When gluten, milk, and sugar were decidedly held from my palette, extremism came to mind and a disbelief sustainability was possible. Seven months later and an ingrained lifestyle replaced these ingredients. Aware that the fatal three, the ingredients with greatest contribution to allergies, obesity, and digestive issues, thwarted my weight loss efforts and physical, feel-good effects, now real food sits as the key to the kingdom I always wished to enter. The weight loss speed is remarkably slow, but attains the results of a sustainable lifestyle that eliminates excess weight, and improves health, mental acuity, and energy levels.

Ridding life of processed, chemical-filled, fake foods is a present to the soul. It lightens the body, illuminates the flow of the body’s system, and relinquishes the mind’s shadowing fog. Releasing the foothold of toxicity from the brain, blood, and joints is a recipe that reduces inflammation, dis-ease, and chronic pain many endure. Processed foods, aimed for extended shelf life and never meant to sustain the body, continue to plague humanity, zapping energy levels, dimming the brain’s capacity, and expanding the waistline. Removing one root problem by altering food choices to unprocessed, organic, grass-fed options for sustainable fuel is worth considering.

Although a financial and time expense exists for adopting real food, long term effects of unhealthy, edible food substances that harden the body, our hearts, and our well being, cost considerably more. Medicine, physical stress, and low self-esteem are often required costs long term when our lives are absent of such change. Engaging in a sustainable solution of “clean” food, fuels the body efficiently, reduces physical stress, and affects an emotional positivity that decreases anxiety and depression. Initially this process was challenging; in time it became a lifestyle, sustainable, freeing, and invigoratingly healthy.