Starting from Scratch...literally!

At 28 years young, I have gone through many different diets.  I've been vegetarian, did the South Beach diet (didn't last long), I was even vegan, although I felt so good being Vegan-it wasn't practical.  I watched both of my parents die of cancer.  That made me think more and more of the food I ate as a child.  We ate lots of red meat, boxed processed foods, canned vegetables, canned meat (ewww!!), and man did I drink A LOT of soda.  My dad passed away when I was 24 years old, and as a stress eater I definitely put on some weight after he passed.  Then my mom passed 2 years later, and while she was sick, was when I began to research vegan diets.  There have been lots of studies showing that a vegan diet can reverse the cancer death sentence.  I tried to convince my mom on that, but she was a meat and potatoes type of woman and she wasn't giving up her meat! But then the practicality of it came in, being in a hospital everyday, makes it pretty hard to be on a strict vegan diet, so that was when I fell off of the wagon.

So fast forward to 2012, and I saw how much weight I had gained.  Well, my sister and brother-in-law, who own a Crossfit, took me and my husband to the Crossfit games.  My husband and I looked at all of these fit people, and although we weren't obese or even remotely that over weight, we were the heaviest people there! And Crossfitters are known for the "Paleo Diet", but that was not for me, I was Vegan, I love my beans!! But the diet that caught my attention was "Clean Eating", I had bought a book by Tosca Reno a few months back.  So my husband decided, even if our grocery bill was gonna be higher, it was worth it if it made us healthier in the long run.  We also started to Crossfit, but unfortunately since I coach cheerleading and work full time, I don't have time to do it anymore.  I do, however, do modified Crossfit workouts with my cheerleaders, which is a lot of fun (well they don't think so!). So this blog is devoted to my clean eating adventures, as well as any other helpful advice on having a happy healthy lifestyle.  Plus, I do love my hippie dancing! Maybe that is what helps stress levels? :) or maybe its the wine...its one of those!