Okay, i am so excited about EAT TO LIVE and i have had a few people ask me about it, as well as others wanting recipes, so i decided to get back on here to try and post a few things for you.
Eat to Live is a book by Dr. Fuhrman. I have tried many FAD diets in the past...The Paleo Diet, The Atkins Diet, trying to reduce my portion size at dinner, counting calories, etc. Nothing really worked. The Atkins diet did work, but if you realized the long term affects of what that is doing to your body then you wouldn't be doing it. It's terrible for you. So it counting calories. If you are counting calories, but all your consuming in a day is sugars, meats, breads, dairy then you are basically starving your body of good foods. Counting calories while consuming foods that aren't good for you will have a terrible effect on your body because you aren't putting anything good in your body in the first place. You will eventually feel so hungry you will go back to consuming what you did before and gain it back.
Dr. Fuhrman has done lots of research, along with Dr. Robbins, author of The China Study. The China Study is the most comprehensive research ever done on food and its effects. With both of their research combined it opened a whole new world to me. It all made COMPLETE sense to me and rang true in every way possible.
Think of a car. If you put bad gas in a car it WILL NOT give you optimum performance. The same goes with our bodies. Your body will not give you optimum performance if you are not putting good things in it.
Basically, what you eat in a week should be 90% plant based foods. 10% of what you eat in a week can be sugars, meats, dairy, processed, etc. So, i feed my family two meals out of the week whatever meal they want.
Let me fill you in on why i started this. I was feeling so tired everyday. I felt like i lost my energy. I was feeling sluggish, kind of down, and just yucky. I would hit a WALL at some point during the middle of my day and i just had to lay down and take a quick nap because it was so overwhelming. I knew that i needed to eat better, but just didn't KNOW HOW to. So many things in the media today confuse EVERYONE on how they should be eating. It can be very confusing.
My friend recommended that i read this book and it changed me. I jumped on board quickly and it helped so much that he Dr. Fuhrman has a 2 week meal plan in the back of the book. YES, this means you have to cook, and it does take some time, BUT it's worth your health. It's worth feeling good. Convenience foods are great, but they do nothing good for your health or for helping you feel good OR for helping your fight cancers, disease, and sickness . NOTHING.
We have been on this for 3 weeks now and i feel GREAT. I am NOT tired in the day anymore. I keep great energy throughout my days, which i absolutely LOVE. Dare i say i have been sleeping better at night?!?! Hallelujah! That's a miracle. :) I feel better all around, i feel healthy and most importantly , so does my husband! He has lost 15 lbs. Ive lost 8 lbs. And the weight came off QUICKLY for us both. With this, you can consume all the veggies and greens you want in a day. You can consume lots of fruits, but you shouldn't consume more fruits than veggies. You can eat lots of beans. My favorite beans are garbanzo beans! LOVE. :) And there are so many different ways to cook with them!
I LOVE to juice ONE drink a day. One for me and one for shane. I also make some for two of our three boys. One won't drink it and the other two like drinking a little bit of it. We juice a whole bag of spinach(sometimes collard greens), cucumbers, apples, carrots, lemon and celery. It makes enough for each of us to drink down 2 cups. Juicing is a great way to make sure your body is getting all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals it needs in a day. It's great.
I am so happy eating this way. The othe reason i was excited about trying this was the hope that my stomach pains would go away that i have been dealing with for a few years. I get bloated often and terrible stomach pains, and a few times they have been so bad that i can't stand up. I didn't know what it was, and the docs don't give me any good answer, just meds. SO, i had to take matters into my own hands. Since starting this i haven't had any stomach problems at all. THIS ALONE is a huge motivation for me to keep eating this way. It's worth not having the stomach pains anymore.
Last night we went out to dinner. It was a fun kids night and they had some buffet style foods. Much to my surprise they had salad, and warm vegetables. I ate tons of it, but realized that it was probably cooked in butter. Shane agreed. Shortly after eating my stomach starting killing me. All three boys complained of having a stomach ache. We all left feeling so sick. Our stomachs weren't used to that kind of food for a few weeks and i think it didn't sit well. You know it's bad when it makes you feel that way. I never feel that way eating plant based foods, nor did i feel that way when i first started eating this way.
The first 1-2 weeks can be a little hard because your body is experiencing withdrawal symptoms from all the crap that it's used to consuming. But once you get over that hump you will feel great and won't want to go back to eating bad foods because of how good you feel. I don't crave sweets anymore. I just don't. It's the weirdest thing. And if i THINK i want sweets i quickly change my mind when i realize that the price i will pay for eating it far outweighs the pleasure i gain from eating it and then it's very easy to turn it down.
I will be back for more later, and with a couple of my favorite recipes. I have to go get my kids for now! :)
