Some of you may know that around March of this year, my family and I changed our way of eating pretty drastically. Anthony and I decided (or came to the conclusion?) that we were no longer spring chickens. Our metabolisms had slowed down, we weren’t nearly as active as we were in our youth, our eating habits were poor, at best, and we just plain didn’t feel good! Plus, we had both packed on a few pounds.
Anthony was tipping the scale at around 206 pounds and I… well, I just don’t really want to tell you what I weighed.
Alright! I guess it wouldn’t be fair for me to reveal Anthony’s heaviest weight and not divulge mine as well.
My heaviest weight was about 132 (except when I’m pregnant, of course).
I know what some of you must be thinking – 132 pounds isn’t exactly heavy. I realize that but 132 isn’t where I personally am comfortable, it’s not my ‘normal’. (By the way, Anthony’s ‘normal’ is around 180.)
We decided at that point that our habits had to change. We needed to eat better and start exercising regularly.
Enter the world of Clean Eating and P90X!
I started researching food and which foods were the best, how often we should be eating and what all those foreign ingredients are that are listed on some of my very favorite foods. Guess what I found out… nothing new. Nothing that should have surprised me, but it did. How in the world had I gone all these years without realizing that a HUGE portion of what I was putting into my body was not only not good for me and my family but that it could possibly be slowly killing us? I felt like I had been poisoning my kids!
In truth, I believe that I kind of was poisoning them. Not intentionally but what I learned made me sad, angry and ready to change. I didn’t want to feed my kids, GMO’s and processed junk anymore.
We started eating clean! If you’re wondering what that is, it basically means eating only real, whole foods. No processed foods, no refined sugars, no white flour, lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, lots and lots of water. Basically, if God made it, you should eat it. If man made it, stay away! Do you know how hard that is? We live in a world where eating is all about convenience. Everything is made these days with convenience in mind. Lunch and dinner to go, all prepackaged with all kinds of preservatives and who knows what else.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I’ve posted lots of treats and goodies… with white flour, sugar and sometimes even processed foods. You may be thinking, um hello Brooke, do you really eat clean at all?
The answer is yes. We try to follow the 80/20 rule (80% whole, clean foods and 20% whatever else we feel like). However, I do have a confession to make. Oh how I hate confessions… We finished our first round of P90X in June. At that point, the exercising slowed down quite a bit because with the sun rising earlier and setting later, the kids were up and at ‘em earlier and went to bed much later. They weren’t having the whole 'go-to-bed-while-the-sun’s-still-shinin’ thing. We had a hard time fitting the exercise in. We got it in a time or two here and there but not enough. Definitely not enough. But our eating habits were GREAT throughout the whole summer. How could they not be with all the fresh produce? Anthony was still able to run a few times a week also so he was able to stay on top of things.
And then came September… and then October… I don’t know what it is about cooler weather but it just makes me want to eat more. My will to exercise was all but gone because I was no longer in the habit. It was hard for me. I struggled. My 80/20 started to become more of a 70/30 and then a 60/40. Yikes! And yes, my weight has started to creep back up. I got down to 119 (just 5-9 pounds off of my ‘normal’) and sadly, I’m now back up to about 124. It’s a sad story! On a happier note, Anthony has maintained his running and even snuck in a few P90X dvd’s and is now a mere 167 pounds. He’s smaller than I’ve ever known him to be!
But I’m ready to start fresh… again! No more of this nonsense with yuckiness (spellcheck says yuckiness is not a word… I disagree ;))
I was so happy to learn that today is Food Day! I didn’t even know there was such a thing but apparently, there is. The goal is to get people eating real foods. To get away from the processed junk out there.
I did a Clean Eating Challenge on my old blog several months ago and I think it was a great way to learn about clean eating, how to implement it and stay on track. I need the Clean Eating Challenge for ME! Would anyone like to join me? If so, I’ll post all 8 steps here on THIS blog one week at a time. It’s a process rather than an all-out BAM! Know what I mean, Vern? Please let me know if you are interested.
HAPPY FOOD DAY!!
P.S. I will still post recipes… clean and not-so-clean. After all, I still get to cheat 20% of the time, right?
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