Eating Healthy: Who Do You Listen To?

There are so many opinions and studies and articles out there on how to eat healthy. So many in fact, that I'm pretty sure you could eat absolutely whatever you want and find an argument to back up each thing in your diet. At the same time, there will be someone to discredit every single thing in your diet, too. I've heard it said that fruit is bad because it has sugar in it, and of course there's the recent declaration of congress: pizza is a vegetable. Huh?!

When we stepped off the plane in South Africa in 2005, I lost 10 pounds in a week! I wasn't dieting, exercising, or eating anything specific...we had eggs and toast for breakfast, we grilled out with friends (or braii for my Afrikaans friends), we even went out for pizza. But their food is so fresh! When you buy milk or bread there, you have to consume it fast, because it doesn't last long. Their food just isn't chock full of a million preservatives. And packaged, processed foods are much harder to come by. If you want rice, you buy rice. They don't have half an aisle dedicated to 50 different kids of rice: minute rice, flavored rice, cheesy rice...it's just a bag of rice! 

When we came back to the states for good in 2008, I went to Walmart with my sister to buy new toiletries. When I looked at all the options for a tube of toothpaste, I was so overwhelmed I began to cry. I handed my sister my basket and my list and asked her to fill it with whatever she used. 

The amount of choices we have in our grocery stores is incredible, and a little scary. Combine that with the number of diets available to us, and it's a miracle our brains haven't shut down trying to make sense of the right choice. 

I've always landed somewhere in the middle. I try to stay away from overly processed foods and I buy our ready-made foods from Trader Joe's to avoid the worst of the preservatives and food additives. I give my kids fruit and vegetables and water to drink. I also give them dairy, meat, bread, and dessert. And like most families, we eat out here and here, including fast food when it's convenient. I've considered us to be pretty balanced.

But now I'm convinced that we can do better...

I have a lot of neck problems, one of them most likely being rheumatoid arthritis. This is not regular arthritis caused by overuse and age, it is an auto-immune disease. When I have pain, I have to take an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen, or even a dose of steroids when it gets really bad. And since most of the time I have pain, I end up taking a lot of ibuprofen, and that scares me. 

Chris has been asking me for a while to try an anti-inflammatory diet. But I've never given it a shot because, well...I just don't diet. I love eating, I love food, and I want freedom in what I eat. But last month I consumed so much ibuprofen I decided it was necessary. 

I was taking prescription strength doses about 3 or 4 times a week. Then it got really bad and I was having to take it daily. Now, two weeks in eating an anti-inflammatory diet and I've only had to take one dose in the entire two weeks. Not bad!!

Not only that, but one of my kids really struggles with constipation normally, and this diet is helping her tremendously!

So what is it? I started on Pinterest, curious to see if there were recipes and information there, and I found a lot of good stuff. There are certain foods that cause inflammation, certain foods that fight it, and the rest have nothing to do with it. 

I avoid (or seriously limit) the foods that cause inflammation: fried foods, fatty meats, gluten, dairy, and a few others. Then I eat everything else, but try to be very intentional about adding foods into my diet that reduce inflammation: berries, turmeric, avocado, cinnamon, kale, oats, almonds and other nuts, and foods packed with omega-3s such as salmon, chia seeds, flax meal, quinoa, etc. 

I will try to post recipes on here from time to time, but what I really want to do is share my weekly meal plan with you each Sunday. I'm a little scared to commit to a weekly anything with camp starting today, but it's something I have to do for my family every week anyway, regardless of whether or not I share it here. So hopefully this will help me stay committed in this crazy busy season!

(Disclaimer: typically in summer we eat every meal in the dining hall because, well it's free and I don't have to cook or do dishes! But it is a camp menu, and while our dining hall always has some healthier options, it usually has some very non-healthy options, too, when feeding 700 kids at once. I have decided to only eat dinner in the dining hall this summer, which is usually the healthiest meal there, and make breakfast and lunch at home. However, I will still put dinners on my meal plan for ideas for you!)

Here's this week. Hope you get some inspiration! Feel free to share this post on Facebook, Pinterest, IG, and Twitter.