After: My two-ingredient go-to peanut butter of choice.
Getting healthier does not happen by accident. For me, I realized that my then lifestyle and eating habits were not giving me the life I desired; were not helping me reach the level of health I was looking for. I wanted to be different. One day on my quest for health I realized if I wanted my health to be different, I was going to have to do things differently than I had been. At that time, I ate a pretty average American diet. Not too much fast food, but cheese and crackers for snacks, regular peanut butter (or worse, low-fat), “whole wheat” bread, and lots of other foods that came in boxes, bags or packages.
One of the first health changes I began to make at the urging of my health coach was to read the ingredient labels of my foods. What I found there in those words was often more terrifying than a best-selling Stephen King novel. There were items listed that I couldn’t pronounce and had no idea what they were. I wondered, “If I don’t know what these are, should I be eating them?” As researchers learn the effects these ingredients have on the body, we’re figuring out they can be pretty scary. So, here’s where I began practicing the “real foods” rule, trying to eat items that contain ingredients as close to the natural substance as possible.
As I have admitted, this is still something I am getting better at. I haven’t completely rid of all the processed foods in my house, but the ingredients of the ones I eat today look a lot better than the ones of my former life. My goal is to keep working on it and keep improving, you know, little by little.
