Thankfully, I’ve had my son eating clean from the day he was born. His first meal was spinach I put through the blender. Now, he loves his veggies. I never have to wonder if he’ll eat them or spit them out. He would just as soon eat a head of broccoli as a cookie. I’m blessed.

I imagine, like millions of others, I’ll probably get on the strict bandwagon with the new year. Only this time, I’ll be sticking with it. My health can’t take another year of not so great eating. It’s time to get real and get healthy once and for all.

My husband and I had slowly been changing our diet to include more organic produce and fewer processed food but then the real wakeup call came in July of this year; my 54 year old father suffered a heart attack and was diagnosed with heart disease. After his triple by-pass operation I knew that I needed to educate myself (as well as my parents, husband and brother) about healthy eating and the pitfalls of the western diet. I turned back to my mother-in-law’s Clean Eating magazine and literally jumped in head first, following the principles and guidelines laid out and doing a significant amount of research on heart healthly diets, finding remarkable similarity between the two.

After making over my diet and beginning an outdoor running program (2.5km x Mondays and Wednesdays, 4km Saturdays) I’ve lost 31 pounds, 4.5 inches off my waist and feel the best I ever have. As a cronically overweight child and teenager, I’ve crash dieted at least 5 times, having success and regaining the weight within months. I’ve never been athletic, and the fact that I’m running 4km without stopping is incredible and I’m now planning on doing a 5km once the weather warms up. I also plan on adding free weights to get a little toning added into the mix.

Though my parents haven’t embraced clean eating principles as intensely as I have, I’m happy to report that my dad has fully recovered, returned to work, lost 25 pounds and regularily exercises 3 times a week. He’s now the weight he was when my parents were married 25 years ago. My mom has lost 15 pounds after years of struggling with crash dieting and now rejoices over the success she’s having eating “real” food and eating on a more regular basis. She’s also noticed a marked improvement in her fibromyalsia and has more energy. Clean eating has literally saved the lives of my entire family.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I control my food, rather than it controlling me. I can’t recommend Clean Eating highly enough.