Taryn Pratt
My personal blog
I am a wife and mom to be. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I love learning about nutrition and I love fruit snacks and jelly bellys. I am a firm believer in the importance of self-care and self-compassion. I enjoy writing, taking photos, and creating.
And this is a place where I can bring together every part of who I am.
eat For life...Eventually
Recently I have been very in to reading about nutrition. I've been gaining a lot of weight, as one does during a pregnancy, and I told my mom that after I gave birth to my baby girl, I wanted to do a boot camp where I would be super careful about what I ate and I would workout everyday. However, right after I said that, I realized that it would actually benefit my baby if I were more careful about what I ate now instead of waiting for her to be born. So, I got to work doing research on why sugar and processed foods were so bad for you, so as to give myself motivation to eat healthier.
Thus began the interest in nutrition. I am currently reading a book called Eat for Life by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and I am loving all of the information I am learning! I haven't quite gotten to the point where I am applying everything I read, as I go back and forth between eating healthy and eating like garbage, but I am hoping that as I continue learning about (and writing about) nutrition, I can be better motivated to eat to live, and to better feed my body the nutrients it needs.
Something I have learned through my experience of deciding to cut out sugar and processed foods (I lasted about 2 weeks, but I am determined to start that again) was the truthfulness of this statement from the book: "Yes, it takes time to learn a new way to cook and prepare foods, and yes, it takes time for taste preferences to change and taste buds to become more sensitized to foods that have less salt and sugar. But if you stay with this plan, you will find that your taste buds and your sense of smell actually get stronger and adjust such that you prefer healthier foods." When I was living this nutritional plan, apples became more sweet and healthy snacks became more delicious. After going back to eating donuts and candy, these same foods that I was enjoying, all of the sudden became lesser.
As I get back on the wagon and allow myself to have a small treat here or there (instead of telling myself never), then I can better stay on track and teach my taste buds to prefer the healthier option! The first 4 days without sugar are the hardest, but from what I have read, if you can stick with the nutritarian diet for 6 weeks, it is no longer difficult and your body starts to crave salads.
Am I there yet? Not even in the slightest. I had cold cereal for breakfast and peeps for a snack this morning, but I as I continue learning and sharing what I know, I hope to be able to get back on track and someday learn to love salads more than candy. As the book says, "This Nutritarian program works well for those people who gain an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the science and logic supporting it, and it takes time and effort to learn this body of knowledge. However, once you have learned and put into practice this information, you will become a nutritional expert."
Here's to hoping I can study this book, learn more and more about nutrition, and then apply it in my life to be able to life a longer, fuller life, free of disease and also to be able to be a good example to my daughter.
With love,
TEP
February 26, 2021
Nutriton Post
HE is merciful
Heavenly Father wants to give. He loves us and wants to bless us as much as He can. Sometimes these blessings can only come when we ask for them.
We will all experience trials and I think sometimes we get confused and expect more trials than blessings to come. After reading a story entitled, “The Gift of Mercy” from the workwndr magazine I have, I came to realize that this is not the case. We will have hard times, yes, but we will have a million more good times and blessings. Heavenly Father wants us to ask Him for what we want.
So, what do I really want? There are things in my life that I feel in desperate need of. I continually have dreams regarding those types of things. There are other things in my life that I have constant hope will improve. But there are also small things, of which I cannot control, that I think would be fun. I think we can ask for Heaven’s help in all of these.
Heavenly Father cares about tiny details in our lives. He is in every aspect of our lives. And he can guide us in small things that may seem meaningless. I have always believed that there isn’t one right person to marry on this Earth, but rather that Heavenly Father would tell me if I could be happy with the man I chose. This was very true in my case. I prayed many many times about marrying Bryan, and the answer that I felt I got, was that I could marry him if I wanted to and I would be happy. I felt that some aspects would be difficult, but that I could do it. It was my choice. And I chose him.
Now, choosing whom to marry is a big decision and one that I believe Heavenly Father wants to help all of us make. When I was praying about which graduate school to attend, I felt that my answer was BU. However, a couple weeks later I found out that I got into Brown and was tempted to go there. When I prayed about it, I felt that I could choose either school and be happy, but I knew deep down that BU was right for me because I had had such a great spiritual experience when praying about schools. Now, do I think that if I would have chosen to marry someone else or to go to Brown that my life would not be happy? No. I think Heavenly Father wants to guide us in our decisions and helps us find a path that is happy for us.
I also think that Heavenly Father leads and guides when it IS important. The volcano that erupted and caused the crops to die where Joseph Smith and his family were living came from Heavenly Father. I believe he guided Joseph Smith Sr. to move to New York. Joseph needed to be close to the Hill Cumorah to get the plates.
But whether it be a decision of huge importance like moving to New York or choosing someone to marry, or a decision of smaller importance like what to name a child, I believe He is there in all of the details. I truly believe that He guided me and Bryan to choose the name Nellie Michele for our baby girl. Do I think life would have been crazy different had we named her Ella or Eloise? No. But I hope our baby can look at the meaning and family history behind her name and truly become a light for all. And I am grateful for Heavenly Father for guiding me in that small decision and for His guidance in all of my decisions.
I am grateful for His mercy and His love. I am grateful that I had His mercy in my entire pregnancy and that it hasn’t been difficult. We all have different struggles, but we also all have different blessings that come from Him and I think it is good to celebrate those blessings too. The theme of this quarter’s magazine is “That ye deny not the gifts of God” and I do not deny the gift of this pregnancy. I was so blessed and fortunate to be able to get pregnant very quickly and to not be sick at all. I pray that I can also be blessed to not have postpartum depression.
How blessed are every single day to have a loving and merciful Father in Heaven who is aware of each of us and of all of the details in our lives – both big and small.
With love,
TEP
January 11, 2021
Spiritual Post