I have An Opinion

*Thwacks everybody who read the subject and thought "and this is new b/c???"*

Have you heard about Jamie Oliver and the "Food Revolution"? If not - PAY ATTENTION!!

Are you aware that this generation of children are the FIRST to have a SHORTER LIFE EXPECTANCY than their parents??? 


I sure wasn't. My jaw hit the floor when I heard that.

The projected life expectancy for the current generation of children is shorter than their parents.

REALLY.

I don't know about you but that makes me want to weep. I have this idea that every generation hopefully gets a little bit better. Hopefully you learn and grow and become even better than your parents, and hopefully my kids will learn and grow and be even better, happier, healthier people than me. That's the goal. That's the reason I try so hard to work through my problems so that hopefully I can keep from gift wrapping them and giving them to my children.

For the last hundred years the life expectancy has been growing by leaps and bounds. Miracles of medicine, nutrition and science has dramatically improved both the quality and the longevity of life. And now for the first time, we are significantly LOSING GROUND.

This is BAD folks. And I mean BAD, SCARY, I am willing to MARCH IN THE STREETS over this levels of BAD.

You only get once chance to teach and grow and raise your kids as best as you possibly can. And no, you're not always going to be perfect, but this is a battle worth fighting for. This is the future. These are your children. 


The problem? We eat over processed CRAP. It has a ton of calories and NO nutrition. Basically, the more you process a food the less nutrition you have in it.

Let me tell you a story that I have found I can apply to a WIDE variety of circumstances, both spiritual and physical. In this case we're going physical but think on it. This analogy has deeply impacted my life.

A few years back there was a particularly hard winter. So bad in fact that the deer were starting to starve because the snow was so deep they couldn't dig through it to get the grass underneath. The farmers were compassionate and didn't want the poor deer to starve, but didn't have enough grain and hay to feed both their animals and help the poor deer. So the decision was made to share some of the straw they used for bedding with the deer in the hopes it might be enough to get them through.

For those unfamiliar with animal feed, hay is basically cut, dried grass. Good hay is green in color and full of nutrition. Straw is the stems from grain. It has almost no nutrition. The farmers knew this but they thought something was better than nothing.

So they piled big piles of straw on top of the snow and the deer gratefully gorged themselves on their offerings and then with full bellies, the deer died. They'd starved to death.

Their bellies were full but the food that they ate was of no worth and so they starved. They had full bellies so they didn't even try to look for the life saving grass underneath the snow. They went with what was easy, and they died.

When you feed yourself and your children cheap, fast, easy junk food you are starving their bodies of critical, life changing nutrition. There might be enough calories, probably too many in fact, but there is not enough of the right things that a body needs.

I think I've been heading in this direction for a while. I knew a fair bit about nutrition, more than most, b/c of how I was raised and my previous struggles with my weight. But I couldn't figure out how to eat in a way that worked.

I think my first serious step in the right direction was Caleb. That little boy grows like a weed and I am so desperate for him to have what he needs to grow and develop like he should that it was the case that he usually ate better than I did. I've done a ton of homework to try to learn exactly what and how much he needs to eat to be healthy. But it concerned me, b/c him eating better than me is NOT going to fly when he gets bigger. He has to see Mommy do it.

And now I have Skinny Chicks. For the first time I feel like I really understand what I am eating and why. I feel good. I'm losing weight. 7.5 pounds in the first 2 weeks - before you freak- the first week was 6 pounds on a detox version of the diet, 2nd week was only 1.5 lbs, and I've been eating 400 calories every 4 hours, 25-30% protein, 50-60% carbs, no more than 10 g of fat through out. I don't feel AT ALL deprived or starved. My sugar cravings are 99% gone. Once in a while I'll start to think I want something and then I realize... no I really don't. I'm full. I'm not at all hungry. And I'm not CRAVING it. Its like I want it just b/c it was a habit to have it. Then I realize what I'm doing, don't eat the sweet stuff and I walk away satisfied. Its amazing.

I think Christine Avanti and Jamie Oliver are right:

If you read the label and it sounds like a science experiement - DON'T EAT IT.

If you read the label and you can't pronounce the things on it - DON'T EAT IT.



And most importantly, I want my Caleb to grow up big and strong and healthy. I want to teach him to the very best of my ability. I want to feed him right.