FULL OF LIFE
This is not a Diet, it's a Lifestyle
The "AHA" Moment.
How we ended up with a plant based diet and mad about whole foods!
Every journey into health seems to start with an “aha” moment. While our “aha” moment is relatively recent, the story began years ago. We didn't know it at the time, but Full of Life began on a verandah with a conversation about what was happening to our bodies as we grew older. There seemed to be so many of our close friends who had experienced health scares - heart attacks, diabetes, cancer.
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Despite leading what was considering to be a "conventionally healthy, Doctor approved" life, in that we weren't in the habit of eating junk food or soft drinks, not even having bikkies with our cups of tea; eating lots of vegetables and not being completely sedentary, we were still suffering from auto-immune disorders, suffering ongoing joint and back pain and just generally not feeling "well". And, to be honest, carrying more weight than we should have been.
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Being the avid researcher she is, Jackie threw herself into to the science of metabolism and nutrition and weight and health, and every time she learned something new (and by that I mean we discovered facts that were properly researched and peer reviewed) we amended the food that we were eating. Luckily for us, cooking had always been a shared passion, so diving head first into this new world of plant based whole foods was exciting.
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And then we started seeing results...
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Generally feeling less sluggish.
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No longer reaching for anti-reflux and indigestion medications every day.
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Better quality of sleep.
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No late afternoon energy crashes.
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The weight coming off without thinking about it.
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The lack of back pain.
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Knees working in a way that they hadn't for years.
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Hereditary arthritis pain lessening
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We could go on and on and on about how our lives have improved, simply by swapping out some foods for ones that, frankly, taste better than what we were eating anyway.
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While until this stage it had just been a way for us to improve our families' health, the more we learned and the more we experienced, we realised that it was bigger than us. So much bigger.
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Full of Life was born - our way to share the information that is not being told. To confront the incorrect beliefs about food and health. To talk about healthy weight and how we want everyone to avoid lifestyle diseases and live their best lives.
Jackie
Information junkie &
experimental foodie
Full of Life is an obvious step for me really, in retrospect. I’ve spent my entire career in community development, working in community, trying to “change the world”. And here I am again. I started out as a journalist with the West Australian and ABC Radio, and progressed to community development in a wide range of roles: in the arts, local area planning, education, in local government, with state and national governments and corporates. Academically I hold a post-graduate qualification in Futures and Foresight Studies which has provided a great grounding for research, strategy and systems.
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I never thought that my tongue in cheek desire to “change the world” would be in food and lifestyle. If you’d asked me a while ago if I’d like oat milk in my tea, I would have laughed. If you’d told me that joining a gym was not the answer to my weight issues, I would have looked at you sideways. If you’d talked about 6 and 8 and intermittent fasting, or Keto, I would probably have thought about giving them a go. What I wouldn’t have thought about was that I could discover a whole world of science and study that I didn’t know existed and it would turn my world upside down. And that I’d get so involved that I’d want to share it with the world.
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Food can change the world. The diseases that kill us in the Western World are directly attributable to the food of the Western World. These diseases; the diseases of food, cost our community billions every year. Wouldn’t it be great if that money could be spent on things other than curing people of health problems they brought on themselves? Okay, I’m a dreamer. But that’s what “changing the world” is all about. And I’m all for that!
Summer
Overworked, overweight food theory geek
I’ve always suspected there was something fundamentally “not right” in the way we collectively understand healthy eating and metabolism. Since before I’d even hit 21, despite eating between 500 and 1200 calories a day and basically living on green salad and steamed chicken breasts, I’d been above a healthy weight, consistently in pain and not as vital as I thought I should have been. As 40 was looming on the horizon, I had this nagging knowledge that it was now or never to “get my s**t sorted” – I felt that it I took the weight and pain and ill health over to that side with me, it would be with me forever.
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I also have two daughters (an early teen and a tween) and was struggling with how I could teach them about health and healthy weight without it crossing into body image territory. And who was I to talk anyway? I ate “healthy”, didn’t drink much alcohol, didn’t even have snacks or biscuits in the house, but was definitely not the posterchild for health. I had to find the answers.
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A significant health scare in late 2020 told me it was time to put my academic studies on hold and chase the truth – originally I was honestly only concerned about myself and my girls. But then Jackie and I kept learning so much! I rekindled my forgotten love of cooking and recipe creation. I had the science and facts on my side, and a new language so health was suddenly easier to talk about. And now I am on an mission for everyone to know.
Contact
Full of Life
Geraldton Western Australia
Our group - facebook.com/groups/tinad
Our page - facebook.com/notadiet
0409 886 982