Healthy Living

What is healthy living?

Good question!

For me, living a healthy lifestyle means cutting out anything that is harmful, and instead adding things that are helpful. That can mean a lot of things. This can extend to more than just the kitchen. It becomes a whole lifestyle that is a healthier way of living.

This doesn’t happen overnight! The journey of health and wellness and a healthy lifestyle is a lifetime journey. You start with one thing and make a change. Then you change something else. Each change leads you to something better or some new knowledge. You figure out what works for you. As long as you are still trying and making small changes, your lifestyle will get better and better.

My journey of a healthy lifestyle started when I was 9 years old. My mother decided she was going to make some changes, which we did, and it improved many things. Some of the changes she made were: much less dairy, scaling back on meat (particularly red meat), eating more fish and chicken, and cutting out yucky oils like canola oil, vegetable oil, and Crisco. We seriously limited sugar, and changed to using honey instead. An interesting thing happened to me after her changes. Before that I had what is called amblyopia, or lazy eye. The muscles in my left eye didn’t want to hold the iris in place in the center of the eye. They patched my eye, and made me wear glasses. I hated the glasses because I couldn’t see with them on. The eye doctor told my mother that once I was 8 years old, there was no way to fix my eyes. They didn’t really get better with the solutions that the doctor offered of patching my good eye to make the lazy eye work,  along with wearing glasses. So, after my mother made the changes to our diet, do you know what happened? Low and behold, my eye corrected itself! That was when I was only 9 years old; after the age that the doctor said that my eyes couldn’t be fixed! I don’t have eye issues or wear glasses to this day. I have many stories and experiences with how living a healthy lifestyle can improve things. Does what we put in (and on) our bodies really make a difference?  ABSOLUTELY!!!  How grateful I am to my mother for her wisdom in changing things for the better. I grew up learning a different way of life and thinking about things. It helped me to be more open to new things and new truths.

Having spent the majority of my life living a healthy lifestyle and continuing to improve upon it, there are many things that my family and I do differently. There are many things that we have cut out or just don’t do, and there are many things that we have added.

Here’s a SHORT list of things that we DON’T do, or have cut out, or changed:

• Unfiltered water

• Unhealthy cooking oils (like canola oil or vegetable oil)

• GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)

• Modern wheat

• Pesticides and fungicides of every kind (as much as possible)

• Chlorine

• Heavy metals

• Dairy and meat treated with hormones or antibiotics

• Sulfites, sulfates, and preservatives

• Petrochemicals

• Anything with synthetic scents or dyes (perfumes, soaps, cosmetics, lotions, shampoos, air    fresheners, food coloring, etc).

• Refined sugar (I haven’t eaten white or brown sugar in 20 years)

• Household cleaners that have chemicals

• Any ingredient that I can’t pronounce or don’t know what it is

There’s more! Yes, we actually have cut all of that out of our lifestyle! We live in a chemical world and somethings are harder to get away from, so you do the best you can. It does make some things a bit more difficult. You actually have to spend time looking for the good things, and knowing what the ingredients are on labels. You have to become a label reader. You have to do your research. But IT’S ALL WORTH IT!!

My children have grown up living like this and they are so smart and healthy. Their minds aren’t clouded with chemicals and sugars. They can go and go. They certainly give me a run for my money.

But the one thing that I want you to know… is that you can do it too! Just start with making one change and then go from there, and keep going!

I have a lot of resources and lots of research that I want to share with you. There is a ton of research out there. Do your own for sure! But I’m going to share articles every few months about a topic, be it water, oils, sugar, or chemicals of a certain kind. I want you to know what I know, and have the resources that I have. Look for those articles in the coming months.

If you have questions, please feel free to reach out.