Let Food Be Thy Medicine, And Medicine Be Thy Food.

-Hippocrates

I posted a photo of my salad not because you have to eat rabbit food to be healthy but I am a nerd and I truly do love making and eating salads! Num, Num!

I recently hurt my trap muscle on the left side. I am not sure if it was just sore or if I did something a little more serious to it. I stretched it, iced it, heated it and had my occupational therapist/sister-in-law look at it. It wasn’t that I was in so much pain that I couldn’t stand it but more like it was just slowing me down on my daily tasks. Slowing me down on things like cutting hair, carrying a pretty hefty 3 month old, lifting my 2 and 5 year old when needed and SLEEP, something I already lack during this current time in my life so I sure didn’t need a muscle soreness to add to laundry list of things that kept me up at night!
As I considered taking an anti-inflammatory I realized we didn’t even have any in the house. You know what, once I started thinking about it, I haven’t taken ANY medication of ANY kind in over a year! That kinda makes me sound a little crazy now that it’s typed out for all to see! I promise I am not anti-doctors, I have had all my kids in the hospital. I am not anti-medication, I have been through months of chemo and countless other drugs.

So what in the world? What am I doing that I didn’t feel the need to have any medication in over a year? I can’t say I planned it. I didn’t say to myself ‘hey, sista, wonder if I can go a whole year without any meds.’ It’s just the way it happened.

It seems that a few things take place in my life that set me up for a healthy life. I am physically active daily. I have a fitness program that I follow 5-6 days a week, plus I just like to move! I do jumping jacks and push-ups with the kids just for fun. I walk to the mailbox instead of drive. I park a good distance away from the grocery store so I get a few more steps in. Another thing I do is just stay positive. Smile. 😀 Just smiling, being happy and positive can push the stress and pain away. Know that you can do anything you set your mind to and even if you don’t hit the mark at least you know you did the best you could.  I had 3 kids with no drugs at all, not even Tylenol. I didn’t do this to be supermom (trust me, that is not even close to being my job title!!). I did it because I set my mind to it and acted like there was no other option (having almost no complications helped too but let me share the 3 birth stories for another post). Another thing I do to create a healthy lifestyle and what I consider to be the most important of everything, I “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.  I eat a diet of what I call ‘clean and lean’ most of the time. I put things in my body that will support the kind of life I want to live and the kind of life that I want my family to live.

My Peeps In My Jeep!
We love driving to the park about 5 minutes away with our wagon, bikes and lunch packed. The only problem is we have run out of room!

What does clean and lean look like to me? Let me make that a whole other post as well….stay tuned!

In the meantime, think each day about what you do with your body. Are you taking extra steps in the parking lot? Are you showing your kids that moving your body can be fun and not a lot of extra time and effort? How about what you put in your body? Is bit taking you closer to being a better, healthier person or one bit farther from it? Leave me a comment on this blog post or send me a message on Facebook. I want to know how your week changed when you kept these things in mind!