In Which I Ramble On and On About My Latest Health Kick

Have you seen that commercial for multi-grain Eggo waffles? A geeky looking mom dressed in sweats power-walks into the kitchen, passing her two children who are preparing for school, and then calling out, "Kids! Time for breakfast." With an alarmed look on his face, the boy turns to his sister and says something to the effect of, "Mom is on another one of her health kicks. We need to get out of here before she tries to feed us breakfast!"

That's kind of the reaction I get from my family each time. And, yes, I am on another health kick, inspired by the lead Yahoo story I saw the other day about the family who took on the challenge of 100 Days of Real Food. I am completely aware of the fact that my "kicks" are a bit cyclical; however, I do learn something new everytime, and I do typically pick up at least one new good habit. For example, I now mill my own wheat and use that fresh, whole grain flour for bread, baked goods, and breakfast foods like waffles and pancakes. I also often substitute honey granules for refined sugar.

But I do have a long way to go. I would like to get to a point where I don't use refined sugar at all. My one big obstacle is that my source of honey granules, Bread Beckers, is now 16 hours away rather than 1, and the shipping costs are a bit hard to swallow. But I did go ahead and swallow it and placed an order for a new 5lb. container of honey granules and some flaxseed, which I grind and put in smoothies and baked goods. There are of course many, many other things I can work on like getting rid of all of the terrible foods that come in a box.

I just ordered Jordan Rubin's book What the Bible Says About Healthy Living, and as the author notes in the brief preview Amazon permitted me to read, we are indeed "fearfully and wonderfully made". Why shouldn't we focus on eating what God provided for us to eat? As much as I have tried, I have not yet located the rare to non-existent Oreo tree, so perhaps we should not be eating Oreos and the like.

So I'm going to try very hard to eliminate all of those processed foods. It's tough. I'm a veeery lazy cook, so those pre-packaged, processed foods are awfully tempting. Because going cold turkey and rashly removing all of the junk food from the pantry at one time is just setting me up for failure, I'm going to take this in stages. For the first week, I'm going to focus on snacks. When the kids ask for a snack, instead of telling them to dive into a box of Cheez-Its, I am going to provide some whole, natural options instead. Some will take some work - like making my own cheese crackers - but our health is worth it, right?

Of course, I chose the very worst weekend to decide to be healthy. I just went to the grocery store day before yesterday - along with every other resident of Connecticut - to stock up on non-perishables in the event that Irene steals our electricity. So I will start our Snack Reformation after Irene has departed and our power has been restored. At that point, we can take the yet unopened boxes of Cheez-Its and Oreos and donate them to the local food bank.

Until then, I will continue to exercise. Very surprisingly, I have been very committed to exercising daily. I work out every morning on the treadmill - working on building up my endurance so that eventually I can run a 5K. A huge goal for a non-runner like me, especially since, aside from high school sports, I have never before been consistent in any exercise program.

Thankfully, I'm not alone in exercising...we have had some great family times over the last month hiking some of the many trails that traverse the New England landscape and biking. Mark and I splurged and bought bikes so we could join the kids. In addition, we got a bike attachment that turns Mark's bike into a tandem bike thus allowing Audrey to keep up with our pace.

Is she cute or what?


Unfortunately for me, I had to cut my workout today short and will take tomorrow off as well. My ankle is killing me. For no reason. That happens a lot with fibromyalgia - pain for no reason. Which is why I'm on a new health kick. I refuse to take any of the medications that fight fibromyalgia with side effects like "thoughts of suicide". I am confident that if I learn to eat healthy and stick with it, I won't be so tired all the time, and I won't have a Pain du Jour.

So raise your healthy drink...here's to getting healthy.