Starting the journey

How it all began
Okay folks, you're in for a real treat.  I have somewhat of an announcement to make.  Here it is......making dinner doesn't suck....as much.  You may wonder what has brought on this sudden change when making dinner has sucked for me ever since I began cooking 13 years ago.  Well let me just tell you that I have turned over a new leaf.  In fact I feel like a totally different person.  I do things completely different than I used to. 

Let me explain how it all started.  It all began four months ago, the first week of June 2010, when I was at home minding my own business when I suddenly felt compelled to go to Costco and buy a book.  I was reading an article about Tosca Reno in the Costco Connection magazine when it suddenly dawn on me that I needed her new book called Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Cookbook.   Call it divine inspiration (that's what I call it) or call it whatever you like, but I went to Costco and made one purchase.  It wasn't Tosca Reno's cookbook (they didn't have it in stock yet) but I didn't want to walk out empty-handed since I had felt prompted to go.  I picked up Jillian Michael's book called "Master Your Metabolism."  I'd never heard of it, but what the heck,  I'd never heard of Tosca Reno either and never heard the term "eating clean."  I was completely oblivious (probably because I don't watch Oprah or any TV or read magazines).  I just had a feeling I needed that book.

Little did I know the book I was buying would change my life and the life of my family.  Everything I read in her book just made sense to me.  Even though it all made sense to me it was all completely NEW to me.  The concepts and principles about how our body functions on hormones and WHY healthy nutrition is so important and HOW it is bad for us was unlike anything I had ever read or heard before.  I usually don't do anything unless I know WHY I have to do it.    This is why geometry was so difficulty for me in high school.  Now WHY do I need to know this?  How is this supposed to help me in life??  Because my teacher never provided me with an answer, I continued to struggle.

Jillian taught me, thoroughly taught me, why it is so important to be free of additives, free of preservatives, free of artificial flavors and colors, free of chemicals, free of pesticides, etc.  It's not a good idea just because it's a good idea.  It's vitally important to our physical health and mental health.  It's vital to our well-being.  That stuff will absolutely kill us.  And before we die from it first it makes us sick.  Jillian explains how that happens in her book.   How and why it leads to various cancers, autoimmune diseases, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, mental illness, chronic fatigue, etc, etc, etc.  Who wants all that crap and who doesn't want to be well?  Who doesn't want their children to be well?

After I finished reading her book I got a little frustrated that I didn't know any of this information before reading her book.  Why didn't I know all of this before?   I think because the way I was raised and the world that I've always lived in has pushed me away to something unnatural without me even knowing it was unnatural for me.  Society led me to believe that the stuff you can buy from the grocery store is what you eat.  You buy it and take it home and eat it.  It was that simple.  What I didn't realize what that it was UNNATURAL, UNHEALTHY, and WRONG on so many levels.

I have many, many ideas why this has happened.  (Remember I always wonder why about everything.  That's part of why I am so annoying to be around).  I won't get into that now.  Maybe another post.   Once I had a foundation about why I should eat healthy foods I was motivated to make a change.    More about my journey later. . .