From Diet to Healthy Lifestyle

The alarm goes off.  5am. Instantly, the snooze button is tapped like the send button on a passionate Facebook reply.  “Nope. Not today. I’ll start tomorrow.” Why? Why is “not today” our reflexive response? Simple--it’s what’s always been done, it’s habitual behavior.  

However, the relief of the “not today” finds itself mixed with “But, I really do want to change! I’m ready!  But, I’m not a morning person. I don’t like vegetables. There’s no time to cook healthy food. And, I can’t do it-” all in the same string of thoughts.

Here. This is where I lived, and it was misery. At 17 I gained 20 lbs in one summer due to a dramatic, yet sneaky, change in my lifestyle and habits.  Feeling puffy, depressed, exhausted, and incredibly frustrated, I turned to extremes rather than reflection. Taking a single moment to reflect on the major changes in my life: quitting basketball, taking on two jobs, and partying the stress away-why think about that? 

Instead I turned to the most logical, given RESULTS is what I was after and as QUICKLY as humanly possible: the Slim Fast Diet! Calorie and fat restriction-- like it’s 1999!  As someone who gives 110% of herself to every commitment, this diet is no exception. In about 8 weeks, the weight was down, while running was constant. The “success” of it fed my unhealthy desire to control things in order to avoid the root cause of gaining the weight in the first place.  While red flags signaled me all the way, the one that flapped the loudest was the belief that the only way to stay thin(and therefore healthy) was to stay addicted to the control of the diet.  And the diet consumed me like a full-time job. When not followed perfectly, the resulting guilt and shame became overwhelming and would even determine my value and worth. The result was an odd and unbalanced attachment to food.  It was all I could think about--I was either on it or off it--both were very extreme and unsustainable.  

It took far too long to realize that the diet didn’t and couldn’t change my unhealthy habits--the root cause to my weight gain in the first place.

So, what makes  living a healthy lifestyle so different than dieting?  Here are the top twelve signs I noticed as I ditched the diets and healed my body and mind, then sustained for more than a decade:

1. Food is no longer good or bad. Everything is consumed without guilt. My body responds to true hunger.

2. Food choices are made out of a strong desire to feel physically and mentally AWESOME which are natural, whole foods, in balance, when hungry.

3. In life situations where I have no control over the food, I just eat what is available, appropriately responding to hunger and making the most balanced decision possible.

4. My meal plans, grocery lists and home are filled with food that makes me feel awesome.

5. Junk food cravings and consumption is rare because of the physical and mental side-effects.

6. The eating experience is pleasurable every time.

7. Exercise is habitual, treasured, planned.

8. I crave real food, especially vegetables.

9. Total elimination of allergenic foods is non-negotiable: for me, that means no gluten, no dairy, shellfish…

10. Quality sleep, 7-8 hours, is a top priority.

11. When an emotional or physical need is not being met, I find ways to fill that need in a non food way (non-food nourishment or NFN)

12. Cooking from scratch is always the norm alongside meal planning

    It took some time to relearn my body’s signals and what it was originally created to do.  This is the case for people who struggle as I once did. Society sent the lie-filled messages long ago: “Food is love! Treat yourself! You deserve it! You earned it! You can’t resist! You can’t trust yourself around food!”  WRONG: food is food. It is a pleasure while also necessary to sustain life, but not to fulfill non hunger or thirst needs. The quality of life that comes from making healthy choices every day is, truthfully, one of the most loving actions we can take for ourselves and anyone we care about!

Mind, BODY, and Spirit: A Quest for Wholeness

I grew up a pretty typical Midwestern girl. In the midst of my childhood years my life felt quite normal. I was raised in church, had a good group of friends, did well academically, and was active in sports. I’ve always had a good sense of who I am; confident and the ability to not be swayed or affected by major let downs in life. I was the youngest of four and the only girl, so naturally, I put on the armor required to keep up. But, as I entered adulthood and faced challenges and traumas, it became pretty evident, through therapy, that there were many things that affected me to my core; things that I never allowed myself to process. My parents divorced when I was young and both remarried within a few years. One of my parents struggled with depression and mental illness, which complicated life along the way, and left me with hurt that I never even knew existed. It wasn’t until 2017, when my entire world changed and all of those past hurts came flooding to the surface.

At 16 I met the boy that I would spend the next 10 years of my life with. He was fun and outgoing, plus 2 years older than me. He introduced me to a world that I hadn’t yet experienced. After eight years of dating we were married and shortly after, in 2011, we had our first child. But, in those 10 years, I was emotionally abused, consistently cheated on, and always second choice to alcohol and drugs. I allowed myself to fall into the position of the enabler. But, after my son was born, I decided my son’s life and well being had to be my priority. So I left. I could no longer make his recovery or choice to get better my responsibility. Three years later he lost his life to addiction. Raising a child with a parent who has passed away and figuring out how to help him navigate his grief, as it changes with age, has been one of my greatest challenges in life.

In 2013, I was the luckiest girl in the world when I married the man of my dreams. He loved me and respected me like I didn’t even know was possible. He understood my hurts and insecurities that I had gained from my past relationship because of going through one similar to mine. It was like life had finally began! But, we also struggled to find balance within our blended family and fought hard for our love for each other and a life that we were desperate to give all 5 of our children. Life is hard and obstacles always seem to present themselves as soon as things start getting comfortable. 

In the summer of 2017, my husband checked himself into a recovery facility for an opioid addiction. He had spent the last 10 to 15 years with major back issues and opioids became his way of survival. The next 4 months, while my husband dedicated pretty much all of his time to his recovery journey, it felt like I was a single mother to my 14 year old step son, 6 and 3 year old sons and 4 year old daughter - while also trying to grow my new real estate business. And, just as soon as that season was ending, and life started feeling normal again, I was hit with the blow that has forever changed me. 

The day before Thanksgiving in 2017, I received a call that my older brother, who lived in California, had been missing for 24 hours. Within a few hours of that first phone call, I was notified that his body had been found at the base of the Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur, California. My brother and I shared a bond that I’ve never really been able to verbalize. Throughout most of my life he served as a friend, mentor, sounding board and someone who understood me better than anyone because we shared the same childhood hurts and joys. The grief I experienced was unbearable. Out of pure self preservation I went into autopilot. I lived that way for nearly 6 months, and I have very little memory of that time. I’m not sure how my kids were fed (like seriously... what was I packing in their school lunches?) or how I managed to maintain working and keeping up with the responsibilities of a home with 4 children and a husband still on his own recovery journey from addiction. 

All those past hurts and traumas that I had allowed myself to be unaffected by now sat there staring me and my grief, directly in the eye. I was a mess!

But, eventually, things started to shift. I started making conscious decisions to pull myself out of that fog. I dove head first into therapy, started nurturing my relationship with God, read books on grief and mindset and healthy habits. Allowed myself to be influenced by bible studies at my church and self help seminars for work. I was growing and, more importantly, healing. And, it felt amazing! But something was missing. A piece of the puzzle that I couldn’t quite identify. 

Then I found the piece. It was my physical health, or lack thereof. I had bought a one way ticket to emotional health, but my body was left at the train station.

Up until my third child, I was gifted with genes that allowed me to eat what I wanted, whenever I wanted without gaining a single pound. But three kids later and an enormous amount of grief, my body no longer felt or looked like it once did. So, I went full force into my fitness journey. I changed my eating habits, started guzzling water like nobody's business, exercised every single day and stopped allowing my physical health to bring down my emotional health.

As soon as I made the decision to get physically healthy, it was like this new level of happiness came along with it. All that hard work I had put into healing my heart didn’t truly feel complete until I healed my body. And even better yet, the new found physical health was actually playing a huge roll in my emotional health!

Every day I have to make a decision to be healthy. Most importantly for myself, but also for God, and my husband, and my kids, and my church and my clients. Emotionally, physically and spiritually. True health, I’ve come to realize, isn’t really possible without all 3 being a huge priority in my life. 

Rachel Gallegos is a Christ follower, Wife, Mother to 3 and Step Mother to 2. She’s a Realtor in the West Michigan area, where she has lived all her life. As a survivor of suicide loss, she is extremely passionate about mental health awareness.

 Rachel and Audrey get to hang out Wednesday nights in the Spring when they play on a co-ed softball team together.

FB Business Page: https://www.facebook.com/rachelgallegosrealtor/

Food + Grief = Growth

Real, whole food, organically raised: none of the words in that sentence even existed when I was growing up. The buzz words then were: convenient, easy, crowd-pleasing- which meant one thing- casserole! When I reflect on childhood meals, I remember eating together around the table; I remember laughing at my dad's bad jokes; I remember my mom eating what I had methodically separated, and I remember my brother having to wait until I was finished eating before he could escape with his friends. Basically, none of what I remember about eating was the food. 

Five years ago, my dad passed away after a battle with cancer. Just prior to that, we had made some changes to our schedule that had allowed me to be home more during the day. Feeling inspired, I began figuring out how to create at home the food that I had normally purchased.  In the kitchen, I am determined, methodical and s l o w.....it takes me for-ev-er to cut, chop, slice and dice. In short, my family would devour in less than 15 minutes what had taken me hours (and sometimes days) to prep and create. When my dad died, so did my love for all that food prep. 

Strangely enough, I grieved him through taste. Dad had an unapologetic love for donuts that I never understood. Yet, when I no longer had dad, all I wanted were donuts. Every single time we stopped for ice cream, Dad would get butter pecan. I never understood. After dad passed, I couldn't stop my cravings for all things butter pecan, including those strange 'maple nut goodie candies?! What was happening? How could I have gone from spending days preparing whole, real foods to sustaining myself on a variety pack of TimBits & Maple Nut Goodies (thank you Tim Horton's & Brach's, by the way). It was as if my mind and heart were at odds and somehow my food cravings were the mediators. After a few months, I prayerfully said out loud, "Dad, I love and miss you! And, I have to break up with the donuts. There has to be another way for me to grieve your loss." 

That time away from the hours of preparation allowed me to realize a few things: 1-it's not realistic for me spend hours making meals, 2-did anyone even realize all the time involved in making the meals and were they supposed to, and 3-I cannot live on donuts, alone.  

Fast forward to about 2 years ago. On a slow Sunday morning, Mr. Wonderful and I were watching a cooking show. There was a fantastic recipe called something like sweet potato hash. They had my attention at sweet potato, but 'hash' had me confused. My experience with food titled hash was more akin to...well...yuck. But, this recipe just roasted the sweet potatoes, added some spinach and served it with a fried egg. Wait. That was real, whole food that didn't require extraordinary preparation?! Wasn't that the best of both worlds?! 

That recipe was the turning point. Suddenly, Mr. Wonderful and I started using an hour of our Sunday together to peel, chop, and roast veggies for the week ahead. It happened! That one hour transformed how we cook, what we cook, even what we crave.  Maybe it's the fact that we prep together, or maybe it's that we have fresh, real, organic food that's ready to use for the week, simplifying all our recipes. Until this moment, I'm not sure that I even thought too much about it. But, what I know is that finally, we have found a way to create better meals, in less time that everyone loves- and wouldn't dad love to see that?! I bet he'd even have a joke about it.

Jane Robrahn is a wife-mother-madrasta-educator-yogi-nutrition enthusiast. As an adopted person, she is an advocate for both adoption & autism awareness. Audrey met Jane, first, as a high school student, then, as a teacher, and eventually became deeply connected as healthy striving, writing-loving friends.

Follow her adventures of life as a late bloomer on her blog.