We are such major foodies here at Wholly Macro.

Your Wholly Macro hosts, Gayle and Jaime, started out on our healthy journey about 20 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 Jaime 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, so don't tell him!), 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 mealtimes, desiring to drop a few pounds. But I loved my chocolate candy, wine, etc. Mysteriously, the pounds just kept piling up on me.  

Fast-forward with me if you will, to twenty years later, 2014. 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.

And we are both healthy!!!

This is balancing food. 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 digestive and cleansing organs so that they can do their jobs better. Each high quality food ingredient 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, or illness for the most part, 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 elevator! 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 that we were feeding a herd of elephants inside of that condo!

Even funnier, back then 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 salads, 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 the 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 that they all 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 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 food additive and sugar laden, saturated fat, weight gain-producing foods as well. 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 the cancer, I wanted to have the best quality blood, (and life), as 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. 

Weight (quantity) can fluctuate due to life circumstances, but the quality of what you ingest should never fluctuate, no matter the circumstances, because when the quantity stabilizes, you still want the quality to have been consistent throughout.

Unhealthy vs Healthy

Many years before I ever became sick, or fully aware of the unlimited benefits proper diet could provide, while I was still working as a nurse in a hospital, I would watch sick patients being served the worst of the worst of 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. And the patients did not get well for the most part, and would be admitted to the hospital over and over again. Finally, and only when they became critically ill did the diets change to: renal diet, cardiac diet, diabetic diet, etc. Sadly, they turned to food as the very last resort in that (and most) hospitals. 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. But they still used very poor QUALITY food. Even then.

It was too little too late usually - sadly.

You can eat one small piece of wild salmon, and it will be loaded with omega fatty acids, aka healthy fish oil. Or you can eat an enormous piece of farm-raised salmon yet not receive one little drop of the beneficial omega fatty acids you are thinking that you are receiving.

Why??

Because wild salmon feed on wild blue green algae and seaweed, and are thereby able to obtain the nutrients necessary to produce omega fatty acids from these important wild food sources. Farm raised salmon do not feed on wild foods. They are fed (by humans), pellets of chemically laden processed "food" containing hormones (to fatten them up because fat is tasty!), and antibiotics, to avoid widespread disease in the pens within which they are housed. When you eat farm-raised salmon you do not receive the very beneficial fish oils that you are seeking to obtain!! But you do receive way too much QUANTITY of hormones, antibiotics, and food coloring. Pretty ironic. No??

When you eat wild salmon you do receive the omega fatty acid beneficial fish oil nutrients that salmon were created by nature to nourish us with.

It is like this with all foods. You must obtain them from as uncontaminated as possible a natural source.

Many (most) of the herbicides and pesticides used today on commercial food crops destroy microorganisms (pre and probiotics) that are important components in the conversion of nature to nutrient.

While the big corporate farms are able to produce massive quantities of produce or livestock using chemicals that kill anything standing in the way of production, (often times via genetic engineering), the quality is no longer present in the foods when we receive them, and we receive huge doses of chemicals into our bodies instead.

Field of Greens

We are looking for quality, in all things, and especially in the food that we put into our body.  No amount of bad quality wrong food will ever work. As Jaime and I so eloquently exemplify, it won't make a thin person gain weight, it won't help a heavy person to lose weight, and it will NOT provide you with the healthy and key nutrients that the food was created by nature to provide. 

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!

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

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 really are.

It is about connecting with universal energy.

And finally, it is about connecting with the part of you that doesn't weigh a thing. 

May health, happiness, and prosperity be your unavoidable natural state and your ongoing daily experience.

Gayle and Jaime / Wholly Macro