No one is Born Knowing How to Eat Healthy!

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No one is Born Knowing How to Eat Healthy!

Have you ever wanted to start eating healthier, for just yourself or to feed your family better, as well?

But, you don’t even know where to start!

You feel that just because you don’t eat as healthy as you want right now, that it’s too far out of reach? Like, you’re already too far behind everyone else; as if the people you admire who eat a healthy diet have been eating like that since they were born?

Well, guess what? Eating healthy isn’t something we’re born knowing how to do! Even those health nuts you know, weren’t born knowing how to eat healthy! (LIKE ME!!!)

Some of them probably didn’t even grow up on a very healthy diet, either. I know I didn’t! At least compared to what I believe as being healthy today. Pretty far from it, actually. Especially when I was a teenager!

Yet now, I totally consider myself a health nut!

Looking for more to help you live a healthier lifestyle? Check out this year’s Healthy Living Bundle! It’s only on sale through 9/10 this year (2018), but will save you thousands of dollars on resources!. So take advantage of the sale while it lasts!

What I ate as a Teen

Shhhh….don’t tell my mom, but my diet as a teenager was pretty horrible, and it wasn’t her fault at all. I was a bit of an over achiever in high school. I gave up my lunch during the day to take extra classes. Didn’t know what a study hall was. And, I skipped my senior year of high school, just to start college when when I was 17!

I ate processed cereal in the morning, if I ate at all. I’d get a few candy bars from the vending machines at school to eat. I was always drinking soda back then, along with energy drinks…all the time! It was bad! Oh, don’t forget the fact that I started drinking coffee at 14.

When I wasn’t eating candy bars or processed foods; I was eating pizza and home made baked sweets, with quite a bit of sugar. (My favorite was peanut butter swirl bars!) I had a bit of a sweet tooth when I was younger. If you knew me, you would not have known. I was the girl who could stand behind a pole and her friends would joke they couldn’t see her. I stayed the same weight from 7th grade til I started college. That’s when I started to gain some weight….

Freshman 15 (or should I say 30)

Eating healthy wasn’t even on my mind, until I started to gain weight and couldn’t figure out why….I had gained the oh so famous freshmen 15, or in my case 30.

It wasn’t from partying or drinking, like how some new college students gained weight, I never did that, I still don’t. (I’ve been either pregnant or nursing since I was 20, so it’s never even been an option.)

The only other thing I could think of was the fact that I was eating A LOT more. And not the good kind of food, either. Learning as much and as quickly as you do in each college semester isn’t easy on anyone’s brain. My brain needed more, and more glucose to perform better….meaning I was going to the dollar store and raiding their candy and cookie isle, along with their brand of energy drinks. Like any typical broke college student would do. That, along with long naps, is what I thought was getting me through my days in my first semester. But, it wasn’t so gentle on my waist line.

Changing My Diet

That’s when I knew something had to give. My pants were getting tighter and I didn’t like the feeling. So, I did what any sheltered 17 year old would do; I looked for answers on eating better to lose weight, online.

The internet back then was not like it is today, to say the very least. There weren’t as many options for sites to choose to learn from, and I didn’t know who to trust or how to go about knowing if what those people were recommending were any good or not. I remember most of the sites I found showed what models would eat in a typical day to keep their shape…I didn’t know any better not to follow those diets.

So, I’d listen to complete strangers on what to eat; I’d buy rice cakes and celery sticks (both of which I cannot stand, even to this day). I’d force myself to eat them and avoid carbs as much as I could, you know, a couple hours here and there. Avoiding carbs was like cutting off my brains life support.

Then I started working and going to college; I was too busy to care about what I ate. I practically ended up living on ready made instant carnation breakfasts and redbulls. Now I cringe even thinking about it!

A Little More Progress

The next time I reevaluated my diet was when I became pregnant. At that point, I knew I was eating for more than just myself and made sure I ate plenty of fruit, protein and other foods that I thought were healthy. Like kashi cereal, or off brand organic cocoa puffs (they weren’t called cocoa puffs, I can’t remember what they were called). I even made a fruit baby in a carriage for my own baby shower!

And luckily, I didn’t have many cravings while pregnant, and I was able to really kick myself into high gear when it came to eating well. I had even cut caffeine out of my diet about a month before I even knew I was pregnant; I guess my body knew I was pregnant before I did! I was told to cut juice from my diet by my doctor. With the explanation that there’s not really any benefit from drinking juice, and that I’d be better off just eating real fruit! But, other than that I was eating better than I ever had. 

Everyone Changes at Their Own Pace

Everyone has their own reason why they want to eat healthier, or what eating healthy means to them. I want to show you that it’s alright to not be where you want to be right now. And, where you want to be right now with your eating, may not be where you want to be 5 years from now, and possibly not even in 1 year from now!

How we think and feel about what we eat will change over time with us. You can’t compare your journey to eating well with anyone else’s. Eating healthier is a journey that we will always be improving on, on a personal level.

Our perception of what eating healthy is will change with us, through each season and phase of our lives. Reflect on where you are with eating well, and simply make improvements and work towards where you want to be!

Green Smoothies and Salads!

10 years ago, if you were to tell me that I was going to be obsessed with drinking green smoothies and love eating salads….with lettuce in them; I flat out would not have believed you. I just wouldn’t, case closed.

I was not a health nut as a teenager, far from it. I didn’t even really know anything about nutrition. I knew that we needed to eat to live. And, if I wanted to be a part of a sports team, that meant I had to eat more because of all the extra calories I was burning.

Now, I consider myself a true health nut and aiming towards a whole food plant based diet! Sure, I’m not perfect, I still have my coffee with my dairy free creamer or grab a pizza from dominoes once in awhile. But, I’ve come a long way from where I was! Simply the fact that I regularly spend half of my grocery money on fruits and veggies would shock my 16 year old self! I even own a juicer; and use it!

Raising a Healthier Generation!

Because I was able to realize the effects food has on us before my daughters were born, and was already on the path to eating better; I’m able to raise my daughters on healthier food than what I knew growing up!

And, don’t take that the wrong way. Wherever you are on your journey towards health; include your children. Let them pick out some fruits and veggies they want to try (as long as they’re in season). Include them when cooking healthy meals and show them how important eating well is to you.

Let them play in the dirt and grow a garden full of fresh fruits and veggies. Let them be a kid and watch as what they planted grows into delicious, healthy food, that they can eventually eat! They may be amazed at how such a small thing can turn into something so large, like a watermelon or pumpkin. It maybe even as amazing to them, as you having been able to grow your child inside of you!

Let’s grow the next generation to be a healthier one!

Start Today!

So, if you are still thinking about eating a healthy diet and living a healthy lifestyle; just know that it’s not too late! You’re not ‘behind’ by any means. People gravitate their way towards wanting to live healthy on their own terms and at their own pace. Don’t compare yourself, and your journey towards health with anyone else’s.

Determine what a healthy diet for you is (because we all have our own standards). Then find one thing that you can change, to move in that direction and just go from there; implementing one new change every so often, or when you’re ready. I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy. But, you have your why to eat better, so hold onto that as you work your way towards your optimal healthy diet!

Who knows, maybe in a year or two you’ll be eating healthier than you could have ever imagined, and raising little health nuts of your very own!!

What’s one thing you want to change in your diet to eat healthier? Share in the comments!

Looking for more to help you live a healthier lifestyle? Check out this year’s Healthy Living Bundle! It’s only on sale through 9/10 this year (2018), but will save you thousands of dollars on resources!. So take advantage of the sale while it lasts!

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