While my family is very polite and nice, they are probably reaching their limit on how much they want to hear about what I made for dinner last night or how good I feel after I run. And as much as I used to think that people who wrote blogs were self-important know-it-alls, I really just feel like I have a lot to say and a lot I want to share and my facebook friends are getting tired of it. Either that, or I have become a self-important know-it-all.
When I was young (young being a relative term...like 20 years younger than I am now), I basically had no idea how to take care of myself. I went through phases when I ate almost nothing, when I ate almost everything, when I was a strict vegan, and when I was a vegetarian who subsisted on cheese and bread. I have always had major digestive issues, and ended up having emergency gall bladder surgery on my 18th birthday.
Then I got really, really heavy. Like so heavy that the guy doing the home study for our first adoption mentioned how physically taxing child care is and my OB-GYN said I was too heavy to safely get pregnant. So heavy that walking 10 minutes around my neighborhood pushing the stroller was a workout, and vacuuming left me with a backache and needing a nap. I remember literally scoffing at my mom when she would offer me a piece of fruit, and when I went grocery shopping I didn't even pause in the produce section (unless I needed apples to make apple pie). And, of course, I felt like crap almost 100% of the time. I could not make it through the day without a nap (at my desk or in my car), and my back hurt so much that it was affecting my ability to take care of my baby.
So, then I went on a really rigid diet and lost a lot of weight, and discovered running at the same time. But I had this nagging feeling that I still wasn't taking care of myself the way I should. And, of course, as soon as I went off the diet, I gained back a bunch of weight and felt like crap again. The focus of the diet was losing weight, so all that mattered was that the food I ate didn't have a lot of calories. No mention of natural, organic, healthy things. After all, they have to make money selling their brand of processed crap to us desperate people. And I was exhausted and grumpy almost all the time.
After ending a long, unhappy phase of my life, I had sort of an epiphany about my health. I was raised to think I am fat, and have been taught that all that matters about me was my weight. What if I just released that and focused on nourishing my body and finding what foods make me feel great and energetic? Would the earth continue to spin? Would the planets stay aligned? It turns out, the answer is yes. AND, as an added bonus, I would find a deep contentment and happiness and joy in living that I probably would have said was impossible if you had asked me 20 years ago...or even 5 years ago. AND, people still love and respect me even though I'm not skinny. Mind blowing, right?!
So, I'm just a regular mom who has never been in a cooking class and doesn't have any certifications or official titles. But I love food and nutrition and cooking and natural health, and I spend a lot of my time thinking about it and practicing it...so I might as well share it with whoever wants to hear it. Those who know me can see that I'm not a skinny-vegan-yoga-guru-macrobiotic-raw-food-marathon runner superhero who follows all the health rules. But I think my experience is real and relatable, and hopefully humorous. And people have told me that it's inspiring--I swear, I am not making that up--to hear about my experiences.
It's a little scary to put all this out there for the world to see and judge, and it's a little weird to be focusing so much on ME. But we could all probably stand to focus on ourselves a little more.
Oh, and I have the awesomest husband and kids you could possibly imagine.
Thanks for reading!
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