Meet Betsie!

Hi y'all!  I'm Betsie, the Crafty Diva of the group.  I'm the lucky wife to Wood Shop Guy and the mother of 5 ridiculous children ranging in age from 13 to 5.  We're a homeschooling family, always on the look out for the next cool thing to learn about.  Our family functions on two basic principles; Love your neighbor as yourself and why pay someone else to do something when you can google it and do it yourself.  We figure this pretty much covers everything.  I love to knit and sew and I'm learning to like crochet.  I'm constantly on the lookout for things to make my home beautiful and colorful.  I'm also chugging along a path to better health.

I have been struggling with my weight and appearance for the last 13 years.  I had my oldest child when I was just 18 and before he graced me with his presence, I was a slim 5'1" and 105 pounds.  After he was evicted from my body, I was still only 5'1" but now weighed in at 145 pounds.   It only got worse from there, folks.

 Me at 17, lovely.

Knowing absolutely nothing about proper nutrition, I ate a horrible SAD (Standard American Diet).  Boxed and canned food, soda all day long, chips, pizza, fast food, you name it.  And I ate a lot of it.  I was a young mother in a bad marriage and I was miserable and food made me feel better.

After about 2 years, RK1 (Ridiculous Kid #1) and I moved out on our own.  We still ate a SAD, and neither of us was better for that.  We then met Wood Shop Guy and RK2 and that's when our lives all began to change.  After Wood Shop Guy and I got married, we very quickly moved to a new state and almost simultaneously got pregnant with RK3.

While pregnant, we started to attend Bradley Natural Childbirth classes and that was our first introduction to a whole foods diet.  That was the first time either of us realized that food does not actually come from boxes and cans.  It comes from the ground, people.  I know.  Weird.  Although we had this introduction, it took us a very long time to make changes.  We both were accustomed to white Wonder bread, Cap'n Crunch and Jiff peanut butter, and so were our kids.  The shift has been painful every step of the way, especially for Wood Shop Guy.

But, I have persevered and we are eating way better than we used to.  We thought we were happy where we were.  Surely there were no changes left to make.  Right?  Right??? RIGHT???  Crap.

A few weeks ago, I went with the lovely ladies you have met in the last few days and saw the documentary Forks Over Knives.  I sat through the entire movie, mesmerized and occasionally muttering swear words and shaking my head.  I knew 20 minutes in that I was sunk and my family was going to hate me.  We had to make the most drastic change of all.  We had to switch to a whole foods plant based diet (hereafter referred to as WFPB).  I won't give it all away now, but let's just suffice it to say my kids are still demanding cheese and I'm pretty sure Wood Shop Guy cheats.

 Wood Shop Guy and I about 3 years ago.  Still applies...

But, just 3 weeks into my diet change and I'm feeling much better, my knees and hips don't hurt and I've lost 10 pounds.  I've started running and exercising on a daily basis.  I'm feeling very pleased with the success I've had so far and am looking forward to a whole new, better, healthier me in just a few months.  I'm Changing 4 the Better!

Meet Jenni!

Hi! I'm Jenni the Garden Diva. I grew up wanting to be a singer/actress/dancer/author, but most of all a mother. So far only one of those dreams has come to pass. I’m a remarried mother of three loverly children. Two boys and a girl, 16, 12, and 10 respectively, help make my days a constant joy and frustration. Mostly joy, but you know how it goes sometimes.

We live in a quiet Michigan village with one dog, two cats and a couple of fish. My husband is a CAD design engineer and general IT guy for a plastics company. I am the domestic engineer/teacher for our home school, although lately my role is reduced to Mom Taxi for the summer. I love reading, sci-fi and fantasy books in particular, but I’ll read anything I can get my eyes on. Working with beads and clay are my other pursuits of craftiness, although I’ve dabbled in many more. I’m hoping to add sewing, needle felting and crochet in just for kicks.

I have grown up on fast food, take-out, and massive amounts of pop. I learned to cook by reading the back of the box of Hamburger Helper. I can order pizza like a pro and open can of SpaghettiO’s in ten seconds flat. Now, I am throwing all these hard won skills out the window to live life among the vegetables, and fruits, and whole grains. It’s not an easy transition, but one well worth the effort. I think, I hope, it’s a change for the better.

Meet Jenn!

Hi! I'm Jenn, the Dance Diva. My journey of better nutrition stems from the desire to feed my family nutritious food on a tight budget. I have four fabulous kids and a wonderful husband. The problem is they eat, a lot. So after going down the time-consuming and conflicting pathof coupon shopping for highly processed foods that only cost me pennies, I decided to stop.

I started with just making my own bread, then my own buns for burgers and
hoagies. Slowly the snowball started and I was making more nutritious items for my dinners, and it was only costing me pennies. I stopped feeding my children box cereal every morning and started making them nutritionally acceptable breakfasts. Then I watched Food Inc. and that got my mind turning. I started making conscious choices about the products I was buying with my budget. Next I went to see Forks Over
Knives, and wow did that strike a nerve. So here I am, almost forty and starting down another nutritional path with my family in tow. Will we become a totally vegan family? Sadly, I can’t say for sure. I do love a good smoked pork butt, on occasion. However, we will be starting off by adding one or two meals a week and more raw fruits and veggies to the diet. Maybe a little exercise to boot.

Meet Kathleen!

My name is Kathleen. I'm the Hippie Diva of our little group. I am a writer, a bibliophile and and a thinker. One of those people that often spends more time thinking, planning and frantically scribbling in a notebook than actual doing. I homeschool my five lively, passionate children and am married to my best friend, the ever-hilarious Running Man. In our first few years together, Running Man and I prided ourselves on our good health. We ate primarily plant-based healthy meals and rarely ate processed foods. We both ran several times a week and were active in our free time. We both looked and felt fantastic.

 

See? Healthy, happy, fantastic!

But then, as happens to so many of us, the kids began to arrive, time grew scarce and our focus on health waned. Dramatically.

Fast forward 12 years later and we're both 40 pounds overweight. My joints hurt every day, and Running Man - who is a Type 1 Diabetic - is on more medications than he's ever been before. Food in our house has become more processed, faster and easier. Vegetables rot in the fridge. We eat out a lot. Our active lifestyle has become more sedentary (though we are not completely inactive - I'll go more into that in a different post). 
 

I have a thousand excuses for not eating healthier: I don't believe in dieting; I don't have time to cook healthy meals; Heck, I don't even like to cook; I'm too busy; I enjoy eating out and don't want to give up my favorite (read: incredibly unhealthy) restaurant foods; my sanity requires simple meal ideas so I can teach the kids how to cook without wanting to pawn them off on the nearest band of travelling gypsies. You all know what I mean.

But they're still just excuses. I know that, you know that. So here's what's going to happen: I'm going to be healthy again. And in order to be healthy, my eating habits have to change. A few of my blog-mates are choosing to go Vegan, a decision I think is smart and well-informed. I've decided to become a "Weekday Vegan", which means I will eat Vegan during the weekdays (and possibly Saturday) then give myself the weekend to relax and enjoy other foods. My family as a whole is not ready to go completely Vegan yet, and I don't want to force them down that road nor isolate myself from our dinners. I think the weekend thing will be a good compromise.

This will be a life-changing journey and this opportunity to document it excites me to no end. I want to talk about my family's exercise goals and food changes, my health numbers and results from a physical with our family doctor as well as my struggles with meal planning and taking the time to cook (I'm a planner, not a doer - remember?). I have a lot to share; interesting thoughts, lofty goals, a few hard facts, my sweet successes and hopefully infrequent setbacks. My fellow diva's and I will do our best to keep you updated on our progress. I will be posting on Mondays, with a weigh-in and number crunch for all four of us on Fridays.

Our goal is simple: To be healthy. To feel and look fantastic again. Join us!

Welcome!

C'mon in and sit down!  We're so happy you're here and we hope we can entertain and enlighten you.  We're the 4 Divas and we're going to take you along on our journey to better health and life.  Over the last month or so, we've decided to undertake some major life changes in order to be happier and healthier.  Our nutritional journey is based on the documentary Forks Over Knives and the research we have done since seeing this awesome film.  We also hope to include our different journeys toward mental health, education, and financial freedom.  Please leave comments so that we know you've been here and that you enjoy what we've written (or not, but please be nice!).  Thanks for coming and enjoy the ride!