What's Stopping You?

I have been working on writing down two soup recipes that I have come to really love this time of year when it starts getting cold. They are both homemade. One is chicken noodle soup, and the other is chicken tortilla soup. I haven't had the time to get them finished this week and I really wanted to write something for today so I just thought I would start here.

Making Homemade Tomato Sauce-March 2011

The journey towards healthy eating for Kris and I started about a year ago. This was when we made the conscious decision to start eating better so we could loose weight. The real journey towards healthy eating actually did not begin until about three months later though. Kris and I originally just wanted to loose weight, but we were unwilling to make the big changes we needed to make to just be healthy. And as anyone can probably deduce, loosing weight does not necessarily mean you are healthy.

Steak 'n Shake-Fall 2008

There were many things standing in my way to being healthy. One was that I didn't want to give up fast food. I love french fries and a good cheeseburger. Fast food is also, well, fast and sometimes just easier than cooking. It took me awhile before I started learning about how dangerous and harmful to your body fast food can actually be. From the way meat is processed to disease and e-coli, the fast food industry has no respect for food. For more on this check out my previous blog post on the film, Food, Inc. When I realized that the food I was eating wasn't just bad for me because it was fatty, but that it could have lasting effects that could shorten my life, I knew I had to stop. It took awhile for me to cut it out completely, but I finally did it. I remember about a month after I had stopped eating fast food, Kris and I got some chicken nuggets from a fast food restaurant and were up sick all night. So . . . I guess that's what fast food does to a digestive system that hasn't built up a tolerance to it anymore. Kind of disgusting. We also started making soups and other meals from scratch and freezing them. Now, when we are hungry and don't feel like cooking, we just heat it up on the stove. It takes about the same amount of time to drive to the restaurant, order, and drive home (the soup recipes that I am hoping to post soon are great to freeze!)

Making Chicken Stock From Scratch-November 2011

Another reason that I didn't want to make big changes in my life to start eating healthy is that I was afraid I would be giving up flavor. I didn't want to eat lettuce and bland food all the time. I wanted food that was still tasty and would not just be something I had to eat, but something I wanted to eat. After learning a little bit about cooking healthier and using fresh ingredients, I realized that the natural flavors I could develop from say, making a homemade chicken stock, were way more delicious than the artificial chicken flavor of chicken nuggets. There really is no comparison.

I also thought that cooking would be too much work. I didn't always have the time or would be too tired. Well like I said, on my days off I started making up big batches of meals that Kris and I like to eat and then froze them. You don't have to sacrifice fresh for fast. You can have both if you prepare ahead of time.

Perhaps the biggest reason though why I didn't start eating healthier sooner was ignorance. I didn't know enough about the food industry to make good decisions about what I bought. I thought that if a food said it was good for you on the package it probably was. Or because it had less fat or less calories, it would help me loose weight. Being more concerned about loosing weight than being healthy is really not solving any problems. The food industry has placed a veil over the food that is produced and sent to our stores and restaurants. Instead of feeding us food that will make us healthy and keep us from getting sick, they feed us lies and myths. Take a look at the things that are supposed to be the "better" alternative for us. You know that whipped topping that comes in those tubs instead of cans? Take a good look at the ingredient list-it's whipped oil. How can that be good?

I guess I used to think that eating healthier just wasn't for me. It was a luxury. It wasn't necessary. It was for those health nut hippies. The list goes on and on. Excuse after excuse after excuse.

Then, when I finally started doing the research about eating healthier I was shocked and appalled. Then saddened. I learned that by eating fast food and a lot of the artificial foods I had been eating I was putting myself at risk for far more than just being overweight. As I read through book after book my curiosity only grew. I learned about how most kinds of fruits and vegetables can help prevent different kinds of cancer, extend your life, prevent heart disease and heart attacks, improve brain function and give you more energy. On the flip side, I learned how other foods like artificial sweetener for example can cause brain problems and even blindness. Foods that aren't healthy can put you at a high risk for heart attack and other diseases.

The cost of not eating healthy really is your life, or at least the quality of it. As a young woman, I may not have to worry about many of these things right now, but if I would have continued to eat the way I had been, I would have had to one day. I also realized that even if I didn't care about my own health, I certainly cared about the health of the children Kris and I will have one day hopefully. I want to live to see my grandchildren and be able to play with them.

That is why I started this blog. I don't feel like food is talked about enough anymore. Part of it is that I am a Christian, and among all of the stupid things people who share my faith have fought over, we never talk about what we put in our bodies. Sure the red flag goes up if someone says a swear word, but there is no accountability as to what we choose to eat on a regular basis. Part of my belief is that God wants us to be healthy. Being healthy positively affects all other aspects of our lives-physically, socially, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It is because God loves us, that I know he wants better from us. Even if you don't believe in God, you should want better for you.

So my question for you is: what's stopping you? What are you letting stand in the way of a better, more abundant life? And what is the cost of letting it stop you?

I didn't start eating healthy to try and loose weight, but I did. I have lost 20 pounds so far, and am still working at it. But the main point is that I feel loads better and I have felt the quality of my life improve. That's my story:

 July, 2011

 September 2011

I've shared my story with you all, now, to end this post I would like to share a story from the wonderful book Eat This and Live by Don Colbert about one of his patients. I hope that the story will give some life to what I have been (probably very poorly) trying to say. As always thanks for reading and eating along with me!

Sue's Story

"A patient of mine named Sue had been overweight all of her life. Every year as I performed her physical exam, I would recommend weight loss and an exercise program.

At age forty-five, Sue was 5 feet 2 inches, and her weight had climbed to 300 pounds. At her exam that year, after diagnosing her with hypertension, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, I repeated my recommendations for weight loss and exercise.

Sue laughed and said, 'My whole family is fat. My dad is fat and he is alive, my mom is fat and she's alive, and my brother and sister are fat and they are alive. Just give me my meds, because I'm sure not going to give up my ice cream each evening, my Krispy Kreme doughnuts every morning, or my burgers, pizza, fried chicken, french fries, and Coke. Besides, I just love to eat.'

A few months after that physical, Sue suffered a massive heart attack and almost died. She had a quadruple bypass and found herself lying in the hospital with all sorts of tubes coming out of her body. AFter getting out of the hospital, Sue followed up with me in my office. She said that the pain and possibility of dying and not seeing her three children grow up were not worth the pleasure of eating ice cream, doughnuts, or fast foods.

Nearly dying was a wake-up call for Sue to change her bad habits. She lost 150 pountds-that's half her body weight-in two years and now weights 150 pounds. She weighs herself every day, and if she gains one or two pounds, she loses them by modifying her diet and activities.

You do not have to wait for a near-death experience like Sue's to serve as your wake-up call; you can start taking your health more seriously right now. The same choice God have His people centuries ago is yours to make today: 'I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendents may live' (Deut. 30:19)"

Food, Inc.

I have many people close to me who have made a few jabs at me about my recent interest in nutrition. They think I have gone off of the deep end and find that I talk like a conspiracy theorist who has an issue with the government. To those of you who know me-I'm sure it does seem like things have definitely changed in my life. Well . . . they have! I've been losing weight at a slow, but steady rate, have had more energy, and haven't been sick as much as I would have normally for this time of year. I say none of this to make anyone feel bad, I am just trying to communicate that making changes in your eating habits does in fact make a HUGE difference. Just how huge? Well it can be the difference between life and death.

Living and Dead Food

In Eat This and Live, Dr. Don Colbert talks about the difference between living and dead food. Living food is the food that is as close to its normal form as possible. These are the foods that God has given us that grow naturally: fruits, vegetables, grain, etc. Living food is also classified as animals we eat that are fed the things they are supposed to be eating (i.e. cows by nature, are designed to eat grass, not corn). God gave us a plethora of delicious things on this earth to eat. Why are we so inclined to change them to make them less healthy? Change them how? By making dead foods-processing the living foods.

There is an enormous amount of dead food in our society today. According to Dr. Colbert, about 1/3 of the average American's diet is made up of junk food.The scary thing is that dead food might even be things you don't even realize are bad for you. For example, I grew up eating margarine in my family for two reasons: 1) It was cheaper 2) It had less fat and calories. However, margarine is nothing but a processed chemical substance where the final product is actually gray in color. Food processors dye it yellow so its appearance won't be so off-putting (a.k.a. freaking disgusting!).

Why do I bring this up? Because I thought I knew a lot about the shiesty ways of the food industry. It was for this reason that one of the first things Kris and I did when we decided to start eating healthier was to cut out fast food (fast food companies can sell food for so cheap because of their poor standards when it comes to quality in how their food is grown and raised). BUT, I honestly had no idea just how bad the quality of food in this country was until I stumbled upon a film on our Netflix last Thursday called Food, Inc.

Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. is a documentary  that came out in 2009 about the food industry in America. It talks about how fast food changed the production of food in America forever. While watching the film I saw several things I was aware of before (i.e. ground beef hamburger filler being washed in ammonia to kill e coli and other bacteria) but I was shocked, horrified and disgusted as I learned way more about food in America than I had ever heard of. Here is the trailer:

Food, Inc. is on instant streaming if you have Netflix, if not, I am sure you can find it to rent at any video store or from Amazon.com Instant video. If you don't have the money to rent it, let me know, I will let you come over and watch it at my apartment. That's how much I want you to watch it!

Here are just a few things I learn from Food, Inc.:

• I have been talking a lot on this blog about the importance of buying organic. Well, until I saw this film, I had no idea just how truly important it was. One of the things Food, Inc. talks about it how chickens are raised now. A normal chicken is supposed to grow in about three months. Now, thanks to hormone injections and a change in feed, chickens can be ready for slaughter in just a measly 47 days:

 

• Chickens are also kept in dark houses for the majority of their lives sitting in their own feces. I know that I can't be the only one who feels that there is something wrong here. 
• Chicken is not the only meat that is talked about in this documentary either-pork and beef have equally disgusting stories of how they make it to your dinner plate. Next time you go to the store to pick out meat, look at the packaging of most of the bigger name companies. The name and/or logo will usually have something to do with a farm. Whether it is a picture or says something like "farm fresh" the food industry leads us to believe that the food we are getting actually is coming from the idealistic picture of the American farmer out with his animals in the fresh air:

•  The reality is actually something far different:

• There are no seasons for food anymore. Food can be grown and ripened year round through the use of chemical gases. To me at least, it seems like we have forgotten what food is really supposed to be like. 
• When we go to the store we think we have such a wide variety of things to choose from. Did you know that most of the products you buy in the store are corn or soy based? 90% actually according to the film. We live the illusion of variety every single day. 

So why would I post about this film? Why would I choose to write a blog about eating healthier? Why would I not care about looking like a health nut in front of people I care about? Because I think that what we put into our bodies matters. I believe something we do as frequently as eating should be beneficial for us instead of harmful. I believe that we have the right to know where our food comes from and how it is processed.

Why do we not eat better?

So why do so many people eat unhealthy food? For majority of us, the answer is ignorance. Not ignorance by choice, but because this information is not shared readily with the public. The big companies that process our food do not want us to know how they are handling the food we put into our bodies daily. For others, maybe it is ignorance by choice. For a long time this was me. I thought I would be happier not knowing and no one cared to tell me. Change is hard. Change is scary. Change is uncomfortable at times. I just feel that as a Christian, and just as a fellow human being, keeping the information to myself is not an option. 

A scary fact talked about in Food, Inc. is that 1/3 of children born after 2000 will get early onset type 2 diabetes. That number is 1/2 for minorities. People are getting sick and dying because of the food that is just handed to us day in and day out. This tears my heart out. I can almost handle hurting myself, but I refuse to hand my children this fate.

For some, the problem is that healthy food is expensive. Plain and simple. I understand this all too well. Kris and I are a young, newly married couple living on one income while the other goes to school. Needless to say, money is tight. We see eating healthy food as an investment in our future. We are spending a little more money on food now, so that we don't have to spend money on medical bills in the future. 

Where do I start?

I'm sure all of this is overwhelming. It is a lot of information. A lot of real, scary, honest-to-God-punch-you-in-the-stomach information. Say you do want to start eating healthy, where would you even start? I would suggest watching Food, Inc. and then reading the remainder of this blog. Trust me, it's worth your time.

Changing the way you eat is not a quick process and it shouldn't be. Making drastic changes in your eating habits almost ensures that you will fail to maintain new habits in the long run. Gradual, small, changes are the best way to go. Kris and I have almost been on this journey for a year, and we are still working at it! 

If you are interested in having a healthier life but aren't sure where to start, here are a few jumping off points:

• If you eat a lot of fast food, start to gradually cut back on your intake and replace those meals by cooking a meal at home with fresh ingredients. 
• Try to have a fruit or vegetable at every meal you have. Buy one that is organic and in season. Then try expanding the variety of fruits and vegetables that you eat. Learn how to incorporate them better into your meals. Then try to make them count for a bigger portion of your meals. 
• Try buying a few things from a Farmer's Market. 
• Simply replace candy with dark chocolate (See previous post). 
• There are literally thousands of places you could start, but you have to start somewhere!

Like I said, small gradual changes are the way to go. Just as in exercising, don't do too much too fast, or you will want to give up. As you work your way towards a healthier lifestyle you will also get to enjoy the benefits of it along the way and that should motivate you to keep going. Having more energy, loosing weight, and a better immune system are just a few of the benefits you will start to notice. In the long run, you can rest assured knowing that you are making an investment in your future.

But don't take my word for it. Watch Food, Inc. Seriously. Do some research. By a book. Watch the Jamie Oliver videos on my site. If there is one thing I know, it is this: God wants us to take care of our bodies, so we should. Therefore what we put into our bodies matters a great deal. 

Well that's all I have for today. As always, thanks for reading and eating along with me!