My Own Personal Nutrition Plan: The Past and Present - Part VI Ashford University Assignment

For this blog post I will be sharing my some of my past eating habits, my weaknesses, what has changed for me and what still needs to change. 

Knowing what and how to eat is not the same as acting up and choosing right.  I believe that everyone has food sensitivities (which will be discussed on a later post), and that has led me to going gluten and wheat free.  Over the past year I have also tried to increase my fruits and vegetables while decreasing my sugar intake.  However, I did this mostly for weight loss and not necessarily for health issues, which gave me the excuse to cheat and eat more processed foods and whatever I wanted like ice cream, as long as it was in moderation.  I am not one who believes that all trans-fat, like coconut is bad for you nor do I believe that corn, soybean, or vegetable oil is good for you.  I believe and have always believed in eating whole/real organic foods.  However, that does not mean that I only ate them as I stated above; I cheated often.  I also Well that changed right around Christmas time when I had a thermography done and discovered that I was a TH 5, which meant that either I had breast cancer or I was at an extremely high risk for developing it over the next few years.  This was a huge wake up call for me and I knew I needed to change my eating habits if I was to reduce my estrogen levels and drastically reduce my risk for developing breast cancer.  So here I am a month later with new eating habits, hormone testing coming up, new changes still to make, and battles to face.

I have always believed that one can prevent chronic illnesses and disease through a combination of diet, nutrition, exercise, and essential oils; basically an alternative approach.  However, knowing and acting upon are two different things and up until my recent diagnosis there was not a lot of acting going on.  That being said, I am now on a journey of Holistic Health and Wellness, which involves healing and preventative care through alternative methods.  Please don’t get me wrong, conventional medicine has its place, but when it comes to preventative health you will find it in Alternative Medicine verses Conventional Medicine unless of course you are one who has found a place where integrative/function medicine has taken place and then you will easily find the best of both worlds. 

Okay, so getting back on topic J I must admit that change does not come easily and most of us (I have) will slip and fall at some point, but we only become failures when we do not get back up.  While I am still new to this plan I have chosen to follow an eating plan very close to the Paleolithic diet.  The Paleo diet is an alkaline anti-inflammatory diet that has been proven to reduce cholesterol levels, blood glucose levels, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease (Ruiz-Canela, Bes-Rastrollo, et al., 2016, abstract).  Some of the differences between the Paleo diet and the one I am following is I cannot have pork, shellfish, or peanuts and I can consume Kefir and other organic raw dairy as well as brown rice, beans, sweet potatoes, and quinoa in moderation.  This diet is known as the Healing Foods Diet and here is the link to the Healing Foods shopping list  I tend to follow a lot of Dr. Josh Axe's recommendation and they often tend to fall in line with science, the Bible, and my female doctor who also is a naturopathic.  I find a lot of recipes on Palo websites like Paleo Grubs and one of my favorite recipes right now is Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Stew and Paleo Almond Butter Cups

I do not consume any sugar or sugar containing products but rather I use organic coconut sugar, organic grade B maple, raw organic honey, or liquid Stevia. I eat gluten and wheat free and spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and baking.  I follow the dirty dozen and clean 15 in order to determine which fruits and vegetables to buy organic.  I use refined and unrefined coconut oil in most of my baking, and then I also use avocado, and olive oils.   I also take a few high quality supplements (not supplements are created equal).  The ones I take are liquid iodine from Biotics Research, Carlson’s Vitamin D3, Dr.Danielle’s turmeric curcumin, and Juice Plus +.  I am also a member and wellness coach of The Healthstyle Emporium at HealthyPeach.  The areas of nutrition that I struggle in, is my intake of vegetable as organic ones are very expensive and hard to get in my small town.  However, I am planning on overcoming this barrier as I will be purchasing a garden tower from Juice Plus+ here very soon and then I can grow my own organic vegetables all year round.  I find that I need to expand my horizon and find salad dressings I like and can eat along with new recipes, especially healthy snacks and dessert.  I also tend to not eat as much fish as I should while consuming too much red meat.  That being said, I do try to buy organic grass-fed beef although being a one income household of six can make that difficult at times. The other area I really struggle in is exercise due to the fact that I was in a car accident last February and injured my neck, shoulders, and back.  It is true what they say about taking longer to heal the older you are.  Although, that is still an excuse and so I am going to be starting up a yoga challenge this week in order to get some good stretches in and build up to some small level workouts.  Once the weather is nicer I plan on getting out and walking.  I did get out and ice skate last weekend though and this coming Friday I will be going sledding with two of my kiddos and church family. 

                                                       References

Ruiz-Canela, M., Bes-Rastrollo, M., & Martínez-González, M. A. (2016). The role of dietary inflammatory index in cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome and mortality. International Journal Of Molecular Sciences, 17(8), 1-16. doi:10.3390/ijms17081265