Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! Sorry for the book long intro but I felt some explanation was necessary.



Some of you may remember my old blog Body Product Whore which I was having fun with and had planned to continue. However, over Christmas this year things changed. It started like this: My sister requested a few cookbooks and diet books for Christmas presents. I went on Amazon.com to find them and ended up buying a few for myself. Specifically I bought myself Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin and The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone.


I went with The Kind Diet because I thought it sounded nice, like it might be a nice way to be nice to myself but also lose weight. Lol. Good luck, right? But I like Alicia Silverstone and it was pretty cheap so I figured, why not? I picked up Skinny Bitch as a last minute addition to my cart because I had heard of it before in a general way and it sounded smart and sassy, and because it was cheaper than any of the other books I had added.


So come Christmas I finally got time to actually read the books. I read Skinny Bitch first. Basically it started with things that seemed reasonable. The beginning talks sassily about crap you shouldn't put into your body including but not limited to junk like: white flour, white sugars, coffee, alcohol (unless it's an occasional glass of organic red wine made without sulfites), and generally processed foods. Next it brought up the evils of dairy. I'm lactose intolerant, but had still been having dairy and had been meaning to stop because it always gave me horrible heartburn, so that one wasn't too hard for me.


Then it brought up meat. When I was five years old, my favorite food was prime rib. No joke. And that hadn't really changed since then. I loved meat. But after reading all they had to say about why you shouldn't eat meat, I was totally convinced. Then they were like, "Okay, so now you're vegan!" Whoa there.


Essentially I had always stayed away from literature from vegetarian groups or about the treatment of animals because I knew if I had to think about where my meat came from I'd probably have a hard time justifying continuing to eat it without crazy guilt trips. But what really convinced me wasn't the animal treatment on factory farms (and I love animals don't get me wrong) it was the health issues surrounding meat consumption. I've essentially always been overweight and have a history of heart disease in my family so I knew I had to do something now while I'm still young enough to actually enjoy it. So....Surprise! Now I'm vegan. Reading that actually made that happen.


Reading The Kind Diet after that was kind of weird because it says essentially the same things as Skinny Bitch concerning what you shouldn't put into your body and why but does it in a pleasant, sweet way instead of being sassy. Alicia's adorable. And it reinforced the messages I had gotten from the first book, and made me excited about my decision to actually be vegan.


So I became vegan on January 1, 2012. Coincidentally, my sister also read Alicia's book (which I had gotten her for Christmas) and decided to be vegan as well, also starting January 1st. We both came to the same decision on our own, without talking about it. Then we were just like wait, you're vegan too!?! We were excited.


So obviously, life changed. I didn't just become vegan; I made a commitment to being healthy. I had always glanced at labels and ingredients, but now I really read them and don't eat anything that contains an ingredient that I'm not sure about what it really is. Actually, I really stopped eating much processed food at all, so that made things easier and more importantly, healthier.


Now that I was caring about what I was putting into my body it felt incredibly wrong and unhealthy to slather on products with just as sketchy ingredients as some of the processed foods I used to enjoy. And I didn't know what to do about my old blog. I didn't feel good about recommending most of the products that I had recommended on there once I looked back at what was actually in them. I didn't really know how to go on from where I had been, so I just kinda stood still on that front. I figured my blogging about beauty products was done.


But obviously, I wasn't done with using beauty products! At first I just told myself to enjoy and use up what I had, give away what I could (which was a crapload, because I apparently stockpiled enough body products to hold us over through an indefinite shutdown of all the beauty companies), and not to buy anything from then on that wasn't vegan. But buying only vegan wasn't enough. I mean, Oreos are vegan (and support gay rights!), but that doesn't mean they're made out of whole grains and non-refined sugars and that I should eat them every day. I wanted to make healthy choices from head to toe. So I started reading beauty product ingredients not just to figure out if they were vegan but to judge if I would feel good about putting them onto my body. Turns out almost nothing I already owned fit the bill.


But I have found some great things to replace what I used to use. You can find anything if you take the time to look. And this was important to me, so it got done. It's still a work in progress, and always will be.


Finding a great website that does a great job weeding out crap for you was a great inspiration to start up the blog again. (The site I'm talking about is Natural Joy Beauty, which I'm sure I'll talk about in later posts.) This time I decided to expand my reviews to include recommendation of any items that are healthier for you than what you may currently have. That way I can share my food, home and other healthy finds in addition to beauty health.


And don't worry; I won't become preachy about the vegan lifestyle. You probably wouldn't even notice my recommendations are vegan if I hadn't gone on with this whole explanation about why I decided to become healthier. You would just notice that what I've found is awesome! I wouldn't recommend it if it wasn't. So while becoming vegan was my choice, everyone has to make decisions like that on their own, and I don't expect anything from you. But knowing where and how to find healthier options should be something that everyone has easy access to. So I thought I would share my finds. I hope you enjoy as much as I know I will! Thanks for reading!


<3Kati