A Nice Little Break

I took a break from stressing about food and my family.  It was a nice little break and I learned a few things. 

As we all know by now...I obsess and over-analyze everything.  As I plan and execute each meal for my kids I have a score board in my head.  Imagine an angel on one side and a devil on the other.  My brain tallies up the healthy foods verses processed junk and it keeps score.  It even keeps note of how many bites each child eats of each thing.  Instead of letting go and erasing the board after the game (meal) this score board is perpetual.  This score board torments me and then judges me as a parent.  Then I get mad and want to give up.

So what did I do the last few weeks?  I rebooted and unplugged the score board.  There was no score, nobody won.  We ate really healthy meals and we ate really bad meals.  And guess what?  Everyone is still just fine.  I'm still a good parent.  I may not have transformed my children into healthy little eaters but I am making small changes to their eating habits.  How do I  know I am making progress?  I looked in my pantry.  Prior to Paleo/Primal my pantry was full of rice packets, mac-n-cheese, beans, gold fish, multiple kinds of fruit snacks, granola bars, cookies, crackers, candy, bread, fruit in a can (sweetened), cereals, chips, and oatmeal.

Today, I can actually see what I have in my pantry.  There's lots of empty spots.  There are 2 bags of goldfish that are opened that have been in there at least a month.  I used to buy gold fish every week.  There's no more of the multiple flavors of rice packets.  Just some ol' plain white that has probably been there for year.  We eat fresh fruit instead of fruit snacks or fruit in a can.  There's no oatmeal or bread or cookies.  I threw out half a bag of molded hot dog buns yesterday.  You can still find cereal, one particular kind of granola bars that Tyler eats and chips in our pantry.  But instead of eight kinds of chips there are only three.  Our eating habits HAVE changed I just don't realize it at every meal. 

And I have also learned Tyler will eat beef steak, pork steak, and chicken.  He just needs someone to cook it for him!