If you are like me you are overwhelmed with information about how to feed your family for a healthy lifestyle.
What to eat, what not to eat, what to spend money on, a lot of guilt and shame about what you shouldn’t be doing and what you shouldn’t feed your children.
As a mother we feel a lot of pressure in how we take care of and raise our children. It seems like this nutrition space has become more and more confusing and heavy with the media and all of the information being thrown at us about feeding our families. I have been feeling this overwhelming sense of Not Enoughness since my babies were born and the breastfeeding vs. formula saga began.
Since I have left my company behind I have been more focused on my family and our homelife. It helps that my children are teenagers and now more easily able to contribute to this part of their lives. I feel really good about the changes that we have made in order to better feed ourselves.
Lasting change happens not with the social pressure to do so, to act a certain why or to be a certain way, but when we decide for ourselves that it is something we want to do. Taking all of the information and turning it around under a proverbial microscope and seeing what actually works for us was what we did.
The 12 best food related changes I made for our family:
1. Education.
This includes an elimination diet. Yes, I put my entire family through a 3 month elimination diet process. This created a great understanding about how what they put into their bodies makes them feel. They were able to draw their own conclusions about how things affect them — mood, bloat, poop, headaches, acne, etc.
This also included some basic education on food and food groups, portion control (always a big one for me — no eating right out of the bags/boxes, everything goes into a bowl, on a plate and what is an acceptable portion size).
We also watched a few food documentaries as a family, so that we were able to see what the world is showing us about food and how it is manufactured and marketed in our country.
2. Preparing our own food.
Whole Foods. Less processed foods overall. Very little packaged things. We don’t buy very much in the way of prepackaged foods. We make our own meals, and don’t use convenience foods very often. Our own chicken stock and broth, pickles and pickled peppers, our own BBQ sauce, spaghetti and tomato sauces, our own taco spices, our own tortillas, the list goes on. Sometimes this is more expensive than just buying a bottle of BBQ sauce, but honestly, making it from scratch without high fructose corn syrup is just a great feeling and it tastes awesome.
3. We eat meals together.
Lunch is the only thing we don’t usually eat together unless we are traveling or all home for a special day and we’ve made a specific meal. We don’t allow distractions, books or phones or tv or anything. Just focusing on our food and one another. This causes us to be more present and aware of how much we are eating and what we are putting into our bodies.
4. Meal Planning.
Since our schedule is very hectic this has become essential. This helps us to stay on track, it helps us not make rash decision on something that may be bad for us and this helps with food waste.
5. Weekly grocery shopping.
Versus once or twice a month. This is huge. We only buy what we need for the weekly meal plan. And we stay within a budget. We spend way less on food than ever before but we purchase mostly organic food which is actually more expensive.
6. No Extra storage space.
We got rid of our chest freezer and stopped using our second fridge. This is huge. We don’t have a place to store extra food. Only what we need for the week. So we don’t buy more than we actually need. Again, this helps our budget, and our decision making.
7. Include a green vegetable in every meal.
We really have a hard time making sure we get our daily dose of vegetables in. The only place we don’t really get a lot of vegetables in is for breakfast. With that being said, one of the daily egg orders usually contains vegetables.
8. Make breakfast every morning.
We run a short order stove top in our house. Everyone (with the exception of me -- we found during the elimination diet that eggs don’t work so well for me) gets a plate of eggs or some other healthy food that will fill them up for their busy morning.
9. Allow kids to eat junk food sometimes.
Or allow ourselves to eat some treats and snack type foods. We find that if we are always restricting foods that we will make bad decisions when we reach a breaking point. So I guess this would be an 80/20 rule.
10. Preparing food ahead of time.
We make it easy for our kids to make good decisions by providing easy healthy foods. We batch cut and prep snack veggies, fruits and other items that they can grab for their lunches and snacks. This way when we leave our kids to make some of their own decisions, we've taken away some of the hard work that would cause them to go for some easy junk food versus having to prepare the healthier food. Even with the education we've helped to provide, they have the tools to make a good choice but they won't always reach for the healthier snack if it means having to prepare it. Take away that step and they will go for the healthy food.
11. We try new things.
During the elimination diet we found that with the strict structure, we had to find a few new food sources that we hadn’t previously tried. We found new recipes and meat types that we’d never thought to try before. This opened our eyes to a lot of change.
12. We take our own food with us everywhere.
We pack our own lunches. We pack a 'snack pack' on all road trips, day trips, car rides and other events. If we are traveling we take our own food, or buy food when we arrive at our destination. This helps us stay in our lane, stay on track versus make too many decisions based on hunger or what is available to us.
In general with these changes there is less waste, less room for errors and lapse in judgement or argument about “what are we going to have for dinner?”. Everyone in the house is involved in these changes and everyone has a stake in it. Everyone is aware of what we have, what we are doing and what we expect.
I think we are happier, healthier and feel better about ourselves with these things in place. We definitely had some great results in making us more healthy, our minds clearer, our GI tracts running smoothly and knowing how to better fuel ourselves for our busy lifestyles.
We didn't do this overnight. So if you are reading this and thinking that it is too much to do, don't try to tackle all of this tomorrow. Tackle and try the things that seem interesting to you. Test it out, and see if it works for your family. One at a time if that is best for you. Some of it takes a few tries to get it just right. So that it is automatic and not something that is a chore.
Don't let it deter you from making change though. Even if you do just one of these suggestions you will be having great impact on your family's life.
Things that we use everyday:
