BE QUIET ABOUT IT – I don’t mean to suggest you be sneaky at all, but you don’t have to even mention it to your family. Just make selective changes once or twice a week. Its not like you need their permission. You were put in charge of feeding them after all, right? They don’t have to know everything just now – lol.

PACE YOURSELF – Do NOT try to do everything at once. You set yourself up to fail when you do that. Outline what you think needs to change FIRST, etc…. and then set stair step goals over several MONTHS, both for yourself and for each family member you are caring for. Gradually work all the “bad extras” out and all the “healthy goodies” in. They’ll never know what hit ‘em )

USE THE BOOK AS A GUIDE, NOT A BIBLE – Eat Fat Lose Fat” is a neat book. Ive lent mine out at the moment so I cant look at the specific recipes, but you know what changes need to be made and you know those recipes are fairly basic……be creative. What I was able to discern was that meal suggestions were always presented based on a common routine:

* Breakfast: Meat and/or Eggs + Buttered toast or Hot Cereal w/ Butter & Cream + Milk (either doctored up or kefir)
* Lunch: Soup Stock of some sort w/ meat and veggies + wheat-free or unleavened bread + raw milk or cheese + a LF beverage
* Dinner: Meat w/ LF Vegetables + Steamed Veggies w/ butter + Raw milk or cheese
* Supplements: coconut oil 20 minutes before each meal + cod liver oil in the morning

EVALUATE – Look at your families actual nutritional needs realistically. How many people do you need to feed every day? How many grams each of protein, fat & carbs does that add up too? Now look at the food around you that’s available and use that to build you shopping list. I suggest you spend the top dollar on good fats, the next on quality meats & dairy, then produce and finally grains & cereals. Buy the best you can
afford…..always organic if possible, but keep in mind the coconut oil undoes a lot of the bad in lesser qualities of other foods, in that it adds SO MUCH to our health. Your food budget will determine what you do
obviously….but knowing what your needs are SPECIFICALLY is a great way to learn to recognize Gods provision in your kitchen….and you can budget for the other stuff you’ve been buying with the leftovers – lol

I used the Optimal Diet Calculator to set a guide for myself and then went and looked up the protein, fat & carbs values in a book I got at a thrift store for a quarter ). You can read about the calculator here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/optimal-diet

Basically, you take the persons height in inches, convert it to centimeters (inches x 2.54) and subtract 100 from the centimeters to arrive at a “due body weight”. The due body weight determines how much of each of the food groups the person should consume daily: Protein should be the same number as the due body weight (in grams)….Fats (minimum) should be the due body weight times 2.5 (in grams) ……and carbs should be the due body weight times .8 (in grams). When you add all this us you have a minimum in grams of food that that person should consume on any given day….viola’…. now you know what to shop for. The maximum fat that should be consumed in a day can be calculated by taking the due body weight times 3.5. I don’t know how NT this is, but the ratios look similar and again, its not a legalistic sort of thing….its a budgeting tool for me.

STAY SIMPLY – I bought coconut oil in a 5 gallon bucket this week. Its sort of hard to justify the expense all at once ($160ppd) but I made a shopping list that’s VERY BASIC and our meals are starting out very
plain…but that’s okay. They are filling and I happen to like seasonings, so I make things spicy and they generally like them. My husband once made the comment….good fats are a good thing, but not if you have nothing to cook IN them. I think he opened the fridge for a snack and saw only things that had to be cooked. I noted the time of day and the circumstances surrounding hs trip to the fridge and had to make
sure he could find snacks the next time. Hes right…its a matter of balance.

* Make beet kvass first (its best if it ferments a couple of months
IMVHO)
* Buy your coconut oil
(http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/bulkoil/a-c.php

is great & cheapest when you buy in bulk) & coconut milk, though Ive chosen to use raw milk and whole heavy cream most of the time, due to all the coconut oil I use.
* Make homemade chicken stock by the quart and freeze it. makes everything taste good!
* Find a raw milk source near you and get a kefir your started

CONSIDER THE LOWLY SOUP POT – In the olden days keeping soup going was a norm. You can make soup taste like pizza and not have anything bad in it! Soup is a definate money stretcher. I personally think coconut oil is awesome and have nothing in the house but it, olive oil & butter. No one has complained…as long as I dont make them drink it like I do – lol.

STAY FUN & POSITIVE ABOUT IT – Dont serve “country style” serve very nice plates filled in the kitchen and carried to a table with a nice tablecloth and a homemade centerpiece. You can get some really pretty
mix & match dishes at thrift stores for next to nothing…just focus on different shades of one or two colors.

BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF & YOUR FAMILY – Sure things will taste different from time to time…be gentle in your initial choices. Your out to win them over to a new way of life, not to show them what a drag eating
healthy is supposedly. Ive heard it said after youve eaten something three times you develop a taste for it. Disciple yourself to make a chosen GENTLE CHANGE recipe that is SIMPLE, once a week for a month and
see if they don’t “just get used to it”. Holding ourselves back from pushing them away is one of our best defenses in winning the war….they can eventually become our best support system )

I hope this helps someone. Im just getting started on this little journey, PRACTICALLY speaking myself. I have actually been praying about it with a friend for quite some time. God moves us all along ONLY as quickly as we are willing to listen and (coming out of an pediatric R.N. background) I had a lot
to lay down. Others need to know Im not “there” yet, But I can and look forward to walking WITH THEM )