Healthy living, such a concept these days with fast food restaurants on every corner and skip the dishes or uber eats apps on your phone. Hey, I am not knocking them (well maybe a little) – have I ever used them personally, no, actually I haven’t. I don’t have then downloaded, and I likely never will. I stopped eating most fast food many years ago. Sure, I get the odd timmies or NY Fries on the road but it isn’t a common occurrence. Most of that type of food just doesn’t make me feel good. It tastes ok usually but afterwards, I feel sluggish and that is so not worth it to me. I am too busy to feel yuck after eating. So when I ask the question “What does health living mean to me?” Well first off – FOOD. Good healthy wholesome full of energy tasty food. Food that makes you feel good, with ingredients I can pronounce;)
Last year I read a book called “The French Don’t Diet Plan” by Dr. Will Clower and I decided that changes needed to be made. A lot of the info in the book rang true with me, especially the part about synthetic food or “false food” as it was called in the book. Food that had too many ingredients or ingredients that were unrecognizable as food, made me feel crummy. So I decided to revamp my whole pantry!
This was right around the time that the WHO declared a world wide pandemic of the novel corona virus COVID-19. Bad timing on my part – here I was loading up in the grocery store, reading every single label, trying to figure what was real food and what wasn’t and the world was about to get crazy!
That first shop took me forever, but it was worth every second and every penny (it was pricey). I will say real food is more expensive but in the long run, your health and energy levels will thank you and you won’t ever go back.
Over the next 2-3 months I stuck to my plan and shopped, cooked, and ate only real food. I learned to make bread (as did a lot of people) and homemade pizza dough and healthy preservative free cheesecake. I stopped buying and eating hydrogenated anything and msg laden snacks. I fed my family and myself real honest to goodness food. And everything the book said was true. The food tastes better and we feel good.
One thing I did notice is that it was not hard to find the healthier choices once you knew what you were looking for. The book was written in 2006 and I am pretty sure that back then, this whole escapade would have been way harder! The food industry is changing and has been for quite sometime. People don’t want artificial any more, they don’t want MSG and BHA and BHT and hydrogenated oil or non fat products full of fillers. The food industry has taken note over the last 10 years and has made changes – there are healthy choices out there! There are brands that stand by using simple ingredients, no artificial flavours and colours, no high fructose-glucose and no non-hydrogenated fats or oils.
There has never been a better time to be healthy. The world is changing, actually it has changed already! People want healthy choices and they want to know where they came from and even how to create them. So learn with us!
I am not suggesting you run out and buy this book or read it even (although it is a good read). I am suggesting that you read the labels on the food you buy and make the choices that are right for you and your family.
Before I started this endeavour, I already was eating pretty healthy, I have never really cared for processed pre-packaged foods except here and there, so it wasn’t too hard for me to make the flip. But once I did, I realized that there were many products out there that I thought were good wholesome choices and they really weren’t. So much learning in very little time. After the first few months of shopping and eating real food, it was not only easier as I learnt the brands that were good to buy and the ones that weren’t. You also learn what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. I ate a hot dog one day, in early summer of 2020, when my sister came to visit us outside social distancing – first time we had gotten together in months! So we cooked hotdogs and let the kids run around outside. Well I ate one, and paid dearly for it. What a gut pain I had – so uncomfortable for about 3 hours (I really am not trying to scare you), but I also haven’t had one since. It made me realize that what I was doing, how I was eating was right for me. Skip forward about 6 months and my husband Dave ate a hotdog and the exact same thing happened to him! He said to me after – that is the last hotdog he will ever eat.
There are a few things that I still do eat that might not be 100% perfect in the ingredient section but they aren’t that bad and they don’t make me feel discomfort after eating them so I keep them in my stash for just that time that I crave a snack.
In all seriousness, even though I could go on all day about this, I will leave it at – read the labels. Learn what is good for you and what isn’t – your body will thank you!
If you need guidance on where to start – send me an email. I have a list of the do’s and the don’t’s, which if I get enough interest – I will make a page with all that info.
But for now – I will sign off!
Thanks for following:)
Stay tuned for my next post –
Healthy on the outside
