Others Eating Clean…

While I enjoy a clean lifestyle, I know that many voices and experiences will enrich that message for those of you who read these posts on a regular basis.  I wanted my aunt Jana to talk about her journey and she sent me a beautifully written post about her living clean experience that I had to share. 

“In 1970 I turned 15 years old and remember distinctly that Tab, the first sugar free soda had been introduced about 7 years earlier.  For a “dieter” like me Tab was like liquid gold, you could drink all you wanted, and it was good for you because it didn’t have calories.  When I attended my first Weight Watching meeting at 15, I was so glad because I really thought I was going to learn how to eat and not have to worry the rest of my life.  And here I am 41 years later realizing that an axiom that I have heard in 12 step meetings applies to the path I am on now.  It is said that “you can’t think your way into right living, but you can act your way into right thinking.”  What could that possibly have to do with this blog posting?  My niece Carrie asked me to be a guest writer for her blog.  At the end of last year I started reading her blog with intrigue.  I have a friend who is a Nutrition Coach as well and as I read Carrie’s blog and talked frequently with my friend I began to think maybe there was something to “eating clean”.  There has been a lot of illness in my genealogy, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, pulmonary lung disease, all happening in my immediate family.  Different than my family I am a perfect picture of health, low blood pressure, cholesterol good, bone density good, active (not like Carrie) but strong and healthy for a 55 year old woman.  I realized I want more of that.  And more for me was being mindful of what I was putting in my body as I prepare for the sunset of my career and life. 
At the end of 2010, I sat down and asked what I wanted to be able to say that I did different in 2011, and the answer was eating in a way that I could be proud of, that I would know was good for my body, mind and soul.  On January 1, when many others were starting a diet I decided to eat more, except it would be more of the right things.  I decided to eat clean.  You know what I am most proud of?  I haven’t had a diet soda for 22 days, and for some of you that isn’t a big deal, but you see for me growing up on Tab it really is, it has been a mind shift for me.  As the axiom says I could think about all the things that I should be eating or not eating, but once I really acted on it I am thinking right.  I am taking the action to buy organic blueberries, have you ever noticed how different they look from the non-organic; I mean really how would they get them so big without something to make them grow.  I am thinking now about the things I buy and that is changing the way I act.  I don’t know if that makes any sense but it works.
I am also noticing that I am enjoying cooking again.  As a single woman I had gotten lazy, it was easier to buy the prepared dinners than to cook for myself.  As I write this I have a huge pot of soup in the crock pot that I will eat on all week.  I don’t think it is that I enjoy cooking but I enjoy nurturing my body with good things.  What results have I seen?  The biggest is in how I act, shop and respond to labels.  I have lost 4 pounds, and I would suspect some inches.  But once again for me the biggest gift is what I know I am doing in acting right for my body.  I enjoy being conscious in the food’s I buy, (or don’t buy) in the preparation eat tasty and filling food.  And I believe that at the end of the year I will look back and see a leaner version of me.”  -Jana Heckerman