The 411 on Food

As I searched through my recipes (and my pantry!) to document the types of things I am eating now, I realized that my pointers about food aren't just about WHAT you eat. It is how you eat, how you think about eating and how you think about food. I know I've mentioned this before, but it is SO important!

PORTION CONTROL
My first eye opening experience was with portion sizes. Our household was so completely out of touch with appropriate portion sizes, it wasn't even funny. A serving of spaghetti in our house was an entire dinner plate heaped up with sauce and as much garlic toast as you could stuff into your face. Cereal was a huge overflowing bowl with a cup and a half (atleast!) of milk! Mashed potatoes was served in mountainous proportions!! Crazy. Many of us know that a lot of the time, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and many times, we are preparing servings based on what we FEEL we WANT to eat rather than an appropriate amount that our body can digest and use. Fitness Pal on my Android phone helped me to really get in touch with portion sizes. Instead of eating an entire ziploc sandwich bag stuffed with chips, I realize that a small handful, more like a little less than 1/2 of the ziploc, is more appropriate. Training your brain to recognize reasonable portions leads the rest of the body in a favorable direction!

FUEL VS FEEL
My husband and I still ask each other "what do you feel like for dinner"? The difference now, though, is that when he asks me that, I do a mental rundown of what I have eaten that day and determine what I think my body needs. For the first time in my life, I am looking in the fridge or the pantry for protein or carbohydrates or whatever else I know that my body needs to keep running well. In the morning, I concentrate on vitamins and protein to get my motor running and try to snack lightly throughout the day to keep it running. Some days I might concede that I FEEL like eating something, but my mind does a quick run down to make sure it is inline with the fuel my body needs at that time. Obviously, I am not a machine and sometimes I just want to eat something that FEELS good to eat... they don't call it comfort food for nothing! But the majority of the time, I am waging the FUEL VS FEEL battle to ensure I keep moving throughout the day.

PREP
I am slowly (and painfully) learning that the extent to which you prep, is a direct reflection on the extent to which you are successful. It is so important. Some (easy) things that you can do to make eating healthy easy during the hustle and bustle of life are:
1. Rinse fruit and portion out things like crackers, dry cereal, chips and popcorn into grab n go baggies
2. Have lots of prepared snack foods that you can grab like string cheese, yogurt, graham crackers, applesauce in single serving cups etc.. I LOVE the 100 calorie snack packs simply because I can just reach in and grab anything and know that it will be an awesome snack when I am hungry during the day.
3. For me, liquids are HUGE. If I don't think about what I am going to drink during the day, I end up with a huge pop sitting in front of me. I like my drinks to be really really (really) cold, so I try to make sure I have cold water in the fridge overnight for work the next day. I need one water bottle filled with ice for later in the day and one water bottle with my morning vitamin drink and lots and lots of ice.

Slowly but surely, even though I will never be a super healthy eater, I am finding ways to fuel my body with healthier food and it is becoming the rule rather than the exception!

Good luck, be encouraged, be determined and be healthy!!