Eating Well - Part 1

I've been on a little trip these past few years...since around 2001 to be exact. 10 YEARS! Wow. That's when things started to change as far as my relationship with food. Here's how it happened...

I got married. :) Yep, that did it really. I started having a normal routine and eating 3 meals a day and well, that did it. Before that, I worked nights and had no real routine and usually ate like a horse when I ate, but eating was sporadic and not all that important really. Not nearly as important as running the roads and spending time with friends and swimming and laying out. Ahh, the carefree days. :) Anyway, there were probably other factors involved...for instance, I turned 27 a few months after I got married. Getting older may have had a little to do with it too. But, gone were the days of just eating whatever I wanted with no ill effects showing up. Eating whatever you want (junk) is never good internally, but it had never showed up externally for me until 2001. :)

More importantly, I also, at the time, was really searching out what I wanted to do as far as my family...what I wanted my family to look like (figure of speech, not necessarily physical appearance)...what I wanted my family to be like, etc. This included everything from church activities to child-raising to healthy lifestyle, etc....what did we believe and want for our family?

So...all of that combined sent me on a search of what 'healthy' is. It has been an interesting 10 years in that regard. I've had to face some yuck about myself and some of the things/lies that I've believed. Battling what has always been normal for you and going after what is not the norm but is SO MUCH better is so very hard. It's a constant struggle if you don't continually rely on the Holy Spirit to help you battle and overcome with His power. This applies to many areas of my life actually (and yours), but right now I'm talkin' 'bout food. So, here we go...

As you all know, there are SO MANY opinions/methods out there. Veganism, vegetarianism, food combining, raw foodism, etc. It's incredible the options we have these days from cloth diapers to salad dressings to house plans. Can we say overwhelming?

I've experimented with many things. I lived as a vegan for basically a year and a half. There were good things about it, but just not quite right I felt...something missing to it, for me. I've done Weight Watchers sporadically to lose baby weight through the years. I love that they teach you proper portions and they do teach about eating whole foods, but still...something missing. There still wasn't any one belief/method/way of eating that was grabbing me completely. But, I kept researching. Joel says he wishes I could get paid for my researching. ;)

Just in the past year I stumbled upon one thing that led me to another thing that led me to another thing that led me to a few other things. And all of those combined, I feel, is my answer finally come. And I'm pretty doggone excited about it, too.

You know I'm a little bit old school in the ways I like to do things. A little bit back to the basics...cloth diapering, breastfeeding, natural birthing, etc. Why? Because they are better. :) Ha. Truly though...I don't think that anyone would argue that point, but for some they just choose to not do it even though they know that it's better. Totally their prerogative. But, all of that to say, when I found the back-to-basics approach of eating, I knew it was for me.

I'll write more about what I found in my next post.