I was a junk food addict. I want to share with you the hell I went through and the story of my cravings for the very food that I am against today.
It’s a warm spring morning and the birds are happily singing while I am in the garden pulling weeds and watering the tomatoes. I feel so good as the light breeze blows my hair and so proud of the results I am having.
The green tomatoes are starting to turn and I am enjoying the basil I have grown with fresh mozzarella. Soon the basil will sit on ripened tomato slices and I will truly be in garden lov’n heaven. The Black Angus cattle look beautiful grazing in the bright green pasture and calves are getting frisky and jumping in the air as they are getting their “ground legs.”
This is life in Wisconsin during the summer – the winter I am not even going to discuss right now (I love the snow during the holidays and after that I despise it, and I not the lone ranger here.
I have lived in large cities and took shortcuts at the grocery store and began to suffer from it. I was not eating so healthy and felt like crap. I knew how sugar and chemicals were hidden in the food we crave but did nothing about it because I did literally crave it.
I loved Burger King’s whopper and really did crave them. So every time I thought about them I would go to drive-thru and order that with of course some rings and zesty sauce to dunk them in. Mmmm right now thinking of that zesty sauce makes my mouth water along with that juicy burger.
But I knew deep down that the ingredients in the sauce and the juiciness of the burger was manufactured with ingredients that are supposed to cause just that; cravings and it derives from the taste of salty and sweet, which of course is what I am wanting. Just saying “Burger King” makes me think of it right now and that is what they want.
I also loved Fillet o’ Fish and fries at McDonald’s. That soft bun with the tangy tartar sauce was lovely with the fish and I dug that slice of cheese. Yes please. Oh but I also ordered a McDouble because I was craving that too.
What is a person to do? You do not have to quit eating sugar or salt so don’t worry about that – what you need to do is start making one meal a night from scratch and continue doing so until you are comfortable with five nights a week. The side effect is that you will save money and feel good too.
I know where you have been because I have been there too. Just because I was brought up eating garden fresh fruits, vegetables, beef and pork doesn’t mean you live like that the rest of your life and I didn’t for quite a while. When I was living in the city, life was very lonely and I met someone you might know: my best friend food.
My friends first name was not healthy it was junk and we became tight. We went everywhere together and I ended up not being able to live with junk food. I gained forty pounds, my joints ached more, I was lethargic, depressed and angry. Junk food was making my life miserable and I had to remove it from my life. But how?
Are You a Junk Food Addict?
Are you like me and thinking to yourself, What the hell am I going to do?
You are depressed and want to lose weight, feel better and have energy but you are hungry all.the.time. Sound familiar? It does to me. I was disgusted looking in the mirror and due to the weight gain my fibromyalgia kicked into “pain overdrive.” It’s like you are between a rock and a hard place.
What I started to do was make my own salad. Easy enough? It started with the greens, honey pecans, sliced strawberries and grilled chicken breast pieces. I dressed it with strawberry or raspberry vinaigrette. I loved it so much I ate it everyday for lunch for a week. Talk about cravings – and it’s healthy food too!
I grilled extra chicken breasts so I would have that for a few days and one evening I experimented with salmon, then steak. Not a ribeye (my favorite) but a sirloin or strip steak. This tastes awesome after poking holes in the steak and marinating it for at least an hour (it brings out more flavor). Instead of a potato, sometimes I had grilled vegetables like zucchini, onions, broccoli and cauliflower.
Do you know what happened? I started to feel so-much-better. Honestly. And due to having more energy I am now looking forward to cooking food from scratch. I didn’t mean to lose weight, but with the healthier choices I made including how much I loved the flavor, led me to my youth and memories of what my Mom made for us.
As explained earlier, I began to feel so much better and began cooking from scratch again. I researched food and why it is so addicting. I didn’t realize the chemicals, preservatives and toxins that were in our food as well as the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Knowing you can’t escape it all; I realized how important it is to make your own food so you will know what is in it. I began with handmade food and haven’t veered away from it unless I had no other option.
From there – the condiments and spice mixes were made from scratch. I really felt good about what I was putting in my body and the flavor was even better than the commercial brand. I could make up anything I wanted suited to my own taste buds – how great is that?
Eventually my weight was dropping off a pound or two a week and all I did differently was walk twenty minutes a day. I am no longer bloated from the hidden salt I was eating. I drink a lot of water and happily get out of bed in the morning.
Make a smoothie in the morning and you can lose weight faster than I did.
My question to you is what are you waiting for? What is stopping you? Cooking from scratch goes back hundreds of years. Are you afraid of what will happen? Some people are. Together let’s get some good tasting real food in your body and begin living again.
Click here to get started.
I will also include the recipes I used that helped me transition from eating junk to making food from scratch. I thought it logical to name the book The Transition Recipes and it’s yours included with your purchase.