All done

Yesterday ended our “whole food challenge” formally.  I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies (with white flour) last night as a celebration for everyone.  This week went much more smoothly than last week, but we did “cheat” a little bit.  Anything I baked I used a mixture of white and whole wheat flour.  I was getting a lot of flack for the whole wheat around here, and decided that some whole wheat is better than no whole wheat. 

I also bought organic potato chips.  Truthfully, they have the same ingredients as Lays potato chips, but they felt better to buy because they were in the organic section.  Also, that simple fact has significantly reduced the speed of consumption.  Apparently, you have to want chips pretty bad to eat organic chips! 

The biggest news of the week was the addition of the ice cream maker.  After my last post where I painted a picture that was all hunky-dory, we had a whole-food meltdown (I had the meltdown), because I was tired of the complaining.  The solution?  Buy an ice cream maker!  We have been making our own, preservative-free,ice cream all week long, at a fraction of the price that we would have bought ice cream from Schwan’s, and this stuff is oh, so delicious!  This had everyone feeling better around the house this week!

The kids have been great this week, great behavior, good moods, etc.  Cameron and Lilly actually played together ALL EVENING last night and didn’t fight once.  This is huge! 

I have been talking with everyone about what changes do they feel we can permanently implement, and what changes have to go.  The only things they would “like” to get rid of were:  Brown rice (probably not going to happen), whole-wheat pancakes (maybe…), and Ed needs to have some type of flavored beverage, preferably caffeinated.  He is not a coffee drinker, so we are trying to figure out would be a good option that would provide flavor and caffeine. 

The bulk of the challenge fell on my shoulders.  I had to plan every meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), I had to buy the groceries, and prepare the food (most meals).  I guess the biggest question is can I continue to implement these changes?  With the positive changes I have seen over these past two weeks, I am going to do my best to stick with it.  I plan to completely eliminate all food dyes and high fructose corn syrup.  That much is for sure.  I also plan to buy more fruit, no chips (or few chips), and will only bake one batch of cookies per week.  I plan to buy only whole-wheat/whole grain bread.  The bakery here in Cold Spring makes a white/whole wheat mix that Ed can eat (he has resisted the whole wheat bread the most).  I also began buying milk and butter from the co-op country store here in Cold Spring.  It is from a local dairy.  The cost is the same (a nickel more for the milk), but the quality is out of this world…that butter is the most delicious butter I have ever eaten.

Even though we are “done”, we really aren’t done.  We will keep trucking and moving towards better health.  We might slip up every now and then, but this has been very eye opening for us.  And as time moved on, it truly did get much easier to adopt this lifestyle!  Thanks to all of you for your support, it really helped keep me on track

Into the groove

Things have settled down considerably for me since Thursday, thankfully, or we may have thrown in the towel!  There is not too much to report, except if I am going to continue to adopt these lifestyle changes, I am going to need to learn how to cook!  I made homemade pizza (whole wheat crust, organic pizza sauce, and farm-raised hamburger) on Friday night, thinking it would be a ‘treat’ of sorts for us since everyone has been so good and done so well. 

 

It tasted like cardboard.

 

The sauce was terrible…flavorless, and it soaked into the crust during baking, so it was almost as if there was no sauce at all.  And the crust?  About as yummy as you can imagine whole wheat crust to be.

 

Our challenge officially ends on Friday.  After Friday?  I’m not sure what we are going to do.  My plan is to talk with the kids and with Ed and decide which of these changes that we have made are things we can and should continue.  And which of these changes are things we just cannot do. 

 

I am open to cooking with white flour.  As mentioned in a previous post, I typically buy unbromated, unbleached, organic white flour, so as far as white flours go, it is probably the best.  I would like to resume my weekly chocolate chip cookie tradition, and outside of one or two questionable ingredients in chocolate chips and the white flour, I think this is a great snack for the kids that does not come from a box or a bag.

 

I also plan to mix white and whole wheat flours to make things like breads and pancakes.  Some whole wheat is better than none, I presume, but there are some people in my family who are REALLY struggling with the whole-wheat-everything rule.

 

I plan to push continued whole-wheat sandwich bread for the kids and myself.  I also plan to push fresh fruit as a snack before getting any other type of snack (as in a cookie). 

 

I plan to continue to meal plan and to provide meals that are cooked from scratch with good ingredients, and to make sure there are enough left over for Ed and I to eat a good lunch at work. 

 

I also plan to push NO cold, sugary cereal (unless it is something healthy, like plain cheerios), and no food dye whenever possible.  I don’t plan to be militant, as in no birthday cake at a party, etc.  But I do not plan to purchase foods or beverages with artificial coloring in them.

 

All of these plans will go over just fine with the family, but I need to recognize that it will take greater commitment on my part (as well as more work).  I think once I find a pattern and a routine, this will become much easier.  The most important thing is a meal plan with all ingredients available in the house.  This has made things much easier.

 

We did deviate from “the plan” a few times…Ed bribed the boys to clean the house with a bowl of ice cream as a reward, unbeknownst to me!  So, last night, we were all hungry, craving something sweet, so I allowed everyone a small bowl of ice cream with frozen strawberries (from my garden).  The ice cream does not meet the criteria of the food plan, but the strawberries did.  I thought it was close enough, and a reward to everyone for a job well done this week.

 

I am still noticing the improvements with the kids’ overall moods and behavior.  This alone is a reason to keep going, in my opinion.  I am feeling quite sure that Lilly has some type of food allergy, because her skin rash is virtually gone after a week of this.  I am suspecting high-fructose corn syrup, so I plan to stay away from that indefinitely. 

 

I can report that I lost 3 lbs over the past week.  Other than modifying what I was putting in my mouth, I was not dieting, tracking/journaling my intake, nor was I depriving myself.  If I was hungry, I ate.  I also have been feeling some dull joint pain in my hips and hands for the past few months, I don’t know what that is from (I am hoping it is not arthritis, but at almost-40, it certainly could be).  That joint pain has significantly decreased, although it could be because the weather has warmed up, too…the cold seems to make it worse. 

 

We are officially “off” the challenge after Friday, so I imagine Saturday, the kids are going to go nuts on food.  That will be an interesting test to see how they feel after that!

Day 5

I have been thinking about what to title this blog post…here are a few ideas: 

• Losing my mind
• It’s the dishwasher that never ends
• Woman becomes institutionalized after poisoning her children with white flour
• Making turkey gravy at 6:45 am (this is no exaggeration)
• Overwhelmed, under-stocked, and over-budget

The third title is an exaggeration.  The rest, well, they are pretty much spot-on.  Please let me rant during the first half of this post, then I will update on any good news that there may be.

A few things I have come to realize:  First, if I think I have bought enough food, I need to almost double it.  Now that the kids aren’t eating chips, ice cream at bedtime, chocolate chip cookies, they are ACTUALLY eating meals and lots of fruit.  so what I thought was a weeks supply of fruit ended up being only a 4 day supply of fruit.  I also realize that what I considered a meal before (enough for all of us plus a few leftovers), is no longer enough because they are all eating more at mealtime.  I know this is a good thing, but this was something I was underprepared for.

Take last night…rock bottom, as it is now being known.  Wednesdays I work until at least 6, and I had to volunteer with the boys at the nursing home from 6:45-8.  Ed was in charge of supper, and I told him that there were “plenty” of leftovers.  In the interest of the other New Year’s resolution to not waste food, I want to make sure we are eating our leftovers.  Well, my “plenty” and his and the kids’ “plenty” are two different things.  So I get home, and the food is gone, everyone is hungry, and we have nothing to take for lunches tomorrow.  I still have some of my Great Harvest bread, but no one can really stand it, so I have no idea what we are all going to eat.  I peer into the fridge and see a turkey that is thawed (remember it was supposed to be the day #1 meal).  So, we heave that bird into the oven at 6:30 last night so we will have something to take to work and school tomorrow.  We are all out of cookies, so I know I will have to get up early to make some more, the cookies have been a lifesaver!  They are the only non-fruit or veggie snack in the house. 

Fast forward 12 hours…I am showered and dressed for work.  It is 6:30 am and I head upstairs into the kitchen.  The place I have spent the greater majority of my time at home.  I begin taking apart the turkey, peeling potatoes, and making gravy so that we would all have a yummy lunch.  Oh, yes, and then there were those pesky cookies.  So, there I was baking cookies on top of it.  My frustration and stress level were mounting…this is surely not how I wanted to start my day (especially with NO COFFEE!!).  And then, the unthinkable…I grabbed my flour canister and measured the flour into the cookie batter.  The WHITE FLOUR…The NON-WHOLE GRAIN FLOUR!!!!!!!!  I caught myself tipping the bowl over to try to remove the toxic powder, but then realized I may have gone too far.  I began to breathe deeply and try to talk myself off of the whole food ledge I was perched upon.  (As an aside, I do generally buy unbromated and unbleached flour, so my white flour is pretty OK anyway). 

Oh, yes, and I told the kids I would make eggs for breakfast.  They are sick of pancakes, and aside from Ed and I, no one really liked the crockpot oatmeal I made a double-batch of. 

I seriously thought I would lose my mind this morning.

But, now, after being away from the kitchen at work, I have had time to refocus and return home happy.  I have a oven-baked chicken fajita dish simmering in the oven, and the rice is on the stove. 

A few bits of info:  I am probably doing twice the amount of dishes I was previously doing.  Seems I am always preparing something.  I know this will get better as we find a groove of how much food to make, what types of things everyone will eat, etc.

I made an executive decision to buy bread that does not meet the real food rules.  It is still whole wheat, does not contain high-fructose corn syrup, and other than one preservative, it is “clean”.  The lack of any bread that anyone will eat is serious.  Because if they are hungry, they have always made a PB & J, a piece of toast, etc.  So, because I don’t have time to experiment with a bread recipe, because I only have 4 slices of Great Harvest bread left, and because I have been told that said Great Harvest bread tastes like clay, I made the decision and will not look back.

Now, for the good stuff…

We have all been noting, well, um, changes, with our digestive systems.  I am assuming this is a good thing, but it may take a few days to work out the kinks, if you know what I mean.  But the mood around here has been quite good.  Lilly and Alex have been the most invested, and are both waaaay more on board than I originally thought.  Alex doesn’t necessarily like this, but he is sticking to it quite well.  Lilly is much more open to it.  She is talking to all of her friends about healthy eating, and she has seemed much, much happier.  I let her eat school lunch today—mini corn dogs, her favorite—and she told me her tummy hurt after eating them, and next time she probably won’t eat them.  I am glad she was able to make that choice on her own.

Happy faces, hungry tummies, but all in all (minus the cook-a-thon this morning), we are hanging in there!

Day 1: Success?

We finished day 1!  The place didn’t go up in flames, no one exploded, and in fact, there was only a little complaining!  We had a few failures, though, as the day progressed.
Failure #1:  Use of SPRITE to cook ham. 
We had a ham in our garage that we were going to prepare for a family Christmas celebration on Saturday.  This celebration was cancelled because Ed was sick.  So here we had this ham.  So I deviated from the meal plan (turkey breast was on the menu), and I prepared the ham.  The only way I know how to make ham is by slicing it and baking it in sprite…yes SPRITE.  The soda.  The chemical-laden soda.  Soooo, I decided that since I used only about 12 ounces for cooking, and the amount of liquid in the bottom of the pan after cooking was probably just 10 ounces, our level of ingestion would be very, very small.  I made an executive decision to allow this because I needed to have something tasty for this very hungry family to eat.
Failure #2:  Use of sharp cheddar cheese with annatto
Annatto is a natural coloring and it turns cheese orange.  However, it is a form of processing, and it would deviate from the real food rules.  I made the MOST delicious cheesy potatoes today…used homemade cream of chicken soup (which incidentally was so delicious, I may never buy another can of the gloppy yellow goo).  I can’t say that these were healthy by any stretch (a whole stick of butter (!!!!), a pint of sour cream, 10 ounces of cream of chicken soup—made with half and half, and 1 cup of shredded cheese).  But, again, in the interest of proving that real food can taste good, I stand by this decision.  Plus, they were soooo yummy, and they made us all very happy
Failure #3:  The whole wheat bread I made
I used my normal bread recipe, which calls for bread flour OR all-purpose flour.  But I substituted whole-wheat flour.  Plus, I had a lot of stuff going on in the kitchen yesterday, so I probably let that dough rise longer than it needed to.  The recipe I use calls for rising the dough 3x before baking, most recipes rise the dough only twice.  I don’t know why, but by the time I put the bread in the oven, it was all done rising (generally there is a lot more rising that happens once the bread goes in the oven).  In addition, I was thrown off by the dark color of the dough, and I think I overcooked it.  I made one pan of dinner rolls and two loaves of bread.  End result:  I had 12 hard flat dinner rolls (3 of them hit the garbage with just a bite or two taken from them), and two loaves of bread that are extremely flat.  I guess I’m going to need to find a recipe that is specific for whole-wheat flour.
Now, let’s move on to the successes of the day. 
There was a little bit of complaining mid-day about this whole plan.  Sundays are a day in which there is generally a lot of snacking going on, so it was a change for everyone.  BUT, they all took it in stride.  The kids would ask if certain foods were OK or not.  They did eat much more of the foods I had available than I planned for (many cookies were eaten along with a lot of fruit), but bottom line is they did it.
Ed has been an avid Dt. Mt. Dew drinker for many years, and he does not like to drink water.  So this was going to be especially tough for him.  I bought some strawberry flavored spritzers, which truthfully, may not be within the real food rules, but I could read all of the ingredients on the label, and outside of “natural flavorings”, it was all legit.  He drank one can and liked it well enough.  I hope that eventually he won’t “need” this, but this is an acceptable solution for now.  So that is another big success
Probably the biggest success of the day was that everyone was in a good mood!  I implemented this plan not just for our physical health, but to see if there would be a benefit on everyone’s behavior as well.  I can report that there was no misery, no sulking off to a room, no crazy-hyper behavior (which is very common for the boys), no fighting, etc.  It could have just been a good day, I can’t imagine that change would take place that quickly.  But, boy it was noticeable, all the way around.
I am calling day 1 a success!  Now on to day 2.  The biggest challenge today will be the fact that the kids are home again, with not much to snack on.  We’ll see if we can hang tight another day!

Here we go…

Day 1 of the “real food challenge”.  If you go to 100daysofrealfood.com and look at the “real food rules” we will be adhering to all but one of the real food rules.  We will be allowing sugar, in small-ish quantities.  Many of the recipes I use have real sugar in them, such as my homemade bread, pancakes, etc.  I think the only way my family will survive this is if they can snack on baked goods.  I have amped up the baked goods with all whole-wheat flour, so I am going to call that good enough.  Plus, I wonder if Ed doesn’t have an intolerance to honey (an acceptable sweetener), since many things I have made in the past with honey have been upsetting to his stomach.

The cabinets and fridge have all been cleaned out, and most “unacceptable” foods have been removed.  I did leave crackers, taco shells, and anything in the freezer, for now, since there isn’t much to snack on.  But that may go as well.  I also left the ketchup (even though it is not allowed) and salad dressing because I am not planning to make anything that requires those condiments. 

I failed to mention in any of my previous posts my biggest challenge in all of this…In support of Ed needing to give up his Diet Mt. Dew, which he “needs” in the mornings to get himself going, I have agreed to give up coffee .  Coffee is acceptable, as long as it is black (I suppose you could put milk in it).  I have been drinking my coffee black for the past few weeks because the creamer is nothing but a science experiment and it doesn’t give me pleasure anymore (which would make the chemical consumption worth it.  I decided that misery usually loves company, and since this whole real food thing won’t be too hard for me to integrate, that is the least I can do.

But, geez…no coffee?!?!  I have been cutting back on my coffee to about 1/2 of what I would normally drink over the past few days, but so far, this morning, I am feeling a little fuzzy.  I have eaten a whole-wheat blueberry muffin and 1/2 glass of milk.  It’s just not cutting it yet.

I did go and spend another $30 in groceries on Friday.  I bought 10 lbs of whole-wheat flour, because I realized after I am done baking today, I would be just about out.  I also bought another bottle of very expensive 100% maple syrup.  I already told the kids I might flip my lid if I see puddles of syrup on their plates…man that stuff is spendy!  I also bought one more jar of natural peanut butter.  I am going to make another double-batch of whole-wheat pancakes (I only have 12 of them in the freezer) to increase my supply of frozen pancakes for school mornings).  I am also planning to bake some bread today.  I baked a batch of peanut butter cookies (with natural peanut butter and whole-wheat flour), and the kids loved them, so I may be making another batch of those as well.  I am just not sure how much we will eat in a week of fruits, nuts, muffins, pancakes, etc.  Now that all cereals and snack foods are out of the house, we could go through these other foods very quickly.  So I wanted to be prepared just in case I need to whip something up.

I think that’s all for now…here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting Prepped

The clock is ticking…the “real food challenge” will begin on Sunday morning.  Yesterday, I cleaned out the pantry to get rid of foods we will not be eating.  Holy smokes…I haven’t cleaned that out in a looong time.  I threw out canned items that expired in 2010!  How old would they have to be if they EXPIRED in 2010!?!?!?!?  Which brought up another New Year’s resolution; decrease wasted food.  I probably threw away $80 in food yesterday.  That could have gone to the food shelf.

Anyway, we are now in pig-out mode.  We have snacks in the house that will not be there come Sunday morning.  So I told the kids to eat what they want because in a few days it will be gone.  I plan to actually remove most foods that are not allowed to decrease the temptation to sneak something. 

I went grocery shopping and bought (what I hope is) a week’s supply of groceries.  Some of our food lifestyle isn’t changing by much; what I make for meals is pretty much staying the same with just a few modifications.  BUT, what we snack on and what I make for breakfast is changing radically.

Many people talk about how expensive it is to buy produce, high quality meat, and organic foods.  I was curious, though, would it be that much more expensive if you are not buying bags of chips (at $4/bag), bottles of pop ($3.50 or $4 for a 6-pack of bottles that lasts a week), coffee creamer (*sniff* at $2.00 a bottle; 2 bottles per week).

So I set out to the grocery store.  Because it was after work, and because I was tired; I decided to shop at St. Joe’s Coborn’s instead of my usual Cashwise.  So, the price of my regular grocery trip would be higher than usual simply because of the change of venue.  It has been about 3 weeks since I have done a major grocery shopping trip.  Typically, when I go that long, I will spend about $200+ on a trip to Cashwise.  This will supply our house with at least 1.5 weeks of foods, but we run short on meats and cereal after about a week. 

Also, note, I do have a small-ish supply of meat on-hand because I am a meat hoarder.  So, we have a turkey breast, a ham, about 15 lbs of hamburger, and several packages of chicken breasts.  So, I didn’t need to buy that.  I also have 1 1/2 loaves of bread from Great Harvest Bread Co on hand, and I have 18 eggs.

So, tonight I bought:  8 braeburn apples, 3 lbs of oranges, 5 pears, a large package of blueberries, 2 pomegranates, a bag of carrots, 2 organic peppers, about 4 heads of broccoli, 20 ounces of almonds, 12 ounces of cashews, an onion, 8 lbs of potatoes, 4 small packages of chicken breasts, 1 whole chicken, 1 large chuck roast, organic grape jelly, organic pizza sauce, organic whole-wheat mac and cheese, organic oatmeal, some weird all-natural strawberry spritz soda that Ed may need—he IS trying to give up an addiction to Diet Mt. Dew, cocktail peanuts, a gallon of milk, a pint of organic yogurt, a block of mozzarella cheese, whole wheat egg noodles, sea salt, 100% maple syrup, all-natural string cheese, 2 boxes of brown minute rice (I know, minute rice?  I can’t cook regular rice), and some of those weird squeezy applesauce things for the kids’ lunches.  My total was $180.  I still need to get 5 lbs of whole-wheat flour, but I am otherwise set for a week. 

Now, granted, if I wouldn’t be attempting this crazy eating plan, I may have spent more, but my cart would have been much more full than what it was. (Remember above that I am not going to waste food?  I didn’t buy stuff just because it was on sale, or just because it looked good).  So it is hard to say what I would have spent.

But, the bottom line is, I came in a bit under what I was expecting for a week’s worth of food, and that makes me happy!

The meal plan for the week looks like this:

ALL BREAKFASTS:  Choice of eggs, whole-wheat pancakes (premade by me and frozen), crock-pot oatmeal (plan to make a batch of it on Monday morning), or whole-wheat toast

LUNCHES:  Cameron will eat school lunch, Lilly and Alex will take a cold lunch consisting of: PB&J on whole-wheat bread (organic PB and J), a piece of fruit, a small baggie of nuts, carrot sticks, string cheese or yogurt with fruit, and a peanut butter cookie (organic PB made with whole-wheat flour…not sure how that is going to go over!).  Ed and I will eat leftovers from our supper the evening before.

SUPPER:  Sunday--Roasted Turkey Breast, potatoes, broccoli:  Monday—Roast Beef, potatoes or brown rice, peas:  Tuesday—Baked chicken, potatoes, frozen corn:  Wednesday—Leftovers (remember no waste!):  Thursday—Mexican baked chicken fajitas with brown rice:  Friday—Homemade pizza (homemade whole-wheat crust, organic pasta sauce, hamburger, and hand-shredded mozzarella cheese.

SNACKS:  Fruit, nuts, peanut butter cookie, popcorn

That’s the plan for the week.  Wish us luck!

2014: to our health

Over the past several years, I have taken increasing interest in developing a healthier lifestyle.  At over 200 lbs at one point in time, I was out of shape, out of energy, irritable, depressed, etc.  I started taking control in 2009 with a gym membership at SNAP fitness, and since that time I lost almost 40 lbs.  I began embracing exercise as a regular and important part of my life, and began to be more aware of what I was putting in my body and how it made me feel.  At my peak, I was on a roll…unstoppable.  However, I have slid backwards over the past 6 months or so.  Packed on almost 10 lbs, and have been struggling once again with mustering up the energy to exercise, even though I am keenly aware of the many (and believe me, many, many, many) physical and mental benefits of regular exercise.

I have also taken my hands off the wheel as far as my eating, although there are certain things I just can’t do anymore, like drink pop more than once a day, or eat highly processed food.  My gut feels so yucky that I think I may have developed a “forever-aversion” to some of those foods.

Over these past 4.5 years, I think I have done a better job of putting healthier foods on the table and in the pantry for the sake of my family.  However, I know that I could do better.  I have heard the advice many times before about reading labels… “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it”.  But I have finally taken heed.  I was amazed that the “whole grain white bread” I was buying for the kids was full of sugar, corn syrup, etc.  Not to mention the many other foods I serve on a regular basis.

I am fortunate in the regard that we are a pretty healthy family.  So I know I don’t NEED to make changes.  However, I see little things, like Lilly’s skin rash that won’t go away, irritability, moodiness, poor attention span, low activity level, a few (or more) pounds that shouldn’t be there.  I see these things in each of the members of my family.  And I know we can be better.  I know we can do better. 

I have also heard, many times, “let food be your medicine”, and I have a personal desire to stay off of prescription medications for as long as possible (I have a goal of age 70, but who knows how realistic that may be).  So, I started doing a little internet research.

I am already doing better than some people in that I make our family meals most nights of the week.  And I usually make these meals from scratch, with only a few “processed” foods added, like cream soups, pasta, etc.  But, again, I see there is more that I could do.  I could make small changes, small substitutions.  I could spend a little more time in the kitchen on the weekends preparing foods for the upcoming week, so I don’t have to spend any extra precious time in the kitchen during the busy weeknights.  And I began to wonder…could these little changes make a difference for our family?  Could these little changes set me on the path I need to be on, once again.  Will I see improvements in those little things I mentioned above in my husband and kids?

I decided that it might be worth a shot.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  And it might cost me a little more money (buying whole foods, produce, and organic items) and it will certainly cost me time.  But-the tradeoff could be worth it. 

As far as the money goes, it may cost less, too.  I will not be buying any cereal, chips, snack foods, and neither Ed or I will be eating out for lunches. 

So, we have all decided to commit to a 12-day “whole food challenge”.  We will eat only foods made from scratch.  I will follow many of the “real food rules” found on 100daysofrealfood.com.  The only difference is that I will still use sugar in my foods instead of honey or 100% maple syrup.  I think I would have a full-scale revolt on my hands if I don’t.  But there will be no pop, no snacks, other than homemade snacks, fruit, nuts, etc.

The menu planning alone took me over 2 hours.  2 hours to come up with 12 days of meals and snacks and a corresponding shopping list!  I hope that that time will pay off with less time at the grocery store and less overall time in the kitchen.  We are starting our challenge on Sunday.  I plan to update this blog as we go on with information such as how much I spent at the store, how much we ate, and I plan to take an inventory each evening of how I feel and how I have observed everyone else to feel.

I hope, in the long run, that we will collectively adopt many of the lifestyle changes, but I do not have expectations that we will adhere tightly to these “real food rules” for now and forever.  But I hope it is a lesson for my kids to connect how they feel with what they eat, to see that there are better choices out there.  And I hope that Ed and I will reap the benefits of feeling better, more energized, and happier.

Wish us luck…I think we are going to need it in a few days as we are coming off of our sugar and white flour addiction!