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THE PARENTING DARE BLOGI love, love, love mothers.
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THE PARENTING DARE BLOGI love, love, love mothers.
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Oh my goodness. I have some news to share with you! I have become certified as a Health and Wellness Coach, which makes me deliriously happy. This journey all started, really, years ago, when I finally realized that my brain was pretty much addicted to sugar. My son Eric and I had been studying the brain and addiction, and I just told him, “This is my brain. On sugar.” He told me to keep focused on our ministry; he didn’t want me confusing parents with some new messaging. I told him that this would not confuse parents, but it would actually help them understand their children’s addictive tendencies simply because almost everyone is addicted to sugar in our culture. The next several years were spent with me trying to get rid of the sugar in my diet. Not because I didn’t like it, but because it wrecked me. I was a mean, crotchety old mother the day after I consumed any amount of sugar. The more I ate, the meaner I became. It got to the point that my children would lunge at me whenever I was considering anything sugary, ripping it out of my hands. Interestingly, surprisingly, the fight went out of this particular issue once I had a deep healing into my understanding of myself as a beloved daughter. You can read more about that here. I felt called to create a course on this topic of inner healing, and I did. It’s called Inside Out, and is my favorite course. Okay, so my food was pretty dialed in; I ate gluten free, dairy free and mostly sugar free. But I wasn’t really fit. I rode my bike a lot, but, well, when I raised my arm to say goodbye, there was a lot of skin flapping in the wind. I knew I needed to start lifting weights, but I didn’t really have the “yes, it is now time to do this” thing happening. Then we visited my brother and his wife in the fall of 2023, and my sister-in-law and I discussed the importance of lowering our inflammation (which is triggered by gluten, dairy and sugar) and lifting heavy weights. Then she made a casual comment that how we treat our bodies in our 40’s and 50’s will determine the health of our last decade of life. Our NOW will determine our THEN. Her comment put me on a mission. I set out to find a trainer to help me on my journey. I knew I could not afford my own personal trainer because after my husband and I joined our health club we received free sessions with a trainer, but once she revealed her pricing structure, I about fell over dead. So I first tried an online program which had exercises and food, but I didn’t like the women running the program, so I cancelled. I then opted for following the lifting regiment laid out by Michael Matthews in his book, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. I began that weight lifting program on my birthday last year, February 15, 2024, at the age of 57. It was great. I did get stronger. Michael Matthews tried, within the pages of his book, to get me to track my food, specifically my macros, but the math was super confusing, so I just ate what I ate (which was mostly whole food nutrition because that is how I felt the best, but the totals were in the land of the unknown). Now, one thing that happened this fall was my husband turned sixty, which made me super reflective about my life. I’ll be sixty in a couple of years. What am I to do during this fantastic new phase of life? I'm healthy. There are no kids running around the house, naked and screaming. I have some wisdom to share with others. Yes, I stepped back into the classroom a couple of years ago, teaching English to middle school students at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Goddard, Kansas. Is that my new calling, my "forever gig?" I started asking myself questions:
Brene Brown calls these questions, asked by a woman in her 50’s, “the midlife unraveling”. Ha. I wasn’t getting unraveled, but I definitely started questioning how I wanted to spend the next decade. I loved many aspects of teaching, but being in the classroom all day every day meant I did not have a lot of free time. My husband, still working from home three days a week, would send pictures of our grandchildren to our family group chat. I’d see the pictures, know that Grandpa had had some visitors, and feel sort of trapped within the walls of school. I wanted some good ol’ fashioned time affluence. (Don’t you love that term? Time affluence = to have lots of time, to have extra time, to be rich with time. It’s much better than living in time poverty.) Anyway, I began to really think about ways I could pivot from teaching, and not only uncover my deeper passions, but live from that place. I began to dig into books that gave guidance on starting down a new path in midlife. I had long conversations with my “life coach” friends. I journaled. I prayed. When I thought about my passion, that THING that Jennifer Fulwiler calls “Your Blue Flame,” I knew it had to be centered around health and nutrition, but with a spiritual element. I am not just my body. I am body and soul. And I love to talk about our deepest identity in Christ, and how, if we can connect to the fact that God the Father delights in us, if we can begin to trust Him, we can get liberated from all sorts of inner jails.
I began investigating how I could get a health and wellness coach certification; there are many programs and licensing available, but my problem was this: what would I do once I got the certification? A piece of paper is not an income, you know? What would I do once I became certified? So I began to pray about the next steps for me, and I didn’t just pray, but I began The 54-Day Novena, which is The Big Kahuna of Catholic Prayers. Get this. On day one of the novena I was looking for a wellness program for my daughter Malaysia, who wanted to take control of her health. We found a couple of promising ways she could go, but then one of my favorite people, Susan Husband, shared what she had used when her Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (autoimmune condition of the thyroid) had been out of whack. First, she had asked her followers on Instagram what she should do about getting her hormones back in sync and many of those followers recommended The FASTer Way to Fat Loss. Susan reached out to a coach, joined a six week round, followed their program exactly, and her hormones leveled out. Happy with the results, Susan remains in maintenance mode with the company, and easily refers people to the program. She came over to our house and showed us the app and website of this digital fitness and nutrition program. Susan said her coach was pivotal in helping her achieve her results. That caught my attention. I looked closer. I saw that not only do they have a coaching component, but they have a certification process. It was at that moment that a door opened. My immediate thought: Wow, this is what I am going to be doing with my life. I investigated the company; it’s a Christian one, and their goal is to help women (and men, but right now it’s primarily women) get their energy and vitality back by eating whole foods and gaining muscles using tailor-made workouts. The more I learned, the more excited I became. My big question: could I, as a coach for their company, still be me, a strong Catholic woman who loves to blog and talk about faith, family and such? I booked an interview with their coach certification team in mid-December. I asked my question. Could I be me? Their answer, yes. Absolutely. In fact, that was what they wanted. I kept learning, and yes, crying. I could be a coach and be with groups of women. Oh my stars. That is my love language. I love love love working within a group setting; I also love having one-on-one conversations with women. I love the authenticity of the womanly heart. I also cried (in a very good way) about what The Faster Way offers in the realm of nutrition. See, it has taken me decades to learn how to eat for my body’s special needs (I have a low functioning thyroid and a sensitive GI tract). I have gone on many different roads, arriving at a very specific way of eating, which eliminates inflammation and builds muscle. They.specialize.in.that.way.of.eating. It IS their program. I joined a round that began January 6th, but was able to get in about three weeks early, so I’ve been following The FASTer Way to Fat Loss for over a month. How do I feel? Well, as I told you earlier, I’ve been lifting weights since February, but I am now getting a much better all-over body work out. It’s like my core is gaining strength. I stand taller or something. I am sleeping much deeper. I am waking more rested. I have lost four pounds, even though that was not my goal (but I will take it!). And best of all, figuring out my macros and such is easy as pie.. The FASTer Way has a handy component on their app: I take a picture of my food and it figures out the amount of fat, carbs and protein in what I am eating. Crazy. (No more math equations! I love easy.) They also have other ways to log this, but photo logging is my fave. Okay, so here is the deal. I’ve been thinking a lot about this particular website, The Parenting Dare, which has a particular mission. For the past few years my children have been leaving the nest and my drive/focus on educating parents about how to talk to their preteens and teens on the topic of the authentic power of love (and the counterfeit of lust) has naturally diminished. I’ve wanted to write about food, fitness, how sugar wrecks my brain, my body, my mind. I’ve wanted to write about growing older and getting stronger. I’ve wanted to help women make some fantastic foods. My heart is all about guiding women (and myself!) to operate out of a dynamic space. So I will be keeping The Parenting Dare website active, but I will be operating as a blogger from a new website. I decided to simply go with my name: www.loridoerneman.com, instead of a catchy name (that people may or may not remember!). I already purchased the site, but it is still under construction. I'm excited to be able to write about all things faith, family and fitness. I am going to offer two main components on that site, and I wanted to offer them to you now: First: Inside Out, a free course that will give you tremendous spiritual freedom in the realm of yourself and food. Second: An invitation to join one of my six week rounds, which will give you a multi-tiered approach to health and fitness, seamlessly synchronized within this platform. You will learn a lot in the first six weeks, and then gain a nice rhythm in the months following. (I love that. We walk with the clients until they reach their goals...and we stay with them for as long as they want/need us.) My debut round will begin on Monday, February 10, 2025. Here’s the link. There is a five-day challenge coming up, called "Melt Your Middle," where you can get access to the program for five days for $20. I'll be sending info on that in February. Then I will be doing a bigger round in March, where we will focus on getting strong during Lent, arriving at Easter--six weeks later--transformed in more ways than one. Thank you for your time. Thank you for allowing me to share my heart. I love this life, and I am glad you are in it.
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I'm Lori Doerneman Wife. Mom. Catholic. Idealist with 8 kids, keeping it real. Archives
December 2024
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