Yes and No...in my personal opinion, people are not meant to fuel their bodies with things that have to be processed for human consumption. Why? There are so many beautiful, wonderful, rich vegetables, fruits, nuts and wild things out there meant for us to grow and fuel our bodies with to keep us healthy and strong. It just isn't healthy to choose the things that have to be run through machinery in order to make them able to be digested by our bodies...and yes...I do believe that ALL humans have a gluten intolerance on some level. Some have celiac grade reactions, some have constipation, some have ADD, some get tummy aches, etc. But...there are tons of reasons that we chose to alter our lifestyle several years ago...
We really started our journey towards health shortly after the girls were born. We had 4 healthy, beautiful, amazing children under 2 years old and the greatest reasons on Earth to push towards bettering ourselves in every way. We had been greatly blessed, and we decided to do everything in our control to give our family the best chance possible to spend a long healthy lifetime together.
We had good exercise and diet habits, but through my husband's knowledge and belief in the Primal/Paleo Diet & Lifestyle, and partly due to my difficulties post pregnancy, I started building my awareness of the "whys" to all that. He had chosen that lifestyle for several years before we met and I found it a little silly...but ignorance is bliss, right? After all, who really wants to know the ropes of a lifestyle diet that kicks potatoes, grain, pasta and most dairy right off the table? After opening my mind and awareness to the reasoning, it all clicked with me. It also quickly helped me to sleep better, get rid of that daily afternoon drag, and my regular headaches...not to mention I finally reached my pre-pregnancy weight. I felt way less sluggish, even with the little tiny bits of sleep that we were getting with 3 premies who had to eat every few hours and a 2 year old who was always up before the sun.
Now...this was not just about diet. Diet being a way of life, not a fly-by-night eating trend...it was about Lifestyle. It includes tons of exercise and activity, the kind that humans used to do when they weren't handed everything...When they had to search for and chase down their food, not just pull up to a drive through window and pick up an illusion of a meal. It includes lifting heavy things and sprinting, staying active and implementing play...interactive physical things with others, games, chase and toss. Mental stimulation along with activity, but also in a way that is enjoyable...when you take time out to play throw/catch with your children, or have a handstand contest with your husband, a badminton tournament with your family.
Quickly, I was in the best shape of my life...at 32 years old, post triplet pregnancy, after having 4 children in less than 20 months. Now, that is NOT to say that I didn't and don't still have many physical challenges and limitations from carrying a litter. I do, but this helped me learn how to get around them. I have NEVER been a runner, like even when we had to do the President's Challenge in Elementary School, I HATED it! But, I had started sprinting and building my muscles and then started running distances and LOVED it. Loved the peace and the mental rebuilding, reaching for goals and attaining them, enjoying my alone time and returning to my children renewed. I placed in several local short distances races and even won 1st place in my bracket for one of the 5Ks I ran in. The lifestyle change was really impacting me, body & mind...
Choosing to fuel your body with good, rich, healthy, non-processed foods fuels your mind and soul too. Sound silly? Sound like I am blowing smoke? I'm a little flowery? How often do you feel guilty about cramming something bad for you? How often does it make you feel so guilty that you have another? How often do you feel over full? Stuffed? Bloated? Mentally gross because you know that you didn't eat good for you things that day? Oh....I'll do better tomorrow. All that thought and guilt and regret...it kills your self-esteem and drags you down, mind and body. You get on a roller coaster of let me do really good today to make up for what I did yesterday, whoa.... oops...maybe not today, maybe tomorrow...Monday! Tell me who has NEVER said, I'll do better starting Monday? If you have ever said that you will do better...then it is weighing you down mentally! That's guilty knowledge that is making you feel bad about yourself and your choices! Nope it isn't easy...and I am NOT perfect by any means...in fact I just put half & half in my coffee!!!! And...there are corn chips in my pantry right this second! And M&Ms too! But what I can guarantee you...is that if you go 1 week only making good choices and eating healthy foods, nothing processed...you WILL feel great! You will feel like you are stronger for doing that and it will build your self-esteem, in addition to making you feel great for having fueled your family with stuff you know is great for them...and it will make your body just feel better. I mean, do you really feel invigorated after a jelly doughnut? Really?
"But Deanna, I have eaten like this my whole life, and I am okay..." says my Dad who is 70 and a Kicken-Chicken...yeah I get that. But 60 years ago, when you walked down to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up some apples, milk and butter for your Mom...did you have to ask if they were organic, GMO free, hormone free, steroid free...was there a section for the organic produce so that it wasn't contaminated by the conventional stuff from the overspray? Were actual corn fields registered as pesticides in several states? Were fish farmed and trained to eat CORN? Corn....fish that eat corn? Was there a label for your butter? A label that listed "flavoring" and disodium phosphate? Yeah...in your butter? Because that definitely makes good ol' butter much better! Right? Food was NOT the same thing as it is today...it was what it what was, it was real, it wasn't altered. They didn't have to add vitamins and nutrients back...you didn't have to exercise caution about everything you put on your plate...and I will tell you exactly what I told him...If I could, I would eat french fries with ranch dip for breakfast, cheese steak sandwiches for lunch and pizza for dinner every single day...but...if exercising patience and investment in making these dietary choices, gains me just 1 day more day with my precious children and my husband...if choosing this instead of that...allows me to see them get married and have children of their own...then that's a no-brainer. Not saying that it WILL...but even if it might...
And, NO, it is NOT easy...it's not easy to not order pizza after a long day, or cook every single breakfast, lunch and dinner for a family of 6, because there really aren't any good option for take-out, etc. It isn't cheap...healthy, organic produce, lean cuts of meat and wild caught fish aren't as cost effective as crappy cuts of steroid and hormone laden figments of meat & farmed fish. But really...when you think about the cost of eating out every night or most nights, it isn't cheap either and you have no clue what is really being put into your food. Not to mention, hopefully the long term cost of living healthy will be less expensive in many ways, when compared to fueling your body with processed GMOs. Nope, we are not perfect either...we try hard to adhere to about 80/20. Of occasion, we do order pizza, and when the kids get sick....it is SO HARD to balance it all. SO yes, we fall off and have to regroup.
Actually the falling off, coupled with my recent exploration of GMOs and the current state of our FDA and food offering brought me to this. Lately, my portions were growing just a little each day, the flu had invaded our home a week or so ago, which makes everything tough, and the tendency to eat a little bit of everything I serve the kids had sort of taken over. I needed a reminder and a little brain retrain...so I hit the research highway and looked for the best way to incorporate ALL the things I believe in for health, to reset. The cleanse I am about to share is what I came up with.
