Confession: I’ve gained about seven pounds this winter. Ahhhh, that feels better to admit.
Wait…no, it doesn’t.
I always gain a little weight between Halloween and the end of Winter. I enjoy the holiday eating, and I’m not as active during the cold season. I don’t mind a few pounds of gain, but seven is on the upper end of my comfort zone.
Hibernation season is over now, and it’s time to get back on track.
I’m choosing to start by restructuring my food, which is easy considering all of the junk we’ve been eating lately. Step one is getting all of the bad stuff out of the house. Since I don’t want to throw it all out, that means this week is eat all the food week. And OH we have a lot of it.
Once it’s all gone, we’re switching to a diet of real food. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, lean meats and limited grains. It’s not quite paleo, since we can’t give up dairy and beans, but limiting our grains should be easy. Aaron is gluten-free already, so his grains are already limited. The goal is to limit processed foods to less than 20% of our diet. Baby steps, folks.
And we’re slowly detoxing from diet soda. I have a hard time giving up my diet soda, but I know it’s for the best because of all of the chemical junk in soda. At the moment we’re not buying soda to keep in the house and only drinking it when we eat out. This has left me with some massive caffeine headaches, partially because our Keurig machine has decided it’s coffee brewing days are done. I broke down and ordered another one, but it won’t be here until the end of the week.
Eating better isn’t just about losing weight. My children also have fallen into some poor eating habits. Mira used to eat apple slices and bananas almost daily, but now she holds out and begs for processed snack crackers instead. (Cordy still eats apple slices all the time. She has a limited list of fruits she’ll eat, but at least she’ll eat some.) It’s up to us to set the right example to get them back on track, too. If there’s less junk food in the house, there’s less unhealthy options for meal and snack time for all of us.
Plus? It’s all about giving myself the best chance to live a long, long time. I lost all of the weight to begin with because I didn’t want to be unhealthy around my kids. Now that I’m a few years older, it’s not just about being unhealthy around them, it’s about living long enough to see grandchildren someday. (Which I want to be a LOOOOONG way off, just to be clear!)
I’m a lot smaller now, but my insides still aren’t so healthy. I’m lousy at full-life adjustments, so it’s about baby steps and making tune-ups to my habits, and now it’s time to tune-up my diet again.
What are your best eating natural tips? I’ll be stalking all of your Pinterest boards for easy recipes this week.
I’m working on this very same thing. I also asked this question on my blog a few days ago and got some great responses in the comments. You can find them here: http://www.stimeyland.com/2013/03/march-was-project-lazy/ if you are interested. Good luck!
The best thing that I do is leave out the good stuff, so it is the first thing I see when I am feeling peckish– that means fresh fruit in the basket, nut bowl full, string cheese in the front of the fridge, along with baby carrots and cut up celery. Dark chocolate squares available for a special treat (which I need every day, but it keeps me from the Snickers bars). I also try to eat a serving of veggies with every meal– not too hard at dinner, but when I have fallen off the eating healthy track, I don’t eat veggies at breakfast and lunch. Good luck!