Brag time!

I gave myself the goal to go 3 days without sugar! I'm proud to say I did it!! YAY ME!

Mike and I also weighed in this morning. I lost 3 pounds this week and Mike lost 2 WOOHOO. I also logged 26 miles this week on dailymile.com 16 of those were on a recumbent bike. That means that I walked an awesome 10 miles this week!

Reflection and giving thanks

Today I found out that a life long friend of mine when in for a simple surgery. Total time she should have been in the hospital was only 4 hours. She is now in a medically induced coma for the next 2 weeks. Several months ago she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and began having trouble with maintaining a healthy oxygen level. I am very saddened to hear this news. I have many fond memories of us growing up together. Every one of them is happy. She is a beautiful person and I pray for her to have a quick and speedy recovery.
Last month my oldest sister died from complications of diabetes. She would be turning 61 this coming Sunday. Out of 4 girls in my family I am the only one living.

These recent events have caused me to reflect upon my own life and my own health. For as long as I can remember I've always been blessed with good health. I had your standard childhood diseases like chicken pox, scarletina, ear infections,etc... I've also broken my share of bones and had to have stitches due to careless childhood mishaps. But I've always been, for the most part healthy.

At my age(39) I'm learning of more and more friends that suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. I have been so lucky even with being overweight that I haven't developed any of those diseases and I'm certainly in the "at risk" category as there are several family members that suffer from these various ailments.

I realize God has truly blessed me my whole life with good health. He has always wanted me to be healthy. I see that now. I still don't know why, but I feel that I would be most ungrateful if I let His gift of health go to waste. I guess in the end these events have solidified my decision and strengthened my commitment to achieve better health and to get this extra weight off. He has a plan for me and I do believe that in order for me to fulfill it I have to be at peak health.

I am so grateful today to God for giving me such a wonderful gift. Without good health I wouldn't be able to care for my loved ones.

Ignore the criticism

Our oldest daughter called me the other day and wanted me to teach her about green smoothies. She has decided to adopt a healthier lifestyle for her and her family. Mike and I are in full support of this! We went to costco and I showed her what to get started with. She started the green smoothie diet yesterday.
Last night she called me because she's been getting a lot of criticism from people who think she's crazy and think they know what's healthy and what's not. She wants to eliminate unhealthy carbs(i.e. bread and flour based products) from her diet and was told that there is nothing wrong with eating that kind food. Again out comes the "you can't just eat that!" She was very upset and just wants a little support from her loved one's. Especially her husband.

I say good for her for making this choice and switch at such a young age! I told her to just keep at it and ignore the nay sayers. She can lead by example and when she is full of energy and her skin is glowing she will prove to them just how healthy of a lifestyle this is!

Keep up the good work Dee! Mom and dad are behind you and you know how much your baby girl loves the green smoothies. I feed them to her all the time.

A life choice

Yesterday Mike, myself and the kids all went on an adventure to the new City Creek Center in Salt Lake City. We had a great time and even did our part in energy conservation and utilized public transportation.
This new mall is a first of it's kind in Utah. Entertainers in the mall court yards, first rate shopping and dining. Shops like Coach, Tiffany's, Nordstrom, Macey's, Porsche, Bose, etc...all line the upper and lower decks of the mall. Right down the middle of the mall is a faux creek. Kind of cool! For dining there is your standard food court with Sbarro's, Chick Fil A, McDonald's, etc... but if you want some good eats there's a Brazilian steak house and The Cheesecake Factory!
Since Mike was the only one that had ever been to The Cheesecake Factory and since I'm a sucker for cheesecake...we went there. Oh and I totally went off my diet. Holy crap! The food was amazing and the cheesecake was to die for! I got the red velvet cheesecake. An orgasm for the taste buds! So rich and so creamy. It was heavenly!
After dinner we wandered around the mall a little more then headed back to the Front Runner station and made our way back home. We were home for about 1 hour and then it hit me. The worst tummy ache I had had in a long time. I just wanted to vomit.

I think between the burger(rather the bun) and the cheesecake my stomach was not happy. I made myself a nice cup of peppermint tea and went to bed. Today my stomach feels a lot better but I'm so tired. It's like I have a carbohydrate hangover. No energy and just feel BLAH!
A fellow primal friend of mine said it well when she said eating Primal is a life choice just like being a vegetarian or a vegan is a life choice. There's a lot of wisdom in that. Vegetarian don't eat meat, vegan's don't eat anything with any animal by products therefore Primals don't eat grains/carbs. This is one primal girl that is going to be swearing off the grains and sugars. They do not agree with me no matter how tasty they look. I guess it could be likened to slapping a juicy steak in front of vegetarian. That steak may look juicy and tasty, but let that veg eat it and him/her would be sicker than a dog.

Interestingly enough I don't think Mike had the same reaction as I did. He didn't complain of any side effects to me anyways. This morning he was so good and got up and made himself a couple of smoothies. I haven't had much of an appetite, so I just didn't eat.
Hopefully around supper time I'll be hungry and will make myself a green smoothie. I'm going to take my oldest daughter and her husband to Costco today to go produce shopping they want to do a green smoothie flush next week just to help flush some toxins out of their systems.

There you have it

Well with my previous posts I've given a basic summary of how we came to be where we are today. I do apologize if they seem disorganized and scattered. I had many thoughts going through my head and wanted to get down as much as I could. In the future they should hopefully be a lot more organized.

We will continue on eating our primal diet and our green smoothies all the while people continue to say "hey you look great what are you doing?" We will continue to answer, well we drink a lot of green smoothies and don't eat grains. The response will be "you can't just eat that, you have to have grains in your diet, that many greens is not good for you."
I'm here to say "wanna bet"? In cutting out the grains Mike is down 2 pant sizes and I've lost 1 pant size, almost down 2. There seems to be a lot of misconceptions out there.

For exercise I try to walk daily. I walk about 2 miles a day. I have about 15 more pounds to lose and then I'm going to start a running program. My initial running goal is to run 4 miles. That will take some time and training to get there. I'd like to run a 5k by the end of this summer.

As the weather gets warmer Mike, myself and the kids will be out hiking and bike riding. We'll continue to get healthier and I'll keep updating our progress.

Eating Primal, Juicing and Green Smoothies

We both learned that just juicing was difficult. However, the energy we both had was incredible. For the first time in years, Mike's fatigue was going away. He had the energy to make through his work day and then would come home and do things with the family without feeling the need for a nap.

A friend recommended to me The Primal Blueprint and Mike started reading about Green Smoothies. Eating a primal diet consists of well eating what primal man would have eaten. We eat meats which consist of fish, game meats and grass fed beef. We consume lot of veggies, berries and raw nuts. We try to avoid the refined carbs. I have been staying away from them more so than Mike as I am finding that wheat based grains do not agree with me. I have found that nasty little grain is the cause of hives and back pain with me. I started to research this anomaly and found that is becoming increasingly more common. I've been reading a book entitled"Wheat Belly" by a Dr. William Davis and have learned why. The wheat of today is not the wheat our ancestors ate. It's a poor genetically modified version. I am no longer subscribing to the the American Heart Associations belief of eating your "healthy whole grains". In my research I'm not all together convinced that they are all that "healthy".

Mike studied green smoothies, so we consume those daily. Mike is more adventurous with the smoothies than I am. The smoothies consist of lots of greens(like kale, spinach, various lettuces, etc...) some fruit and or nuts for added flavor and sweetness. Those greens are very bitter by themselves. We have both found that our bodies are starting to CRAVE the greens.

Just to add one more thing about the smoothies the kids love them as well! NO, it's true!! Our youngest one Lindsay who is just 7 is the biggest advocate. Many mornings she'll get up and beg for a green smoothie for breakfast. Kind of funny to have a young child wanting a green smoothie for breakfast rather than cocoa puffs or frosted flakes. The kids will also beg us to make green smoothies for their friends when they they have a friend over. 90% of the time we get a great reaction from the friends as well. It's pretty funny.
The kids favorite smoothie is what I call The Berry Green smoothie. It consists of 1 banana, handful of blueberries, 1 handful of blackberries, 1 handful of raspberries and about 4 strawberries, top this with about 3 good handfuls of greens like Spinach(this is the most mild of greens and the flavor is well hidden by the berries) add about 2 cups of water and a packet or 2 of stevia. Blend it all up and you have a great nutritious snack or meal for the kids. We have also found that this one freezes well into Popsicles for a great frozen treat for the kids. I made this smoothie as well one day for one of my girls who was suffering from a sore throat.

A New Year, A Fresh Start

Sometime in January of this year a friend recommended that I watch a little documentary entitled "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". Wow! What an eye opener! The basis of this documentary is about a man named Joe, who was suffering from an autoimmune disease and basically cured himself by juicing. I highly recommend watching it. You can also learn more at his website fatsickandnearlydead.com The juicing fascinated me.
Although I wasn't sure if I could just survive off of veggie juices. Dr. Brian had me drinking approximately 15-25 oz of carrot/veggie juice a day and I really enjoyed it.
I had come up with my own concoction but was afraid to branch out and try new things.

After I watched the documentary I asked Mike to watch it. It really struck him. He decided that if this guy Joe could do it, so could he. Mike and I together went on a juice fast. Mike's goal was 60 days. Mine was 10 days. I made it 7! During that week I lost about 12 pounds. Mike did it for an incredible 20 days and lost about 40 pounds!!!
During this time of juicing we solidified our commitment to being more active. Since it was winter, activities consisted of snowshoeing and skiing. Both are great winter workouts.

The Red Pill

Remember that scene in "The Matrix" where Neo swallows the red pill and his life is forever changed?
In the Spring of 2011 my dear husband Mike met up with a Chiropractor; Brian J. Dr. Brian isn't just a back cracker but he believed in something that most health care practitioners have lost sight of: Healing the WHOLE person. By the time Mike began working with Dr. Brian we were both overweight. I was suffering from chronic back pain and frequent headaches. Mike was always tired. Mike thought this would be a great opportunity for me to see someone and get some relief for my back pain.
The first visit Dr. Brian ran some tests on me. I found out I was stressed to the hilt, both emotionally and physically. He had me do something that none of my doctors ever did before, and that was start testing my ph levels. This revealed I was very acidic. He suggested some diet changes. The acidic levels as I have learned were contributing to my back pain. As I reduced the acidic foods in my diet the pain started to go away as if by magic.
What are acidic foods? You know.....all that yummy stuff like cakes, candy, cookies, bread, cereal, potatoes, soda, cheeseburgers, just to name a few. All those things that I love eating and what most Americans eat on a daily basis. Those foods make a huge portion of the Standard American Diet and what a "SAD" one it is!

In order to reduce the acid in my diet I began more alkaline based foods(this should all make sense if you remember basic chemistry). Alkaline foods are foods like broccoli, spinach, apples, carrots, etc...the healthy stuff! I started to cut most grains out of my diet.

The best part of all this...I started to lose weight! It started to fall off! I ate an extremely healthy diet for months. Mike soon came on board on with it as well. We decided that we were going to get fit. This entailed eating healthier and becoming more active. I do admit that over the holidays it was hard to stick with a healthy diet. I'm sucker for a big Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, oh and let's not forget Christmas! One thing I enjoy doing is baking. I love to bake breads, cookies, pies and make Christmas candy. So over the holiday's I packed on a few more pounds and the back pain came back!

I knew what was causing my pain and it was time to go back to the knowledge that Dr, Brian had given me(i.e. my red pill) and get myself healthy again. This knowledge is my red pill. Now that I know there is no turning back. Honestly all it's done is just open my mind and I've been searching for more knowledge and information. I also know that every time I eat or drink anything with sugar or flour I'm literally putting acid in to my system. Having taken Chemistry classes in both High School and College I learned what acid does...it eats away at whatever it touches. This certainly can't be good for our bodies. The more acidic we are the more we can potentially suffer from physical ailments, disease, pain, what have you.

The beginning

As I mentioned in the last post my husband and I met 14 years ago. At the time we were both on the thin side. Not sure how healthy, but we weren't overweight. Over time, getting older, pregnancies(for me), stress, and just plain old bad eating habits we both gained weight. At one point I was told I had high cholesterol (YIKES)! This was the beginning of a wake up call for me, although not a complete one.
Our eating habits were awful. Looking back I cooked lots and lots of high carb meals. Meat and potatoes were a staple when I was young, so I based our meals off of that, but expanded and I mean EXPANDED! Meals like lasagna with garlic bread, hamburgers with french fries(deep fried of course), spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread again, meatloaf served up with mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and a small serving of veggies were the norm around our house. I thought I was doing okay with this since most everything I ever cook is from scratch. We rarely ever ate anything that was processed.

Weekends were generally spent with friends, eating out, playing board games, while eating M&M's, Swedish fish, and Doritos by the gross ton. While satisfying to the palate this only resulted in the scale going up along with our pant sizes.

Oh there were times that I decided "I really need to lose some weight". I'd get more exercise and eat healthier. I watched my portions and cut out the sweets. This always seemed to work in the short term, but once I'd lose 20 pounds or so I'd be satisfied and go back to my old ways. The weight would come back on and then some.

Intro

I decided to create this blog to give others a peek into lives of myself and my husband as we get healthy. This blog is not going to be about what a person should or shouldn't eat. I'm not here to lecture anyone about getting healthy. I am just here to share our journey. I chose the title "You Can't Eat That" because this is what my husband and I hear over and over when people ask what we're doing to get healthy. I guess it's because we are going against the norm.

A bit about us...My name is Marilyn, my husband is Mike. We met about 14 years ago and next month we will be celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary. Together we have 5 beautiful children, four girls and one boy. Our oldest daughter is married and has blessed us with a beautiful granddaughter. Our one and only son is proudly serving in the U.S. military. Our other three daughters are still living at home and continue to bring the challenges of raising teenagers.