We are such major foodies here at Wholly Macro. Your Wholly Macro hosts, Gayle and Jaime, started out on our healthy journey about 15 years ago, in poor health (very poor, Gayle had cancer). Gayle was about 25 pounds over weight, although she was "tall, and carried it well", and Jaimie was very thin, to the point of being emaciated. Gayle weighed about 160 pounds, and Jaime weighed about 120 pounds. Jaime ate entire loaves of bread, boxes of cookies, Cuban double cream pastries, (his favorite, and he doesn't know I am writing this!), and anything else fattening and unhealthy that he could get his hands on. To no avail. He did not gain one pound back then. And I was one of those people who didn't eat much at mealtime, desiring to drop a few pounds. But loved my chocolate candy, wine, etc. Mysteriously, the pounds just kept piling on me.  

Fast-forward with me if you will, to fifteen years later, 2010. Jaime and I weigh in at exactly the same now: around 136 pounds. Okay, granted he is about 6 inches taller than me. So not the point!! The point: we eat our healthy food, the same food we prepare for all of you, to our hearts content. Jaime has filled out and gained a lot of weight (for him), and I have slowly but surely slimed down and dropped a tremendous amount of extraneous fat. This is a balancing diet. It allows your body to find it's own natural weight. It will help those of you who are too thin, to fill out, and it will help those of you who are too heavy, to slim down. It does this by repairing metabolism, and by strengthening your cleansing organs so that they can do their jobs better. Each food that we use has a specific purpose, whether to cleanse, detoxify, strengthen, rebuild, relax, or tonify an organ or body tissue.

And if you happen to be just right, you can be like us, and eat heartily, without even a thought of weight maintenance, because it is really all about Quality, not Quantity. Your body, many of our bodies, are starving on a cellular nutritional level, regardless of our actual weight. Eat properly, and free yourselves from calorie counting, so that you can direct your attention purely to quality.

When we first started this journey, we lived in a condominium, and had to bring our groceries up in a shopping cart. And actually, we had to fill two shopping carts in order to fit it all in. We even had to use two elevators to get the food upstairs. We couldn't fit the two shopping carts into one! While waiting for the elevators we would get the most puzzled looks from our fellow condo dwellers. Here we were, two relatively slim people, (remember, I was dropping pounds and body fat by the day), hauling enormous cartloads of food up to our condo. We would get the food inside our front door, and collapse in laughter, imagining that people must think we kept a herd of elephants inside that condo that we were feeding.

Even funnier, we would often go out to dinner with my parents and family friends. We were adept at ordering, and would end up with separate plates of steamed vegetables, sweet potatoes, fresh fish, and salad, that we would methodically arrange to fit on one very full plate. We would then proceed to eat it all, slowly and macrobiotically, chewing each mouthful very well. Needless to say, we would still be arranging our plate, while our dinner mates would already be done eating. First of all, they don't chew. And second: they would eat a tiny portion of their food, and bring the rest home in an infamous doggy bag. Always and eternally on a quest to lose, or at least maintain, their weight, unsuccessfully, to this day. They would try to hold their jaws up (and wait politely, albeit impatiently), as they watched us down our entire plate of food. They would stare, in total bewilderment, clearly wondering how we could eat all of that food, easily 10 times the amount they ate, and not be over weight. (Nor suffer from the digestive problems they had). Why?? Because again, it is about quality, not quantity. And it is also about balance. We need to drop the all or nothing mentality and strike a more balanced and appropriate middle ground. There is no place for dieting, and then binging. There is no place for "totally strict", or helplessly / haplessly cheating either. Please, strike the middle ground, in all things that you do, including the way that you think about food and eat food. Your body will be a much happier place if you take this approach, and so will your emotions.

When I was going though my cancer treatment, naturally my blood cell counts dropped. And yes, my weight did drop rather significantly also. My doctor told me to "eat everything". He insisted that I had to eat meat. And strongly suggested that I eat other unhealthy sources of saturated weight gain producing fats. In fear and confusion, I searched deep within, and came to realize that I wanted to keep my blood, (and body), as clean as possible. After all, I had been working towards that goal for several months, and did not want to contaminate it by "eating just anything". I knew, that when I came out on the other side of my cancer, I wanted to have the best quality blood, and life, possible. And I knew, that the quantity would follow (once the treatment stopped), as long as I honored the quality. And it did. Many fold.

Many years before, when I was working as a nurse at a hospital, I would watch sick patients being served the worst of the worst foods. The food trays would be labeled as different types, such as soft, low sodium, high fiber, etc. But it was all the same unhealthy food. Only when they became critical, did the diets change to: renal diet, cardiac diet, diabetic diet, etc. Sadly, they turned to food as the very last resort in that hospital. When the patients took a serious turn for the worse, and there was literally no where else to go, all of a sudden they would make a feeble attempt to save their lives, by correcting their diets. Too little too late usually.

We are looking for quality, in all things, and especially in the food we put into our body.  No amount of bad quality wrong food will ever work. As Jaime and I so eloquently exemplified, it won't make a thin person gain weight, and it won't help a heavy person to lose weight. I am sure you have all been there. But, if you change the quality of all things in your life, and especially in the food that you eat, miracles will happen for you!

Change Your Food, Change Your Health.

Change Your Health, Change Your Life.

 The true path isn't about gaining or losing weight anyway, it is about connecting with who you are, and about connecting with universal energy. It is about the part of you that doesn't weigh a pound.

Healthy food will help you get there, mentally and physically.

Gayle and Jaime / Wholly Macro