This is the beginning

I love food. Who doesn't? I love to make it, and I love to eat it...these two things together can be deadly. I get to cook for a family of 5, including myself. This means that there are a lot of tastes and palates to consider. Being a mom of three, a wife, student of many things, and having to consider a plethora of different cravings in a day, I find that I have become a slave to convenience processed foods. They are just so damn convenient! But there has always been a part of me that hates that convenience.

Quite often we hear about how the US is the fattest country in the developed world. I like to think it's because it has gotten to be too convenient for us to shovel foods into our mouths. Not only are we cramming our faces full of food, the food we are eating is becoming less recognizable. The ingredients list on packaged foods have more foreign words to us than recognizable ingredients. (Check out, if you dare, all of the different additives in the FDA's Food Additive List) It is these created additives that I have a problem with.

Not only is it a normal habit for us to consume fake foods, but we are also addicted to sugar. Really sit and think about it. How many items in the day are you eating that has sugar in it? The average adult American consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar (almost 1/2 of a cup), and the average teenager American eats 34 teaspoons!!!! Man oh man, that's a lot of sugar. There are so many excellent and scientific resources out there that will tell you the dangers of eating too much sugar (Including this one by Dr. Lustig, or the abridged version) so I don't think that I need to list them all. Needless to say, we need to stop consuming so much sugar!!!

This is where I have decided to start, in my real foods journey. I am starting on an 8 week sugar detox plan. Each week, I will drop another form from my diet with the end result being the eradication of sugar from my life! I really appreciated these words from Kristen over at Food Renegade:

In Japan, it’s called kaizen. It’s a strategy for making change based on tiny, continuous improvements. And, they mean tiny. Want to build a habit of exercise? A kaizen practitioner would recommend you start by marching in place for one minute a day.

The point is to make changes in small, but effective increments. You start with where you’re at, and you look to see what you can change. You make it your goal to change that one thing.

Then, you give yourself grace. Lots of grace. Grace to break every other Real Food rule. You work on your one thing — and only that — until it’s habitual.

Every diet adjustment, even the most simple, takes time. It may be two, three, or even four weeks before you’re comfortable in your new eating habits — before they “fit” like an old pair of boots. But it will happen. And, once it does you can evaluate where you’re at and make another small change.

Now I am not saying that I won't eat a piece of cake at your birthday party, or that I will not indulge in the occasional ice cream cone with the girls, but that I am taking the steps to being healthier and teaching my girls about being healthier. I always say that I like to lead by example, and this is me doing it!