How to Eat for a Healthier Life

So many people suffering from inflammatory diseases! I myself have rheumatoid arthritis and my husband is pre-diabetic. His family has a long history of diabetes, so we are taking that very seriously!

One of the things I learned in battling my RA, and the drugs they want you to take for it, is inflammation is the real enemy and anti-inflammatory eating is the solution. I also take allergy shots, (make sure your allergist uses stippling titration and you are off all antihistomines before you get tested!) which have helped me tremendously.

Each of us is different, so you need to ascertain your body’s needs and deficiencies and be honest with yourself. For example, I know carbs are killer, but chips and pizza are carbs – and for a long time I fought the idea of not eating these wonderfully delicious foods. But it is worth the sacrifice to be healthy, to be able to get up in the morning and make it through the whole day and feel good.

Exercise is also important, so healthy food with a side of moving those joints! I might not like it, but every morning there’s twenty minutes of physical therapy before I even get out of bed and then fifteen minutes on the bike, since walking on the treadmill is out until my knee either improves or gets replaced. But these disciplines give me the ability to accomplish my work and errands one day at a time.

So what kinds of recipes are we highlighting in this blog? Every recipe, in order for me to serve it in my home, has to be GLUTEN FREE, SUGAR FREE, and very LOW CARB.

Before we get into this too far, I want to mention that I’ve often heard people tell me they “tried” going gluten free and it made them sick. My guess is they bought a lot of boxed food labeled gluten free and ate a lot of it. THAT IS NOT HEALTHY EATING!!! Gluten free essentially means you are choosing REAL FOOD, apples, tomatoes, cheese, not crackers, chips, pasta, etc. Hopefully you get the gist here. While there are plenty of options out there to buy Gluten Free, if it comes in a box (yes, even cereal) it is probably not real food and should be relegated to a very small part of your diet . . . I would even go as far as to say, eliminate it!

Then there’s SUGAR FREE – that does not mean I endorse in any way sugar substitutes. Many of them are not good for you, so just buying “sugar free” products does not mean you are eating healthier. Some of these products do harm to your digestive system and no one wants that!

My philosophy? If it is bad for you, eliminate it – or find a healthy alternative way to eat it. For example, I love pizza, but the crust sends both my husband and I way over on our carbs, so I experimented until I found a way to make pizza. It is a lot more work, but well worth it and once you’ve done that recipe a few times, the work doesn’t seem so bad, especially when your favorite food is on the end of all that work!