Stephanie Newton Books

In the last six months of 2011, my family ate take-out more times than I want to admit.  (I don’t even want to think about the times my 18 year old son went on his own, but I contend that no one should be held responsible for an 18 year old boy’s eating habits, especially after two-a-day football practice).   Frankly, if we went back further, the last six months were probably better than most because—God bless them—our church was worried that my children would get rickets and cooked dinner for us many of those nights.

I’m not sure when the bad eating habits started.  I’m guessing it was somewhere between play practice, soccer practice, writing deadlines , and church activities.  We just got too busy to eat right.   It was easier to drive through somewhere or pick up Chinese food or a pizza or sandwiches.  Without me noticing it, my husband somehow made the switch in his afternoon call from, “What are we having for dinner tonight?” to “What do you want me to pick up for dinner tonight?”

If I don’t know exactly when the fast food frenzy started, I do know when I started thinking about changing it. Really changing it, like the kind of line in the sand that you know will stick kind of change.   July 12, 2011.  I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I didn’t know the full extent of it that day–that was more the shock and awe day.  I guess you could say that I was lucky, if getting cancer can be considered lucky.  My cancer was found at Stage 1.   (More on that later)  And it was the wake-up call I needed.  I had known for a while that we couldn’t maintain the pace we were setting, but I didn’t know how to change it.

Cancer changed it for me.

With six months on the couch, more or less, I’ve had a lot of time to think and plan and research.  One thing I know we have to change is our diet.  Other things, too–which I’ll be exploring in future blog entries–but number one is to stop putting toxins in our body with preservatives and foods that  humans were not meant to eat.  But how?  The general plan is to change our family over from a fast food, take-out diet to a whole foods, organic diet.  I plan to eat more whole grains and less refined sugar, too.

So I just got the all clear from my doctor after my third and hopefully last surgery.   I figure this is as good a time as any to let you in on a secret .

I really don’t know how to cook.