With the stall on losing baby weight and a baby I want to be able to take great care of, I've been thinking a lot about making some healthier lifestyle choices. The big question with doing this is precisely how healthy I want to be. At first glance it seems like a no-brainer: as healthy as possible, but to me (with my talent for over-analyzing) it is a bit more complicated than that. When it comes to working out, it's easy to set goals. If I get in a good 20-30 min workout 6 days a week, I feel fabulous...and not just proud of myself, I really feel a LOT better physically than I do if I don't work out at all. So naturally my goal is to work out every day...or almost every day. Some days though, the laundry or the dishes are just too overwhelming so I sacrifice my work-out for my sanity and that's ok, I'm slowly getting better at balancing it all. But the really the hard part is food.
I LOVE to eat. I love steak. I love lasagna. I love love love chocolate. If there are chocolate chip cookies in the house I consider myself to be showing great restraint if I only eat 5...before dinner. I'm not that crazy about vegetables. I prefer to eat bread...and oreos...and granola bars...and cereal that's fortified with extra vitamins and minerals...and all of these things I love are, by and large, NOT good for my body. I want to fix this...mostly.
I haven't read the book Eat to Live. I want to...but quite frankly, I'm terrified of it. I'm afraid I won't be able to make all the changes I need to in order to be really healthy - to be the best mother and wife I can - and that I will subsequently spend a lot of my time feeling guilty; which I don't need. I am also not sure I want to eat only to live. (I don't want to live to eat either) I think there is great joy in cooking, eating, and sharing something that tastes absolutely amazing. Although I have found some very tasty vegetarian dishes, not one has measured up to steak, manicotti, or chocolate chip cookies.
So...for now, here's my plan:
1. make green smoothies. They are delicious and I don't mind loading them up with Kale or spinach. At least I'm getting more fruits and veggies than I was! (probably a 150% increase with one drink)
2. search for and try meals that have little or no meat and lots of veggies. Save and repeat the ones we like.
3. Break my addiction to processed sugar/foods (ok, I'm actually still working up to this one. It's the most daunting of them all and will probably require a couple months of something drastic)
4. Focus on helping Lucy learn to eat right by feeding her a variety of fruits and veggies and avoiding processed sugar as much as possible.
That's it for now. Hopefully in the next several months I will be able to report that I am no longer addicted to sugar, that at least 5 meals a week consist primarily of veggies, and that my extra weight is melting away as Jason, Lucy and I eat healthy and get plenty of exercise. Maybe I will also be able to report that I have read something by Dr. Fuhrman. Maybe. We'll see!
That IS the question isn't it? I know that I could even be doing more than I am right now, and yet a lot of people I talk to think I'm super healthy already. Should I feel guilty over not being the utmost healthy I could possibly be? Eh, I hope not! There IS a balance and it can be hard to find it. I struggle with that still.
ReplyDeleteYou know I support reading ETL or EFH by Fuhrman, so what about making yourself a deal. You read the books, do the 6 weeks hardcore initially like he recommends, then evaluate how you feel and look after that, and start finding a compromise or a way to make it work for you now. I heard of one man who ate super healthy, nutritarian food all week long, until he got to Friday night when he ate pizza. That was his only splurge during the week, but it was how he was able to eat healthy during the week like he wanted, knowing he could still look forward to Friday nights. Obviously you have to be careful that your small compromise doesn't lead to bigger ones, but no one says you have to do it hardcore, 100%, all the time - even Fuhrman says that I think. Find a way to make it work for you where you aren't feeling grumpy ALL the time over food. :-) (I went through that for a while during craving withdrawal - the constant grumps over food. Bleh, no fun.)
Happy healthy eating!
Jamie, I definitely want to read EFH, it's just a matter of ordering it. Jason's going to be gone for 8 weeks sometime this year and I was going to try being nutritarian for the first 2 weeks, and if I survived keep it up for the last 6 weeks...but since we don't know when he'll be leaving I told him I may be attempting 6 weeks of hard core nutrition while he is still here...he said that's ok, he'd keep his junk food at work, and eat whatever I made at home. We'll see! But I really want to read the book first, i think it would give me more incentive to stick with it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, did you make Charlie's babyfood? Lucy is just starting on it and I want to make most of hers so I was wondering if you knew of any good resources on that!
I did make most of Charlies baby food. I actually never had a good resource book that I used, I just kept things really simple steaming most things. You can actually find a lot about hoiw to make baby food online, and when to introduce things. It will also tell you certain veggies that can be high in nitrates? I think, and so under 6 or 9 mos you have to limit their intake of those if they are homemade. I think wholesomebabyfood.com is what I frequented a lot, but there are other good sites. Let me know if you have any questions. :)
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