Secret Confessions of a Romance Writer

2012-02-13T09:12:00.000-06:00

In the last six months of 2011, my family ate take-outmore times than I want to admit. (I don’teven want to think about the times my 18 year old son went on his own, but Icontend that no one should be held responsible for an 18 year old boy’s eatinghabits, especially after two-a-day football practice). Frankly, if we went back further, the lastsix months were probably better than most because—God bless them—our church wasworried that my children would get rickets and cooked dinner for us many ofthose nights.

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

If I don’t know exactly when the fast food frenzystarted, I do know when I started thinking about changing it. Really changingit, like the kind of line in the sand that you know will stick kind ofchange. July 12, 2011. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn’t know the full extent of it that day--that was more the shockand awe day. I guess you could say thatI 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’tmaintain 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 alot 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 infuture blog entries--but number one is to stop putting toxins in our body withpreservatives and foods that humans werenot meant to eat. But how? The general plan is to change our family overfrom a fast food, take-out diet to a whole foods, organic diet. I plan to eat more whole grains and lessrefined sugar, too.

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

I really don’t know how to cook.

Slightly Crunchy Stephanie

Secret Confessions of a Romance Writer