Sarah's Story and Disclaimer: What are you EATING?

Disclaimer to all of our readers (Mom, I hope its more than just you and June!):

I am a mom who reads labels, and a mother of two babies who wants them to live a healthy disease free life. I believe this begins now (and actually began in the womb).

I have professional degrees up to a Masters level- but not in the area of nutrition. My knowledge about this is observational, experiential, experimental and self-taught.

I am not paid by any company to represent or advocate their labels. Nor do I ever want to be. I just want to bring awareness to the areas of our society that are hidden from us –yet can be read on a food label in plain view. And finally I want to tell my story – which I’m certain some of you will be able to relate with on various levels.

I’ve struggled with weight issues for 20 years! Yes, my weight issues were apparent to me at age 10. Due to being pudgy in my preadolescent body (pre-growth spurt) I became anorexic and obsessed with exercise and eating low-fat foods for about a decade of my life. I had issues with binging and purging too. Then, once my life changed and I graduated high school – reality (working full time and responsibilities of being on your own) AND metabolism set in. I gained quite a bit of weight. When I say that I really really did, in one year I gained 50 pounds. This was devastating to me, I wasn’t even 20 years old!

This happened because I had been starving my body for about 5 years or so. My body responded with a “Hey--- I’m going to store everything I can so I don’t go hungry tomorrow!” But…Instead of combating this metabolism issue through nutrition, I did what I had done in the past and exercised the weight off through, again,-- not eating, stimulants (caffeine, diet pills, nicotine) and running.

Through my determination I got most of the weight off but then still struggled with it bouncing up and down for another decade. As emotional troubles or hormonal imbalances came into my life--so did the weight. I exercised and ate what I thought was healthy -but I was the farthest from it. Just because I was finally “skinny” (…AGAIN) didn’t mean I was healthy. I just turned to another obsession; athletic training, running marathons, competing in triathlons, my education, etc.

Can any of you relate to my story? Even if you’ve never struggled with your weight you can benefit from changing the way you eat and implementing some of the suggestions on our MamasReadingLabels.com site.

I had struggled with enough weight issues for a lifetime and this was all before I had my two children and before I started eating the way I do now. As I stated earlier I began reading labels and looking into nutrition because of feeling the overwhelming responsibility of being in charge of my children’s diets. I don’t want them to relive the horror of my weight issues and the slew of baggage that come along with being “heavy” one year and then “getting it back together again the next.”

During one of the years of my extreme weight gain I had gone away for 5 months and when I returned to the gym I had been a “regular” at, one lady didn’t even recognize me… she said “Sarah- is that you? –I didn’t recognize you! Girl what did you eat?” I was devastated! AND---- exactly… the point of why I have finally found something worth pouring my life into. I’m writing this— for all of you….and believe me on my life its worth looking into:

What are you eating?

You can exercise like I did until you are “blue in the face” (shouldn’t it be “red in the face"?) but if your nutrition is poor then you will not see the results that the laws of nature intended for our bodies.

No diet can do what healthy nutrition does in the body.

Come join us Mama, we have a lot to share with you. Please look into our site and try implementing some of our suggestions. We have a lot to share with you in regards to labels and how you can make better choices than what you are currently eating.

Faithfully your Mama Reading Labels,

Sarah

#whatareyoueating