Deciding to eat a healthy diet is a great goal- but what exactly is a healthy diet?
There are so many different healthy "diets," that sometimes it can become overwhelming. Sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in someone else's definition of "healthy," and then when it doesn't work, the temptation is to give up on healthy eating altogether because it just wasn't working for you or your family.
In this blog, I share what I've learned and what I've come to believe, but what I believe changes over time as I learn more and as my own needs and those of my family change.
In order to teach your family to be "good eaters," you need to decide what "good eating" looks like FOR YOU.
Some families may adopt a low fat diet or a low carb diet. Some families may define "healthy" as vegetarian or vegan. Others are choosing Paleo diets, whole food diets, gluten free diets, or low glycemic diets.
Your challenge is to take a few minutes to sit down and write out what healthy means to you, right now. Then write down some ideas that you'd like to look into further.
For example, right now, healthy for my family means eating as much "real food" as possible (not processed and as close to it's natural form as I can get). We do eat meat, all kinds without exclusion. We eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. I don't worry about counting calories or fat grams. I try to keep sugar intake at a minimum and I avoid high fructose corn syrup.
Based on things that I have been reading and documentaries that I have watched, I would like to explore increasing our intake of fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts (as well as increasing the proportions of these that are raw) and *trying* to decrease our intake of animal proteins. I cannot imagine becoming a full fledged vegetarian or a raw foods advocate, but I would like to look into these ideas further and I think it would be beneficial if I could implement some of the ideas and foods that are a part of these diets, even if only to a small degree.
This is where I AM at this point in my life. This has changed over the past few months and over the past month in particular. This is not what I think that anyone else should believe. That's the whole point. You need to define what healthy will mean for you.
You need to know where you are and what you believe so that you can then use that as a guide for what you feed your family and what you teach your children.
You also need to know what you believe so that you don't get caught up in a diet or trend that you think you should but that just doesn't work for you.
Define what you believe, determine what you'd like to know more about or what you would like to be open to, and allow for change over time.
As of right now, what is your definition of healthy eating?
Great post! So many of us get hung up on "this is what I think, therefore, this is what everybody should do". We're all at different points in our lives. Let's give each other grace.
ReplyDeleteI know for me, I probably don't eat as healthily as I should, but I'm at a point where I don't feel like I can add any more to my work load -even if it's just a mental workload.
Again, thanks for this article. :)
I'm glad that you appreciated the post. I've watched a few documentaries lately that have gotten me thinking, but then I realized the pressure it was putting on me... the kind of eating they were promoting may or may not be best, but I know that I'm not ready yet. I know that this is the case for many people with regard to a variety of healthy eating issues. I think that some people don't eat healthy diets because they feel that they can't live up to someone else's standards and so they don't even try. It's good to realize what you are and what you can handle. I totally understand the "mental workload!!"
DeleteI love this post! It's so easy to get caught up in the many different "right" ways to eat, but what's really important is that you're doing the best you can, and if you can take further steps great. This is something I've thought about so much lately. I really appreciate you putting it in writing. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's something that I'm struggling with so much myself. We all want to do what's best for our kids and for our own health but sometimes it's hard to know what that is... and sometimes it just feels too hard. I think that we can all strive to do our best at the moment and to make the changes that we know in our hearts that we need to make.
DeleteSo true! If you listen to all the "Don'ts" out there, you end up with nothing left to eat! A lot of people are cutting out things unnecessarily these days just because it's trendy. (Like you don't have to eat gluten-free if you don't have a gluten allergy!) It's way too overwhelming. I like your take on this.
ReplyDeleteThanks Carissa! My husband and I (but only one of the kids) have recently cut out wheat (mostly) but I hate even saying "Gluten-Free," because it seems like I'm just jumping on the bandwagon :) We are doing it, though, because it is what works for us… But yes, if you listen to all of the "don'ts" there's nothing left. When I wrote this post, I had just watched way too many food documentaries on Netflix and was feeling like everything was "bad," I had to back off from that and refocus on listening to my body and watching my family and how food affected them.
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