Our battle begins early in the morning the first day of school on the shaky ground of school snacks.
At G's school, each child in the class brings snack for the entire class a few times a year.
I love the concept.
In theory.
In practice, it doesn't work for us ... mostly because I know too much and believe what I know so passionately that I can't erase it. At all.
While goldfish crackers and colorful yogurt tubes look innocent, I know these foods beyond the simple breakdowns of calories and macronutrients and ingredient labels. I know what vegetable oils heavy in omega-6s do to the heart muscle and yogurt loaded with processed sugars and dyes can do to the body at the cellular level as well as chemically.
And because I now know all of this {I mean, as well as I can know it without having a degree}, I simply cannot fathom allowing my little ones to eat these foods daily. Now, I'm not totally crazy; we normally follow an 80/20 rule where 80 percent of the time we eat whole foods dense in nutrients while 20 percent of the time we let kids be kids. Or adults be adults, as we would be the case for John and his affinity for cherry-flavored pops.
But every day? Well, I can't stomach it.
So neither will he, even to his dismay.
His deep irritation rises while I'm in the thick of cooking eggs on the stove.
He grunts and groans and huffs and sighs and elaborates a well orchestrated argument. Normally, my ears are all his, but to this particular oration, they may as well be deaf.
There are few things for which I will dig a thick stake into the ground and then sink my heels into the soil just as firmly.
The first is that God is good all of the time. No matter what.
The second is that John and I love each other and them relentlessly and whole heartedly.
The third is that food is more than calories and carbs {and the like} and taste; it's meant to connect us to the soil and each other, to nourish, heal, sustain.
And there's nothing about goldfish and graham crackers or the like that connect or nourish, heal or sustain. There's just not. And those foods have popped up often enough in past daily snack itineraries that even friends who are much less rigid have questioned why we are serving what we are serving in school and other child-centric settings.
Once he's said his peace, he stares at me and stomps one foot on the ground as if to put the exclamation mark on his action-pack deposition; I see the buddings of a lawyer emerge in the satisfied smirk on his face.
But what he doesn't know is that even the world's best orator attorney couldn't sway a jury against a passionately honest mother bear who knows what she knows with every fiber of her being.
I crouch down, and I give my closing statement, feet firmly planted in the soil I know to be truth, concluding that he will be choosing healthy snacks from our pantry, fridge or counter daily and bringing them to school for his snack every day,
and I round out my closing statement with the one truth I know best
-- the one that fuels my fire beyond any knowledge or research or biology or chemistry --
"because I love you."
With that the jury is sold.
And I can even see in the cross-examining attorney's eyes that he, too, has been won.
UPDATE: If you're reading this in the archives, you'll definitely want to read the update to this post because the cross-examining attorney ended up only being sold momentarily! We learned a really important lesson from this that I'd hate for anyone to have to go through.
Showing posts with label healthy living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy living. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Living Healthfully: August Eat Local Challenge {Week One}
A few months ago I began feeling like I needed a Ph.D. in biology, botany and chemistry to simply meal plan for my family.
There were so many varied and extensive and conflicting {and funded!} reports about what food is good and what food is bad and what food must certainly be harvested by the devil himself, that it's amazing any of us who are health conscious even eat anything at all besides, of course, kale and dandelion greens grown in our backyards.
As I thought about it and continued trekking on in our health journey, I stumbled across the Real Food Summit and happened an epiphany of sorts: just keep it simple.
And keeping it simple when it comes to food means eating
food that doesn't boast an ingredient list on the package because clearly it doesn't need a piece of paper declaring itself a pepper or a green bean.
food that doesn't come shrink-wrapped in plastic and bound up in a cardboard box.
food that can be traced right back down the street to the farm field or right out my backdoor and to my garden.
You know, in real simple terms, real food.
When I haphazardly stumbled upon Donielle's Eat Local Challenge, I knew that taking it would simply simplify meal planning, prep and so many of my swirling thoughts about food.
After all, if I didn't have the Internet telling me what to eat and not to eat and what's secretly terrible and secretly wonderful and secretly wonderfully terrible or grocery stores selling me every kind of food possible, I'd be doing what everyone for thousands and thousands of years has been doing when it comes to dining; I'd been eating locally and not even giving this food stuff a second thought.
We don't need a PhD to figure out how to best feed our families; we just need to remember a little bit of our high school history lessons and be reminded of how we've always fed our families: with locally and seasonally available foods.
I live in the real world, though.
I do.
And in my real world there are grocery stores. And there are restaurants. And, in my real world of suburbia Illinois there are avocados and bananas, neither of which were grown locally but both of which are huge staples and hugely adored in my house.
Also, I live in the real world of going to Target to buy toilet paper and passing those bananas and avocados while two little monkeys oooh and ahhh for them. And because bananas and avocados have nutritional value, I'm not willing to wage a war about not buying them simply because they are not locally grown.
So I decided that for the Eat Local challenge to work in my family, it had to follow the 80/20 rule by which we normally abide when it comes to eating endeavors. {Yes, children, you can have that icky terrible rice krispie treat at that birthday party, but darlings, it's best we eat this burger, these green beans and this zucchini for dinner instead of the box of Star Wars Hamburger Helper that's calling your name on aisle five. {WHY did I go down aisle five?! Short cut to the bathroom not worth it!}}
I digress.
So we're focusing on eating about 80 percent of our food from locally grown farms -- within about a 150 mile radius from our house here in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The rest -- the avocados, the bananas and all the foods that have traditionally been imported like spices and citrus -- fall under the 20 percent. Anything pre-existing in the pantry or freezer is also fair game. We're also supplementing with locally grown fruits we've frozen from earlier harvests and the tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers from our garden.
Week one began August 1 with a trip to the Grayslake Farmer's Market, which featured an amazing array of farmers and produce.
Here's the bounty:
*one pint of Michigan cherries
*two pounds of green beans
*three organically grown ears of sweet corn
*two pounds of pastured ground beef
*two dozen pastured eggs
*three pounds of ground pork raised in the great outdoors of McHenry County
*two zucchini
*one yellow squash
*six Michigan peaches
*one pound of kale
And all this {cherry-thieving toddler excluded} for $56.50, which is way less than what I used to pay in the grocery store.
So far, my family has happily obliged and delighted over the foods on which we've been feasting. Fresh kale sauteed in pastured butter with homemade ground pork breakfast sausage and fresh cherries for breakfast was a huge win!
Probably this week, we'll have to hit a few different area farmer's markets to keep up with food demands, but it's not really been too terribly difficult to eat mostly local.
And it's been a lot easier than going back to school for a few extra degrees.
It's early in August still! Want to join us for the rest of the month? Perhaps start where you can and build from that point each week? What better way to eat healthfully and deliciously than eating locally during our peak growing season here in North America?
Want to see what we're eating? Follow along on Instagram!
Want locally inspired recipes, be sure to connect via Pinterest and Facebook!
There were so many varied and extensive and conflicting {and funded!} reports about what food is good and what food is bad and what food must certainly be harvested by the devil himself, that it's amazing any of us who are health conscious even eat anything at all besides, of course, kale and dandelion greens grown in our backyards.
As I thought about it and continued trekking on in our health journey, I stumbled across the Real Food Summit and happened an epiphany of sorts: just keep it simple.
And keeping it simple when it comes to food means eating
food that doesn't boast an ingredient list on the package because clearly it doesn't need a piece of paper declaring itself a pepper or a green bean.
food that doesn't come shrink-wrapped in plastic and bound up in a cardboard box.
food that can be traced right back down the street to the farm field or right out my backdoor and to my garden.
You know, in real simple terms, real food.
When I haphazardly stumbled upon Donielle's Eat Local Challenge, I knew that taking it would simply simplify meal planning, prep and so many of my swirling thoughts about food.
After all, if I didn't have the Internet telling me what to eat and not to eat and what's secretly terrible and secretly wonderful and secretly wonderfully terrible or grocery stores selling me every kind of food possible, I'd be doing what everyone for thousands and thousands of years has been doing when it comes to dining; I'd been eating locally and not even giving this food stuff a second thought.
We don't need a PhD to figure out how to best feed our families; we just need to remember a little bit of our high school history lessons and be reminded of how we've always fed our families: with locally and seasonally available foods.
I live in the real world, though.
I do.
And in my real world there are grocery stores. And there are restaurants. And, in my real world of suburbia Illinois there are avocados and bananas, neither of which were grown locally but both of which are huge staples and hugely adored in my house.
Also, I live in the real world of going to Target to buy toilet paper and passing those bananas and avocados while two little monkeys oooh and ahhh for them. And because bananas and avocados have nutritional value, I'm not willing to wage a war about not buying them simply because they are not locally grown.
So I decided that for the Eat Local challenge to work in my family, it had to follow the 80/20 rule by which we normally abide when it comes to eating endeavors. {Yes, children, you can have that icky terrible rice krispie treat at that birthday party, but darlings, it's best we eat this burger, these green beans and this zucchini for dinner instead of the box of Star Wars Hamburger Helper that's calling your name on aisle five. {WHY did I go down aisle five?! Short cut to the bathroom not worth it!}}
I digress.
So we're focusing on eating about 80 percent of our food from locally grown farms -- within about a 150 mile radius from our house here in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The rest -- the avocados, the bananas and all the foods that have traditionally been imported like spices and citrus -- fall under the 20 percent. Anything pre-existing in the pantry or freezer is also fair game. We're also supplementing with locally grown fruits we've frozen from earlier harvests and the tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers from our garden.
Week one began August 1 with a trip to the Grayslake Farmer's Market, which featured an amazing array of farmers and produce.
Here's the bounty:
*one pint of Michigan cherries
*two pounds of green beans
*three organically grown ears of sweet corn
*two pounds of pastured ground beef
*two dozen pastured eggs
*three pounds of ground pork raised in the great outdoors of McHenry County
*two zucchini
*one yellow squash
*six Michigan peaches
*one pound of kale
And all this {cherry-thieving toddler excluded} for $56.50, which is way less than what I used to pay in the grocery store.
So far, my family has happily obliged and delighted over the foods on which we've been feasting. Fresh kale sauteed in pastured butter with homemade ground pork breakfast sausage and fresh cherries for breakfast was a huge win!
Probably this week, we'll have to hit a few different area farmer's markets to keep up with food demands, but it's not really been too terribly difficult to eat mostly local.
And it's been a lot easier than going back to school for a few extra degrees.
It's early in August still! Want to join us for the rest of the month? Perhaps start where you can and build from that point each week? What better way to eat healthfully and deliciously than eating locally during our peak growing season here in North America?
Want to see what we're eating? Follow along on Instagram!
Want locally inspired recipes, be sure to connect via Pinterest and Facebook!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Share the Love: The Dailey Method {1/3}
Blame it on two babies in two years, unfortunate genetics or having spent most of my life overweight and under-toned.
Whatever the reason, I've come to accept that my core needs some serious work.
Though several health professionals have nicely relayed for quite some time that I've needed to engage in some serious core strengthening to target those minor muscles in the core and back that don't get much attention, I continued to live in denial.
I mean, I own a Curves for goodness sake, and I work out there. Certainly, I have strong muscles, I'd rationalized.
But the neck pain, the lower back pain and my posture were saying -- sometimes screaming -- something else --mostly they were echoing what my health-care professionals knew: indeed, I do have strong muscles in my body; some just aren't nearly as strong as the ones that were getting serious work four days per week at my club.
Nonetheless when recommendations of pilates and yoga were given, I scoffed. Both sounded unappealing and boring. I mean, I thrive on movement during my workouts and all I'd seen from either of those were small, quiet poses.
Of course, these new muscle memories were hard-fought victories; I silently cried through some of the poses we held as the class instructors rallied us to pull certain muscles even tighter and then add small pulses to the pose. That said, The Dailey Method workouts are quite challenging and require some serious mind-over-matter committment. One woman in my class who has been taking TDM classes since January said it really well: Once you think you've got it down and it's going to be easy, it gets harder again because you know what it means to really engage the muscles and pull them even tighter.
Stay tuned for the second of three updates next Tuesday.
Whatever the reason, I've come to accept that my core needs some serious work.
Though several health professionals have nicely relayed for quite some time that I've needed to engage in some serious core strengthening to target those minor muscles in the core and back that don't get much attention, I continued to live in denial.
I mean, I own a Curves for goodness sake, and I work out there. Certainly, I have strong muscles, I'd rationalized.
But the neck pain, the lower back pain and my posture were saying -- sometimes screaming -- something else --mostly they were echoing what my health-care professionals knew: indeed, I do have strong muscles in my body; some just aren't nearly as strong as the ones that were getting serious work four days per week at my club.
Nonetheless when recommendations of pilates and yoga were given, I scoffed. Both sounded unappealing and boring. I mean, I thrive on movement during my workouts and all I'd seen from either of those were small, quiet poses.
Call it an answered prayer I didn't know I'd uttered, but an opportunity landed on my doorstep in serendipitous timing when the words core work kept getting dropped in closer intervals: a 30-day unlimited membership to The Dailey Method of Lake Forest, featuring classes that specifically aim to improve core strength, posture and flexibility as well as promote long, lean muscles through a combination of barre ballet, yoga and pilates was offered in exchange for writing about my experiences.
Like any one contemplating adding {more} exercise to the week, I spent about 20 minutes making excuses. I debated internally about committing for several reasons, the first being that we own a Curves. Wouldn't this essentially be cheating on my beloved? But John and I discussed and I knew I really needed to supplement specific additional exercise to gain the core strength I so desperately needed, so I jumped.
And I'm so glad I did.
After my first week of classes at The Dailey Method, I know I made the right decision for my body.
I spent the majority of the first class trying to keep up with the instruction and get a hold on these foreign-to-me fluid movements and poses.
After my second and third classes, I knew better how to engage, and I felt sore in muscles I didn't know I had, thus further proving that, oh, yes, they do exist and oh, yes, they do need to be strengthened.
The day after I completed my fourth class, my body began craving these new-to-me movements. Thanks to one instructor, Emily, who took the time to reposition me myriad times during that class, I finally feel like I'm really learning the intricacies of the deep poses and what engagement of some of these small muscles actually feels like.
Five hour-long classes later, I feel balanced and lean and energized. My posture has noticeably improved as my muscles are already holding onto the new memory of positions acquired while engaging in the poses and movements during the classes.
The day after I completed my fourth class, my body began craving these new-to-me movements. Thanks to one instructor, Emily, who took the time to reposition me myriad times during that class, I finally feel like I'm really learning the intricacies of the deep poses and what engagement of some of these small muscles actually feels like.
Five hour-long classes later, I feel balanced and lean and energized. My posture has noticeably improved as my muscles are already holding onto the new memory of positions acquired while engaging in the poses and movements during the classes.
Of course, these new muscle memories were hard-fought victories; I silently cried through some of the poses we held as the class instructors rallied us to pull certain muscles even tighter and then add small pulses to the pose. That said, The Dailey Method workouts are quite challenging and require some serious mind-over-matter committment. One woman in my class who has been taking TDM classes since January said it really well: Once you think you've got it down and it's going to be easy, it gets harder again because you know what it means to really engage the muscles and pull them even tighter.
During the next few weeks, I'm excited to experience that for myself and discover whether working these sneakily hidden muscles and stretching them diliberately and thoroughly significantly decreases my neck and lower-back pain while improving my posture.
Though I'm tackling these classes to gain core strength rather than lose weight {my doc advised I let my weight stabilize after such rapid loss from last summer's Curves Complete challenge followed by more drastic loss while healing my GI issues this year}, I decided anyway to post pictures simply to show whether posture improvement and core strengthening can be measured visually instead of only by feeling.
{Note that I'm doing The Dailey Method classes in addition to my regular Curves workouts.}
{Note that I'm doing The Dailey Method classes in addition to my regular Curves workouts.}
So here's week one, two classes in:
Stay tuned for the second of three updates next Tuesday.
The Dailey Method of Lake Forest has generously gifted me with unlimited classes for 30 days in exchange for writing about my experiences. All opinions are my own, and I take seriously the responsibility to share my true experiences and feelings.
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