Healthy Lifestyle/Eating...how I got started...

I'll issue another post about the Raw diet to provide details of what it is and the benefits, etc...and it's really not a "diet" per-se but more of a lifestyle change of being more aware about what you put into your body and maximizing the "goodness" that you consume for nutrients and energy.

Over the years, I've come to understand more about nutrition and how it works and what I should seek out in my meals. Before I was pregnant and developed gestational diabetes, I had no notion or care about those things...I never ever read ingredients, nutritional facts or really understood what they meant or could do to my body and mind.  However, when I developed gestational diabetes all that changed...I was forced into learning about it and am so thankful for that turn.  I learned what carbohydrates where (sugar which then turns into fat), the difference between good carbs (fruit, vegetables) and bad carbs (bread, pasta, cookies, sugary drinks, many manufactured things), how important protein is (protein can offset carbs...so if you eat carbs make sure you've got a protein to go with it) and the importance of serving size (if you look at most packaged food, check out how many carbs/fat for example you get per serving size...you'll be shocked to see the high numbers for such a small size).

I was amazed to discover how many things contained high carbohydrates. For example, I was put on a diet that restricted my carb intake and had me eating/snacking 5 x a day.  For morning I sought food that contained 15g of carb, then for by morning snack - again 15g of carb, for lunch I could have 35-45g of carb, then for afternoon snack 15g of carb and for dinner 65g of carb. When I started looking at carbs it really started to force me to eat more fresh vegetables, fruit and less "man"-ufactured/prepared food like breads, pasta, chips, etc. For example, I started looking at marketed "healthy" drinks like gatorade, etc that I thought were good for me and realized one drink consisted of 45+g of carb which was the same if not more to what I was suppose to eat for lunch...well I just can't have a gatorade for my lunch and nothing else.  It really forced me to think carefully about what food was the right choice to eat, nutrition-wise and make sure I was going after the food that would provide the most bang for the buck if you will.  I also had to look at protein and now that I rarely eat meat, I had to understand where else I could find protein to include our diets (nuts, beans, hemp seed, etc).

In the beginning, it was really really really tough for me to make the transition.  It's so easy to reach for the convenient "snack" or food that sastifies just your taste bud or urge and that's already made...and more difficult to resist that urge and instead turn to something else that will sastify your body or may require you to make/prepare it.  During this time, it also opened my eyes to just how unhealthy most food is that's prepared in restaurants.  We would go out to eat, I'd order steamed vegetables, eat no carbs and grilled fish and then check my blood levels only to find them shoot through the roof. Restaurants add extra ingredients to help make the food "taste" better...so I had to ask for food "naked" with no seasonings, butter or sauces. I also discovered that Chipotle was THE only restaurant that I could eat out that didn't result in my blood sugars being spiked...interesting huh.

Later on, we started looking into the Raw diet (after my father had major heart surgery and decided to look into this as a radical way to reverse the damage done to his heart so far) and I learned even more about nutrition.

Eating healthy does take some work and effort, especially in the beginning if you aren't use to it. I've found that it takes dedication, willingness to try new things and an overall goal, motivation to do so as a lifestyle decision.  For me it's several reasons - 1) I have major heart disease in my family; 2) I have back problems and have found the less weight I carry the better I feel and the less my back hurts; 3) I want my children to 'thrive' and be healthy and the best way is to feed them healthy fresh food ; 4) I love the idea of helping support our local farmers and not the big food manufacturers who aren't in it for the "good healthy food" they are only after making as much money as they need but at the cost of our health; 5) I enjoy cooking and trying new things and eating healthy allows me to experiment with new veggies or fruits.

If you are struggling to change your lifestyle and want to eat healthy...I would recommend that you find your motivation, keep it front in center and commit to making the change forever and that you try to educate yourself on the very basics of nutrition...for me that helped quite a bit.  I promise it's well worth it.

I was asked to post about another topic which is a sense for the "cost" to eat healthy and how to eliminate food waste. I thought these were great questions and I plan to post soon on my experience with these two items.