Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

Today I watched the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. You can watch it for free here.

I’ve never really had any desire to try juicing, although I did attempt a juice fast once. I cheated and used V8 Fusion. I quit after 3 days of feeling miserable. I’m sure that my 3 days of terrible probably had more to do with the product I was using being full of sugar than my body detoxing.

But after seeing the documentary, I think I would like to at least add juicing to my daily routine. Maybe I’ll even try a 10-day fast. I struggle with frequent migraines and am willing to try just about anything to reduce them. Any recommendations on juicers? I’m planning on borrowing one to start out with, but if I like the results then I’m sure I’ll be looking to add one to my collection of kitchen appliances.

Has anyone out there tried a juice fast? Any recipes you’d like to share? I grew up as a very picky eater and I’ve only recently attempted to add more veggies to my diet so I’m a little nervous about sticking to the 80-20 veggie to fruit ratio recommendation.

The Fresh 20

The Fresh 20

I know I already posted once today, but it’s the last day for The Fresh 20 groupon and I decided to go ahead and get it. Twice a day posting will definitely not be the norm, but I’m excited about this purchase.

Will it make the housewife part of my life easy?

Well. My family is picky. I really like only shopping 1-2 times a month, and I’ll stop on my way home from work if we’re really desperate for anything in between. Plus I rarely stick to anything I set out to do. So probably not. BUT. A weekly meal plan and grocery list emailed to me every week using only 20 ingredients (plus 20 pantry staples) sounds awesome. And I would probably never try it for $49. But since it’s only $24 for the next 10 hours, and since I have immediately regretted every time I’ve considered a groupon until it expired, I decided to go ahead and just do it.

So we’ll see how it goes. $2/month for all the work of meal planning is totally worth it to me, even if I only use half the recipes or have to come up with a week’s worth of meals on my own every once in a while. I think this will be a good tool for making my next step toward a more natural life.

Cloth Diapers, Pinterest, and Baby Rabies

I have no children by the way. I know I mentioned cloth diapers and natural birth before, but I’m not a mama. No plans to have kids anytime soon for this lady.

But for some reason, that’s how this all started. One day, while I was working part time as a student worker at the university I attended (where I also spent wasted most of my time on Pinterest) I saw a pin about cloth diapers. I think it was for gDiapers. That started hours of research on why in the world anyone would choose to use cloth diapers. It opened my eyes to all kinds of things I was oblivious to before that day. And since so many moms who cloth diaper are also advocates of natural birth, this inevitably led to researching natural birth. I read lots of birth stories. Some of them were water births, which I thought was weird and disgusting.

Now I secretly reallyreallyreally want to have one. But my husband thinks it’s weird and disgusting and terrifying. In fact, he thinks I’m crazy just for wanting to give birth without any pain killers. So I’m just going to keep this between us for now.

Actually, I’ve wanted to give birth without painkillers for a long time. Not because I thought it was better or safer or healthier or anything. Nope. That never crossed my mind.

One time, my high school chemistry teacher told me a story about getting a spinal tap. I almost passed out. Ever since, I have been absolutely terrified of anything that involves sticking a needle in my spine.

Anyway. At some point, I stumbled on this birth story and fell in love with Baby Rabies. If you’ve never read her blog, start with her birth stories. She’s hilarious. And so honest. I spent every shift for the next several weeks reading her blog from start to finish.

That’s probably a little creepy. But I learned a lot from reading her blog. And my interest in cloth diapers and natural birth inevitably led to an interest in all things natural and organic and green.

Ok. Maybe not so much green. I’m not going to lie, my motivation is much more along the lines of being healthy than saving the planet. But it is definitely a plus in my mind and I’m trying to get on board with the whole saving the planet thing. I’m just so overwhelmed by all the changes I already feel I need to make that I don’t think I can tackle saving the world right now too.

I’ve become obsessed with the “natural” lifestyle

You know. Cloth diapers. Natural birth (or even *gasp!* water birth). Locally grown produce and locally raised meats. Raw milk. Cleaning with vinegar. Eating clean and cutting out processed foods. That kind of stuff.

I research it all the time. It’s all I do at work. You know, when I don’t have any projects to work on. Which is basically all the time. Unless I’m on Pinterest looking at food porn (I do that a lot).

But I’ve realized that I spend a whole lot more time researching it and forming opinions than I do implementing these ideas into my lifestyle. It’s harder than I thought it would be. My husband isn’t necessarily on board (although he’s getting closer. I think.). We don’t have a lot of money. I don’t have a lot of extra time to devote to making things homemade.

I don’t want people to think I’m some weird hippy tree hugger.

I have made some changes since we got married. We recently purchased a dairy share so we can drink raw milk. I try to buy less processed food and make more things from scratch. I use a homemade all-purpose cleaner most of the time. I make my own bread sometimes. I even bought a Diva Cup.

But there are so many things that I want to do, or stop doing. I grimace every time I pick up a package of chicken breasts because it’s on sale for $1.99/lb, knowing that I really should be buying an organic version, or even better, signing up for that meat share at the farm I get my milk from. Or when I give in a buy another box of jambalaya rice mix because I don’t want to go through the process of finding a recipe that my husband approves of, not to mention trying to make it with brown rice instead of white and figuring out how to get the rice to not be mushy.

Or when I give in and buy another candle because hubby loves them.

Or when I buy more paper plates and plastic cups because I hate doing the dishes.

Or my husband brings home dish detergent or laundry detergent or bread or whatever it is that I told him we didn’t need to buy because I was going to make it myself.. and then never got around to it.

Or I decide we’re going out to eat because I’m SO OVER making my own dinner.

It’s the money. And the effort. The change. The commitment.

And the fact that I’m so overwhelmed that I don’t really know where to start. I mean, I guess I’ve started. But when I first decided I wanted to get into living a more natural lifestyle, I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into.

I’m starting (again) here. I’m making my intentions public.. ok not exactly public – I realize there will probably be no more than ten two people that ever read this. But maybe if I start documenting my efforts, I’ll actually make some progress.

So here’s to a new year.  And a new lifestyle.