The Store
I shop alone. It’s a marriage preservation tactic. Grocery shopping with me is no small feat. I read labels. I question ingredients. I understand profit often eclipses people's well-being. Buyer beware.
Standing in the aisle donning my readers, I inspect ingredients on unfamiliar products, search the web, and assess whether to shelve or cart the item. It's painstaking at times, yet enlightening, and the reason behind the multiplicity of websites open in my phone browser on any given day. I am perpetually learning, modifying, and improving what we put on and in our bodies.
While my husband keeps his sanity with other captivating projects, I do however, have my daughter with me. From the awkwardness of being a bigger kid sitting in the basket of the shopping cart, she often enjoys an audiobook on my phone while I do my due diligence and stuff items around her. She is patient, most of the time, and intrinsically learning. Gathering tidbits here and there, she ascertains the nutrition of various items as she marks them off my digital shopping list.
Keeping Healthy Together Bicycling in 2022
From Her View
"That's the marketing aisle," she professes as we pass the litany of brightly colored cereal boxes with beguiling animations tempting the young and most likely uninformed. We have never entertained that kind of cereal in our home. Ours is rather boring to look at, no dazzling colors, no deliriously happy characters, and contains hardly any sugar. In fact, we rarely eat it.
At seven years old, our daughter knows that GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are not good for our health. She knows we eat as organic as possible. She knows we avoid as many odd chemicals, toxic ingredients, and sugar as possible. A smile blooms in my heart knowing she is absorbing critical information that will help influence her choices beyond our parental nest.
I make mac-n-cheese for her from scratch with a variety of fresh cheese. Seasoned with herbs, cracked pepper, bouillon, and colored with a pinch of turmeric. She loves it. Her friends do not. To this day there are boxed food products and drive through fast food establishments our daughter has never experienced. That is just how we roll.
Growing Up
During my young and playful years in Honolulu, Hawaii, my father had his first heart attack in his forties. It changed our lives. After weeks in hospital, with my concerned mother at his side, he fortunately recovered. My mother, with the nutrition research available in the 80's, rocked our new world of wellness.
The Store
The waft of essential oils mixed with bulk grains permeated our nostrils, as if we were entering a barn full of hay bales spritzed with lavender. We entered Down To Earth, the local hippie natural grocery store. A time preceding Whole Foods, this store was equally a "whole pay check" kind of place brimming with necessities I had no idea we ever even needed. Thus began my introduction to holistic and natural health.
At Home
The warm fragrant Hawaiian breeze would swirl around us at our patio dining table. My father would safely jostle the morning paper to maneuver its breadth around a cup of coffee and his breakfast. Breakfast. Hmmm. This new post heart attack breakfast, I just wasn't too keen on it, All Bran with orange juice instead of milk. Or perhaps it was a plate of scrambled low cholesterol Eggbeater egg mix he was enjoying. Blah! All I will say is that I am absolutely grateful nutrition research has evolved since then.
Other mornings my father would return panting, soaked, and dripping sweat (he was a profuse sweater) from his morning jog. A comedic man, he would always offer a warm hug. “I love you dad, but no way, gross!” I am glad he was open to change and improving himself. It showed my that any time is the perfect time to make a personal health upgrade.
My mother, a triathlete, was already deeply involved with physical health. She used run the perimeter of the Ala Wai canal and beyond exceeding 5 miles for a short daily jaunt. She raced her bicycle and swam. She participated in all sorts of athletic events. As a family, we did fun runs together. Little did I realize how this health focused lifestyle would influence the rest of my life.
A handful of finish line photos from my family fun run days in the 1980’s
College
Wow! This era was a tremendous slump for me. Raise your hand if you can relate! Don't get me wrong. I had an outstandingly awesome college life. My nutrition, however, tanked somewhere around all those college parties and festivities. I am ever so grateful all my body parts made it through, maybe worse for wear, however all still in tact.
I strayed from the health path my mother had so diligently guided me on. Food products, cafeteria food, take out, and dining out were simply quite convenient considering the lifestyle. Equally, my studies suffered. It took me until my final year in college to reconcile a balance between debauchery and studies to finally achieve straight A's.
Bicycle Riding in 2001
Making the Change
Fortunately, I managed to keep myself together thanks for a love of bicycling. In the early 2000’s I also dove into yoga and fell in love yet again.
The onslaught of toxins eluding us daily is unrelenting. Putting all that time reading labels into action created a shift in my late twenties toward organic, GMO free, and clean food and products. It took time. Whether using something up and switching to a cleaner item, or outright dumping the damaging product, taking action one way or another was the road to success. Eventually our entire dwelling had shifted.
We eliminated food and food products that added undue stress on our bodies like GMOs, high fructose corn syrup or any fructose/ corn syrup derivative, MSG, sugar, food coloring, anti-caking agents, hormone disrupters, and the list goes on. The EWG (Environmental Working Group) was and still is a fabulous resource to research ingredients.
We replaced conventional with organic produce as much as possible. We loved our local CSA (community service agriculture) where we could pick up local organic farm food weekly, sometimes even walking the fields and harvesting with our own hands. We ate, and still do, more fresh food than packaged food products and frozen foods. We eat healthy oils and steer clear of seed oils.
In our research, the vegan world briefly tempted us and we tried it our for a month, only to dream about eating eggs. Thank goodness that route was short lived. I did stay mostly vegetarian/ pescetarian through these years, but that later changed too. Once again reading, learning, and upgrading.
Hiking in the Pacific Northwest August 2020
Family Time
Thanks to shifting my health, I was able to conceive naturally at 42 years old and welcome our daughter into the world in spring 2016. In the over 20 years we have been together, my husband and I have also been free of doctors visits save a spider bite and bringing our daughter into the world, which was intended to be a home birth (and that is another story). I believe all that label reading and research has paid off!
Being in our fifties, we have a substantial collection of longevity bio-hacking vitamins, trace minerals, and supplements to help us keep up with our daughter’s seven-year-old energy. Raising a child later in life afforded us the challenge to match our daughter’s energy. Together we hike, bicycle ride, swim and more. She practices jiu jitsu. My husband has a home gym. I love yoga. What has served us best is to love what we do. Even when the going is tough, we have all found a place of joy and gratitude within us for our health, fitness, and wellness.
We believe in ourselves. As we tell our daughter, “what other people think of us is none of our business.” What matters most is how we believe in ourselves and see the greater self within us that has yet to be expressed. Have you looked in the mirror today to tell yourself how awesome you really are?
With all that we are up against in the world today, there’s no time like this very moment to choose to improve and take a baby step into the new you. It’s what we do. I glean what I need from labels, books, podcasts, and experts and make little changes all the time.
It’s why I choose to write about life stories over complaining about the world. There’s plenty of that already going on. I believe we need more focus on the goodness within us, the goodness to keep getting better and kinder, to ourselves and others.
Trikanasana Pose in 2013 and Again Post Baby in 2018
Disclosure
After all these decades living healthy and hospital free, I am confident I am an expert in myself and my family's health. I have chosen to self-direct my health and for decades, with my husband, have solved our own health concerns thanks to research and the abundance of educated experts sharing their knowledge with the world. We have many brilliant minds to thank.
We are also equally grateful for all the doctors in the world saving people's lives with allopathic surgeries and procedures, especially with life threatening and triage situations. Every expert has their place in the circle of life. It's up to each of us to choose best for ourselves, to deeply research before following advice on a supplement, medication, or procedure, to know as much as we can to be deeply informed and understand the consequences of our actions. I believe, it's worth the time to read the labels. Do you?
And just for good measure since I am me and not a doctor - Please note, statements made in this article have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Information provided in this article is not a substitute for direct, individual medical treatment or advice. It is the responsibility of you and your healthcare providers to make all decisions regarding your health. I recommend you consult with your healthcare providers regarding the diagnosis and treatment of any disease or condition.
And please read labels. Make healthy choices for you and your family.
Discover the joy in the journey with me. Start at the Beginning.
Thank you,
Brit-Simone
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