Pursuing Health Continued from Sparkpeople Blog 4/29/17

So, picking up where I left off, my husband and I are eating buddies, as is my best friend, and I passed my unhealthy habits on to my children. More on that later. About eight years ago we discovered a life changing book called "Food Additives A Shoppers Guide to What's Safe and What's Not!" I cleaned out our entire pantry, and we started to eat organic much more often. It is around this time when we discovered, and purchased Saladmaster. It was a missing link for us. 

So, I have been cooking on my Saladmaster for about 7 years. I think I hoped that I would naturally lose weight, and I did lose some using it. However, my old nemesis, self-control, or rather the lack of it, kept rearing it's ugly head. The food cooked on my new Saladmaster pans just tasted sooooooo goodl. It took the simplest of meals and elevated them, but did I mention that I was already a good cook, so the meals I can make on that are phenomenal. 

Here I was, with this incredible cooking system, and all sorts of knowledge about food, but no self control, or plan. I opened a small shop about two years ago, and with being so busy, my food got completely out of control. We were constantly eating out. Something we had phased almost completely out back when we cleaned out our cupboards. We even started going to fast food again, because it was affordable and we were hungry. Of course, we weren't eating for life, we were eating for death, so we had no energy. 

I'm not sure how long we could have continued on that road. I ended up in the hospital last 4th of July, with a case of sepsis that it took me months to completely recover from. My leg is scarred from it, and I came away with a diagnosis of diabetes, and hypertension. You would think this would be enough, and when I first got out of the hospital we did do better for a time. Then slowly, as we were busy, we went right back to our old habits. 

Then, going back to the beginning of this story, I closed my shop at the end of December. I'm a bit of an introvert, so at first I just needed some time of not going out or doing anything. I started cooking at home, but even that was a bit challenging at first, we had become kind of addicted to eating out. Plus, if my kitchen isn't clean, I don't feel like cooking. Then in March I started Take Shape for Life. 

I thought I would love the convenience of pre-packaged foods. Plus, TSL had made a new line of products called Optavia, which had no artificial sweeteners, or artificial flavors. However, somewhere along the line even when we were eating fast food we had checked out of the standard American diet (SAD). We had been cutting the sweetener, for ages. We had always eaten a fair amount of fresh produce. In fact, my favorite part of TSL was the lean and green meal. I love green vegetables. Well, all color vegetables really. 

I was four days into TSL when I realized I hated eating packaged food. We do not microwave, and the foods that needed to be microwaved were difficult to make.any other way The shakes with stevia were too sweet, tasted icky to me, and left a bad stevia after taste in my mouth. I felt like I was eating sweets all day, with one lean and green meal where I always wanted to eat more vegetables. So much of the food was just not to my taste. I decided it was not a good fit for me. 

That being said, TSL taught me some things that I have successfully implemented in my weight loss journey. First, eat smaller amounts more frequently. Six smaller meals a day, 2-3 hours apart. I try to have a protein at each of those meals, veggies, and a couple of meals a day I have a higher carb/fiber option. (Like a sweet potato, or beans.) Second, Dr. A's habits of health is a great book, that addresses all the issues an obese person will face during a weight loss journey. It is invaluable. Third, if I don't have a perfect day eating, I can just pick myself up and do it right the next day. 

This journey is interesting. I believe God has put me on it for a reason. I think at least part of the reason is the story of my journey. We all come from different walks of life, but no matter where we come from the pursuit of health is a something we need to be dedicated to, and it is individual. This is just the start of my story.