My Journey

Now that I have decided on a path that I want to take my career, I figure I should start my own journey towards health and document it. Not that I haven't attempted this journey before and I even tried to document a whole new blog towards my health journey, but I think I am an a better place to move forward on this new health path that I have chosen and document it here and as well as document my creative attempts. Since this blog is meant to be about the balance of living a handmade and natural life, it is the perfect place to document both. This journey is going to be at least two fold. It will consist of me journey toward bettering my own health as well as my learning how to help others on their journey. I'm sure that my experience will help me understand what others may go through when they make the journey toward better health. I know that I am going to face issues with food addiction, stress, frustration, trying to get my family to eat healthier, and I'm sure others that I'm not even aware of right now. My journey is going to be eating a clean diet. I am not going too count calorie, points, fat grams, etc. I am going to eat fresh, home cooked, non processed meals and snacks. I am going to increase my daily movement. I am going to decrease and maybe even eliminate gluten, dairy, and sugar. I need to eliminate soda and artificial sweeteners and increase my water consumption. I am not prepared to share my starting weight, but suffice it to say, I need to lose about 20-30 pounds before I am happy with my weight. I am going to try not to focus too much on my actual weight, but it is a way to measure my progress. I'd like to be able to come to terms with the fact that I am almost 42 and will never be 120 pounds like I was when I was 20. I don't even want to be that skinny. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I want to look at myself and see a healthy strong woman. I am going to start being more adventurous with my cooking ands creating my own recipes. This weekend, I make a mix of asparagus, spinach, peppers, and garlic cooked in butter and coconut oil with a touch of lemon juice added at the end. It was really good different than the basic greens and olive oil and garlic that I usually make, but not too crazy. I am really looking forward to this journey. I can't wait to be able to feel healthier and stronger. I hope that sharing this journey helps others to start on their own journey towards health and wellness. With this focus on food and exercise, I will not be forgetting the creative piece of my life. I want to make sure that I follow all my dreams and passions, both personally and professionally. Welcome to my journey! Amy

Diets, Nutrition, and Gardeing

For a while now, I have been thinking and rethinking my passions, thinking about this blog and why I started it. I honestly am passionate about living a handmade and natural life, but also a balanced life. If I remember correctly, I started this blog about 5 1/2 years ago when the kids were just babies and we started going to farmer's markets with them. I thought back then, at probably 36 years old, that I was going through a midlife crisis. I think I have slowly been going through one, because now at almost 42, I am still questioning my life and what I want out of it, and how to go about getting it. I know I do want to change the focus of my social work career. I would love to do something with food and food related issues. I, almost constantly think about food, diet, and nutrition and how it relates in my life as well as others lives. I think about what is the best diet to follow for me and my family. As much as I hate to admit it, I sometimes even think about what fad diet, low calorie diet I can eat to just lose weight. I then come back and remind myself, I don't need a crazy fad diet, I need a lifestyle change. With that thought that I need a lifestyle change, I think more about what type of foods I should be eating and how best to afford those foods. When I think about how best to afford them and how best to be able to prepare them, I think about how difficult it must be for some people to be able to afford to actually purchase healthy foods as well as have the time to prepare them. I am lucky enough that I have the time to plan, buy, and cook healthy foods. I also have the money to buy decent quality food, but I wish I could afford to buy better quality foods. I also have space and time to have an actual backyard garden. When I think about what type of lifestyle diet change, I have thought about becoming vegan, going completely gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, eating a Palo diet, eating a clean food diet, and I'm sure there are many other diets that I have looked at. As I think about it, I think the best think to do is to eat a clean diet. I am almost sure that the lifestyle diet I plan to follow for myself is to eat clean. I don't think that meat is evil, but I do think that there is easily too much meat in most people's every day diet. I don't think that legumes are evil like some proponents of the Palo diet promote. I do think that gluten, some dairy and most sugar are not a good thing for most people. I think that t eh best thing people can do it to eat the least processed natural foods that one can find. One of the best things I have heard, is to eat foods that your grandparents would know or eat only foods that you are able to pronounce. I want to continue to work on making my garden the best it can be. I want to be able to walk out into my back yard and pick my produce. I would love to be able to walk into my backyard and get eggs from my own backyard chickens. I want to be able to have my children pick berries from pants in our backyard instead of having to but berries packed in plastic bins from the grocery store. I want to be able to go to my herb garden and flavor my food. I want to go to my flower garden and pick flowers for my house. I want to eat foods that are not processed at all prior to me cooking them. My ultimate goal is to eat mostly green veggies, limit my intake of starchy carbs, get rid of gluten, eat good healthy dairy, limit my meat intake so that I can afford to by good quality grass fed meat. I think that legumes are a good thing for our bodies, at least for me. I want to also look at eating foods in it's natural state, meaning eating some raw foods, but I don't think that a raw diet is the only way to eat, but it is important to have raw foods in our diet. I want to learn about the different types of diets out there so that I can make good choices, so that maybe I can educate others on how to be healthy. As I have thought about this, I have also thought about how to reach people who have limited access to good healthy food. I have thought about people who have limited access to education about healthy foods. I have thought how people don't have the time or the knowledge how to create tasty healthy food. I want to reach these people, especially kids and help them with how to do this. To do this, I need to make changes in my own life. I need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. I want to find a way to use my social work degree to reach these people. I want to try to make change. I want to work directly 1:1 with people, but I also want to make more systemic changes. I don't know that I can do this on my own, but I know I can do it with support from other like minded people. I want to work with other like minded people, but I'm not sure where to turn. My first goal is to start eating clean foods 99% of the time. I don't want to be a crazy obsessive person who can't allow myself or my family a treat once in a while. I want to start my garden, even though it is still winter here in MA and we still have feet of snow in our yards. I am going to start plants in my basement under grow lights. I am not going to buy breads and sugars because my family and I can't seem to stop eating it when it's around. I am going to buy the healthy foods and start looking at things in a more positive light, not in a way that is negative or punitive. I am going to look at the different foods I can have and how I can really make them enjoyable. I need to take time and really enjoy my food, not just stuff food down my throat to take care of the hunger in my stomach. I am going to learn to listen to my body and eat what it truly needs, not the junk that I think it is telling me it needs. Today was a good start, but a not so good middle, and an ok ending. I have a green smoothie for breakfast, but then went to a family party and ate junk. I never sat down with a plate of food and took time to enjoy what I was eating. I stood up and picked at different foods the whole time I was there. I then went home and didn't give in to the crappy cravings that I was having. I didn't continue to eating junk and crap and say I'll start tomorrow, which never come. I am restarting my healthy eating now, not tomorrow, not Monday after the weekend is over. Happy eating and living the handmade and natural life, Amy Fratto, LICSW

Changing Careers

I met with my friend Holly this afternoon and we talked about how I am thinking about changing careers, or at least changing the focus of my social work career. I was thinking that I needed to go back to school and get another degree, but after talking to my friend, I am thinking that I just need to do a lot of reading and research and get myself educated on different diet philosophies. I think my social work background is totally going o help. I've been trying to think of a way to focus my social work career away from nursing homes and the medical field, now I just need to make the change. I think my biggest focus is going to be clean eating. I have been trying to figure out what is the best diet for me and my family. I have thought about being Palo, vegan, vegetarian, and so many others, but what I am thinking is a mix of different diets. I really want to learn the ins and outs of eat diet and learn how they work in the real world. In generally, my thinking is that a balanced diet including meat, veggies, raw foods with limits to dairy, sugar, and starchy carbs. I tend to shop the outer perimeter of grocery stores already and I truly believe that is the best place to start. As I learn more and start making changes, I will share things here. I want to make changes in my life as well as help others learn to make changes in their life. I am hoping to start to be more adventurous when it comes to figuring out new recipes and ideas to make for my family. I would love to start my own therapy business with the focus on food and healthy eating, but I think I may need to initially start out working for someone to learn more, but maybe not. I'm still in the beginning phases of figuring it all out, but at least I have a small plan. I'd like to also teach people about gardening and where their food really comes from. In grad school, I helped to write a grant to get inner city kids to gardens so that they could learn what whole foods are and where real food comes from. I loved watching Jamie Oliver teach people about cooking their own food and learning what real food is. Now on to research different diet philosophies and clean eating! Amy

Clean Eating

I have been wanting to change my diet for some time now. Recently, on Facebook, one of my friends (http://collagediva.typepad.com) mentioned how she went cold turkey and started. She dealt with the headaches and the detox symptoms, and she has done it. She said she feels great. I want to follow in her footsteps, but I am not going to go cold turkey. Yesterday, my first day back from vacation, I stopped at the grocery store on my way to work instead of stopping at dunkin donuts or my local muffin store. I ended up getting salad, yogurt, trail mix and things like that to take to work so that I didn't eat junk. I passed up candy and ordering out, which was a pretty big step for me. I did however go home and order take out. I had 2 good meals and 1 so not good meal. This morning, to help clear out my fridge, I made some bread with some dough that I had leftover. Again not the best, but the best part about eating it was that it didn't give me that same feeling that I usually have when I eat bread, you know, that feeling like I can't stop at just one piece and I have to eat the whole loaf. Was it good? Yes, but was is fantastically good? No. Again, I just got home from vacation and I need to go shopping. My husband has a broken foot, so I feel bad leaving him longer than my work day with the kids and I just get lazy once they go to bed. My lunch today should be interesting. I have a couple of carrot sticks, celery sticks and broccoli. Tonight will be chicken and greens and potatoes from the garden. I need to look into what I can eat on a clean diet. I want to ultimate3ly give up sugar, gluten, dairy, and caffeine. That means no more morning caffeinated coffee, no more bread, no more of many of the things I love. I am hoping that by giving up all these foods, I am going to gain some much more as is my family. If anyone has some resources to pass on, I would love you to share. I have some of my own from the past that I will share as I go along on this journey. This is definitely going to be a journey with small steps taken and I'm sure a few set backs. I know that I am of the mind set now that I want to do this, I just need to make the change and I know I will feel better. I'm hoping that I can learn enough over time to start using food and creativity in my professional career to deal with mood issues. I am hoping to do some research into how food, creativity, gardening, etch can play a role in our mood and behavior. I know that there are people out there that have done the research, and I need to read up on the research and learn more! Hope you all can join me on my journey to living a more balanced natural and creative life! Amy