Pam is Guest Posting Tonight...WOO HOO!!!

I was thrilled when Tammy asked me to guest post on her blog!

She and I have known each other since we were both the fat girls in high school, and we are both working toward bettering ourselves right now. I could not be prouder of her journey so far! Tammy has come such a long way with her eating, its amazing. Once you set your mind to a goal, it becomes the focus, and not the cravings and temptations that hamper our dreams of being at a healthy weight.

She asked me to touch upon the food aspect of getting healthier, and while I am not a nutritionist or professionally trained, I will share with you what I have learned on my own personal journey and what its doing for myself and my family.

When my husband Randall and I began our journey, much like Tammy, our albatross was fast food. Every weekend, we spent much time and money at Sonic, among other fast food eateries, and had been doing so for well over a year, since I had gotten pregnant with our now two year old son. After deciding to try getting healthier for our child, I began looking up the nutritional values of what we had been consuming, and it was appalling. The sad thing is...so many restaurants offer this information now, and so many of us just turn a blind eye to it and keep filling our bodies with these toxins.

So, once the obvious is no longer a barrier, then what? A lot of people out there go very holistic, and eliminate all processed foods, caffeine, sugars, all the way down to eliminating meats from their diet. I applaud them all. Do I think its the only way to become healthy?
No, I don't. But I do think its about getting back to basics.

Eat as much fresh as you can - fresh fruits and vegetables are a huge thing you can do for yourself. Be willing to do a little work for it. No, I'm not talking farming, but prepping. So many of us use being busy as an excuse for not eating the way we should, and some of us resort to grabbing chopped veggies at the market. First off, you have no idea how long the produce has actually been cut, or what has been done to it to keep it looking fresh. Baby Carrots are a lovely example of this. First, they are not baby carrots at all - they are all of the misshapen rejects that couldn't make it to a regular bag of carrots, whittled down and made more appealing to us. The scariest part of baby carrots? They are treated with a bleaching solution to maintain freshness. If you read the bottom of this post, you will see a quote from a baby carrot producer, admitting this. Makes you wonder what is in the other pre-cut veggies and fruits, doesn't it?

While I am not pushing a sugar free lifestyle on myself or my family, I have become painfully aware of High Fructose Corn Syrup and the many horrors that accompany it, one of them being a possible link between it and levels of mercury found in nearly half of items that were tested for the metal in a study by Minneapolis-based nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). I was mortified when I realized I had been feeding several of these items to my child. It was just another step in my realizations of what needed to be trimmed from our menus as we are becoming healthier. I now seek out breads that are HFCS Free (bread is a huge market for HFCS - even when you think you are choosing healthy whole wheat bread for your family, many times, you are also feeding them HFCS, too), among other items. When we do bring an item into the house unintentionally with HFCS in it, I have the comfort in at least knowing I have definitely moderated out consumption, and isn't that what its all about - moderation.

Moderation is a huge key to controlling the portions of your proteins, as well as the occasional treat that we all want and deserve. After all, this is not a diet, its our lives we're talking about, here!

By adapting these changes to mine and my family's day to day lifestyle, it has become a way of life, one that has made us happier, more energetic, and netted us both decent losses so far - since January I have lost 67 pounds and my husband has lost 52 pounds. If you get a chance, stop by and see how we're doing. I still have a long row to hoe and Randall is getting closer to the end of his.

Thanks, again, Tammy - this was great!

Good luck to all of you losers out there!

Pam

Journey To The Healthier Side of Life