Where did it all begin for me? Is it as easy as a book?

I remember the first book I read that rocked my food world: Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live. Until then, food was something to avoid, then gorge myself on. It was like an enemy that I needed to have control over. In my mind, I had control if I ate less or if I ate food with the least amount of calories. I never once considered that food had a purpose. That it had healing properties or that it was my friend, not enemy.

I remember avoiding fruit because it had sugar, avocado and nuts because they were high in fat, and salads because dressings were usually fat laden. Instead I ate Lean Cuisines, sandwiches on “fat-free” bread, cereal with milk, protein bars, “fat-free” candy like gummy bears, gallons of aspartame sweetened yogurt and pudding, and enough dry bagels to considered myself a New Yorker.

I had bought, hook line and sinker, into the myth of the fat-free, Standard American Diet.

It is funny to look back and remember how novel, no, mind-blowing, the idea of nutritional value was to me. You mean, sprayed-on vitamins aren’t the same? How could a Vanderbilt graduate with an MBA be so clueless? The concept is so straight forward and logical, yet it took a 300+ book to help me see the obvious: your body is perfectly capable to being disease-free if you provide it with the right whole foods. Food can literally heal your body. Actually, a more correct way to put it is, your body can heal itself if it is provided with the right tools. Food is one of those tools.

So, for months my entire focus was to eat as many vegetables, fruits, and quality whole foods I could get my hands on. I didn’t care about calories, fat content, or enticing marketing. I just ate the hell out natural food. I didn’t tell myself I COUDLN’T eat my old food, I concentrated on what whole foods I HAD to eat. Slowly, the old foods faded away because there was no room for them.

My belly was full of roughage, and my entire house was full of gas. I literally went through 3 months of constant, overwhelming farting. My poor body was in shock as it was slowly acclimating to the new flora and fauna from my new diet. The fiber was also likely unearthing 35 years of toxic, decaying intestinal matter. Pleasant. I remember once having so much offensive gas during a massage, I offered my therapist a gas mask.

It was that bad.

As my exploration of food continued, it naturally went hand-in-hand with an intense spiritual curiosity, sparked, too, by a book. An unsuspecting book left for me in a bag on my front door by a friend who couldn’t have known the can of worms it opened for me.

How the book came to be on my doorstep actually started a year prior.  I was pregnant with my fourth when my good friend invited me to a seminar.

(continued on The Perfect Family post)