So over Spring Break, we decided as a family that we would eat better. I have always eaten fairly healthy and from back in the days when I used to obsess over every single calorie, I can still pretty much tell you within 10% what calories of almost every single food.
I am thankful I am no longer in that stage of my life where the calories were my form of control in my life during college and on the path to adulthood.
My Noah has been complaining of stomach issues on and off for the last couple of months. Being 6, he still wasn't able to tell if it was muscle pain, tummy issues or something else. We have been worried about him and even took him to the doctor a couple of times. Nothing seemed to jump out. We even tried stopping all dairy for him for a while (only to find out he was drinking milk at school).
While we have always eaten a fairly healthy dinner, I decided that we needed to make sure that Noah was getting enough veggies and fruit and fiber consistently throughout the week. Noah is a social butterfly. He would rather chit chat and visit than eat. Often times, his lunch is half eaten but I think even his tummy issues were making him agreeable to try this.
We agreed that he would only eat Lunchables 1x a week and he could eat lunch at school 1x a week. All the other times, he had to eat all the veggies and fruits packed in his lunch.
It has been 12 intensive days of eating right; that isn't to say that we don't occasionally have fried chicken or french fries but we are choosing to eat better more often. If we go somewhere that has french fries, only 1 of the 4 of us can get them while the others choose veggies.
This week I have been in hunker down work mode and the last 3 nights I have tried to make something in which at least 40% of the meal is veggies - the challenge is getting everything on the dinner table by 5:30 pm:
(flounder, gnocchi in a light butter sauce and roaster brussel sprouts and carrots)
(roasted chicken breast, garlic cheese bread, brussel sprouts and corn)
( baked talapia, brussel sprouts and corn, pesto pasta and raw cucumbers)
I have found dinner time to be stressful for me when I am working. I only have a half hour to get everything prepared so the things that make it easier for me is using my oven. For each of these meals, 3 of the items were baked in the same oven - just taken in and out at different times. Then I only had 1 thing I had to manage on the stove - like the pasta or the corn or the gnocchi.
We used eat out a lot but taking the 45 minutes to prepare everything has my kids trying new foods (one likes gnocchi the other does not). And I know that they are eating a lot of veggies.
We even tried baking kale chips in the oven last week (kale, olive oil and salt):
And my little girl ate a whole tray of them - but my son didn't think they were that great.
But the best part is that my boy isn't complaining of stomach pains. That has been the best result of all the cooking and watching of what we eat. Even if we have cookies here or there, we round it out with some prunes or apples or grapes.
I also love that we used to eat out as a force of ease and habit. But now I find myself excited on the nights I do not have to cook and I am relishing those eat out nights more. We are limiting it to two nights a week and I jump for joy as those are days I don't have to load and start the dishwasher.
And I have to admit, all of this has brought my love of cooking back. And I am glad. But the best thing of all is no tummy aches for Noah. For that I would cook every meal for him if I had to.
