Our Introduction

Jason and I have been searching for answers, pure truth about the foods we eat. We are "sick and tired of feeling sick and tired!" We have dabbled into holistic eating over the past 3 years but never really gotten EXTREME about it. And we love that word, it reveals passion and we are passionate about becoming extreme in our health.

God created our bodies to do amazing things, to live off of certain foods and to heal itself. One can pray for healing, but running out and filling our bodies with unclean foods can hinder that process. I do not discount the power of prayer at all, we have experienced healing in our family and know God is in the healing business as much today as when His son Jesus walked the Earth.

We've been playing tug of war with our bodies, eating mainly holistic foods and exercising for a while, then going back to the SAD(standard American diet) with little to no exercise. We have been immature, rebellious, whatever you want to call it. Personally, I know a TON about holistic living, and they say "when you know better, you do better." Yeah, I've done a little better but often find myself purposefully ignoring what I know so I can enjoy my pizza, hamburgers, and Dr. Pepper without as much guilt. After we eat those things we always know why we shouldn't because of our body's reactions and vow to change our ways.

Easier said than done, I must admit. Jason and I are as different as night and day, but we also have this annoying similarity. We "food pout" together, or as some put it, look to food for comfort. We sit on the couch talking about what to eat for dinner, taking way too much time to figure out what will make us feel "better". And that usually ends up being some sort of processed piece of crap and a Dr. Pepper. Sometimes we even watch "The Biggest Loser" while we eat this junk, how lame is that!?!

To give myself some credit, I could give the biggest organic hippy a run for his money at the grocery store. I know all about buying the healthiest organic, whole food choices and how to save money eating this way. My cart usually looks amazingly healthy with very limited bad ingredients. And when I have an extra hand to grab them, my reusable bags hold my purchases. I'm doing my part for the environment. :) I stock my fridge and pantry with things many Americans have never seen/bought. We've been teased for having "everything" organic, from produce to condiments to cookies. When I buy eggs, they are organic and free range. My butter is always organic. We don't drink cow's milk because we are all lactose intolerant, but use coconut, rice, and almond milk. During this pregnancy, meat really makes me nauseous, but if I do buy it it is free range, grass fed, organic, hormone free, all that good expensive stuff. Whenever I can, I get organic food because I know it's a better choice and it just tastes better.

Since I am a stay at home mom, I prepare a lot of meals. The boys and I always have a healthy breakfast and lunch at home using all those wonderful things I buy at the store. The boys love to snack, so I either cut up some fruit or give them a snack free of HFCS(high fructose corn syrup), preservatives, etc. Praise be to healthy Mom. (angelic music) Then dinner time rolls around and angelic Mom morphs into a tired, unprepared to make dinner Mom and all those good habits go down the drain. Dad gets home or makes a call and typically either goes to the store to buy all those convenient things I don't put into my cart, or brings home take-out. Yep, all those good choices are pretty much cancelled out by what we make for dinner. I will say that being pregnant has increased this behavior because I honestly do not like cooking things that "smell". I am accustomed to cooking big dinners with lots of flavor and rich smells, and that just can't happen right now. So here we are back into our "rut" of eating processed dinners foods and "food pouting" on the couch together. We knew this must STOP for the sake of our family's health and our pocketbook.

So what are we going to do? We are going to do a healing experiment with our bodies. It will become extreme, an invitation to comments like "you're crazy", "is that healthy for you?", and "you make your kids eat what?" Yes, we are ready to put all that great knowledge to good use and heal our bodies from the inside out and we want you to experience the journey. We both will blog about our experiences. Jason jokingly said his grammatical errors will shut down the blog site, so be gracious with his spelling mistakes. lol We know this is going to go against our "food pouting" sessions, but we are ready to stop pouting and start feeling GREAT! I am really excited about the changes we are going to experiences and ready to tackle the challenges. I am ready for this because I understand the GRACE of God in my life on a different level, and true change comes from this revelation. I know that's a whole different topic, but it's the basis of this experiment. Together, because of who we are in Christ, we are going to start living healthy and trusting our bodies to heal the way they were created to heal. Hallelujah!

I want to end this post by leaving you with a few statistics on "being the average American." These come from a great motivational holistic speaker Dr. Richard Schulze:
They eat a low nutrition high fat and sugar food program.

A diet high in over processed nutritionally deplete food.

They consume 300 soft drinks a year, 170 pounds of white refined sugar, 400 candy bars, 500 doughnuts, and will eat over 12 entire 3,000 pound cows,
6 whole pigs, 3,000 chickens and other birds and another 3,000 assorted fish and sea creatures and over 30,000 quarts of milk and pass all of this through their digestive system and bloodstream.

They will get very little exercise if any, be 25 pounds or more overweight, have hypercholesterolemia with a average level of 200 and have high blood pressure

They take over 30,000 aspirin and assorted other pain killers in their lifetime along with over 20,000 over the counter and prescription drugs and over 2,000 gallons of alcohol.

They will have an average of 2-4 bowel movements a week coming up 70,000 bowel movements short in their life time, definitely having diverticulosis and digestive/elimination problems.

I don't want to be the average American, how about you?