Russ, I'm glad you woke up and smelled the coffee.:) Life's greatest motivator is WHY. I can't think of a better reason that for your kids. One of the best things you can do for them is to improve yourself. After all, you lead by example.

Do yourself a favor and start studying nutrition as it makes the biggest difference. You can workout 10 hours a week and blow it with your diet. The key is a lifestyle change. Embrace new healthy foods and learn how to prepare them properly. Grab a vegetarian cookbook to help. Get your family on board. If your Wife wants to lose a few pounds, set goals together and reward each other at milestones.

These are my two favorite books:
http://www.amazon.com/Live-Young-For...s=jack+lalanne
http://www.amazon.com/The-China-Stud...ds=china+study

Remember, it won't be easy to break the chains of those old habits. A bad habit must be replaced with a good habit. An alcoholic that went to the bar every night for 20 years can't suddenly stay home and do nothing. It will lead back to the same old road.

You can count on us to be your accountability partner. Check in and let us know your progression and what you've learned.

The subject of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) really gets my blood boiling. Greed has changed the foods we all consume by genetically modifying the seed that is used by a majority of farmers. It's a real problem because it's far more wide spread than you think. For instance, the livestock eats the GMO corn or hay and now your meat is genetically modified. How about the milk or cheese from the cows? How about the oil you use to cook with? Think you are doing yourself a favor eating Soy? The farm raised salmon is fed GMO feed. The salad dressing you eat is made from GMO oils. It's in 80% of processed foods!

Bottom line for me, I'll eat my food how GOD created it. Not how some greedy corporations and their puppets decided to make it. The more I learn about nutrition, the scarier it gets.

To avoid GMO's, buy food with these two labels. http://gmoawareness.org/buy-non-gmo/

Do your family a favor and watch this video.

Ever read the book they made the movie from? The Informant by journalist Kurt Eichenwald.:wow:

While they poison you they also gouge you at the cash register.

:cheers:

Todd, did we discuss here about "farm fed" salmon? How they contain NO omega 3...only the wild ones do.....

Mike

I haven't but it looks interesting. I'm not sure I even want to know. :lol:

Mike, I'm not seeing that they have NO Omega 3's, just reduced levels. Recently, I've heard that the nuclear spill in Japan has polluted some of the Pacific fish including Salmon. From the bottom of the food chain all the way to the top.

I take an Omega 3 everyday and it has increased my HDL(Good Cholesterol) over the last 6-8 months.

I must say that it's nearly impossible to avoid consuming foods with misc. ingredients that are not in our best interest if you eat out or don't watch labels really closely.

We aren't going to get out of this life alive, the whole premise is to make better nutritional decisions daily based on education. Nutrition is a complicated maze of information.

It goes back to one basic fundamental. A whole food, plant based diet that man hasn't meddled with in a laboratory. If you can't pronounce it or have no clue what it is, that's your first clue that it's not ideal for consumption. I'm certainly not against eating meat, I do now believe that it should be a minority of the diet, not majority.

My best advice to anyone is to eat single ingredient foods. But even that has it's disclaimers. *corn, GMO, etc. So we really have to wake up to all this modified stuff. The long term dangers aren't known, but we do know that the way wheat has been modified is that it's not in the consumers best interests. I think we can deduct the same reasoning from all GMOs.

Personal update for me. I've put away all my 34" pants. Too big. I broke out my 32" ones from almost 10 years ago and they are loose. I'm down to 149lbs just on eating a healthy diet.

Any new food/products people want to share? I've heard good things about Hemp protein/oil/seeds etc.

Welcome Russ... good luck on your journey. Let us know how it goes. Forget excercise (for now) and get your diet in check. You will loose lbs fast. My advice is to stop eating any and all wheat and sugar based products.

Way to go Tony! You better start pumping some weights. :D

Heart disease has always been thought to be a mid to late life problem in American society. The truth is that it starts in childhood. It simply catches up to people in mid to late life in most cases.

The good news is that our kids don't have to suffer the same fate by changing their habits while they are impressionable. It's also been proven that the body can actually clean out it's own arteries after 2-3 years of a plant based diet.

I was waaaaay to into lifting... had a pic of Ahhhnold up on my mirror. LOL.

I would ride my bike to work but I have to drop my daughter off and haul stuff. That's my excuse. I may try some crossfit one day....

Re: Heart disease, I'm convinced it's all the process hydrogenated oils in our body..yes kids get plenty of that. Increase in heart disease took off with margarine use... no coincidence there. We never had that problem in our history when ate real butter. Butter is said to be an antioxidant and cleanser too... butter and olive oil.

On another note we started washing all our fruits and veggies in a sink of water and white or apple cider vinegar. You should see the water after they soak.. yuck! But we are eating clean foods..no pesticides if we can help it.

So Tony, thats interesting about "what to wash them with" , water or vinegar? cause i've never heard of the vinegar one before.....

Vinegar is amazing..... take the worst rusted piece of metal you can find, let it soak in apple cider vinegar for 24hrs and you will be amazed at how clean the parts come out.

Soak all your produce in a sink full of water and 1 cup of vinegar, apple cider or white and they'll be super clean and ready to eat in an 15 mins.

http://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2013/0...cider-vinegar/