If you are anything like us your medicine cabinet is full of over the counter pain medicines. We love all of the wonderful things that modern medicine has for us and we take advantage of them every day. Both acetaminophen and ibuprofen have some well-known side effects that can be avoided by choosing more natural pain remedies. Between Summer’s headaches and my old injuries, we go through quite a bit of pain medicine. Sometimes nothing will work except the good name brand stuff. Sometimes we could get by, and perhaps be better off, with a natural alternative. My father was a carpenter and he was really big on using the…

13 days ago, inspired by Summer’s amazing transformation, I started on the keto diet. 9 days later, after watching Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, I quit keto for good and couldn’t be happier. Now I am eating with joy and I want to show you how I did it. Confused? Let me explain. Who Is Marie Kondo If you haven’t watched Tidying Up With Marie Kondo or you’re not familiar with her philosophy let me give you a quick primer. Marie Kondo is a tidying expert who helps people declutter their lives. Her method involves going through your stuff by category and discarding anything that doesn’t give you joy. There…

I started on the keto diet on March 17th, 2018 and it has been very good to me. I am no longer pre-diabetic, I’ve lost 82 lbs, and my lab markers are greatly improved. It has been so successful that my whole family will be switching to the keto diet after Christmas. Since I’ve become more outspoken about my success I have gotten a lot of questions about the diet. There are a lot of misconceptions about what keto is and what it is not. A lot of those misconceptions are about the foods we eat or avoid. That is the misconceptions I am dealing with a lot right now…

This year, like almost every year since I’ve been on my own, I am making a huge Thanksgiving dinner. My Grandmother was from Texas and her Thanksgiving dinners were simply amazing but they are absolutely loaded with carbs and sugar, you know, the stuff that tastes great! Because I’ve had such success on keto I wanted to adapt her recipes where possible so that my family can enjoy the deliciousness that she passed down to me and I can indulge a bit without derailing my progress. I thought it would be neat to do a post with what I’m making from my Grandmother and how I will change it, what…

Back in March, I started doing intermittent fasting(IF). Since then I have gotten many questions from friends and co-workers about it. Most of the questions are about the health benefits and why I started fasting. When I started I didn’t put much thought into it, it was just something I wanted to try out. I only did a little research before jumping in. Since then I have read a lot about the health benefits and I now feel great. In this article, I am going to give you a short introduction to intermittent fasting and its health benefits. At the bottom of the article, you can find some more resources…

How often have you started a weight loss journey? If you are like me, you may have lost count. So, what makes weight loss stick? How do you start a program and then keep at it so you can actually achieve the goals that you set? I’ve been on my current weight loss journey going on 7 months and I’ve had the most success I’ve ever experienced. What made the difference? For me, personally reaching a point in my life that I honestly and consciously said “Enough is enough!” was the beginning. I had to be ready to commit to a big change, not a diet but an entire lifestyle…

There are so many diets and trust me, I’ve tried most of them. For the first time since I started this weight loss struggle in 2000, I have found something that is working for me and I feel amazing! That something is a ketogenic diet. I know, I know, Keto is a buzzword at the moment and while it definitely has its supporters, it also has a lot of bad press. What I know is from my own research and my own journey. This information is not intended to be a medical recommendation, and, like with any diet or exercise program, you should seek a Dr.’s approval before starting. What…