Healthy Living

So this is a post I've started to write a bunch of times but never finished coz it just went on too long or I didn't know how to write it.  But I really do want to write it, partly for my own record keeping, and also coz it's something I want to share.

In the last year we have made a few lifestyle changes.  Partly it was brought on by a feeling that things just weren't working for us, weren't the way they should be, and needed changing.  And partly so we could more closely follow our Church's guidelines for healthy living.  I strongly believe that our bodies are a great gift from God, and we need to do whatever we can to take care of that gift.  And so here are a few things that we've been doing in the hopes of living longer and stronger.

Chiropractic care

It started with our little Lani, who, as a newborn, would scream bloody murder in the car seat, every time she was in there, no matter how far we were driving.  It got to the point where I would just purposely not go anywhere unless it was absolutely, life or death, required, because it just wasn't fair to her to have to be so upset all the time.  Then my cousin suggested taking her to a chiropractor (she takes her family), because if something isn't right they should be able to fix it.  I had always thought of chiropractors as being old men you went to when you had a sore back and they cracked it and twisted it and made you feel better and then you stop going.  Boy was I wrong!  Chiropractors are playing a huge part in promoting natural health and well being all over the world, and so much research is being done to support their effectiveness.  The jist of it is, that the chiropractor deals with the spine, the spine is connected to and plays an important role in the central nervous system and it's ability to deliver messages all over the body, and the central nervous system basically controls the every day functioning of your body.  So it makes sense that a chiropractor can have huge effects on your whole body's health by adjusting the spine.

So we started taking Lani, and within a few weeks the crying minimised and then disappeared.  She also started sleeping better.  In that time we also started taking the boys and myself.  For us it was a little different, because we didn't have any "problems" that needed fixing, but I found my posture improve, my balance, my moods, Malachi, who at that point was still in nappies coz he was wetting every night, suddenly stopped and has been dry ever since.  (All of these are normal and expected results from being adjusted by a chiropractor). 

Vili became a different story.  He has suffered from ear aches his whole life.  He probably has had one a month since he was a baby.  And it has started to severely effect his speech.  At one point the doctor checked his hearing ability and he was a flat line in one ear - completely deaf.  Because he constantly has this fluid build up.  He was on and off antibiotics constantly, which made him get thrush, he was grumpy, never slept well, it was really sad for him.  Well chiropractors are AMAZING at clearing ear infections, they claim to be way more effective then antibiotics, clearing it up 5 times faster.  And I believe it too! Any time he got infected we'd take him in to see Kylie and with in a day or 2 it was cleared.

So the health benefits for us from seeing a chiropractor have been awesome.  And the more I learn about their work, the more I believe in their ability to heal naturally and promote good health.  We see Kylie once every 2 weeks now and the boys look forward to their visits so that Kylie can "fix their backs".

Vegan-ism

This started with us watching a documentary called 'Forks over Knives' which basically looks at the research that's been done on the affects that animal proteins (found in meat and dairy) have on our bodies.  It spoke truth to me.  For a while I'd be wondering how exactly I could live the Word of Wisdom better, how on earth was I meant to eat lots of grain and eat meat sparingly?  This DVD was the answer.  And so in January our family began vegans.  Partial vegans at least.  We probably eat meat about once a week now.  It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.  Alot of the recipes I would usually make were easily converted to a vegan version, and a few new foods were added in to make up the gaps.  I found that really, it's the taste of meat that we like, not the actually meat itself.  So if I make the food tasty, then you don't miss the meat. We were already pretty much dairy free because of me and Vili so dropping any remaining dairy wasn't hard.    Tui still has has had the hardest time with it.  But I'm grateful that he's been willing to go along with it.  We haven't been super strict with it, if we go to someones house, we just eat whatever they cook.  If we wanna have ice cream as a treat, then we do.  But in general, we are trying to avoid animal proteins.  Although every once and a while my kids will say "Mum, can we please just have chicken?!!" and so we do. :)

Juicing

After watching the other documentary I started doing some research and came across a bunch of others that were really interesting and enlightening.  One in particular 'Fat, sick, and nearly dead' talked about the benefits of juicing, and in particular, doing a juice cleanse.  Again this made so much sense to me, and so we bought a juicer and tried it.  We did a 10 day juice cleanse; we drank nothing but fresh fruit and vegetable juice and water.  I was amazed at how easy it was (after the first day or so).  We each lost a bunch of weight, and just felt so good.  And we've done it a few times since.  And juice is just part of our daily diet now, it's usually what I have for breakfast, the kids ask for it all the time, and I love giving it to them, knowing that it's got all those micro-nutrients in it helping their little bodies.

 Raw

 

We also have started incorporating waaaaaaaaaaay more raw foods into our diet.  And I've been blown away by what you can make that's completely raw.  I've made cheesecakes and cookies and icecream and all sorts of things.  And the more I research the more I learn and the easier it becomes.  There is sooooooooo much out there on the internet, so many ideas and recipes, it makes it totally doable. We've tried vegetables I'd never tried in life, and found that we like them! The kids don't ask for cookies or stuff like that anymore, they ask for apples and mandarins. It's been amazing to see how our food bill has changed from being 80% supermarket and 20% fruit and vegie shop, to be about 50/50. 

Exercise

This is something I had started getting into for myself for a while, but we've made it more of a family thing now.  We have severely limited the amount of time the TV is on every day, which has helped, and instead we spend our time walking and riding bikes and hiking and dancing and doing things with our bodies.  I've started actually talking to my kids about exercising and why we should do it and how good it is for our bodies.  Malachi has come for a run with me a few times which was awesome.  Vili often does zumba with me at home.  I see a change in the world that people are just becoming so stagnant and I don't want my kids being part of that generation, so I'm hoping to get them excited about moving so that they choose it for themselves.

It's all taken a bit of will power, something I didn't have alot of, but every change we've made has been for the better.  Nothing bad has come of any of our changes (except maybe for Tui feeling a little hard done when I serve him an eggplant curry instead of a beef one).  And we've talked about all the changes we've made in depth with our kids, so that they understand why we're doing it, and hopefully one day they'll make better food choices for themselves too.