Challenge 2012 - the beggining.

This upcoming year is going to be filled with many challenges, some of which we are blissfully unaware that they are coming our way and the others we have decided to give to ourselves. We both love a good challenge and the past few years, although challenging in their own ways, seemed to be almost the status quo. I don't make New Year's resolutions because I think its a complete waste of time. After all, those were made to be broken, right? I would much rather make goals throughout the year and achieve them w/out feeling like they where made on a whim because it was a new year and that's what you do. This year, we are going to make a challenge for ourselves each month, set the parameters, plan out the steps we need to make to be successful and have weekly evaluations to see what we are doing right, and what needs to be tweaked.

For the past few years we have been changing our lifestyle... Be a little more frugal, compost our organic matter, have a garden to grow as much food ourselves as we can, better our skills at cooking, broaden our tastes in food, try things we thought we wouldn't like, and just be the people who our kids can look up to. We also want to be as self sufficient as possible. There is a great satisfaction in being able to provide for ones self most of the daily needs and not feel like you are reliant on anyone else but yourself. For the past 6 months we've cut out most processed foods, milk and cut back on our meat consumption. I've started cooking more vegetarian and vegan dishes. I have found so many new things to eat! And if you know me.. I LOVE to eat! This culinary exploration has lead us to not only better health but a greater appreciation of fresh, living food. I've lost a lot of my weight because of this change - between using USANA shakes, vitamins and eating differently I feel amazing! I want to keep it going.

And this is where January comes into play. January's challenge is to eat vegetarian. Since there are soooo many different types of vegitarianism [which i find confusing because you would think that the word "vegetarian" explains it all- no animal products, right? This seems to not be the case. Only Vegan is fully vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains etc with zero consumption of any animal/fish or animal by product. ] Setting our parameters on this challenge is going to be the most important because it will allow us to stay within the challenge and be successful. I am up for the challenge and having recently purchased new cookbooks to add to my collection.. I am ready to go! [We've been eating from these cookbooks about 3x week but a whole month is exciting and nerve racking all at the same time.]

I'll blog as much as I can about our experience. Hopefully we'll be an inspiration for one person to make a change to be healthier version of them self.

Our challenge to you... JOIN US! If you want to join us, leave a comment below and we'll make sure to help you in this goal :) If you are local we're willing to have you over for our planning session and help you evaluate each week, share recipes and heck- come over to our place to eat!
If you are out of town, we can still talk over the phone and help you out.. distance is no reason not to better your health!

Are you up for the challenge?

Here's to January!