Wanting to trade fast-paced living, processed foods, & household chemicals for a holistic lifestyle? A bit lost on how? This one’s for you.
Are there areas of your life that have become such a part of you and your rhythm that you sometimes forget other people don’t actually know the things you know and live the way you do??
Ya me too.
I’ve been on a health journey since my early 20’s (a decade ago) and early on, I found all those “crunchy” blogs and fellow health-nut moms to look up to.
I still remember reading about carcinogenic ingredients in packaged foods and going through and clearing out our pantry immediately, with no thought for dinner that night!
And so sometimes I assume everyone knows you should be eating healthy fats, not dieting, and milling your own grains which of course you ought to ferment via sourdough, obviously.
I forget that a mere 4 years ago I was buying the idea that grains, in every form, were completely bad for you. Dairy too. And that I’d have to go full Paleo if I wanted to be healthy. And also lift heavy weights even though I hate it.
If you love those things, great! One thing I’ve definitely learned is that no one person has the answer for everyone. Genetics are complicated and different methods and philosophies work for different people. But I digress.
The point is, today I’m sharing about how to live more holistically. I’m often tempted to think, “No one needs this, this is common knowledge.” But I see evidence to the contrary all around me. And I think more and more people in my generation, and those coming of age just now, are waking up to the fact that living “conveniently” isn’t cutting it any more.
Where Did The Trouble Start?
I’m no historian but it seems to me that all of this trouble started in the 1950’s.
Convenience food, kitchen gadgets, and the idea that you “deserve” to live a convenient life of luxury exploded during this time.
I’m sure it all seemed very cutting-edge and futuristic at the time, but nowadays it’s just the norm. Growing up in the ’90’s, we were all about Pop-Tarts, McDonald’s, freezer lasagna and microwave Salisbury steak.
Now one thing that I do believe has become common knowledge is that these kinds of foods are not good for you.
I’m glad we’re waking up to it. But what about some of the sneakier lies we’ve been sold?
The Diet Industry And The War On Fat
Our ancestors didn’t have to think so deeply about the food they put on the table. If anything, their worry was just getting enough of it.
It’s a little more complicated these days.
Growing up I always heard that fat made you fat. Fat is bad, especially saturated fat. No one in my real life could’ve explained exactly what saturated fat was or why it was bad, but we all had these lovely nutrition labels to tell us what to eat and how much.
I’m not against nutrition labels on the whole, but I’m sure you can see how it can cause a bit of a dependence problem in a culture that has lost the wisdom of the past.
To us at the time, if it helped you get skinnier, it was good. The word ‘fat’ itself was scary.
These days I find myself thinking, “Surely no one believes canola oil is a healthy choice anymore.” Or, “People don’t really buy margarine anymore, right?” And yet there those products are, sitting on the grocery shelves. And there’s that TV commercial that must be working or they wouldn’t pay for the ad space. The diet industry is a booming business, and unfortunately, you can’t take anything they say at face value.
These convenience foods and chemical-laden, lab created “food” products are destroying our health. If you’re here, you’re probably already thinking along these lines. But if you’re skeptical, you don’t have to take my word for it. If this even slightly peaks your interest, I highly recommend doing just a little bit of research. It’s not my goal today to unpack all the scientific data on this topic. I certainly don’t want to give medical advice.
My goal today is to offer a few simple ways to live a more holistic lifestyle in our modern world. Things that work for our family, and that I believe could work for almost anyone. Things that will benefit you, your loved ones, and the planet we share.
If that aligns with your goals, then keep reading.
Starting Simple With A Holistic Lifestyle
Before you dive in and try to change every area of your life (like maybe I did that one time…), choose one thing you know will make an impact and let that small win keep you motivated.
For instance, you might think an overhaul of your whole pantry, kitchen, fridge and grocery list is necessary for it to “make any difference”. But often when we try to do too much, we get overwhelmed and completely frustrated, and quit.
Small changes add up over time. I’m not talking about years on end, I’m talking about a few weeks of this, add in a few weeks of that thing next, and so on. And before you know it, it has been years and your life looks very different, in a great way.
Like with me. I really was that kid that only wanted to eat cheeseburgers and frozen taquitos. I’m so glad I stumbled into this holistic lifestyle thing back in my first year of marriage. Whenever I’m giving myself a hard time about making a quick batch of regular pancakes instead of long fermenting them and using freshly milled, whole grain flour, I think about that 22-year old sitting at her laptop in her tiny kitchen. I think about what she would say about the ingredients I use now, the fact that my kids aren’t consuming Spaghetti-O’s and Kool-Aid every day, the fact that I use sourdough on a daily basis.
She would be impressed with current me. We’ll talk some more about not being too hard on ourselves, but for now, don’t underestimate these small changes. Future you is going to be role-model material to past you.
Take That First Step
Ok, so which area do you start with? What simple step can you take that will lead to others?
Like I said above, don’t be tempted to tackle the thing you think will make the biggest impact. Choose the area that makes the most sense.
Do you enjoy cooking? Does it sound exciting to try new ingredients and recipes? Or is that the scary part?
Maybe it’s cleaning products for you. You cringe every time you reach for a Clorox wipe but you don’t really know what to use instead.
If you love your beauty and skin care routine, but you know some of the products you use aren’t so good for you, that could be a fun and motivating place to start making some swaps.
Categories to Consider
- Food/Nutrition
- Fitness
- Money/Frugality
- Natural Cleaners
- Reusable Household Products (Swedish paper towels, glass or silicone food storage, beeswax wraps)
- Natural Beauty/Skin Care
- Minimalism and Conscious Consumerism
- Quality Family Time
- Deepening Faith
- Furthering Your Own Education
- Gardening/Self-Sufficiency
- Outdoor Hobbies/Activities
These are all great general areas to start living more holistically. But even once you narrow it down to a category, we need to narrow it down to that first step. Once you pick a category that sounds exciting and doable for you, choose one action step to start working on.
Action Step Ideas
- making recipes that will prioritize protein and healthy fats
- learning sourdough
- following a meal plan with real-food recipes
- using up leftovers, making meals from what you have and being less wasteful
- growing some of your own food
- replacing your usual bleach or chemical spray with a homemade, natural one
- adding one homemade cleaning/household product to your repertoire every other week
- making your own deodorant to cut out aluminum and other harmful ingredients
- replacing your usual moisturizer with a homemade one, or something like Honey Girl or Toups & Co
- trying to spend at least 30 minutes outside every day
- committing to move your body one mile each day (walking, biking, treadmill, elliptical, etc.)
- start an herb garden or small raised bed of tomatoes
- start a cottage garden in the front of your house for cut flowers and attracting pollinators
How We Live A Holistic Lifestyle
Hopefully now you’ve got an idea of a general area and one or two action steps.
What I’d like to do now is share one area of our lives that I feel we’ve gotten the hang of, as well as some of the things I struggle with. My hope is this will give you a fuller picture of holistic living while being transparent about the all ways I’m far from perfect.
Cooking and Nutrition
I’ve been in this journey for over 10 years now. As much as I wish I could feed my family only organic, locally sourced ingredients, much of which we raise ourselves, we’re simply not in a position to do so.
One day I’d love to have a small homestead with a huge garden, chickens, ducks and quail, a dairy cow, and SHEEP. I’m obsessed with the idea of being a shepherdess. Back to reality, though.
Right now we live in town. We’re blessed to have plenty of space for a garden which I’d love to do more with next year, but I’m getting ahead of myself! This is the part where I talk about how great we’re doing…haha.
Seriously, though, even though the target is always moving and I could always be eating more naturally, more organic, more local, more self-sustained… I think we’re doing more than ok.
Some of the things I’ve learned over this decade are how to cook from scratch, why it’s important to know where your food comes from, and that all calories are not created equal. In fact, calories aren’t that helpful of a system in the first place.
I’m so thankful I have online role-models and friends to look up to and learn from. Here are a few of my favorite sources for recipes, tips, nutritional info, meal planning and more.
From Scratch Cooking and Sourdough
So many stunning photos and amazing recipes. Her einkorn sandwich is incredible.
The person who made sourdough make sense to me. Lisa is a master at making amazing from-scratch food in the most doable and practical way. As a mom of 8, she ought to be!
I love her sourdough English muffin recipe, plus so many others.
The “Sourdough Queen” š I love browsing her discard recipes. She would be so helpful to a sourdough beginner!
Meal Planning
I subscribe to her Simple Seasons monthly meal inspirations. Every month she sends out a PDF that’s basically a mini e-book full of healthy, seasonal recipes, as well as book lists, inspiration and more. She also has full e-books with many more recipes. I love the subscription for meal planning.
This seems random, I know. Formerly ‘Whisk’, this app is helpful for browsing and saving recipes, similar to Pinterest, and you can then load the ingredients into a grocery list. You can leave off any ingredients you already have, make a weekly menu with your saved meals, and click “Start Cooking” to have the steps come up one by one, if you prefer. You can also save recipes from all over the internet by copying the page and opening the app. A small pop-up at the bottom will prompt you to save the recipe and it will save and format the recipe into the app for you! Super convenient.
Our Food Philosophy
I’m always learning and stretching myself in the kitchen. I recently started milling my own grains and learning the art of pastry making. I have so many recipes I’m excited to make, and many more I’m developing myself that I hope to share soon.
To give you the short version, we don’t subscribe to a particular ‘diet’ like Paleo, Keto, Carnivore, or vegan. We eat whole foods in the most bioavailable way possible, and the highest quality ingredients we can afford. There are plenty of things we don’t do that I wish we could, like always buy local organic pastured meat. Or bake exclusively with ancient grains.
But doing things like milling grains increases the nutrition dramatically. Soaking rice and oats makes them much easier to digest and breaks down phytic acid. Fermenting grains via sourdough does the same, and making my own yogurt gives us tons of amazing probiotics while avoiding excess sugar and unwanted ingredients from store bought yogurt.
The thing to keep in mind with cooking holistically is the less packaged food, the better. One rule of thumb I’ve heard is to stay as much to the perimeter of the grocery store as possible, relying on produce, meat, eggs, the best dairy you can get, and then a few pantry staples like grains and flours, oils, vinegars, and things like that.
I’m trying this year to get in even more protein, as it’s still an area we all struggle with a bit. Carbs are easy to come by. And so fun. Even fats are easier in my opinion. We use plenty of coconut oil, butter and whole fat dairy around here.
But protein, especially complete sources like meat and eggs, are harder to get in at every meal. One trick I have is to put collagen in things like smoothies, warms drinks, and even baked goods, like my Sourdough Protein Muffins.
At the end of the day, I can’t beat myself up about all the ways I could be better. Like I said earlier in the post, I’ve come such a long way since I started this journey.
I can’t keep moving the target.
Rather, I can, but I have to take time to appreciate where I am, and give myself a small pat on the back every now and then.
And that’d be my advice to you. Whether you start with food and nutrition, or another area. Enjoy it! Take those small wins and build confidence from them.
I could say so much more. I have so many dreams and goals, and so much encouragement I want to give you.
And I definitely will in future posts! For today, I hope this helps you narrow down your own goals and dreams, and to take that first step towards a more holistic lifestyle.
You probably noticed several links scattered throughout this post. I hope you’ll check out some of my recipes and DIY’s to get you started in a gentle way. You can always head to the home page and check out my Recipes and Homemaking archives for my ever-expanding content.
Thanks so much for reading. All the best,
-Tara
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