Reno - The EATCLEAN DIET for Family & Kids: Simple Strategies for Lasting Health and Fitness

Copyright 2008 by Robert Kennedy Publishing
All rights reserved, including the
right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Published by Robert Kennedy Publishing
5775 McLaughlin Road
Mississauga, ON
L5R 3P7 Canada
Visit us at www.eatcleandiet.com

Design by Gabriella Caruso Marques
Edited by Wendy Morley and Rachel Corradetti

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Reno, Tosca, 1959

The Eat-Clean Diet for Family and Kids: Simple Strategies for Lasting Health & Fitness / Tosca Reno; foreword by Bobbi Brown.

Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-55210-050-9

1. Family--Health and hygiene. 2. Children--Health and hygiene. 3. Physical fitness. 4. Health. I. Title.

RA777.7.R46 2008 613.2 C2008-903856-8

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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IMPORTANT

The information in this book reflects the authors experiences and opinions and is not intended to replace medical advice.

Before beginning this or any nutritional or exercise regimen, consult your physician to be sure it is appropriate for you. Ask for a physical stress test.

I dedicate this book to the health and
wellness of our children. They are our legacy
and our future.

Necessity is the mother of all invention its true, but fear can be a wonderful motivator as well. Fear is the reason I wrote this book. I am afraid of many things, but nothing frightens me more than what is happening across the face of this planet at this very moment. Not only is our environment falling into ruin, thanks to broad sweeping disregard for preserving our Earth, the same is true for the health of our citizens, particularly our children.

How did I become so frightened? Not long ago I spent several weeks visiting a family member who was recovering from surgery in an intensive care unit at a prominent hospital. The ordeal was itself significant and worrying, but my concern grew as I came to know other patients also temporarily residing here. As I wandered the halls of the hospital I noticed something. From day one I saw that more than 50 percent of the folks either visiting or staying at the hospital were overweight, and I am being generous with that term. Many were actually obese. In this population I include not only patients, young and old, but also visitors and, unfortunately, staff. I always considered the hospital to be a bastion of health for the uniformed angels who minister to the sick. Increasingly those who run the hospital are as apt to be obese as those to whom they minister. And what of the children? It seemed to me it was more often the case to see an overweight child than not. If our children are indeed the future of our country then we are certainly heading for disaster. Overweight and obesity are robbing us of our future. It is foolish to think carrying a few extra pounds of weight is a light matter. The costs, both economical and health wise, are staggering.

How did this happen? Its similar to collecting clutter in a house you have lived in for many years. Little by little stuff accumulates. Putting each item away every time you use it is a simple act of keeping things tidy, but you get a little lazy. You dont notice the bits piling up at the beginning, but once you have a great heap its hard to ignore and even harder to clean up. A house full of junk is overwhelming. Believe it or not, living with so much stuff can be detrimental to your health think along the lines of mold, fungus, mildew and even infestations of various kinds of vermin in the worst cases. And that brings me to my point about overweight. One or two pounds may not seem to matter much at the outset. But as the pounds pile up, destructive eating habits become further entrenched (like the habit of not putting things away in your house) and virtually impossible to break. Robust health, once taken for granted, erodes. Hormones go askew, and the body becomes misshapen. If the decline in health is serious enough, you may end up in the very hospital where I saw enough to make me want to write this book.

If our children are indeed the future of our country then we are certainly heading for disaster.

At the root lies my worry that we have been misled about how to nourish ourselves and our families. In the agrarian days of our country there was no question that what was served on our tables had come from the earth and was indeed nourishing. The same is not always true today. We have lost contact with our foods origins, because it now comes from the shelves of grocery stores in colorful packages. It no longer seems to come from our good earth and unfortunately the food we end up with is often far removed from how it started out.

This book is my answer for you. If even one or two families will take up my call to return to more informed food decisions in the form of Clean Eating, then my efforts will have been worthwhile. Let these pages serve as your guide to rethink the simplest of all human needs, to eat and to eat well.