Why I refuse to drink the Kool-Aid

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  • gypsyrosedog
    gypsyrosedog Posts: 24
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    Amen.
  • margarita953
    margarita953 Posts: 27 Member
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    Great post. Your lifestyle is what I strive for in my own life.
  • amycal
    amycal Posts: 646 Member
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    LOVE THIS POST!!!! Good for you. I am working on eating more real food all the time.
  • katschi
    katschi Posts: 689 Member
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    My heart is singing.
  • menchi
    menchi Posts: 297 Member
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    Great post! Makes me look forward to the summer when I can regularly go for walks and bike rides outside, and when the farmer's market is up and running again. Sadly in the winter, I have a lot of trouble doing all those real/meaningful activities. When it's sunny out, my bf and I try to walk downtown (3 mi roundtrip, great time for great conversations) and reward ourselves with lunch. Or if it's just me, I borrow my friend's dog to go for a walk and everybody wins! Most of winter though, I go to the gym which is part of my mandatory school fees and I try to do fun things like play badminton so it's not all about the hamster wheel. I applaud your lifestyle and I'm glad you shared!
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    Real food rocks.

    Exactly!
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    My heart is singing.

    :smile:
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    Great post! Makes me look forward to the summer when I can regularly go for walks and bike rides outside, and when the farmer's market is up and running again. Sadly in the winter, I have a lot of trouble doing all those real/meaningful activities. When it's sunny out, my bf and I try to walk downtown (3 mi roundtrip, great time for great conversations) and reward ourselves with lunch. Or if it's just me, I borrow my friend's dog to go for a walk and everybody wins! Most of winter though, I go to the gym which is part of my mandatory school fees and I try to do fun things like play badminton so it's not all about the hamster wheel. I applaud your lifestyle and I'm glad you shared!

    I feel you on this one--it is much harder for me to walk places when it's cold or yucky outside, too. This past winter, my husband and I braved the cold, bundled up, and walked downtown several times when we could've been lazy and driven---but we definitely didn't walk as often as we do during the rest of the year. I am loving that our weather here in GA has been warming up lately because I have much more energy when I'm not burning it all up with my cold-weather shivering. :)
  • bitabee
    bitabee Posts: 209 Member
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    Where do I start!? So many wonderful points!

    A huge inspiration for my husband and I are his grandparents. They are in their late 70s, and live in Germany and they are the healthiest, happiest people we know. They garden, walk a few miles a day together in an adjacent wood, go dancing once a week, and cook all three meals a day together, daily.

    If you study the centenarians of Asia and South America, the secret to living to 100+ is not running marathons. They garden, walk through fields and knead bread by hand. They're happy!

    It is a major shift in thinking. I want my life to be wholesome and full of joy! I enjoy food, real butter, fresh vegetables from our garden and farmers markets. My husband and I love long walks down our country roads, cooking from fresh-only (mainly meatless) ingredients.

    I am working my tail off with jogs in the fresh air and Zumba in my living room so I can fit into my favorite pair of dark brown corduroys, but I will continue to enjoy cooking, and baking with real ingredients, and living my life with fullness!

    God is good.
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    Your husband's grandparents sound like they know what they're doing! :) One of our good friends grew up in France and has similar experiences--it was a bit of a culture shock for his family when they moved to rural Georgia. I am really inspired by the old-fashioned, real way of doing things. My husband's making stock with farmer's market pork necks right now, I've got bread in the oven, and later in the week I'm going to try making my first-ever batch of mustard to go with some local sausages and Micah's home-fermented sauerkraut. I can't imagine going back to my old way of eating.
  • StuAblett
    StuAblett Posts: 1,141 Member
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    I completely agree, and do my best to live this way as well.

    I very much like these seven words.....

    "Eat FOOD, not a lot, mostly vegetables"

    Yep, works for me! :drinker:
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    "Eat FOOD, not a lot, mostly vegetables"

    Amen! Think how much healthier our society would be if everyone followed this....
  • micahhudson
    micahhudson Posts: 2
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    Bump :)
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    I go for regular walks with my 5yr old daughter and shorkie puppy. Half of our 1 mile circuit is a big open grassy field and we sprint across it...racing each other and enjoying the outdoors. So we walk, sprint, walk, sprint, walk and have fun. SO much better than standing on a machine, staring at the silent TV .

    This makes me so happy! If more people approached fitness like this, I bet the word "exercise" wouldn't seem so scary. :)
  • girlinahat
    girlinahat Posts: 2,956 Member
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    Our ancestors in the not-so-distant past cooked every day and walked where they needed to go. They'd never heard of Bodyplex, and they would have looked at you like you were crazy if you'd served them most of the food-like items people eat nowadays. They rarely ate out, and they spent more time with their families. They didn't make time for exercise or count their calories, but they were much more fit and much less prone to obesity and diet-related illnesses than Americans are today. Their entire way of living was different and, in these ways, better. 

    excellent post.

    Think of it this way - up until the late 1950's people ate plenty of bread, starchy foods like potatoes (rice was barely heard of in the West) cooked with lard and put dripping on their doorstep sandwiches. They sat down with the family to an evening meal of meat and two veg. A gymnasium was something girls had in schools. And the average dress size for women was about 2 sizes smaller than it is now, in fact, a UK size 12 from those days is equivalent to about a 10 now.

    How did they stay slim and healthy? well they ate real food, cooked themselves and had never heard of xanthan gum, xylitol or any of the preservatives we insist on using. Sure, they had bad teeth and frequently removed entire mouths of healthy teeth to prevent problems later. And they did their exercise around the house. Until 'time-saving' gadgets came in, cleaning, doing the laundry, washing-up, scrubbing the floor - all was a form of exercise. There would have been more variety of local shops - rather than everything contained in a supermarket, and so on a daily basis (to keep things fresh) there would be a need to trawl the shops.

    Now I know this doesn't fit with the modern persons lifestyle, But there are ways of incorporating exercise into the day by making small changes - walking to a different shop, cleaning the house, making bread - surely all that kneading has to burn some calories????

    The point is, our modern diet is what is harming us, despite all the research on nutrition, we still can't figure out how to live healthily. I rarely eat junk or processed foods anyway - I tend to find them too salty having grown up in a house where salt was almost never used but if I wanted to, then I'd make my own pizza - I'd feel much better about eating it and eat it guilt-free, knowing the love and care I’d put into creating it. And I reckon that there'd be a lot less calories there too.
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    And they did their exercise around the house. Until 'time-saving' gadgets came in, cleaning, doing the laundry, washing-up, scrubbing the floor - all was a form of exercise. There would have been more variety of local shops - rather than everything contained in a supermarket, and so on a daily basis (to keep things fresh) there would be a need to trawl the shops.

    Now I know this doesn't fit with the modern persons lifestyle, But there are ways of incorporating exercise into the day by making small changes - walking to a different shop, cleaning the house, making bread - surely all that kneading has to burn some calories????

    Exactly. To me, spending a few hours at the gym just so I can veg out on the couch in the afternoon seems silly. Why not live an active lifestyle, where exercise is a means to a purposeful end? If I spend 30 minutes walking to and from the store, I've burned some calories and crossed one less errand off of my to-do list. If I spend an hour cooking a delicious, healthy dinner, I've burned some calories AND I get the satisfaction of eating something yummy that I made myself. If it takes me an hour to clean up after dinner, I've burned some calories AND my kitchen is clean. :)
  • ashleyplus3
    ashleyplus3 Posts: 284 Member
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    Just LOVED everything about your post! This is how I want to live life. :smile:

    This has nothing to do with your topic, but your name - appleofmyeye totally reminded me of this song by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and the picture of you and your husband is such a sweet one, it reminded me of it also! Thought I'd share...........

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRA5S59KjwY&feature=related
  • appleofmyeye
    appleofmyeye Posts: 94
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    Just LOVED everything about your post! This is how I want to live life. :smile:

    This has nothing to do with your topic, but your name - appleofmyeye totally reminded me of this song by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and the picture of you and your husband is such a sweet one, it reminded me of it also! Thought I'd share...........

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRA5S59KjwY&feature=related

    Thank you for the compliment! My screenname is from my Pappaw, who when I was little would always say "Ta-ta, you're the apple of my eye." (Ta-ta was short for Tanya, my real-life name.)

    I will have to check out the song when I get home--YouTube is blocked at my work.

    Unrelated: I love your quote! I am an elementary school librarian, so I've been celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday all week! :happy:
  • godblessourhome
    godblessourhome Posts: 3,892 Member
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    love it!
  • melodyg
    melodyg Posts: 1,423 Member
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    Love this. I'm working on cutting back on the processed foods and making exercise part of life too... but it is tough in the city when there isn't much within walking distance! I miss my college days in a small town without a car when I really could walk just about anywhere I needed to go! (Not at all a coincidence that when I got a car and then moved to a larger city I started packing on the weight!)

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