Back to the garden

I am not gonna lie - this “prep” weekend stressed me out a little. I followed my normal routine of sitting down after dinner on Friday night to create a weekly menu and write my grocery list. I looked through the meal ideas, snack lists and sample grocery lists on the Arbonne 30 day facebook group.  I felt prepared.  But it’s overwhelming to flip from a weekly menu of tacos, spaghetti, pizza, fried everything, and casseroles with A LOT of cheese to a menu of free range chicken, grass fed beef, and lots of fruits and veggies.

Eating clean is a fairly new concept for me. If I am not already eating “clean”, how would "they" (you know the group of important, yet imaginary people we always refer to) define my eating? Dirty eating? Probably. I mean, that is how my body feels after I eat most meals. I feel like crap, but yet I continue to shove the McDonald’s fries, the Ben and Jerry’s, and the Dominos in my pie hole!

Why is it so hard to eat clean? I mean, we were created to live in a Garden, right??? We were created to eat the food God provided us - not something genetically modified in a lab or produced and packaged on a plant production line.

This Arbonne experience has helped me understand that I cannot return to Eden if I continue eating allergenic and addictive foods. As long as I am eating the sugar - I am going to continue craving the sugar. Then there are the foods that get my gut all screwed up - looking like I’m six months pregnant and feeling like I ate a whole box of fiber one bars! Or the foods that keep me running to the bathroom like I ate an entire Mexican restaurant!

I digress…back to the stress of the weekend. I normally do the grocery shopping on my own, but since we are doing the next 30 days as a family we decided to take a family field trip to Whole foods in Chattanooga, TN.

There was no doubt that everyone in that store knew we were Whole Foods virgins (well except for that one time in Montana - but that’s a another story for another day). The boys were running around like Tasmanian devils: touching everything and yelling “CAN WE GET THESE FREEZE DRIED RASPBERRIES?”, “WE NEED ORGANIC, RIGHT?”, “IS THAT ORGANIC?”, “CAN FROZEN FISH BE WILD CAUGHT FISH??”. I am trying to concentrate on my list and figure out if Enhanced Outdoor Access means the same thing as Free Range. Meanwhile, they are putting chocolate milk and veggie bacon in the buggy! They were having a blast but I was freaking out!

I turned on my heel and gave them the look. Noah said, “Please don’t yell”. I explained to them that buying this type of food is somewhat new to me. I am anxious about it and I really need their help to get it right. “Yes ma’am” and so they did. Micah even used his manners with each of the employees that helped us: the wild caught fish - “Thank you, Harold”, the right kind of black bean chips - “Thank you, Stephanie”, and the check out experience - “Thank you very much Rebecca”.

After we arrived home, I looked at all of the food we purchased for the week, and it was good. All of the stress was gone and I was so stinkin' proud of us! We took the first step back into the garden and it was beautiful - all of that whole, organic, God given food! LET’S EAT!!!