Fake foods make you fat.

For real.  It's been a long time since I've touched Project Real Food, but I'm always learning and reading and soaking up everything I can.

Today was a big day for me.  I stepped on the scale for the first time in a week or two and realized I've hit my low weight.  My "low weight" basically just means that without starving myself or doing something really radical like a cleanse (which is always temporary and the second I start eating again, I put pounds on really quickly), this is the lowest weight I get to and seems to be what I function well at.  Maybe now that I'm in a healthy groove, I'll lose more without effort, but I feel good where I am right now.

This is the first time in my adult life since my weight first became a struggle (at around 19 years old) that I can honestly say I've done not one dang thing.  I haven't dieted, haven't counted a single calorie.  I haven't even worked out.  That's not something I'm proud of per se; I should be working out and I want to make exercise a daily part of my life.  BUT...all my weight has just naturally fallen off.

Not only did I stop counting calories, but after researching fat and reading Eat Fat, Lose Fat, I finally stopped paying attention to the fat in my diet.  As long as it's natural (and I define natural as found in nature, not altered in a lab, and coming from animals raised traditionally - so ONLY butter and cream and meat from grassfed/free range animals), I don't give it a thought.  If I want some butter on my green beans, I put butter on my green beans.  If I want to cook my steak in a big dollop of butter on the stove, I do it.  We drink the heck out of whole milk.

Ironically, it took all of this to make my weight struggles fix themselves.  It took doing everything "they" tell you not to do.  I feel like I'm my own little science experiment.  In the past, to get to this weight, I have had to bust my butt, spending hours upon hours counting every calorie that goes in my mouth and denying myself everything I was craving.  It doesn't require all of this!  It shouldn't require all of this!  When in the course of history has dieting been the norm?  I don't believe God intended for us to have to count our calories.  I believe He gave us the food we need to maintain our health.

The moment you add processed foods to your diet, you literally screw everything up.  Processed foods trick our brains to crave more and to eat more than we were ever intended to.  Stripping a food of its natural fats changes the way your body can absorb its nutrients and makes you hungrier.  And then we reach for more carbs to satisfy the hunger from the last carbs (because typically fat is replaced with sugar).  God, in His infinite wisdom, provided us with the natural, healthy fats and protein to take care of our needs.  We're the ones who screwed it up by creating new foods in the lab, always thinking we know better.  Hydrogenated oils, skim milk, fat free cheese (which, um, is pretty freaky if you ask me)?   These things are not healthy.  You only have to think about this on a very basic, very "common sense" level: at no time in the history of man have we ever consumed these fat free products before, and yet we are the fattest we have ever been.

Did I blow your mind?  It's so easy when you think of it like this.  It's not working.  What we're doing to our food system by "improving" it is destroying it.  And it's not weird, and it's not hippie, and it's not radical to think this way.  Just look around: so much disease (and so much of it brand new and so much of it related to weight and diet), so much obesity and so much "improvement."  This isn't rocket science.

As my friend Chelsea said on my instagram picture of my baby girl's terrible eczema: our bodies talk to us.  If only we would listen.

I finally stopped consuming "diet" products, counting calories, limiting my fats and I finally stopped struggling with my weight.  The only thing I had to quit was all the fake stuff that science has introduced into our food system.  And while I splurge on occasion, giving up those foods is actually incredibly easy.  Because after the inital withdrawal, once you fuel your body with healthy things, you just don't care that much for the crap.

It sounds so difficult, the idea of changing our food system.  But it really isn't.  Once enough consumer awareness existed regarding rBGH, big influencers like Walmart vowed not to buy milk containing rBGH, and all of a sudden most dairies quit using it.  That's all it takes.  Soon, we'll see the same thing happen with GMOs.  Mark my word.  Educate yourself, stop buying crap, and the crap will cease to exist.  And you'll be skinny!  :)

Edited to add a few things that I've been asked:

1. Literally, we keep almost ZERO processed foods in the house.  My husband has a cereal addiction (sorry babe, you know it's true) so he keeps cereal in the house and very rarely we will buy some almond Nut-Thins, almond milk (I try to make it, but time doesn't always allow), chocolate chips.  But mostly there are no processed foods here.  Even a little can derail you.  I hate to say that, but it's true.  We were forced into this lifestyle because of the drastic elimination diets my kids needed to be on and my health and weight has completely changed since doing this.  Don't allow it in the house and you can't be tempted.  I splurge when I'm out and about and I'm totally okay with that because I know that 95% of the time, I'm not splurging.

It doesn't require tons of time.  I don't have tons of time.  I'm now working at least 25-30 hours a week inside the home plus raising my kids and trying to keep up my home.  It can take a lot of time, but it doesn't have to at all.  For snacks, we do things like nuts, fresh fruit, dried fruit, carrots/pepper strips.  All just as easy as pouring goldfish in a cup.  For breakfast, we do oatmeal with a drizzle of maple syrup or yogurt I make (SUPER easy) with a banana or other piece of fruit.  On weekends I sometimes do eggs/bacon.  I PROMISE IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE HARD.  You just have to adjust to the new foods.  Sure, fresh fruit isn't as yummy as goldfish to a lot of kids, but if they don't have an option, they get used to it over time.  We used to only do cereal for breakfast.  It was a hard switch to oatmeal and yogurt/fruit, but now my kids literally LOVE oatmeal and ask for it at almost every meal.

2.  I'm going to keep a food journal for a week and share what I eat as someone asked me to.  :)

3.  Here is a VERY in-depth and great article on fat.  There are some missing holes, but overall it's a fantastic read.  In general I try not to link to the "Natural News" type of sites because even though I believe in their validity, a lot of people don't.  I want you guys to see that this is becoming MUCH more mainstream!

4.  Sugar and carbs are your enemy.  Sugar, sugar, sugar!  It's bad for your health.  I'm a sugar addict.  Processed foods are loaded with sugar.  It's SO addictive. I'm trying really hard to stop this vicious cycle.  We eat very few carbs now because of my kids allergies and intolerances, so I really do think this has contributed.  And I think just eliminating the processed foods almost entirely is what changed this for us.  Aside from the drizzle of maple syrup my kids get on their oatmeal or in their yogurt, they get no other sugar.  And I know this because they only eat whole foods.  When you're eating processed foods, unless you read the labels, you are probably in the dark on the massive amounts of sugar you're consuming.  Jami has given up sugar and is sharing great tips and info about her journey.  SO many things from energy levels to weight struggles to acne are affected by sugar.