Change of Heart

I wouldn't say I was looking for bad news, but it found me. It is probably not what you are thinking! HEALTH MAKEOVER TIME! Since arriving in Ft. Yates, North Dakota, my life has changed dramatically. Lets just say, from being over-active to being very sedentary. It is not a good thing for me. You always hear stories of people who retire and sit around, and then have heart attacks and die. Well that did not happen to me. But I sure see how it could happen. The alarms went off in my head when I started to have really bad headaches, stomach problems, my face swelling into a balloon, etc. To add insult to injury, I am now living in the decade of my fathers death from a brain tumor. He was not much older than I am now when he started not feeling well. Also during this decade of my mothers life, she was watching our six children when we took a trip to Hawaii for our 15th anniversary, and suffered a stroke on her right side. I have feared this age for those two reasons. Things can happen, and do happen! I have tried to be very conscious of my dietary habits through out my life. By the time I was 15 and puberty had played out it's good and bad forces on my body, I had a weight problem. I was a cheerleader in high school, in a singing group, attending early morning seminary.....and I could not figure out what was going on with my body. To say the least it was a bummer of a deal. I couldn't get enough activity beyond what I was already doing to keep my weight from expanding. I tried starving myself before it was popular to be anorexic. I would eat nothing all day until dinner. (I know now how stupid that was, but I was desperate, and I did not have the information we have today about nutrition.) Yet, I did not loose weight....at all. PIONEER GENES - THE CURSE That was my first experience with having really great survival genes! Who wants them in today's world though? My blog is not going to be about all the different ways I have attempted to keep myself healthy in the past. Nor will I tell you all the diets I tried and failed at. My body did not understand the rules of the "normal healthy eating game". I contend that I could not even smell food without gaining weight. I NEED YOUR HELP! What I am going to write about? The revelation that I now have at my mature state of life ..... I can eat food and not gain, and I am actually loosing weight. No pills for dieting, no liquid only diet, and no starvation. I am so relieved to have discovered this new way of life. I have my medical test results to thank for the personal revelation of what I needed to do to be healthy. It doesn't even matter that you know what the results of my tests were. Lets just say I am in need of a large dietary change that does not include anything white, eliminating most animal protein, dairy and bad fats. What does that leave? (I thought I was really a healthy eater before....!) Grains, Legumes, Vegetables and fruit, and sparingly..... chicken and fish! (I just use these options when there are not other healthy choices at restaurants.) I want to share what I am discovering, and I also want others to share their own experiences with this new way of eating and what you prepare that is healthy for your body and is tasty.