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| Callie, Your Trusty Blogger |
As a small child I remember standing on my toes, fingertips and nose over the counter edge, watching my Grandma make her famous cinnamon rolls. The majority of holidays were spent in her kitchen cooking and eating while gossiping with relatives about the latest family news. My uncle was a chef so there was the added influence of his decadent desserts as I grew older. As a teenager my parents owned a small café and salmon bake in Alaska, and I spent my summers working in the kitchen, including helping produce copious baked goods each morning.
The only problem with all these wonderful foods I grew up with, as was typical in most American kitchens of the 20th century, was how unhealthy all those foods were. Over processed, full of chemicals, and the carbs: Overloaded and toxic levels of sugar and flour! It is no wonder I struggled with my weight as a teenager.
The time I spent at university in England was sufficient to restart my nutritional engine, I lost weight and gained energy, and felt healthier than I had since I was a child. (No, I didn't walk huge amounts more than here in the USA - I've always had to depend upon my feet to get me around.) I learned a few things about the laws regarding food in the UK, and the eating habits of my friends, both English and Spanish, and thought myself enlightened about nutrition. Then I returned to the USA.
I tried to eat healthy: salads, cutting out fast food, and limiting sweet treats. Yet I was gaining and gaining weight at an alarming rate: I gained over 50 pounds in the first 3 months back in the States! No amount of exercise or watching what I ate would stop it.
At the time, I happened to work in an university department surrounded by PhD nutritionists doing research on the very issues I was struggling with. They told me to read the labels closer and to watch out for the devil: High Fructose Corn Syrup! I couldn't believe what all it was in! Sausage - that's not even supposed to be sweet! Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup! "Healthy" crackers. It was everywhere!
I painstakingly cut HFCS in all its forms out of my diet, and I quickly lost 30 of the 50 pounds I had gained, but couldn't manage that last bit. Then I discovered the South Beach Diet - and I swear by it to this day! I lost the last 20 pounds, fast! Plus an additional 20 pounds that had been pestering me since early adolescence. I was in the best shape of my life, without killing myself at the gym, or starving myself. But I found it impossible to stick with it, especially with a typical American man in my life who refused to eat "rabbit food" or give up his fast food addiction.
Fast forward a few years, lose the junk food guy, and add financial crisis. My health crashed. I mean it really crashed! I couldn't get out of bed for three months straight! My body totally shut down, refused to heal itself, was unable to absorb the nutrients from the food I ate, and I dropped weight in a very unhealthy way. A great many factors led to my illness, but a life history of poor eating and an unbalanced lifestyle (too much stress, etc) were major factors.
As I regained my health and strength I also did a lot of thinking about my life and how I lived it. All the "hippy" people started to make a whole lot more sense. I started to appreciate yoga on a new level, to take the environment less for granted (assuming recycling and driving a fuel-efficient vehicle was enough to be doing my part stopped being true), and I started to think about what I thought society should be more aware of and the changes we should all be making for the greater good of humanity.
Two ideas stood out to me about living life. The first: "all things in moderation". The second: "live spherically". I started to think about what those two words meant to me: moderation and spherically. Not just their definitions, but in a cultural sense as well. The result of these ruminations is my new perspective on lifestyle, this blog and its developing contents. I hope it helps you to improve the health and wellness of your own life too!
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| Émile Henry, My Faithful Side-Kick |
Émile Henry is my dog, but he's not just a pet: he's my constant companion and my service dog. I'm introducing him here because I know I'll talk about him regularly, as other bloggers write about their children, and figure you'll appreciate knowing what he looks like. He's a mix of Beagle and Coon Hound. He 32 pounds and doesn't really bay like a Beagle, but rather has the deep bark of a big Coon. He has the combined nose and intellect of the two breeds (I can't hide anything from him). And even though he's a service dog, I'm weak and spoil him with the occasional human food treat (but I'm pretty strict about how he gets these treats so he continues to know I'm the boss).
