Eating clean is a lifestyle, not a diet.

Hello everyone, my goodness I cannot believe it has been a little over a month since my last blog post! Time is sure flying this summer. I have been busy between working and enjoying my new hardcore healthy lifestyle! From what started out as gradually cutting out junk food and enjoying my Vi- Shakes has turned into full on eating clean while still enjoying my Vi- Shakes. For those that don't understand what eating clean is then you need to check out this website! http://www.eatcleandiet.com/  It is what turned my eating lifestyle right around. The author of the books is Tosca Reno and she a best selling series that consists of 12 amazing books. My roommates mom had left one of her books while she was out visiting, The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged. I had come across it and couldn't put the book down! It was full of everything you need to know about eating healthy. There is so much helpful and interesting information that it made it very easy to start.

My excuse for not eating healthy before was I didn't know where to start and I had always thought about eating healthy as dieting and that was the first mistake I made. Eating clean is a lifestyle, not a diet. This is one of my favorite sayings because I used to be all about diets until I came across an interesting article where I read this  "Diets do not work. Diets are temporary. When you change your dietary lifestyle, however, you’re changing your habits – and you’re putting yourself on track for long-term / continued success and weight maintenance." Chris Pirillo.

This picture makes me giggle. I used to be the first girl that would offer sweets or junk food to a friend who always ate healthy and passed up on it. Now I am the other one and cannot stand it when someone judges me because I chose to eat healthy and have no interest in eating bad processed foods that have no nutrional value whatsoever. Some days this still amazes me because looking back to a year ago, I was the most unhealthy eater! I rarely ate fruit and vegetables and as bad as this sounds, about 75% of my diet was full of processed foods. Gives me the chills just thinking about it.

It makes me feel great about my new choices and I feel amazing since turning my diet around. As a young adult with Rheumatoid Arthitis, I would highly recommend turning to eating clean and cutting out all processed foods if you have any health issues or to just be a healthier person altogether. It is amazing how much of a difference it has done for me. I had to rely on my medication strongly to help the pain or else my arthritis would flare up if I missed a day and was very painful. Now I if I miss a day or two ( Yes I am very forgetful sometimes when it comes to taking medication) it is not as noticeable. Best choice I could have made for my body. You only have one so you might as well be good to it.

So in the last month I have started cooking a lot more due to the fact that my new job has way better hours and allows for more time to cook and still eat at a decent time. Which means I have become obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED with looking through recipes that are healthy and deliscious. I have an app on my Iphone called FoodGawker and it is simply amazing! There are thousands of great recipes on there and I spend about an hour browsing through them almost every night before bed. I just have to share a couple of my new favorite go-to websites for recipes because they are awesome and you will be thanking me! Here they are:

http://ohsheglows.com/

http://www.heandsheeatclean.com/

http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/

Now these three websites are also blogs and they are great. So much great information and all the recipes are healthy and sound amazing. And there are sooo many to go through! You can thank me later after you see how amazing they are. :)

Hope you are all having a wonderful week and are ready for the weekend! If you would to see updates for some great advice for being healthy, check out my Fan page on Facebook. There is some very helpful and interesting information, as well as lots of great healthy recipes you might enjoy! Also is the link to my Visalus website if you are interested in learning more about the great shakes!

mardellryckman.bodybyvi.com

facebook.com/visalusmardellryckman - "LIKE" this page to see updates and posts daily with great information and weight loss tips

Cheers,

Mardell