My love...obsession with food!

Food, it is my love, passion, okay...maybe my obsession. I love everything that has to do with food. I love buying it, prepping it to be frozen, cooking it, finding the best prices on it, sharing it, and most of all eating it!

I work out usually 5 days a week at boot camp here in Snohomish. I love it. They have some eating suggestions for you and also some different programs you can do to achieve different results you are looking for. So I am on a 10 day cleanse, I have done it before as part of the 24 day challenge but this time I am just doing the cleanse getting all of the toxins out. There are strict eating guidelines while on this cleanse. No refined sugars, no wheat, no dairy, no red meat, no corn. You can have fruit, veggies, lean proteins, hummus, oatmeal, brown rice, so healthy complex carbs, healthy fats, etc you get the point. Really this shouldn't be that hard for me right? I eat pretty healthy, I love fruits and veggies, I got this, no problem!

PROBLEM! I love food, I mean I am obsessed about it. From when I wake up until I go to bed I think about it. My morning starts by feeding my 5 girls breakfast and making 3 lunches to take to school because the food there, well it isn't food. The next thing I have to think of is what to make for dinner because if I don't we will go homeless eating out all of the time. Which by the way isn't a treat really anymore when you have to practically go into the kitchen of the restaurant to make sure nothing has food dye or gluten. Add in grocery shopping, planning meals, eating for myself and all I think about is food.

I have discovered in these last 5 days (the first half of the cleanse) which has felt like an eternity, just how much I am addicted to sugar! Seriously I knew I loved the stuff but wow I think about it more now that I can't have it for these short (well for some people) 10 days. I don't pig out on sugar but I do need to have it everyday. Dark Chocolate is my favorite and I just need a little. I feel like a drug addict rationalizing reasons why it is ok to have just a little fix. I haven't cheated and I am proud. I feel better and this isn't for forever (even though it seems like it right now) and soon I will be back in the land of sugar, I will regulate hopefully a little better. I do know that after not having sugar for 10 days everything will taste sweeter when I do have it.

So I have been eating tons of raw food. Which I love of course because I am obsessed in case you missed that earlier. It is amazing the creative things that you come up with to eat when some foods are off limits. I love hummus and usually have it with multi grain chips, but chips are a no-no right now, so I tried them with celery...too watery...carrots, AMAZING! So every day I have been eating anywhere from a half of a pound to a whole pound of carrots. See I told you I was obsessed! And the hummus is so flavorful you don't need that much at all.

I am also an over eater. I know it seems a little weird because I am "little" but really I overeat often. I texted one of my trainers from boot camp today to ask if sweet potatoes were okay to eat on the cleanse because you guessed it, I love them! She said "Yes but don't OD on them!" PL, you know me too well! I didn't OD though, I probably would have but my 9 year old who doesn't like any veggies really loves sweet potatoes and ate more than half the pan!

All of this to say that in my days of reflection I feel much better when my diet is 50% or more raw food, and this cleanse has reminded me of that. To keep up on the same eating when the cleanse is over and not forget how much I love raw food and how good it is for me, well that is the reason for this random blog tonight.

So I leave you with my 3 favorite cleanse approved foods that I couldn't survive without...
#1 Carrots with hummus, my favorite is Trader Joe's Mediterranean hummus.
#2 Granny Smith apples with Adam's All Natural chunky peanut butter
#3 Popcorn, cooked on your stove top, or "Lori Pelham Popcorn" as we farm folk affectionately call it.

If I could start all over again

I don't really live life with regrets. Not that I am perfect and have made no mistakes but I feel that the mistakes I have made have shaped me into the person I am today. And though I don't like to run around bragging about my mistakes I do like to at least learn something from them. So today I am dedicating this blog to what I would have done different with food and my kids had I known at the start what I know now.

Food wasn't an issue for me with my oldest, she was a sick, SICK child and so she barely ate. Lucky for me when she did eat she liked fruits and veggies and still does to this day. My second and third baby who were 21 months apart, I feed them the way I thought was right and healthy. Although this way isn't necessarily "bad" it lacked "health" for the most part. I bought into the "rice cereal at 4 months, baby food in stages" gimmick of the brand name baby food companies. I am not blaming here, I was a mom who was responsible for my children and I didn't do my research. My kids grew happy and right on target according to their pediatrician. Babies 4 and 5 however I had a different approach with. Lucy #4 only nursed until she was 9 months (not by my choice the kid refused food) and then went straight to table food. She was repulsed by the texture of baby food. When she did go to table food I fed her different than the first three. One of her first foods was avocado, she still loves it to this day. Bananas, grapes (quartered of course!) broccoli, carrots she ate them all. So when Jorja started eating at a much earlier age I finally made all of my baby food at home. It felt so good to know what she was getting and knowing it was healthy.

The other day I begged my two "big kids" to try avocado knowing that they would love it like the rest of us. They refused...I was sad. I love it and it was then that I thought to myself, if only I had given it to them at a young age they would more than likely love it now. So does that mean anything you feed your kids as infants they will love when they get older? No! But half the battle for me is getting them to try something new, so if they have had it before, even if they don't remember, it is less scary for them to try it now. So feeding my kids more fruits and vegetables at a younger age would be my #1 thing I would do if I could start all over again.

#2 Would be to not introduce cereal, or at least sugar cereal to them. I love food, and I love cereal. It is the biggest thing I miss about being dairy free. For some reason Alpha-bits (my favorite) just doesn't taste good with rice, hazelnut or coconut milk! Cereal has always been a staple in our house and it was a very acceptable form of breakfast everyday no matter the ingredients or sugar content. It was even dinner some days when I was too busy or just plain lazy. There are some "OK" cereals out there but for the most part they have no nutritional value to them. I would have been better off to introduce it as a treat or special occasion type thing. I am happy to say however that we rarely eat cereal anymore. "Rarely" based on what we used to. Maybe two times a week and only cereal that is low on the sugar side.

I have recently heard 2 things from friends that made it all click in my head and give me one of those "ah-ha" moments. One was from my friend Jana who said "We don't need to teach our kids to eat bad, that comes naturally, but we need to teach them to eat healthy". The light bulb came on and it made total sense. It is easy to eat bad, why do bad things come natural to us? That is a whole different topic but YES I need to teach my kids how to eat well, balanced, healthy meals, they will figure out the "bad for you but tastes good" stuff easy enough on their own. Which leads to the second thing my dear friend Leah has started doing with her kids. When they want something to eat that isn't so healthy but is a snack food, like pretzels for example. She has them look at the nutrition label and see what a serving is, say it is 30 pretzels, she has them count them out and only eat that many. So easy yet I have never thought of it. I know I need help with portions and healthy eating habits. So to teach them to not just sit down with the bag and eat because they can but to be aware of not only what they are eating but how much,

So I can't go back and start over, which is good, I am not sure I have the energy for that! But to start where I am and make little changes one at a time to help myself and my family to be a healthier version of ourselves one bite at a time!