A New Year and New Kickstart!
Many many times over the past couple years I have benefited from tackling short-term healthy-living goals. Rather than making the ambiguous statement that so many of us fall victim to every time we try to make positive changes in our lifestyle
I've found that having clear START and END dates have drastically increased my personal success rate.
About 5 years ago, minor health issues led me to the decision to eating a vegan diet. During my pregnancy with Camden I once again needed to make some dietary alterations and I added small amounts of dairy and an occasional egg to the meal mix.
This was a personal decision.
Many people in the world are able to have healthy pregnancies and strong healthy babies while maintaining a strictly vegan diet.
After Camden was born I didn't seem to have the health issues that had necessitated a strict vegan diet any longer so while I still had no desire to consume meat my eating habits loosened up quite a bit.
After Camden was born I didn't seem to have the health issues that had necessitated a strict vegan diet any longer so while I still had no desire to consume meat my eating habits loosened up quite a bit.
For the last several months I've wanted to return to a vegan diet but we moved to an area that made that more difficult so rather than tackle the issue and eat the way I wanted to I avoided it at all costs.
I have to say that the new 21-Day Vegan Kickstart has come at the perfect time for me to make the changes that I've been avoiding and I'm totally stoked about it!
The Kickstart offers a 21-day meal plan, excellent-tasting, FREE recipes, education from real doctors who specialize in how diet affects health (all 100% based on SCIENCE) and tips and advice from celebrities and professional athletes who are vegan.
All I have to say is, "you had me at 'meal plan!'"
I will post my thoughts regarding each recipe as we go over the next 21 days. I also will be posting any other perceived and actual benefits that I may experience along the way. The reason I'm doing this is not to convert anyone who is completely satisfied with their health and well-being but as a journal of sorts. An experience-based personal study. As a wife and mother I take it upon myself to ensure that my family eats well. The future health of my children relies, in large part, upon the eating habits they will acquire early in life. I want to provide for them solid nutritional education. This has become more difficult as Belen has started school. Teachers are required to teach the standard ideas regarding nutrition based on the current USDA guidelines which is often simplified by educators especially when dealing with young children. The problems arises when my daughter comes home telling me that you can't be healthy and grow strong unless you eat meat and dairy products. Sure, there are those people out there who claim to be vegan or vegetarian and eat nothing but Oreos and plain spaghetti. Obviously those people couldn't possibly be healthy. But studies have shown that a well-planned, vegetarian or vegan diet succeeds in meeting the nutrition requirements of almost anyone (including athletes). I recently read this study that shows a vegan diet is more effective in controlling blood sugar in diabetics thus reducing or eliminating the need for insulin than the standard diabetic diet.
In the tradition of New Years Resolutions, I desire only to recommit to the goals I made at the last General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ that I have been working on. Regular Family Home Evening, scripture study, prayer, and personal scripture study, prayer, journal writing (a real form of therapy for me).
As time allows I will post about what has worked for us.
