I'm not going to lie. I think you ought to eat primally.

Inspired by my new low yesterday, I decided that I want to be able to do a pull up.  Just one.  And all I need to do is start getting back on the exercise wagon. 

I haven't done any "formal" exercise for months.  And while my weight loss slowed down, I didn't feel hopeless and I still felt pretty awesome and hopeful.  The whole purpose of my journey to wherever I'm headed was to feel better so I could get out and have fun with my kids.  Recently I realized that my goal has been realized. 

When we went rollerskating some weeks back, I was one of maybe a dozen parents on roller skates.  Of the fifty or so families there, I was out there with my kids skating around and having fun.  Not just sitting there watching.  Part of that had to do with the fact that the husband took the two younger kids, but the rest of it was the fact that I COULD go out and do it and I WANTED to go out and do it.  I can't say all those things have been true in the past when I had no energy and no drive. 

Since starting to eat Primally, I have realized that quite a lot of what I was dealing with had to do with what I ate.  It sounds silly to me now, but before, I just didn't put those things together.  Here's a short list of things that have been resolved without any other intervention other than changing what I eat, and what my family eats.  Some of them I didn't even realize were problems until I realized they were gone.

1.  Eczema--I haven't had a flare since Thanksgiving, a holiday on which I pretty much ate everything in sight for three days straight, whether it was primal or not.  I was not surprised by the flare, but again realized that what I eat affects what my body does.

2.  Joint inflammation--I was beginning to get some inflammation in my pinkie and thumb on both hands.  Arthritis apparently runs in my family since my mother and two of my grandmothers have it.  A couple weeks after beginning to eat primally, it was completely gone.

3.  Energy levels--I don't feel like I'm dragging through my day.  I have energy and I dance around the kitchen singing silly songs with the kids.  I drag them out in the cold and make them run around the yard with me.  We go places and we do fun things and I KEEP UP WITH THEM and even PASS THEM UP on occasion!

4.  Brain fog--I feel like I can think clearly and I don't feel like I'm struggling every day to just get the daily things in order.  My house is still a mess, but I can think and focus and plan.

5.  Food is EASY to prepare and YUMMY to eat and we have very little waste--I'm not a slave to the kitchen baking bread and other meals that seem to take such preparation.  Maybe it has to do with the brain fog lifting, but now that I have a good rotation of good meals that I know my family will eat (and that I'm working on adding to as well), it's so EASY.  For dessert instead of making cookies, which we all know is a huge mess, takes all afternoon, and then since I eat way too much cookie dough I don't even want a cookie, we make maple glazed pecans for dessert.  Pour a couple tablespoons of real maple syrup in a pan, bring it to a bubble, pour in some pecans, sprinkle with salt and stir for a bit.  Pour on a plate and cool it until you can touch them and put them in your mouth without burning yourself and enjoy.  The kids come running.  Except Carsten just sucks the syrup off and spits it on the floor.  But whatever.  And I no longer clean out the fridge and find a half dozen containers of rotting food in there.  We just eat it all.  All of it.  It's awesome.

6.  My Calla--This kid is awesome.  But sometimes she can get out of control in a way that you can tell that she really doesn't have any control over what she's saying and doing.  She just doesn't.  Since switching them all to eating primally we have noticed a HUGE difference in this kid.  She's my steady, thoughtful and deliberate kid now.  Except when we go to Costco and she gets 1/8th of a burrito from a sample table.  Then she's completely out of control for the next 18 hours.  There's definitely a connection between what she eats and how she acts.

7.  The husband has noticed a difference in how he feels--He commented the other day that since he's started P-90X again, he got back to where he was before much more quickly. 

8.  The winter germs--It's January.  We've had two colds in this house.  The husband got one from work, but nobody else got it and it lasted three days and he wasn't even sick enough to miss work.  Carsten got one this week.  He's on day three and it was only boogers and he coughed about five times.  Yes, we're homeschooling, too, so that cuts down on the germs we are exposed to in the first place, but I still think this is a significant development that nobody has been sick enough to actually cancel some event so they can be home in bed all day.

9.  I'm not a slave to food.  If I skip lunch because I'm trying to get all the kids fed and out of the house to go do something fun, I don't get ravenous or cranky or desperate for food.  I am hungry, but it's not the kind of hungry that makes you want to eat your hand.  It's the kind of hungry that somehow seems natural and actually kind of beneficial for my body.  Cleansing might be a good term for it.

10.  I catalog shop with a smile.  You know those clothing catalogs you get in the mail? Not the ones with the scantly clad models that make you feel dirty just touching the catalog, but the ones with healthy, athletic models in cute clothes out surfing and hiking and riding bikes in the sun?  Those ones.  I was looking at one of those the other day thinking that some of what was in there would actually be cute on my new self.  It used to be a "when I lose this weight" thumb through the publication.  Now it's "when we get our tax return." 

11.  I feel great about the food that I'm feeding my kids.  For snacks they eat apples and carrots and cucumbers and olives and jerky and bell peppers and cottage cheese and they drink water.  There's good stuff in every bite.  Yes, I still make them popcorn with lots of butter.  And I'm not going to be the mom who demands my kids don't have pretzels and fish crackers at church.  Or cookies at grandma's.  Those things aren't going to hurt them in the quantities they get them outside the house.  But my goal is to feed them good food and keep them feeling good so when they get out on their own, they know what foods make them feel good and what foods make them feel like garbage.  We talk about it and why we don't eat certain things we used to eat all the time.  I'm not convinced they miss the old foods either.  Now that I figured out how to make biscuits and gravy primal, I'm good to go!

13.  It's EASY and it doesn't require *special* foods or a stupid membership or anything else.  It's everything you need in a book.  Or if you don't want to buy a book, go to http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ and sign up for the newsletter.  You'll get everything you need right there to get started.  There's no commitment other than you have to read the material.  Really.

12.  We only get one chance at this whole health thing. We live and die by what we eat and what we do. This is the real deal.  I no longer struggle and feel discouraged about myself and what I'm eating.  In the 21 Day Total Body Transformation, one paragraph basically asks how what it is you are doing now is working for you.  I thought it would be difficult to give up toast and honey and sugars and such.  But I'm sitting here thinking that I really don't miss any of it.  None of it.  Maybe it's because it makes me feel like crap. 


**This post brought to you by a girl who flipped through her closet today and tried on a pair of size 8 pants.  They fit.  Almost.  A few more pounds and they would actually be comfortable.  YAY!**

Oh, and I don't get paid to say this stuff.  I just really think everyone should try it.  I dare you to try it just for a weeek and see what happens.  It's changed my life.