Food...Food! FOOOODDD!

Food.  I don’t even know where to start!  It is something that you can’t live without, yet you can get addicted to it.  They put people in rehab for addictions… but breaking the addiction to food feels impossible!

In my experience, food has been an important part of my life.  Maybe yours too!

Hungry – eat

Bored – eat

Stressed – eat

Celebrations – eat

Date nights – eat

I could go on and on!  And I am sure you could too!

I used to eat like crap too!  McDonald’s was my kryptonite.  I watched Super-Size Me hoping it would turn me off of those beautiful golden arches… nope!  I paused the movie, went and got McDonald’s, and came back to watch the rest while I stuffed my face!

Pizza was its own food group in our household… Taco Bell was an every Friday night occurrence when my husband would get off of work.  I would have gotten up at 7:45 Friday morning, stayed up until midnight or 1AM waiting for him to get home, and then we would go and spend nearly $30.00 at Taco Bell…

We never thought twice about going to a different fast food place every night of the week, or buying processed “food” at the grocery store.  We didn’t care about the amount of sugar in the lucky charms!  We wanted those marshmallows!  And counting calories, or fat, or sodium??  NOPE!  I had the mentality of “I am hungry, I will eat what I want”

And then the problems started.  Isn’t it amazing how we don’t take care of ourselves until the problems start?  Sometimes, when problems start, it’s too late!

I started to get sluggish, and then I would need a 3 hour nap after being awake for 2 hours.  Other various symptoms started showing themselves...  So, off to the doctor I went.  After almost a year and a half of blood work, different medications, different specialists, I was finally diagnosed with PCOS – Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome.

This disease is another topic for another post, but I have to tell you that this diagnosis is what sparked our need for change!

The doctors all told me that with diet and exercise, it could be managed; along with medication.  So, we set out to find what we could do.

We had to start with baby steps.  In September of 2015, we started working on our food!  I figured that was going to be the hardest thing for me to overcome, so I might as well rip the band aid off!  We cut out fast food, down to once a week to start with.  Now we vary rarely go through a drive thru (except on a cheat day, but even then… not nearly as often!) We started replacing certain things with others. For example, we will have whole wheat pasta OR spaghetti squash in place of regular pasta.  We will buy organic or non GMO fruits and vegetables.  We try to get grass fed beef, on the rare occasion we eat red meat.  We even try to get free range eggs, when we can afford them and find them.  We replace bacon with turkey bacon, sausage with turkey sausage, and turkey meat for ground beef!  I promise, it really isn't THAT bad! 

This change was not easy, and it certainly didn’t happen overnight!  Here we are 6 months later, and we are STILL finding ways to make changes!  I met with my nutritionist last Friday, and she made some great suggestions.  This week, I have started on a very strict diet, but it is basically making the choices for me. AND it includes food I will eat!  No point in adding collard greens to my current plan, if I refuse to eat them in the first place!

We watch documentaries on food like crazy as well!  People don’t realize the amount of chemicals that go on our food, or the alterations into processed foods.  Some I would suggest are:

Cowspiracy

The Gerson Miracle

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

Forks Over Knives

GMO/OMG

I could go on and on!  These are found on Netflix or Hulu.  Even YouTube has some great documentaries on food! 

Food is a Frenemy… you HAVE to eat it, but you don’t HAVE to eat crap!  Yes, it was cheaper to eat a $4.00 meal that included 1500 calories, way too many carbs, and filled our stomachs for about 2 hours… but the fresh fruits and veggies have more health benefits.

I choose my health; I choose my life any day…

Watch for my first product review at the end of this week!  If you have topics you want me to discuss or look in to, comment below and let me know!