Many of you have followed my posts on Facebook with my journey on a so called "detox" since giving birth to Abel. I've posted pictures of yummy food and bragged about losing thirty pounds. As a mother of three now, this last time was the hardest to lose weight. Now 30 years old, I've come to terms with my ever-changing body. As a younger woman, millions of fat burning hormones circled through my body so the need for "working out" or "eating healthy" didn't matter. I could eat a whole meal at Taco Bell and just skip dinner to make myself better because my body was burning the fat for me. I didn't have the urge to work out or eat healthy because I was skinny, so to me, it didn't matter. Call me vain if you'd like, but I call it being vulnerable and truthful. Until I got cancer.
I'll never forget the day I decided to watch a documentary titled, "The Beautiful Truth." Shortly after I decided to announce my journey through cancer, I received an out pour of messages and support from people I never knew I had mattered to. One of these messages was telling me about food and the relation to cancer. At first I was ridiculously hesitant in watching it and seeing what the documentary entailed, but curiosity got the best of me. I'll never forget that night. EVER. It was a small mark on a BIG thing that changed me. I remember the way I felt when I watched it. I called my parents and I cried to them. I explained I felt like I had caused my own cancer and that it was my fault. I looked at my life as a whole, the entire 28 years of it before hand and felt overwhelmed. Had I really done it wrong this whole time?
There are many documentaries that explain food and it's role on our health. This particular documentary caught my attention because the first time in my LIFE I didn't feel helpless to a disease. This was something that personally affected me and I couldn't help but think they might be on to something. I further researched clean eating. MSG. Additives. Sugar. And I felt really overwhelmed. Not only was I eating these things, but I was feeding it to my own children. It was so much easier, at a time when I felt like the world was crashing down on me, to put it on the back burner and not think about it. "I LIKE my fast food. I DESERVE my chocolate cake. I will just skip a meal and still be skinny." These were all things I told myself to rationalize what I had seen and researched because I wasn't ready to deal with what I knew deep down inside. AND THAT WAS OKAY.
Fast forward to present day. I was out to eat with my best friend at one of my favorite restaurants with the most delicious selections of pie. I'm talking like 40 different kinds to choose from. I have gone to this restaurant with her before and literally JUST ordered pie as our meal. ("It's okay to eat this, we will just skip a meal instead!") We order (I'm pregnant at the time) and she orders a bowl of fruit. Astounded, I ask her why she was eating rabbit food. (My common joke for eating healthy food.) She tells me she is on a "Paleo detox" so I ask her a little bit about it. I'm secretly rolling my eyes in the back of my head and thinking "Oh God, another famous beauty trend for everyone to fall for."
I'd like to side note here to explain the personality of my best friend. She has never been the type of person to push her beliefs on anyone. She has never been loud, obnoxious or close minded. In fact, she's one of the most open minded, understanding people I have ever known. She's never liked the spot light or loads of attention (maybe that's why we get along perfectly?! lol) and she has always considered what someone has to say. I applauded her for her determination and considered it small talk, never to be brought up again.
The next part I can not remember when it finally settled in. My best friend and I had met up several times after that lunch date when she had clued me in on her detox. I noticed her losing weight, but most of all I noticed a change in her attitude. Katie has always been one of my biggest inspirations, my constant reminder of the beautiful good there is in the world, and one of the only people who can keep me grounded when I feel lost or not myself. We consistently talk about fighting for our own happiness and not losing ourself in the world. We have both seen each other in sad, awful times, and have always picked each other up. And the one thing I couldn't deny was the change in the love for herself.
We talked about her new diet and her weight loss. We talked about her new love for running and exercise. And we talked about her new energy and happiness. I analyzed what I had seen happen before my eyes and thought deeply about it. For someone who didn't want attention or wasn't pushy, she couldn't have been doing this diet for anyone else but herself. And it couldn't be just a fad, because I watched the transformation before my eyes. So this was something she did because she wanted to, and wanted to share in excitement the new love she had found for herself. Simply because she wanted me to feel it too.
I started to think about that night I watched the documentary that linked our food to our health. I thought about all that I wanted to accomplish and how overwhelming it was on where to start. But when I shared this with her, she promised to go shopping with me, share recipes with me, and promised it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. I told myself that I would try the 22 day Paleo detox and stick to it. After all, I was a United States Marine. What in the hell IS there that I can't accomplish? On November 4th, I started my Paleo detox. Katie sent me emails and recipes as promised and started the detox over again with me.
The Paleo diet consists of eating food with no refined sugar. It consists of mostly fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, egg and nuts. There are many variations and debates on what is or isn't allowed, but www.thepaleodiet.com can summarize for you what should or shouldn't be consumed. The purpose of this blog is to understand the concept behind the Paleo diet and not necessarily adopting the same beliefs or eating habits. The 22 day Detox is aimed at helping figure out any allergies your body may have to certain foods and to help cleanse your body of the crap included in processed food.
The hardest were the first 4 days. I had to switch from sugar in my coffee to just black. It took a solid four days, and it tasted perfectly fine to me. FOUR days! I have been drinking sugar in my coffee since I was 15! Initially I felt hungry a lot. I had to retrain my brain in thinking that bloated "pasta" feeling wasn't full and that I was full when I wasn't hungry! A lot of the time I wanted to munch on food because I didn't feel that overwhelming feeling of being bloated.
After close to 2 weeks, I was hooked. I knew it was a new lifestyle for me and that I wouldn't ever go back to eating the way I had before. I had successfully changed my way of thinking (THE hardest thing to do when trying to change your eating habit in my opinion). The next thing to do was change the way my kids eat. Considering I have a child with a genetic disorder and behavior problems, this is the next biggest thing for me to conquer.
The Paleo diet not only helped me lose 30 pounds (of which would NOT come off after Abel was born despite how "good" I looked) but it helped me take control of my life. I can not begin to explain the thousands of benefits of clean eating, because I literally get so passionate about it and want to SCREAM why everyone in the world should do it. I have to remind myself that not everyone is ready to embark on this journey and not everyone wants to look in the mirror and face themselves. AND THAT IS OKAY. For those of you who have wondered about my journey and thought it might be something you wanted to try, this is for you.
Losing thirty pounds was the surface level benefit of clean eating. But included are the energy to WANT to do things, the happiness of being able to accomplish something I told myself I could never do, the fulfillment of changing my life and bettering my kids' lives and the pride I take in my body regardless of the reflection I see in the mirror. I don't focus on how skinny I am or what I "deserve to eat." I see the importance of feeding my body FUEL for life and nutrients to nourish it. Not only have I read this about clean eating, but I have experienced it myself. I don't ever ever ever get that bloated "fat" feeling like I did when I ate crap. I don't ever "feel" fat, even when I had only lost ten pounds. My entire body changed after I took responsibility for what I was putting in it. I am the one in charge of how it feels, and I am no longer a victim of society. I choose how I want it to feel, and if I don't always choose good, that's okay too! I'm not perfect and I won't ever be. But I wanted to share with you the love I have for my new life and outlook and to promise you that you can have that too. AND YOU DESERVE IT!
A few documentaries (On Netflix) to check out, are:
The Beautiful Truth
Hungry for Change
Forks Over Knives
Food, Inc.
These were the start to my curiosity in clean eating. I encourage you to check them out sometime, even if it is a lazy Sunday and NOTHING ELSE IS ON. :)
In closing, thank you for listening. I constantly struggle every day between shouting about this epiphany I had so that others can feel this happy too and telling myself to shut up because everyone will assume I'm bragging and boasting. If you need just ONE supporter to look into it, research it, or try it. I will be that person for you.
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