Introductory Letter

A Step of Health

To my family and friends, who are willing to journey with us on our continued quest for a healthy lifestyle… this note, to state in writing what my goals are for this experiment.

At Apryle's suggestion (my daughter-in-law), I have been mulling for months, about writing up a "baby steps" approach to health. After completing the Dave Ramsey course and learning how to break down big financial problems into a series of manageable baby steps, it made sense to apply those same principles to health. Most of the time when we hit some milestone, ie: a disease crops up or progresses, a new year begins, a large change happens in our life or we anticipate a major change coming down the pike, we buy some book on “how to” be healthy or live a sustainable life. These are almost all "immersion" type programs that require a bunch of change at one time or, a commitment to give up our favorite habits and addictions. We give it the ‘old college try’ for a couple of weeks, then fail in some key area and give up. After that we beat ourselves up and go back to the old lifestyle or take the path of least resistance and then WHAM, something else happens. So, we read another great book or something else comes along to inspire us once again and the cycle repeats…

Instead of this immersion system, I am trying to come up with a good, useful, baby-steps type of program. It needs to be affordable, food based and sensible. So, we begin with Phase I. It has already been changed quite a few times and it might be changed again. I have a framework of 10-12 phases laid out. I am going to meet with some of you (and others who have a good, deep knowledge of health) and we will pull this framework apart and rebuild it... as many times as necessary, until we have a useful tool that should work for most people, diseases and lifestyles.

The idea of this plan is to focus on one phase of health at a time and established some good, new habits. And having begun to make these better heath decisions, to then move on—no failure, no beating yourself up, no time pressure. These are just suggestions and you should ideally take the time while you are in each phase, to learn more about that particular health idea, absorb it, own it and make some great new choices for yourself and your family.

Phase One is gut health. I choose this subject to begin with, because I feel that you cannot have good overall health without good intestinal health. It is where our immune system springs from and where nutrients are dealt with—to be either absorbed or passed on, and it is also where much of our healing takes place. If your gut is healthy and you tend to it, you will have a lot more room for error during the rest of your life. The choices I made for the five steps are what I consider the most important. However, there are many other cultured food choices out there and perhaps some of those are the way your family will want to go. So, read a couple of articles on how the gut works and what keeps it nourished. And do a little research, to figure out which habits your family wants to acquire. Then, when ready, move on to Phase Two.

I am adding a "Path to Progress" at the bottom of each page to help you navigate the site.  Look for the link.

Good health to you,
Cindy

Disclaimer: What you will find here is my opinion based on what I know to be true. Please use wisdom in making decisions for your own family. Information found on the "A Step of Health" site is meant for educational and informational purposes only, and to motivate you to make your own health care and dietary decisions based upon your own research and in partnership with your health care provider. It should not be relied upon to determine dietary changes, a medical diagnosis or courses of treatment. Individual articles and information on other websites are based upon the opinions of the respective authors, who retain copyright as marked.

Path to Progress:  Phase One Basic Program