Nutrition

Ugh. I hate thinking about food.

Why does food take up so much head space? Why do humans have to eat so often, especially tiny humans? Why can't we just walk around with an IV and call it a day??

So this one is two-fold, just like the screen time issue. For myself.... right now I'm just eating whatever. Sometimes I make myself eggs for breakfast, sometimes I eat cereal or oatmeal or something else full of sugar. For lunch, fast food or kids snacks or a sandwich or sometimes healthy leftovers. For dinner, I often make a healthy dinner from real food because my husband is eating healthy right now which is awesome. But because I'm eating high carb food the rest of the day, a low carb dinner leaves me hungry an hour or two later and then I get something else to eat! So.... junk junk junk. And yes I'm tired and stressed and not sleeping well and have a lot going on. BUT. C'mon. Just do the dang thing.

"Food-like products" full of processed carbs cause brain fog, poor memory, inability to focus, feelings of stress, depression - heyyyyy all of my excuses are literally CAUSED BY MY BAD CHOICES. Well, the lack of sleep thing is caused by my 13 month old and she's definitely a good choice. But the rest is directly related to a terrible diet! There are other factors but if you're in a stressful phase of life, should you eat foods that make you stressed and unable to focus and depressed, or food that helps regulate your mood and gives you energy and clarity?

yeah.

For the kids... eek. Why is it so hard to get my kids to eat healthy food? Mostly, I feel like if my big guy doesn't eat the healthy meal I prepared he's going to staaaaarve and waist away into nothingness. Somehow. Basically when I really meditated on this, I found that I have some sort of irrational fear about him not eating enough. I think that's why I offer healthy food but also allow cereal bars (sugar), teddy grahams (sugar), cereal (sugar), gogurt tubes (a little better but still sugar), and a slew of refined carbs like goldfish and Ritz crackers. Are carbs evil, especially for little ones? No. But protein and fat and vitamins and minerals are super, super important. And that's my job. Literally. God gave me this kid and told me to take care of him.

SO. Primal all around. I choose primal for a few reasons. It's similar to paleo except it allows dairy, and I'm not afraid of giving the kids milk or using cream, cream cheese, etc for myself. Also, he recommends an 80/20 rule - in other words, even if you just eat awesome food 80% of the time, you're still going to be doing great. It's okay if it's not 100% of the time. So for me, I'm going to allow about one meal and one snack per week (I might be a little more flexible for the kids) that don't follow primal guidelines. That's way under 20% so I feel totally comfortable with that. The rest of the time... veggies! meat! veggies! oil! veggies! fruit! veggies! Oh and don't forget the veggies.

So my nutritional goals:

- For me, no more than one meal and one snack per week that isn't primal

- For the kids, no more than 20% that isn't primal

- For everyone, eat at the table! Every time!