The Whooooole 9

I'm not skinny-driven or fad-driven or diet-driven but if you know me well, I am certainly health-driven. I read nutrtion books for fun (yes, I know, I am a nerd) and I try to be as healthy as I can while still enjoying delicious food. For the past year and a half however, I have suffered greatly from unbearable heartburn and GI distress that has caused me to put on weight and worse, feel like crap. Doctor after doctor told me everything was normal and that I simply needed to lose weight. Problem was that I was exercising and eating a healthly diet according to "convetional wisdom". But I still felt bloated, tired, depressed, etc. I'm just not the type to settle for feeling mediocre. I'm an overacheiver and I want to feel my best everyday. Is there something wrong with that?! (Haha.)

The truth is that my core beliefs lie in the fact that everything we put in our mouths has an affect on the way we feel physically and emotinoally. Sometimes I wonder why more people don't feel this way. I mean food is your main source of nutrition, energy, vitality and let us not forget pleasure, connection, and joy. So you can imagine my frustration when my exceptioanlly healthy, mostly vegetarian diet was failing me miserably.

Then something happened and a light bulb went off in my head. What if I can't tolerate the foods I eat in "healthy abundance": wheat, grains, gluten, dairy, soy, legumes, peanut butter!!! No, no, no, NO!!! Peanut butter?!?! But I love peanut butter!!! It's not a nut, by the way, but rather a legume. I needed to test this theory. After sharing this insight with a friend of mine equally interested in nutrtion,she told me to check out the Whole 30 program. A nutrition program based on a The Paleo Diet which I won't waste space explaining here. But the active link will lead you to a very funny blog about what it entails!

I am in my 3rd week of Whole 30 eating lots of meats, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, and lots of yummy fats from coconuts and avocados and olives and I am simply amazed at the transformation I have experienced. I HAVE NO HEARTBURN!!! I'M NOT BLOATED!!! AND I'VE LOST ABOUT 15 POUNDS!!! It hasn't been an effortless transition (I've had dreams about bread and butter a time or two) but I feel satisfied and happy. I don't feel hungry or grumpy or irritable. I feel energetic and most importantly, I feel a huge weight (literally and metaphorcally) lifted off my chest. When you're constantly uncomfortable and nothing else has worked, finding something as simple as a non-evasive diet change is mind blowing and inspring.

So while my recipes won't be centered around beans and grains for a while, like my delicious bean relish below, I am still making yummy food. Like homemade lemon mayonaisse!!! I encourage anyone who knows they could feel and look better to check out this program and look into the Paleo Diet in general. It has been life changing for me and I trust it can affect many others equally as positive. I've written about how corporation driven agriculture has given meat a bad rap befor, (See my "MEATia" post in the archive) but now I am even more convinced of the money driven scam that drives consumers to eat an obscene amout of processed grain and sugar AND tell us fat is evil.

Love and bacon,
Francesca