Clean Sweep

*Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this topic. I just have an opinion I want to share. 

My new obsession is clean eating. (I say obsession because I'm really into it right now, but who knows how long this will last) There is no real specific definition or set of guidelines you have to follow to “eat clean”, but it basically means that you eat foods in their most whole and natural form. The less processed something is and the fewer ingredients it contains, the better off you are. So you mostly eat fresh fruits and veggies, less saturated fat, less added sugars, more lean proteins and whole-wheat grains. There are so many weird chemicals in our food it’s disgusting. Aspartame, Sucralose, and really any fake sugars scare me. In my mind I can feel myself getting cancer from them. Same goes for fake butters. Food dyes. Preservatives. Genetically modified foods. They are not from nature; therefore our bodies were not designed to process them. It only makes sense to eat what we were born to - natural foods in their whole form.

Like any new thing you try, it’s best to ease into it. Make one meal a day “clean” and increase from there until there are little to no processed foods left in your diet. It’s really difficult and inconvenient a lot of times, but in my mind I know it makes sense and is better for my body. It’s also really difficult when you are the only one in your house doing it. I cave to peer pressure a lot.

I also highly considered going without dairy. We are the only animals that drink another animal’s milk. Our bodies are not made to digest it, which is why so many people are lactose intolerant. Then I realized that this would mean no ice cream and no yogurt. Two things I might die without. Although I have switched to almond milk and I don’t use cheese all that often, so that’s a start I guess? I like the idea of not eating dairy; I just don’t like actually not eating it. Maybe one day I’ll get there.

If you want to learn more about this, I recommend watching Food Inc. It’s an awesome documentary that reveals the disgusting secrets behind how our food is made. Kind of along the same lines as Supersize Me. It focuses a lot on meats (a slight nod to Sinclair’s The Jungle), but it shows in general how twisted the food industry in our country is. Our food is becoming like our media; it's all distorted because it's all owned my a handful of large companies. It’s an important issue and it’s equally important to remember that you control what you put in your body as fuel.

Okay I think I'm getting too serious for this blog. Really I just want everyone to be happy and healthy and eating what is right for their body and right for our environment. It's easier said than done, but worth it in the end.

Rise Above

Success in life is not about financial "success". I want to be morally, spiritually, personally successful. I want my thoughts and actions to have positive impacts on myself and others. I want to know that the things I do and say have meaning. I want to know that when I leave this life I will be remembered for my soul and my passion, not my riches. That, to me, is true success.

Affirmation

Like every other person on the planet, I like knowing that the life path I have set up for myself is the right one. There never really is a way of knowing. But sometimes those little things just happen and pieces fall into place and you just know in your heart that you are in the right place at the right time and doing the right things. And it feels amazing.

This fall I am going to school to study nutrition. Which I love. I love food. I love chemistry. I love being healthy. I love exercise. But you never know what's going to happen. I thought I loved journalism at one point and we all know how that turned out. There is always a little bit of self-doubt in the back of your mind. Especially with such a big decision. This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. 

To help myself build up credits, I'm taking a few classes this summer. One of them is psychology. Which I found out is actually super interesting and I very much like doing work for that class. Everything is all in your mind. I've said that forever. Most of your life is in your mind, what you mentally make of it. Your emotions and attitude. Completely up to how you perceive them in your mind. If you think you are happy, you are. If you think your life sucks, you get depressed. Well apparently there is a whole science dedicated to these thoughts I have. Crazy.

Also this summer, I have to read a book before I go to school this fall. I thought it was going to be something really dumb about how college is going to help me in life and blah blah blah. Turns out the book is all about how our brain works and correlates perfectly with my psychology class. Score. So I'm reading the first chapter and it's all about how exercise increases cognition and decreases risk for so many diseases. I could go on and on for ages about how important it is to be physically active in life. I want to be that 75-year-old grandma who still goes to kickboxing classes. That could be a whole different post. But basically the chapter said that our memory and mental alertness and intelligence and the way we age in general significantly improves even with just 20-30 minutes of physical activity a few times a week. Our species was built to walk some 12 miles a day, not to sit in an office for 8 hours a day. It makes sense and it's so cool. The book is called Brain Rules if you want to check it out.

I think I may have digressed a bit too much. The point of this post is not to show you how awesome psychology and exercise are. The point is that I happened to take this psychology class, which happened to relate to this book I'm reading for school, which happened to relate brain activity to physical activity and diet, which happens to relate to the major I have chosen. All of these little intertwined things fell into place and I just had this moment of "Whoa, things all make sense". It made me feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I feel great about it. Sometimes a little bit of affirmation is all we need.