29 Aug Loving the Color Green
I had a revelation a few months back that to transform my personal health I needed to rethink somethings. Like many uber busy adult folks (buzz word for midlife), I realize that I can’t continue to treat my body like I was still in high school!! Those days are long gone. And that lose 10 lbs. in 10 days diet just won’t work on me anymore. Major duh, moment but still revelatory within itself.
Now even though I had this ah ha moment months ago, I had to walk myself around it for a while to commit. I said ok, after my husband’s birthday, and then Easter and then my ladies retreat and oh yea my trip to New Orleans for Jazz Fest because I am going to eat some Beignets. When all this is done, then I will start.
So, trips aside, I just woke up one morning and said enough you start today! I am picking up some fresh green juice this morning. And I did. I then went home and got a few books out of the garage that dealt with eating healthy. (I have enough diet books to start a library)
Here’s my short list:
- JJ Smith’s Green Smoothies for Life
- Seamus Mullen’s Real Food Heals
- Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s all Good
I am reading several other books by medical doctors that tell us how different foods react to the body. How to reverse inflammation in the joints and how to avoid early onsets of disease due to poor nutrition. Let me just say that I am not at all advocating any kind of special diet for myself because in my opinion diets fail. I have gone on and off of enough diet programs in my lifetime to know what constitutes good nutrition. I just needed a little refresher of some truths that I was not walking in, ya know what I mean?
So, I am learning to love the color green again.
I have to decrease the carbs, the sugars, and the junk and increase the green juice, select more grass-fed proteins, clean water, simple nuts, fresh berries and loads of green leafy vegetables. I have figured out that most anything with color is generally fabulous! Oranges, apples, avocado, kale, broccoli, you get my drift – versus things that are white or beige. Things like potatoes, rice, pasta, sugar. Now I am certainly no expert nutritionist, but these little hacks help me when I am about to just pop something into my mouth.
Listen ultimately, I do believe that we can enjoy all the food groups within reason. Yes, moderation is the key. But some of us like myself stay disproportionately in the sugar, pasta, rice, and potatoes line more than others!
My family is from New Orleans and we never met a fried food or rice dish that we didn’t like.
Clean food; foods without rich complex sauces and roux’s are almost sacrilegious to us. I can’t cook like I used to or eat what I once did and still recognize myself in the mirror.
Life is a constant series of new beginnings. I once could eat anything and stay within my goal weight. I am older and wiser. That was then, and this is now. I want to feel better and I want to move better. I just know I have to get my body and my nutrition in line with my future and my mindset. We all have to be in agreement.