Welcome

Three years ago, my husband and I decided to get healthy and lose weight.  We purchased the most recent get healthy, lose weight book on the market, made a grocery list, went shopping and spent lots of money to buy all kinds of food we had never heard of let alone knew how to cook.  That lasted for two weeks and we reverted back to our old eating habits, ignoring the original reasons we wanted to change our lifestyle, binging on sugar products and gaining more weight.

A few months later we would start again only to repeat the same cycle, spend, let food spoil, and gain weight.  What is that saying "Stupidity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results”?

Family pictures at Christmas opened my eyes to how heavy I had become.  The few times I did a full assessment of myself in the mirror I would tell myself that "I don't look that bad." and that "the scale must be broken".  But the pictures taken at Christmas portrayed me as a wall with a nose and lips, and that was only my face; I couldn’t deny any longer that I didn’t have my 19 year old body anymore.  I won't describe what I thought the rest of my once slim figure had blossomed into.

In addition, my husband and I watched Food Matters and Food, Inc. which put the resolve in us once again to eat healthier, even if we didn't lose weight.  We had already started attending some Permaculture classes and planning how to implement their philosophies into our daily living when we would be able to move onto a larger plot of land. But the movies encouraged us to begin now.

December 31st we finished up all the sugar products in the house and set a plan in motion to succeed in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  Instead of buying books I checked books out from the library on healthy eating and nutritional supplements and once again headed to the grocery to buy vitamins, fruits and vegetables and grains.  Starting January 1st, 2011 we have been trying to eat 51% of our food in fruits and vegetables, either raw or cooked. We have made that part the focus of the meal and any meat eaten that day as the complimentary part.

Two weeks ago I purchased a juicer at a garage sale for $5. (what a find) and we have begun a regiment of vegetable/fruit juice each morning.  This is still a work in progress.  Next will be making our own bread using the pulp from the juiced vegetables/fruit and healthy grains.

Last week we started a vegetable garden in some tree boxes made from recycled wood and are praying that something grows.  We have also planted apple, plum, peach and apricot trees; although these will take about two years to produce fruit we are still on task.  Our next step is to plant some grape vines and nut trees.  I am going to need a bigger yard.

We have also re-evaluated the amount of money we were spending on paper towel napkins, plastic baggies, and other disposable products and switched to cloth napkins and re-usable containers.

Our goal is to become "Sustainabillies", growing our own food, re-using or recycling, living in an energy efficient home and so on.