This post is going to be a little different than what is normally expected.  Meaning no there will be no recipe.  If you were looking for a recipe and don't want to hear me ramble about the way we eat then please read no further! ;)
I'm sure if I have any steady readers you've noticed by now that we stick to some guidelines when it comes to making our food.  I'm sure you've noticed that we don't eat gluten, we are very specific when it comes to our oils, and we eat a lot of "real" food.  As more and more people get to know Adam and I as life goes on some get curious about how we eat.

Coworkers, friends, athletes, and family.  Most recently I've helped out a coworker, my mom and close family friends.  The one thing I get asked the most is "Can I eat this ______?" or "What kinds of things should I stay away from?" Don't get me wrong I definitely don't mind answering these questions but some of my readers may be curious and don't have my personal cell number to be able to just text me.

I really got into this lifestyle change with my boyfriend when I started to have some health problems of my own.  I had a bunch of just random "symptoms" that in a doctors eye never seemed to line up into one thing that could be the cause of these.  Trust me, I tried many different physicians! I went to my regular doctor, my dentist, a dermatologist, and a rheumatologist and had test after test. However, no one could find anything wrong. (If at this point your thinking it was probably all in my head trust me I had those thoughts too.  But sometimes you just know your body and you know when something is not right.)

So, after much persuasion from the boyfriend I decided to read (if I can say that) The Perfect Health Diet written by Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet.  For me, the book took forever to read and I still haven't read the entire thing technically.  They are two very intelligent scientists and it is written in a way that the common person can still understand it. Nevertheless, for someone who loves to read romance and mystery books it was slightly dry yet still very interesting and informative.  While reading this book I would often identify many of my own "symptoms" and how they related to the foods I was eating. Then, one by one I started to become more devoted and adherent of our lifestyle change.

I will not attempt to recap the book and the "diet" but I will start you out with this image.  Throw the old food pyramid dietary guidelines out the window and check out this "apple" instead.  The two inner circles I refer to as being able to eat unlimited.  What the Jaminet's say on their website is to eat 3 lbs of plant food and fats to taste. However, 3 pounds of plant food is a ton and to taste pretty much means eat to your hearts content! This diet is however intended to be nourishing, lifelong, and promote health and wellness. This isn't a get slim quick starvation diet.


I call this a lifestyle because that's exactly what it is.  This "diet" was developed using a research/evidence based approach combined with an evolutionary perspective on health. It was set up in a way that you can eat like this for the rest of your life. When people see the word "diet" they think that it is temporary.  It will only help them be healthy for a short amount of time.  They think that they have to starve and that they can only eat salads and other veggies like they are some kind of herbivore!

Well this is not like that! If your hungry then eat if your full then don't eat. If you want to eat a ton of fat then do it!  Fat doesn't make you fat.  What you put in is never the same as what comes out.  So don't think that way.  Don't think eating cholesterol from sources like eggs will make you have high cholesterol! This notion isn't supported by the research and in fact is refuted by some studies. This way of life may seem foreign at first and you're going to think there is no possible way a person can eat like this and still be healthy.  Well guess what… it is!

Don't worry I am wrapping this up soon.  I don't want to be like the book and give a bunch of technical explanations.  Heck that's what the book is for!  I will leave you with this though...because we do have "junk" foods that are rampant in our society. In the beginning, try to live by the 80/20 if you can't drastically change your lifestyle all at once. This means,  80% of the time you should try to eat within the perimeters of the apple's guidelines.  The other 20% of the time you can open yourself to something like a "cheat day." This means stop beating yourself up and just go and eat that cinnamon roll that has been staring at you for days every morning at the coffee shop.  It will probably taste good...really good, and you should enjoy it! This just can not continue to be your morning tradition 3-4x a week!