I was recently watching Last Comic Standing, and one New York-based comedian said that he turned Vegan for a bit. There is a certain negative connotation with Vegans. The comedian continued by saying something like, “Yup, I decided to be a Vegan. So, you know, I gave up meat, and dairy and friendship.”
I can sense my family’s annoyance with me, though my persistence seems to be paying off a bit, as I now have both my oldest brother and father drinking Kombucha daily and my brother sent me a picture of something with “Ancient Grains” in the title. So, yay!
On a recent family trip, I tried to sneak in some organic options of typical foods we eat, like peanut butter and salad dressings. I tried to convince them to use regular butter instead of substitutes like margarine. I tried to have sourdough and flax seed bread available as an option along with their whole wheat loaf.
Now, I know most of you read that last sentence and thought, soooo you want your family to be fat. I’m pretty sure that’s what they think.
Note: I am a certified personal trainer, but I am NOT a nutritionist; I listen to and I am surrounded by some pretty smart people at work (TRUE Health and Wholeness) and I read a lot. I have also been turned into a believer by following certain food rules myself.
Food, though, is just one part of health. There’s exercise for the body and mind, and there’s wellness, again, of body and mind. No one has all the answers, but we have to talk about the possible solutions, the successes and the failures in order to weed out the stupid ones, right?
My family, being health conscious, focuses mostly on calories. As a female who used to struggle terribly, and still struggles daily, with her body image, as most women do, I understand subscribing to this calories in vs. calories out method. Again, I don’t have all the answers, but here is what I do know.
- I feel better when I avoid processed foods to the best of my ability. Now, I don’t have the budget nor the time to cut processed food from my diet all-together, but when I make a conscious effort to cook my own food from real, whole ingredients, my body thanks me,
- I feel better when I spend the extra $ on antibiotic-and hormone-free meat. I choose organic and grass-fed as well. When it comes to eggs, I always choose free range. I do this for two reasons.
- In this day and age, we take enough shit to combat illness, stress and genetics that we don’t need whatever that cow was given on a farm you’ve never heard of.
- We need to be kinder to the animals we share this planet with.
- I feel better when I combat aches, pains and illnesses naturally. As an athlete, you’re body is your livelihood. If you’re hurting, you take something to make it feel better so you can play. Being hurt, as a competitive athlete, is a reason to keep you sidelined, not a warning sign from your body to slow down. These days, if I can take something naturally occurring in nature to help with something as simple as inflammation, I will try that first.
- I feel my best, my most beautiful, my most feminine, my most boss, my most accomplished, my most whatever you would like to fill in that blank with when I leave the gym. Lifting weights, lifting heavy weights helps you lose weight by increasing your muscle mass, speeding up your metabolism and dropping your body fat.
Now, back to the beginning. I know I’m most likely annoying you with my talk of holistic this, whole foods that, heavy weights whatever, but here’s why I keep telling you this.
I love you very much and would like you to be in my life at your healthiest and happiest, for as long as possible. The goal of this post is NOT to have you say, ‘okay, Molly makes sense, she must be right and now, I am ONLY eating organic from and am going to spend 3 hours a day at the gym.’ I want you to Google, to research, to ask questions, to explore, to try and fail, to try and succeed and figure it out. I want you to wrap the people you care about up in huge hugs of knowledge and love in order to help them be the happiest and healthiest them they can be, and maybe, together, we can slowly create a healthier society.
Over and Out
-MB
Boots Bikes + Barbells 