Change seems to be the "magic word" in our household. We have changed cities, jobs (he did anyway), and are working hard to change our lifestyle. We have been seeing so many of our family members ill over the last few years - like so many of you out there - and after taking a long hard look at ourselves decided it was time to get it together.
I have to admit, up until recently I knew that I needed to take better care of my health, but approached it more from an "I'll get to that later" mentality. Yesterday I'd say today...today I'd say tomorrow kind of thing. So when the Atlanta move date began approaching, I made a promise to myself that I'd stop putting off the obvious.
My first obstacle - which I hate to even admit - has been overcoming cigarettes. I know, I know...gross. For the most part I have been what you'd call a "closet smoker" meaning most of my friends didn't even know I smoked. I preferred to smoke in private or with my smoker friends. But all in all I knew it had to go so...with as much courage as I could muster, and my trusty nicotine gum, I quit. It hasn't gotten easy or anything...but I have stuck to my decision.
Now that my body is beginning to wake up from the smoke filled haze, I see that I really need to get in better shape. Guess you don't realize how far you've gotten off track until you take your "BEFORE" pictures (yeah I have those, and no you can't see them yet...waiting for something a little closer to "AFTER" if you know what I mean :-) )
Michael has always been pretty active so he's a great work out partner. He knows more than I do about a lot of the machines at our gym and convinces me to get out of the bed early most days. We found out several months ago that he has high cholesterol and for an active guy that ate pretty well and exercised that was a pretty major shock. It made it crystal clear for us the role that nutrition plays in it all so we've been doing research on eating better.
That's how we learned about the clean eating lifestyle. I tried it for a few weeks and felt a pretty immediate difference in my energy levels and overall mood but then fell back into old patterns of eating. Hey...I've been learning how to live without smoking...go easy on me!
I went to my local library last week and picked up a copy of Tosca Reno's The Eat Clean Diet. I could not put it down and based on the research I've done online, I'm not the only one out there totally in love with this book! For me, this book (and lifestyle) puts into words what I've been feeling for a long time: The food North Americans eat is killing us. I kicked the first poison, but know that without changing my eating habits, I'll still be filling my body with toxins. What is some of the stuff they put in food anyway? I can even pronounce it!!
We are the type of people that like to go "all in" when we find something so obvious so that's what we did to celebrate our first month in the new place...we went all in. As in all in to Costco for clean food like flaxseed and natural oats and then all in to Trader Joes for yummy organic fruits and veggies (probably my favorite part of living in Atlanta - access to so much clean, fresh, locally grown food!)Yesterday we spent our Sunday in the kitchen cooking and prepping our meals for the week. I have to admit, it was a little intemidating at first but with a little planning and a lot of tuperware, we were able to prepare enough clean meals to take the guesswork out of the rest of the week. Here's hoping we cooked enough!
I decided to start Clean Atlanta to blog about our progress, keep myself accountable and join in the community of all you other clean eaters out there. Without the other helpful blogs on this topic, I may never have learned about Clean Eating so hopefully there is something I can offer by sharing my own journey.
Stay tuned for more!
No comments:
Post a Comment