A change for health or a change to improve your health looks different for everyone. It depends on what you want to achieve. I wanted to be in control of what I put in my body. In other words, I wanted to be intentional about what I ate.

When I decided to change for health, I did several things. I cut out sugar and believe me that was not easy. Think about it. I went from drinking tea with sugar to drinking tea without sugar overnight. Talk about drastic! Now if you are a Jamaican, you know that ginger tea without sugar is simply unacceptable. In the beginning, when I tried it, I did not like it. It was insipid; nevertheless, I kept drinking tea without sugar, and after a while, my taste buds adjusted. Today, I do not drink tea or beverages with sugar or sweeteners. Fresh is fine for me.

Next, I cut out cakes, cookies, ice cream, bread, junk food, and just about anything with sugar, additives, and preservatives. That was hard because who doesn’t like bread? Bread is a staple. What does bread not go with? It goes with everything. It is the ultimate go-to food when you are pressed for time—bread with butter, bread with jam, bread with cheese—bread, bread, bread. But I had to do it, and I did. By now, you are probably thinking, so what does she eat? Well, I have had to learn to be creative. For example, I learned to make Bammy, a Jamaican staple made from cassava. Bammy is now my bread.

Finally, I decided to prepare everything I ate. This was the ultimate challenge. I was accustomed to going to the pantry or the fridge to grab something to eat, but that was no longer an option. If I wanted to eat, I had to cook. Now you can understand why ready-made food is popular. Pop a bag of chips, slice a piece of bread all within less than five minutes. It is fast. It is easy. It does not require you to spend time in the kitchen.

In the beginning, Mondays were my cooking days. I planned all my meals on paper, and everything that I wanted to eat for the entire week, I prepared on Mondays. I did this because my weeks are busy with work and activities, so I would not have had time to prepare meals every night. Easy meals like salads were prepared fresh. Meal preparation took about five or so hours, but once I was done, I had food for the entire week.

You are probably thinking that five or so hours is a lot of time to spend in the kitchen, and you are right. As such, I realize that one of the biggest challenges to making changes to improve your health is time. Who has five or more hours to spend in the kitchen in one day? That is like working a part-time job in a restaurant. Trust me, I get it; nonetheless, for me, the change was necessary because I wanted to be intentional about what I put in my body.

Read A Change for Health for the back story.