Add In The Good Stuff

Good morning!

Yesterday after work, I took a wonderful walk with the pups.  Does Jax not have the happiest look on his face?!  This picture just makes me laugh.  I thought it might make you smile too =)

 

Ok, onto my actual post!  When I was recovering from my Sunday sickness (food poisoning I'm guessing)/traveling all day/stuck at an airport two weeks ago, I watched a documentary on Netflix called Hungry for Change while resting to get better.  I feel like it's always great to take a little refresher course on why I strive to eat the way I do.  Especially on a really tough day.

I had the kind of Sunday where I was very unexpectedly sick all morning and then spent the day at airports trying to keep myself together.  I certainly had a thought like "I feel like absolute crap anyways, why don't I just get a fast food burger and frosty to wash it all down?  Maybe that crappy food will make me feel better." 

Yes, I'm 100% human and even though I stick to a plant-based diet and know that I feel absolutely my best when I stick to clean eating, I still have those sort of moments.

Hubby chopping veggies...he's way better at it than me.

 

Getting back to my point - I pretty much watched Hungry for Change at the perfect time.  This is not a documentary about being vegan, it's about clean natural eating and the MASSIVE LIFE CHANGING benefits from doing so, and really I think that's more important because you can be vegan and eat like crap.  There is a world of vegan processed food out there that I could fill my days with, but devoting myself to clean eating is a huge step.  In all honesty, I think for many it's a bigger step than sticking solely to a plant-based diet.

The term clean eating is talked about a lot.  If something has a shelf life longer than oh I don't know a year, that's a little scary.  Honestly if you want to get crazy, if it has a shelf life longer than a month it could be questionable.  Of course there are many exceptions to this rule...

Snap peas growing on our deck

 A concept that really stuck out to me in the documentary was encouraging others to add in the good.  I think it can be really hard to drastically change your diet.  It can be overwhelming, expensive, scary...so the best thing to do is start adding in the good.  Add in more veggies, fruit, nuts, seeds...cut out the processed foods slowly... That way it doesn't feel like that huge a change all at once.

Udon noodle broccoli tofu stir fry - one of my absolute favorites.

 

I also learned about great detox foods:  parsley, cilantro, green veggies, and chia seeds.  I want to incorporate these even more so into my life. 

The documentary described that once you begin to see how good you feel from eating the good stuff, you'll start to crave it.  I totally agree.  It happened to me.  Every day we have a choice to eat in a fashion that makes us better.  Literally you can get enough calories (or 5 times as many as you need) each day, but if you aren't getting the right nutrition, you'll still be hungry.  That's our bodies talking to us!  How crazy interesting.

Fresh garden greens!

So we aren't exactly living in our natural habitat.  For starters, I do not go outside every morning in search of food.  I open a refrigerator or a cupboard that has food in pretty little boxes and containers all so my eyes are happy to see it (literally that's the idea).  I'm a runner so that's good because I get some exercise especially because I work in an office where I sit all day.  Our bodies weren't designed to sit that much, but it's what a lot of us end up doing... that's life.

As was depicted in the documentary, we don't feed a chimp in a zoo processed boxes of food with chemicals or cans filled with preservatives...no he gets fruits and veggies and all the wonderful stuff he would have in his natural environment.  We should be doing the same for ourselves...what a concept.

Can you tell I liked this documentary?  Just watch it, then we can chat more =)

What other documentaries do you like?  Have you seen Hungry for Change?