Healthier lifestyle experiment day 1 and 2

I am going to be upfront, I have autoimmune issues, I have high cholesterol (239), low thyroid, I am 215 lbs. overweight by 70 lbs and live a pretty sedentary life. I am going to try for the next 60-90 days an experiment. Some of my siblings have been real advocates of a plant-based diet. My sister has bought me and mailed to me Eat to Live and How Not to Die. I've been reading those books and watched Forks over Knives, but I've had a hard time going over a week living a plant based diet. I also signed up earlier this month for a 100 day heart challenge my goal was to walk 10,000 steps a day. The bad news I haven't been able to do that once, though I am averaging 2,000 more steps then I used to. However, it made me realize how pathetic and inactive I am so I want to be stronger do more active things, things I can also include my hyper busy children in doing (hiking, going to the park, swimming, dancing etc.)

So here is my real quest to improve my life and if I can prove that eating healthier and being more active can work for someone like me then maybe I can convince my husband (who also has health issues) and my children (who love junk food) to try a healthier lifestyle and others that I love that this is realistic and good for all of us. I feel like I can't really advocate or ask anyone else to change if I can't prove to myself that it will work. Good news is I've lost 20 lbs over the last 5 months) I really don't eat horribly but I feel like I want more energy, be healthier so I can live longer and be there to achieve goals I have in life and be there for my family and those I love. So I am taking the next step to really improve recorded here in my blog what is happening so I can be accountable and move forward trying something new. I'd like to get my cholesterol checked again, and weigh myself through out and we'll see if changing my lifestyle does make a big difference.

Yesterday when I decided this I didn't start off great. My son's birthday we celebrated with German pancakes for breakfast covered with lime juice and powdered sugar. However, when I made the rest of the family BLT's for lunch I left off the bacon and mayonnaise and instead used flax-seed oil and garlic as the dressing for the sandwich. I added some bread and butter pickles, onion, lettuce, tomatoes on the whole wheat bread and it was delicious and filling. For dinner we were at cousins eating, they had spaghetti and meatballs and bread for dinner. I just didn't add meat balls and I didn't add butter to the bread. I skipped dessert and that night when I was craving something sweet I had a bowl of homegrown grapes from my dad's garden and fresh strawberries, so good, yum.

So far today I've made a delicious green smoothie. 1 peach, 1 banana, large handful of kale from my garden, flax-seed oil, part of an orange, lime juice and water all blended in the Blendtec. I also ate the other half of the orange, I totally think having fruit will be my salvation in maintaining this diet because I do have a strong sweet tooth but the fruit seems to fulfill that ache. I am hoping to be pretty active getting my house clean and recovered from the weekend, take my son to the park and for a nature walk and doing some yard work. I hope to harvest most of my Kale since it is getting colder and freeze some of it. I also have a ton of basil so hoping to make a pesto sauce I can use for some vegan dishes. I also find if I can mentally keep myself stable finding balance in my life then I can be more controlled in my diet and life choices. Therefore listening to a book I like while I am driving kids around all day, read part of a book, listen to music I love while I clean and do something creative and/or artistic, practice piano or guitar (I'm trying to teach myself that) today will also give me the fulfillment I need in other ways.