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Let your kids make weird stuff!

Jonathan Longnecker / August 08, 2014

I decided to draw this after my oldest daughter brought me a silly putty face she had made. It was totally weird and totally awesome.

Whole 30: Day 1, Day 2 – New Me, New You

Ashley Longnecker / August 02, 2014

We are finishing up the 2nd day of our #whole30 challenge.  I just wanted to share with you what we've been eating the last couple days.

Friday

BREAKFAST - Shakes (whole food based) with 2 T almond butter and one banana and ice.  This is just what we've done for breakfasts for the last 4 months or so.  It is so nice not to have to think about what we'll eat for breakfast.  We just get up and I make both of our shakes and start the day.  I can tell a big difference in the way I feel if I don't drink the shake in the morning.  I'm tired, and shakey, and just generally feel like garbage. LUNCH - Sweet potato hash with onions, zucchini, mushrooms and steak.  We cook it in a mixture of coconut oil and real (from grass fed cows) butter.

Whole 30: Nuthin' But Real Food

Jonathan Longnecker / July 31, 2014

Guys and girls, I remember the first time it hit me that things were different.

I had my first desk job designing internal flyers for the local community college. Fresh out of school, working the 9-5, livin' the dream! And suddenly started gaining weight like a madman. Whatever little metabolism I had disappeared at the ripe old age of 21. Pretty sad, right?

Naturally, I got a gym membership and was able to get back in shape quickly, but the last 10 years have seen me ballon from 150 (yes, I was skinny) to nearly 230 the beginning of this year. Why? Well, lack of exercise for one. Starting a business and a family (4 kids in 6 years!) puts things like "going to the gym and eating healthy" on the back burner.

The crazy thing is I know how to exercise. I went through P90X at one point, had some great lifting routines at the gym and have lately been digging Diamond Dallas Page's Yoga program (seriously, it's a blast).

I've heard all the trendy food things, too. Eat 6 times a day! Buy these protein shakes and bars! Paleo! Organic! Dogfood! Wait-what? Here's the problem. I really like food. Like sometime between age 25 and now I turned into a total food snob. I don't know how it happened, but I get pissed if I have to pay 12 bucks for some completely average entree at Chili's. Also, many of these food diet fads are too extreme. Most of them are so hardcore it's nearly impossible to keep up with them for more than a week if you have kids or want to have any kind of life at all. Have you tried to eat 6 meals a day and not have your whole life revolve around it? It's exhausting.

Maybe we're making it too difficult. Maybe we should just get back to basics. Common sense, you know? People didn't used to be obese and overweight. Maybe our huge advances in scientific food manufacturing are actually making us overweight. Maybe God made all the food we ever needed back in Genesis and we're just screwing with it too much.

Around April of this year Ashley and I made a simple choice. We would stop eating refined sugar, wheat and dairy. We would only eat real foods like fruits, vegetables and meat. It sounds like some sort of culinary nightmare, I know.

But it's been incredible. And eye-opening. Personally, I've lost nearly 40 pounds in 4 months. I dropped 4 pants sizes. Most of my clothes are too big now.  And I didn't even exercise very often! That's just part of the story, though. I had no idea how much the sugars and chemicals coming from my food were affecting my energy, mental clarity and general gastrointestinal happiness. Flavors are multiplied 10x when you're not constantly bombarding your tastebuds with enough salt and sugar to  fill a gallon sized ziplock bag.

We also found out through the process that Ashley has some sort of gluten problem. All of her stomach pains magically disappeared when we started this, and a few quick tests confirmed that bread or wheat of any kind makes her miserable the rest of the day. Crazy, right?

So we've been on this track for nearly 4 months - with a little break in early July because we were in Portland for 4 days and, well, you have to break the rules a little when your in Portland - but we're going to be joining a ton of other people and re-committing to this idea of eating more naturally in the month of August. It's called Whole30 and it sounds like exactly what it is. Eat only whole foods for 30 days.

We've been planning and prepping here in the Longnecker household and can't wait to share some great new recipes - and let you know which ones sucked. If you feel like joining in, be sure to let us know in the comments!

Love First, Fix Later

Jonathan Longnecker / July 29, 2014

I was listening to a great new podcast by my good friend Leslie Camacho and his wife called The Marriage Startup, and something they said struck me. He was talking about how he needed to remember that not only his wife deserved unconditional love, but his daughter did as well. The phrase "Love first, fix later," summed up the whole segment very nicely and inspired me to do some hand-lettering. You can listen to the whole episode here (and you should subscribe, because it's a really great podcast about business and marriage).

Code:Rad - Wondermade Marshmallows - 100% Sweet, Magic Air

Jonathan Longnecker / July 03, 2014

Can we just talk for a second about Wondermade - the makers of impeccably hand crafted delicious goodness in the form of marshmallows? Let me tell you - if you think you've ever had a "good marshmallow" then think again, my friend. You haven't. That store-bought jiffy puff high fructose chemical crap ain't got nothing on these babies.

Nathan Clark - or as I like to call him, "the Candy Man" - gave his wife the gift of making homemade marshmallows as an anniversary present one year. They liked it so much that they would make them often and give the extras to their friends. When one friend asked if he could order some, the lightbulb went off. A year later they had mastered the craft, setup shop and were ready to share their sweet, magic air with the world. Boy, I'm glad they did. Wondermade uses cane sugar and natural ingredients to make their unique and amazing flavors. Oh did I not mention the crazy flavors? My bad. Here's a few to pique your interest: