I listened to a couple of documentaries this morning. There is a series of five. I can't possibly just sit and watch them so I turned them up loud and listened to them. I kept a notebook nearby to jot down information and such. This is what I found important. It is very random, but very important!
*Avoid what has been changed (food)
starting in about 1985 the majority of wheat consumed has been fiddled with and mutated from the
original wheat that our ancestors ate. Yes, it's different than what we grew up on (I'm 58).
This coincides with the drastic rise in auto immune disorders, diabetes, cancer, obesity, etc....
---seek out alternate grains. there is still wheat being grown organically from original seed stock.
*Avoid ALL food coloring! They are petroleum based and our bodies cannot process correctly.
Better yet, avoid ALL processed foods! If it has an ingredient list, then forget about it!
Quotes:
"Are we living too short and dying too long?"
Are we spending a longer amount of our years overweight, in pain, being sick? I'm thinking we are!
"Leave the food that man made-Eat the food that God made"
Whole Foods!!!
*Fear & Anxiety contribute to poor health and obesity.
fear/anxiety keeps your body in a constant fight or flight mode which slows your metabolism way
down.
*Make relaxation a priority
*Let Go!
*Don't pick up what ain't yours!
this is my mantra lately and it helps!
*Exercise.....walking.....stretching.....yoga......be OUTDOORS!
Seek opportunities for natural movement throughout the day. Don't sit too much.
Think about this question
ARE YOU TRAPPED IN CONFORMITY?
I think a lot of people are. Most people can't give up their bad habits because they don't want to step out and be different. Just do it!
Showing posts with label whole foods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whole foods. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Monday, July 2, 2018
Just the Basics
In today's post I will try to give just a basic outline of what is in and what is out in each category of food.
Meats
*We eat some kind of meat product only about once a week on average. Honestly, when I think about it, it could be even less. The desire for it is no longer there.
Organic, grass fed when we do eat it.
*NO PORK Products. Yep. No bacon, no sausage, no chops, no ribs, no nothing!
**eventually unprocessed pork may be ok if it is pasture raised & organic, but it will be a seldom occurrence.
*Organic chicken is ok.
*We eat eggs from our chickens. They are organic eggs. We limit it to 3 each a week. We prefer to have them as our dinner in a fritatta or with hash brown potatoes.
*Fish is okay no more than twice a week. We don't eat it that often. Maybe once or twice a month. It must be deep water fish (fish that have scales and fins) Tuna is okay.
*Beef has been off limits to us also. Red meat and pork are not healthy. That being said if you eat organic, grass fed beef in limited amounts it will be okay. Just not a steady diet of it.
Dairy
Ugh. This was my addiction. I love me some cheese.
*We now keep only two types of cheese in the fridge.
Parmesan (the real stuff, I haven't found an organic one I want to spend $$$$ on yet, so it is not organic)
Cheddar organic
these are both condiments and used sparingly. No more cheesy casseroles!
*Milk. We no longer support the dairy farmers by buying a gallon of milk each week. We buy organic 1/2 & 1/2 for our tea/coffee. For all other milk uses we have substituted almond, cashew, or coconut milk. They are great in cereals and smoothies and just about any other milk use.
*We still use butter, but it is organic and expensive, so it is also used sparingly for that reason. But we do love to have some bread and butter occasionally!
*No yogurt!!! We were yogurt fanatics. Yogurt every day. Nope.
*Sour cream & cottage cheese--we still buy cottage cheese and sour cream but both organic and they are used about once a week at best.
*No ice cream! We make "nice" cream on a regular basis so we don't miss it. (I will make a post about the nice cream soon. Or just ask me ;)
Fats
We use organic butter, organic virgin coconut oil, and organic extra virgin olive oil. We try not to overdo it on the fats, but your brain needs fats!
NO CANOLA OR VEGETABLE OIL!
Grains
*Breads: We only buy good bread from the farmers market or the health food store (they sell bread from local bakers) Even the grocery store bakery department sells good bread from local bakers.
Mostly I buy sourdough. We have tried Ezekial bread, but we don't like it so much. We don't eat bread every day! I keep it sliced in the freezer and try not to have bread more than twice a week.
*Oats are our most eaten grain. Organic Old Fashioned Oats. Every morning.
*We eat barley, quinoa, brown rice -- all organic. and wild rice. We eat them as sides and we eat them mixed into salads. Rice in a veggie salad is awesome!
Sugar
NO REFINED SUGAR! We use raw honey (local if we can get it) and organic maple syrup. We use it sparingly. I no longer bake like I did, but I have been trying my hand at reworking some things to fit a healthier diet. I also keep liquid Stevia on hand for random times I may want to use it. My favorite is the stevia flavored water drops. I find them in the health food store.
Processed Foods
NONE. We eat as close to the whole food as we can. We try to minimally process anything. We eat a lot of Raw vegetable meals. Nothing goes into the microwave. Nothing comes from a package.
Legumes
These are our friend. We try to eat one cup each per day. We eat them on salads. Yum....... all kinds........We make soups......yumm.......
Lentils, black beans, chickpeas----hummus!!!! we eat a lot of hummus
We eat peanut butter and almond butter
Vegetables
We start with the dark leafy greens and add from there. The basis to every salad is romaine lettuce, chard, collard, kale, spinach. EVERY DAY. Most days twice a day.
We then go with the cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc........
into the salads or stir frys go onions, garlic, bok choy. Anything that is leafy and green.
You can't go wrong with vegetables. The average american salad of ice berg, tomato, and cucs is not eaten in this house.
We sometimes go for color!
CARROTS--I can't say enough about carrots. We buy 25 lbs a week.
We eat white potatoes and sweet potatoes--organic, about once a week
*obviously all the vegetables are organic.
Fruits
We stick with bananas and berries. I sometimes buy kiwis. All berries. Fresh, frozen, organic. every day.
Nuts and Seeds
We eat almonds, pecans, walnuts, brazil nuts, pumpkin seed, sunflower seed.
We also eat chia seed and flax seed and hemp hearts
Condiments
We don't use too many condiments. Salad dressing is either just olive oil with seasoning, or a store bought low sugar organic one. ketchup and bbq sauce are gone. If I want some I make it with organic canned sauce/paste/honey/seasonings. Mayo is gone. If I want some I make it with organic oil and an organic egg. obviously these don't keep well, so I only make enough to use at the moment.
We use sea salt. Either Himalayan or Celtic. MINERALS!
We read labels and try to keep the sugars low. They can be high in condiments
Beverages
NO ALCOHOL! ugh
WATER, WATER, WATER
Coffee--organic--two cups a week
Red (rooibos) and Green tea every morning
We drink smoothies a few times a week in the evenings.
Obviously I can't address every anomaly in our diet. This is a start. From here I will try to share a different idea each day from a different meal. That way I can rotate through meal ideas and talk more in depth about them.
Also I want to say that if this seems daunting--baby steps. One change at a time until it becomes a habit. That is the way to go!
Meats
*We eat some kind of meat product only about once a week on average. Honestly, when I think about it, it could be even less. The desire for it is no longer there.
Organic, grass fed when we do eat it.
*NO PORK Products. Yep. No bacon, no sausage, no chops, no ribs, no nothing!
**eventually unprocessed pork may be ok if it is pasture raised & organic, but it will be a seldom occurrence.
*Organic chicken is ok.
*We eat eggs from our chickens. They are organic eggs. We limit it to 3 each a week. We prefer to have them as our dinner in a fritatta or with hash brown potatoes.
*Fish is okay no more than twice a week. We don't eat it that often. Maybe once or twice a month. It must be deep water fish (fish that have scales and fins) Tuna is okay.
*Beef has been off limits to us also. Red meat and pork are not healthy. That being said if you eat organic, grass fed beef in limited amounts it will be okay. Just not a steady diet of it.
Dairy
Ugh. This was my addiction. I love me some cheese.
*We now keep only two types of cheese in the fridge.
Parmesan (the real stuff, I haven't found an organic one I want to spend $$$$ on yet, so it is not organic)
Cheddar organic
these are both condiments and used sparingly. No more cheesy casseroles!
*Milk. We no longer support the dairy farmers by buying a gallon of milk each week. We buy organic 1/2 & 1/2 for our tea/coffee. For all other milk uses we have substituted almond, cashew, or coconut milk. They are great in cereals and smoothies and just about any other milk use.
*We still use butter, but it is organic and expensive, so it is also used sparingly for that reason. But we do love to have some bread and butter occasionally!
*No yogurt!!! We were yogurt fanatics. Yogurt every day. Nope.
*Sour cream & cottage cheese--we still buy cottage cheese and sour cream but both organic and they are used about once a week at best.
*No ice cream! We make "nice" cream on a regular basis so we don't miss it. (I will make a post about the nice cream soon. Or just ask me ;)
Fats
We use organic butter, organic virgin coconut oil, and organic extra virgin olive oil. We try not to overdo it on the fats, but your brain needs fats!
NO CANOLA OR VEGETABLE OIL!
Grains
*Breads: We only buy good bread from the farmers market or the health food store (they sell bread from local bakers) Even the grocery store bakery department sells good bread from local bakers.
Mostly I buy sourdough. We have tried Ezekial bread, but we don't like it so much. We don't eat bread every day! I keep it sliced in the freezer and try not to have bread more than twice a week.
*Oats are our most eaten grain. Organic Old Fashioned Oats. Every morning.
*We eat barley, quinoa, brown rice -- all organic. and wild rice. We eat them as sides and we eat them mixed into salads. Rice in a veggie salad is awesome!
Sugar
NO REFINED SUGAR! We use raw honey (local if we can get it) and organic maple syrup. We use it sparingly. I no longer bake like I did, but I have been trying my hand at reworking some things to fit a healthier diet. I also keep liquid Stevia on hand for random times I may want to use it. My favorite is the stevia flavored water drops. I find them in the health food store.
Processed Foods
NONE. We eat as close to the whole food as we can. We try to minimally process anything. We eat a lot of Raw vegetable meals. Nothing goes into the microwave. Nothing comes from a package.
Legumes
These are our friend. We try to eat one cup each per day. We eat them on salads. Yum....... all kinds........We make soups......yumm.......
Lentils, black beans, chickpeas----hummus!!!! we eat a lot of hummus
We eat peanut butter and almond butter
Vegetables
We start with the dark leafy greens and add from there. The basis to every salad is romaine lettuce, chard, collard, kale, spinach. EVERY DAY. Most days twice a day.
We then go with the cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc........
into the salads or stir frys go onions, garlic, bok choy. Anything that is leafy and green.
You can't go wrong with vegetables. The average american salad of ice berg, tomato, and cucs is not eaten in this house.
We sometimes go for color!
CARROTS--I can't say enough about carrots. We buy 25 lbs a week.
We eat white potatoes and sweet potatoes--organic, about once a week
*obviously all the vegetables are organic.
Fruits
We stick with bananas and berries. I sometimes buy kiwis. All berries. Fresh, frozen, organic. every day.
Nuts and Seeds
We eat almonds, pecans, walnuts, brazil nuts, pumpkin seed, sunflower seed.
We also eat chia seed and flax seed and hemp hearts
Condiments
We don't use too many condiments. Salad dressing is either just olive oil with seasoning, or a store bought low sugar organic one. ketchup and bbq sauce are gone. If I want some I make it with organic canned sauce/paste/honey/seasonings. Mayo is gone. If I want some I make it with organic oil and an organic egg. obviously these don't keep well, so I only make enough to use at the moment.
We use sea salt. Either Himalayan or Celtic. MINERALS!
We read labels and try to keep the sugars low. They can be high in condiments
Beverages
NO ALCOHOL! ugh
WATER, WATER, WATER
Coffee--organic--two cups a week
Red (rooibos) and Green tea every morning
We drink smoothies a few times a week in the evenings.
Obviously I can't address every anomaly in our diet. This is a start. From here I will try to share a different idea each day from a different meal. That way I can rotate through meal ideas and talk more in depth about them.
Also I want to say that if this seems daunting--baby steps. One change at a time until it becomes a habit. That is the way to go!
Sunday, July 1, 2018
A new way of life
I've been wanting to write about our recent journey. It's been hard to do it, but if I want nothing but positive things to come of it, then here goes.
Our journey began on April 10th of this year. Really it began some time in March, but April 10th is the day we received the phone call that sent us on our journey.
The phone call came from the surgeon with the biopsy results of a tumor removed from my husband's colon.
Cancer.
I looked at my husband and said, "are you ready to change our eating habits now?"
His answer was "yes"
I walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out 2 books that I have had for years. The Hallelujah Diet and Patient Heal Thyself (which is now called The Maker's Diet, I believe) I felt like God had been preparing me for this. I felt like I already knew so much about what to do. We dove right in.
So the journey I was referring to is a journey to GREAT health!
With the help of those two books and countless hours on facebook groups and blogs about natural healing of cancer, together we devised a plan for battling this cancer. We did all of this instantly, we had no idea of what extent this cancer was. We just knew we needed to get super nutrition started in his body immediately.
**I truly believe that God healed my husbands cancer. I will write about this separately.
A week later my husband's MRI and CT scan showed absolutely nothing. The surgeon was amazed by the MRI because he was not at all confident that he had removed it all. Yet no cancer was showing up. Hallelujah!
This meant no chemo or radiation (praise God because knowing what we now know we would never agree to it) The surgeon scheduled a resection surgery for a few weeks later.
Another week later he called us back and said he wanted to send Jeff to a specialist a few hours away. He wanted him to take a look and see if it was possible to have a less invasive surgery. (the tumor was in his rectum) We gladly went!
Upon being examined by the specialist (1 month after the initial diagnosis) it was found that the tumor sight was shrinking and healing--not growing!! Hallelujah! He said yes, he was a perfect candidate for the less invasive surgery. He was very encouraged by the improvement in the site in one month! We mentioned the excessive amounts of carrots we were juicing and the turmeric he was taking but he dismissed that as having any relevance. hmmmmm.
Jeff had outpatient surgery ten days later. When the surgeon came out to talk to me he said there was barely a mark where the cancer had been and he was highly confident it was gone. He removed tissue at the site and the margins around it. He told me he was surprised by how much more it had healed in ten days. I told him about our diet changes. He didn't dismiss it this time.
A week or so later we received the call from the surgeon telling us that all labs came back clear!
I'm telling this whole story because it leads into this lifelong journey we are now on. It is a journey to be healthy in our older years. We are 58 and 60. We have been healthy thus far. But colon cancer?!! This clearly is diet related. My husband loved to eat all of the things that were not good for him in the long run. I have always been overweight and he had also put on excess pounds in the last 10 or so years. This was a wake up call! We have too much to be healthy for!
This journey we are on is called Whole Foods Plant Based eating. We are not vegan. We eat no more than 10% animal products. Mostly less than 10%. We eat organic. Refined sugars are gone. Anything processed is gone. Coffee is now a treat twice a week. Green tea and Red tea took its place.
We began eating this way almost immediately after his diagnosis, not quite three months ago. He has lost 25 lbs and I have lost 22 lbs. We feel so much better! We have so much more energy! And we are happier!
I am going to try to write about this way of eating in the hopes that it can help someone else. There is so much information out there and I know it can be a daunting task to figure out what to eat and what not to eat! I have kept a food journal since day one on everything that we have eaten. I'm not going to lie and say this is easy! I think eventually it will just be natural to us and easier.
My next post will cover the basics of how we eat. I will try to outline it as best I can.
Questions!!! I would love to answer any and all questions.
Obviously we are only three months into this, but so far we have seen nothing but good results.
Only time will tell about the cancer, but right now we have no reason to believe it will ever come back.
I am hoping to keep us accountable through helping others eat healthier also!
Stay tuned!
Our journey began on April 10th of this year. Really it began some time in March, but April 10th is the day we received the phone call that sent us on our journey.
The phone call came from the surgeon with the biopsy results of a tumor removed from my husband's colon.
Cancer.
I looked at my husband and said, "are you ready to change our eating habits now?"
His answer was "yes"
I walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out 2 books that I have had for years. The Hallelujah Diet and Patient Heal Thyself (which is now called The Maker's Diet, I believe) I felt like God had been preparing me for this. I felt like I already knew so much about what to do. We dove right in.
So the journey I was referring to is a journey to GREAT health!
With the help of those two books and countless hours on facebook groups and blogs about natural healing of cancer, together we devised a plan for battling this cancer. We did all of this instantly, we had no idea of what extent this cancer was. We just knew we needed to get super nutrition started in his body immediately.
**I truly believe that God healed my husbands cancer. I will write about this separately.
A week later my husband's MRI and CT scan showed absolutely nothing. The surgeon was amazed by the MRI because he was not at all confident that he had removed it all. Yet no cancer was showing up. Hallelujah!
This meant no chemo or radiation (praise God because knowing what we now know we would never agree to it) The surgeon scheduled a resection surgery for a few weeks later.
Another week later he called us back and said he wanted to send Jeff to a specialist a few hours away. He wanted him to take a look and see if it was possible to have a less invasive surgery. (the tumor was in his rectum) We gladly went!
Upon being examined by the specialist (1 month after the initial diagnosis) it was found that the tumor sight was shrinking and healing--not growing!! Hallelujah! He said yes, he was a perfect candidate for the less invasive surgery. He was very encouraged by the improvement in the site in one month! We mentioned the excessive amounts of carrots we were juicing and the turmeric he was taking but he dismissed that as having any relevance. hmmmmm.
Jeff had outpatient surgery ten days later. When the surgeon came out to talk to me he said there was barely a mark where the cancer had been and he was highly confident it was gone. He removed tissue at the site and the margins around it. He told me he was surprised by how much more it had healed in ten days. I told him about our diet changes. He didn't dismiss it this time.
A week or so later we received the call from the surgeon telling us that all labs came back clear!
I'm telling this whole story because it leads into this lifelong journey we are now on. It is a journey to be healthy in our older years. We are 58 and 60. We have been healthy thus far. But colon cancer?!! This clearly is diet related. My husband loved to eat all of the things that were not good for him in the long run. I have always been overweight and he had also put on excess pounds in the last 10 or so years. This was a wake up call! We have too much to be healthy for!
This journey we are on is called Whole Foods Plant Based eating. We are not vegan. We eat no more than 10% animal products. Mostly less than 10%. We eat organic. Refined sugars are gone. Anything processed is gone. Coffee is now a treat twice a week. Green tea and Red tea took its place.
We began eating this way almost immediately after his diagnosis, not quite three months ago. He has lost 25 lbs and I have lost 22 lbs. We feel so much better! We have so much more energy! And we are happier!
I am going to try to write about this way of eating in the hopes that it can help someone else. There is so much information out there and I know it can be a daunting task to figure out what to eat and what not to eat! I have kept a food journal since day one on everything that we have eaten. I'm not going to lie and say this is easy! I think eventually it will just be natural to us and easier.
My next post will cover the basics of how we eat. I will try to outline it as best I can.
Questions!!! I would love to answer any and all questions.
Obviously we are only three months into this, but so far we have seen nothing but good results.
Only time will tell about the cancer, but right now we have no reason to believe it will ever come back.
I am hoping to keep us accountable through helping others eat healthier also!
Stay tuned!
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