Me and my family. Starting at the bottom left and working to the right. My oldest girl we will call her "Sugar" my son "Buddy" Me "Emily" our baby "Beeps" the love of my life and best friend "Steve" my second to the youngest "Care Bear" and my second to the oldest "Spice"
My name if Emily Bryar and I am a wife of 16 years and a mother of 5 beautiful Children. My oldest child is 15 and my youngest is 6. Four beautiful girls, and one sweet boy stuck right smack in the middle of the girls. That is the basics of who I am at this point. But I want to back up a bit. You see I am a foodie!!!! I have always LOVED food. To the point that I ballooned up to 205lbs at the tender age of 10. Some people have "picky eaters" that was NOT me. I loved food so much that seconds were not enough most of the time. The only thing that I did not care for and still don't to this day is any kind of sea food (Unless breaded and deep fried with LOTS of sauce) When I was growing up I couldn't wait to be a mother. I pictured myself as the kind of mom who always had cookies, bread, brownies or some type of treat in the oven and my children coming in from a hard day of play with their friends just in time to grab a hot fresh home made cookie. I learned how to cook at a young age. My mother made sure that we all knew how to cook before we left the house. I remember her running out of bread and giving me the chore to go and make bread for the family. I HATED making it because we didn't have bread machines when I was growing up and so it was all done by hand and it was a messy gooey chore. Later in life I was grateful to her for teaching me how to make bread. I have perfected my recipe and will have it up and ready to share soon I promise.
Now that I am a mother and I have learned about health and how to take care of my body that dream is still here. I love when my children get into the kitchen and cook with me.
I also realize how important it is that they learn to eat healthy. I did not want my children to grow up with the weight issue that I had. So, I needed to figure out how to make it so that I could have my cake (Literally) and eat it too without killing my health or the health of my family.
My journey started a few years ago when I found out the benefits of going raw. I tried to do that and all I did was make nut treats. I gained a bunch of weight and knew that I needed to do something different so I went back to clean eating. I felt good doing that but was led once again to eating raw again and went fruit CRAZY. Still not very balanced and didn't feel very strong and gained weight again. I was also eating some fats which is not advisable if you are going to become a fruitarian. I may blog about that later. If you want to find out more about that diet go check out the book called The 80-10-10 diet. It is very good but I found that for me it was to much for my family. I still have a family who is not used to eating raw and they all felt like they were starving!!! I ended up back eating clean once again and then I found The China Study. When I read this book it all made sense to me and so here I am cooking vegan and LOVING it!!! I feel great. I have more energy then I used to have, and I am not hungry, or feel like I can't have a treat. There are times when I feel like I am running out of ideas for dinner that is when I hit the net and google vegan dinners. There are so many recipes and resources to help me figure it all out. Best of all my family is a happy family. My husband doesn't miss the meat because I cook with beans and the kids well, some of them are "picky eaters" but they do eat as much if not a little more than they did before. :0)
I also started telling them that I cook for me and they are invited to eat my dinner. If they choose to fast from dinner then they are still required to sit with the rest of the family so that we can be together and talk about our day. They also usually grab some food because we are all eating. We usually go around the table and have to answer one of two questions "What was the best part of your day?" or "What was the nicest thing that you did for someone today?" Some of my children like to talk more then others so this gives everyone a chance to be heard. I got side tracked but it is a good idea and maybe you can implement it in your home.
So here I am at the age of 37 still working my way out of a life time of struggling with my weight. Heaven knows I have tried ALL of the diets out there. And I feel like this is the one that I can live with. I feel great and I am starting to loose my extra weight. My heaviest was at a whole 216lbs now I am currently 163lbs. I am not quite where I want to be but I am working my way there. I also started running with my husband. I may tell you that long story in a future post about the importance of exercise. For now, This is me. I love to get into the kitchen and figure out fun healthy at least healthier treats, meals, and snack ideas. I hope that you like what you find here and that we can become good friends as we learn and share together this journey called health. :0)
Much love from my kitchen to yours, Emily Bryar
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