that comes from the ground (fruit, veggies, nuts) or has a mother (animal) and try to avoid gluten and dairy.

On low carb days, I eat eggs and almonds (among other things!). On carb days, I eat lots of fruit. I have a workout schedule for each day, which I’ve really enjoyed getting back into. I’m only a week in, but I can definitely feel a difference! Becca has a class filling up now that begins on Feb 11th. If you made health goals for this year too and just haven’t been able to really get it in gear, I would totally recommend joining her class! It’s not too late to make 2019 a game changer year for you too!

I’ll be sharing more of my thoughts from our first week soon!

From My Front Porch to Yours,

Sharlie Grier