You Are What You Eat!
Simplify your life by changing your diet.
Before becoming pregnant with our daughter, my husband and I would have considered ourselves healthy eaters. We didn’t eat a ton of junk food. We made most of our meals at home. We tried to incorporate fruits and vegetables into our eating routine, but after becoming pregnant, we realized that a lot of things had to change. Full disclosure: I had a home birth with a certified professional midwife. We had regular check-ups like most mothers do prior to hospital births, but at each one of my check-ups, my midwife asked me about my diet. She recommended that I take several different kinds supplements in addition to my prenatal vitamin, suggested specific daily exercises, and as a result I began to focus on my nutrition and wellness in a way I hadn’t before.
In addition to this, weeks before going into labor with our daughter, my husband and I started to see a chiropractor, and they encouraged us to eat much in the same way that our midwife did—count nutritional value over calories. Eventually, all of this led us to eating what we’d call a modified Paleo diet, eating mostly organic whole plant foods, grass-fed meat and dairy, free-range eggs, the whole shebang. And whatever qualms one may have about the legitimacy of such a diet, changing what we ate changed my and my husband’s life. We continue to strategize our lives and health around what we eat. In our house, our health has become our number one priority, which has led to so many more changes in our life.
As we began to be more intentional with what we put into our bodies, the rest began to fall into place. It felt like an anomaly—an unexpected benefit to taking this one step towards simplicity in our life—but it became motivation for us to be intentional and simplify everything. One thing I want to be sure to make clear about this is that our change in diet had nothing to do with losing weight or body image or anything like that. My husband and I have always appeared fairly healthy. It had everything to do with our actual health—our energy levels, our immune systems and most importantly the well- being of our children. We wanted our children to grow up learning the discipline of eating well. It’s not like we don’t have cheat days or indulge in the occasional junk food item (Take the picture above as an example of this, who doesn’t love Lone Wolf?!), but it’s not the norm for us. As a rule, we don’t keep anything in our house that we wouldn’t be comfortable eating on a day-to-day basis.
Why is this important? “You are what you eat” is a famous phrase that we have chosen to take to heart, and again, it’s changed our life.
I decided to write this blog post, now, because as of September 1st, my family has decided to become Vegan. We’re going to experiment with this for at least 3 months, and we’re willing to do it forever. Many transitions are happening in our life right now. We’re gearing up for the transition into our tiny home. I’m about to finish school. And we’re learning a lot about ourselves throughout all of this. Though, not necessarily for everyone, we feel like going Vegan represents the best of all of our motivations. We appreciate the philosophy of finding sacredness in all life, and we’re excited to continue simplifying. Next week, we’ll continue this conversation on food, and I’ll offer some practical advice on meal planning.
Until then, how does your family approach food? Do you follow a certain eating regimen? Do you plan every meal of the week?
We’d love to hear from you!
