Tag: #aprilatoz #atozchallenge

A is for Avocado Amo

On By auntyamoIn April AtoZ, Health, weight & wellbeing7 Comments

Welcome to Day 1 of the 2019 April AtoZ Challange. The AtoZ team are celebrating 10 years of this blogging challenge and I’m looking forward to it. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY A to Z 🙂

My theme this year is  – ‘Clumsy Carb Cutter’

Regular visitors to the blog will be familiar with my ponderings regarding food and weight. Though (and here comes the disclaimer) I AM NO EXPERT, I have learnt and am learning lots about the low carb life. I’m hoping to share stuff that will be helpful. I’m also writing a book about weight, food and faith, and I’ll share a little about that as we go along. So here we go… 🙂

A is for Avocado Amo

At times I can hardly recognise myself since making the decision to change my life, almost 3 years ago. It’s not the shape and size, though it’s different, it’s more the habits and hankerings.

I love sugar in all its forms! There is no point beating around the the bush. I just love it, especially when it’s baked with flour. I ate sugar sandwiches as a child, and my affair with bread has been going on since then.

I remember first hearing about The Atkins Diet, and my initial reaction was, “I can’t have bread? What would I eat for lunch every day?” I could not comprehend the concept of lunch without a sandwich, or soup without a roll. And it didn’t stop at bread. There was talk of ruling out, or at the very least drastically reducing potato consumption. NO POTATO? What would I have for dinner??? That was many years ago, long before I started the journey I’m on now, but it’s only recently my thinking has changed, and once that changed, everything changed.

I tend to used versions of my name for user names with different logins. AuntyAmo – me being an aunty to many, was my first. Then I went on to AmoWriting as I developed a love for scribbling. These days I use AvocadoAmo. 🙂 As I said, sometimes I don’t recognise myself as I prepare a breadless lunch, and mash up another avocado.

My A to Z journey (already a day behind) is all about those changes. Some are drastic, some very small. I do still eat bread. I even have potato sometimes. And though I still love the thoughts and the smell of sugar baked with flour, I know it was having a dreadful effect on my quality of life. I’m 5 stone down and though it’s been hard to get to the 6th stone, I’m keeping the 5 off! I’ve never kept weight off before. Things are so different now. Thank you God.

Tomorrow, (or later today, should I say) B is for Bread. I’ll share about the life (almost) without it, and some alternatives.

It’s not too late to sign up for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. Click here to go to their website. Registration is open until April 6th.

Belated Thank Yous & AtoZ news

On By auntyamoIn April AtoZ, Health, weight & wellbeing, Writing, Blogging etcLeave a comment

I am so grateful for all the supportive messages both private and public, after my last post. I asked for help, and some of you responded with great kindness and honesty. You really encouraged me. Thank you. I very soon got on track again and at the moment am back to my best result of minus 5 stone. It is a relief and a joy, to be back in control again. But it’s scary how quickly I can be thrown off  course.

I’ve been quiet on here lately as I’m armpit-deep in edits of the book I’ve written about the weight loss. I toyed with calling it, ‘The Fall of the Pound,’ or maybe ‘From Fattie to Fittie (which I think will make a long but great hashtag 🙂 ), but the working title is still, ‘Have mercy upon me O Lord, a slimmer.’ I call it ‘Mercy‘ for short. There is a ton more work to be done, but with the help of Stacey at One Word Editing, I’m getting there.

In the mean time, April is almost upon us and I am gearing up for one of my fave blogging events. The April AtoZ Challenge. This year I’m going to use it to explore some of my thoughts as I work through the ‘Mercy’ edits. I’ll be sharing some practical stuff too. I’m not an expert, but I’m hoping that some wisdom I’ve learned and products I’ve found might help others on the same journey. My theme this year is Clumsy Carb Cutter. And on April 1st I’ll be introducing you to my low carb alter ego – Avocado Amo 🙂

I’d love you to join me on the journey. They’ll be short and snappy, daily posts that I hope you’ll enjoy and lend your thoughts too.

So I’ll see you on Monday 😀

Thanks again, you fabulous lot xxx

oh, and for the next few days on my Facebook page, I’m running a little competition to win one each of my two short story collections, which I’ll mail to the winner anywhere in the world. Click here to pop over check it out

O is for The Oath

On By auntyamoIn April AtoZ2 Comments

Another one I haven’t yet read, but as I mentioned in my F is for Frank and Francine post, Frank Peretti is a fave of mine. The Oath was published in 1995, and was the winner of the 1996 ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award.

It is described as a horror/fantasy.  A body is found in the woods and the brother of the victim Cliff Benson, is not convince when the cause of death is thought to be a bear attack. Steve Benson joins forces with the deputy sheriff, Tracy Ellis and as the body count rises, the history of the town becomes an important factor in the investigation. The deeper Benson and Ellis dig, the more sinister the history appears, until they come face to face with the evil itself.

It’s a long winding tale, which reveals the history of the town’s fate by letters and diary entries. There are dragons, inexplicable (or not) skin rashes, and plenty of further examples of spiritual symbolism.

My only hesitation, and the reason I haven’t read it yet… the copy I have is a large hardback version. I love a REAL book, but for this one, I may need to buy a second copy… one I can read on my tablet.

M and N… Mordor and Narnia

On By auntyamoIn April AtoZLeave a comment

Hi folks. I’m cheating a bit today, after a busy weekend. So putting Saturday’s post and today’s together .

Taking a look at Mordor and Narnia together. Could they be Hell and Heaven?

Mordor certainly sounds like hell with its fire and ash, poisonous gases, and sleepless evil. It’s thought to be based geographically in Italy; inspired by Tolkien’s view of a volcano spitting fire as he passed it on a cruise, but he is also quoted as, when asked where it was, referring to the Balkans.

I remember being out one night and a mega fan of Tolkien was raving about people insisting there was religious imagery in LOTR. This guy was adamant (with great volume) there was none. Tolkien was indeed a great fan of mythology (and we’ll be focusing on him when we get to ‘T’), but he was a devout Catholic and it’s a stretch to say he did not bring faith themes in to his work. I read an (IMO) interesting article on Christianity.com on this subject, which notes that Tolkien writes evil as not just badness in and of itself, but “evil is seen as perverted or fallen good. Perhaps the best expression of this characteristically Judeo-Christian viewpoint comes when Elrond, the high elf, says, “Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.”” 

In my search for info on this, I read another article, this time in the online version of The Guardian. I suspect the writer preferred Tolkien saying, “Where the Narnia books are a thinly veiled retelling of the New Testament story, Sunday school in drag, Tolkien’s Ring cycle is suffused with deep mythological themes and characters.” Cheeky! 😀 The Chronicles of Narnia may not be as gritty, but they are still compelling reading (again IMO).

Another article for you on the subject. This really resonated with me. The writer talks about the ‘longing’ of the characters for Narnia. As Christians don’t we all long for heaven? The girls’ desire to sink their hands in to Aslan’s mane – how we long to have a tangible closeness with Jesus. The article also talks about the New Narnia, “larger and more vivid, more like the real thing.” It’s a great read. Click here for it.