Can you imagine missing your child's birthday?
With the daily hustle and bustle, you get so busy trying to keep all the balls in the air...and you suddenly realize your precious baby's birthday was a week ago! Of course, in reality, this would never happen! (We all know kids would be reminding you and counting down the minutes until the big day!)
We almost did just that!
With less than a month left in 2023, we almost missed Eat REAL America's 10th birthday!
Believe it or not, we published our very first Eat REAL America weekly meal ideas and coaching tip 10 years ago, in September 2013!
The first coaching tip?
With hindsight, it seems appropriate that the first coaching tip was What is REAL food?
And then shortly after, we shared the coaching tip It’s all about the Ingredients.
Ten years later, achieving your best health continues to be all about enjoying a wide variety of REAL food and focusing on the ingredients. Of course, there is much more, but these two concepts stand the test of time and will get you a long way on the road to success!
The first weekly meal ideas?
For the Week of September 30, 2013, the meal ideas included some of our member favorites like the Baked Chicken Parmesan, Simple Fish Tacos, Easy Everyday Salad, and the Simple Roasted Cauliflower. With almost 1,400 recipes now on the website, it is slightly emotional to think back to those humble beginnings!
Where it Started!
When we started Eat REAL America in 2013, it came from a passion we never knew we had. Many of you have heard us tell the stories of how we were blissfully enjoying the Standard American Diet. We were making the same meals over and over (things like Tater Tot Casserole, frozen burritos and pizzas, Suddenly Salad, Teriyaki Chicken Fried Rice from Sam's Club, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Sloppy Joes with barbecue sauce and brown sugar, just to name a few!). If we were lucky, we would get 1 or 2 servings of veggies in (usually a can of green beans). And we ate out A LOT which included burgers, tacos, pizza, chicken fried steak, donuts (I get a gut ache just thinking about it now!).
Not surprisingly, we were overweight and knew we weren't as healthy as we needed to be. And as our family expanded, we knew we were not on a good path when it came to our kids and their habits and health.
As we learned techniques like roasting vegetables and making flavor-loaded salads, our tastebuds started to change. We discovered the benefits of eating with the seasons and shopping at the farmers' market. These were equally life-changing!
As we were enjoying REAL foods that tasted absolutely amazing, this further unlocked our passion for preparing and enjoying all these delicious and nutritious meals. Our clothes started fitting better, we felt so much healthier, and we all (kids included) were eating a ton of vegetables!
From Sharing Our Story to Sharing Your Stories!
We were inspired to find a way to share our experience with others and provide a resource to help others to discover the same joy from delicious and nutritious food that we had found. That was the start of Eat REAL America (which we originally started as Get REAL Wichita). Over the past 10 years, we are blessed that Eat REAL America has grown and evolved, including our phenomenal partnership with Zonya Foco, and we have seen countless people transform their lives with the power of REAL food!
You have shared your stories with us about how much weight you have lost, how much better you feel, how you have been able to discontinue your blood pressure and cholesterol medications. One of you even shared with us that "Eat REAL America saved my marriage!"
You may remember reading our stories about Meagan & Karen and Beverly & Ken. These stories are so inspiring and there are SO MANY more stories just like these! You may have even read the motivating stories in last week's' Dodging Diabetes coaching tip about how Eat REAL America members recently reversed their prediabetes!
As we look forward to 2024, we are going to make it a priority to share more of your success stories! We know when we share these stories in our cooking demos, they are inspiring, and we want to make sure the entire Eat REAL America community benefits from all of your successes (as well as our collective challenges, setbacks and learnings). If you are interested in sharing your story, please let us know!
The Next Decade!
We have so much planned for the next decade of Eat REAL America!
To support the next phase of our journey, we recently hired a new technology management company. We are so thankful for Cassandra Bryan Design, who was ahead of their time in helping us build our website in 2013. And now we are excited to bring some of our new ideas to life to make Eat REAL America the best resource possible for all of you!
We are also so very thankful for our partnership with Zonya and look forward to continuing to collaborate with Zonya, Scott, Debbie and the entire ZHI team!
Most importantly, we thank you for all of your encouragement and support over the last 10 years. We thank you for sharing your stories, your challenges, and your successes!
And we thank you for all of your ideas!
Please let us know what you would like to see from Eat REAL America as we quickly approach our "pre-teen" years!
Time Truly Does Fly When You're Having Fun!
Congratulations! I love using the site. If you’re looking for ideas to improve the website, I would like to be able to add my own notes to the recipes I save in My Recipe Box. Sometimes I tweak them for my needs. It would be for my reference only. Thank you for considering.
I second Barbara! Congratulations on hitting this milestone.
I am so grateful for your site as a resource and inspiration. You have changed the way I eat and cook, Zonya and Krista!
Congratulations! I’ve been a member for 3-4 years now. Wish i would have found you sooner!
Another website feature I’d love is to be able to ‘categorize’ the receipts I save. I save so many that i lose track of them.. lol. Maybe a way to rate or flag your favorites too.