The "Reset" Button

Everywhere you turn, there's information on how to be healthier in 2014.  January is like that. 

There's lots of hype & vigilance at the start, but by the time the end of January rolls around, the majority of folks "give up" on their resolutions.  We start.  We stop.  And often think, "Screw it, I'll never get this." 

What if... instead of "start" and "stop", we tried the "reset" button.  That is, view the slip-up as a wake-up call, identifying what went wrong and then adapting accordingly.  This requires self-compassion (being kind to ourselves).  We don't need to beat ourselves up over an error.  It's simply a slip-up, and we can make the mistake work for us rather than defeat us.

As my year-long Eating Well Project comes to a close, I'm glancing through the rear view mirror at how I did with making the changes I set out to make: 

-- Do we have more whole foods and less junk food in our home? 

            This is sort of like a dance- striving for a balance between leading the way towards a steady diet of whole foods, yet following in step with the occasional desire for a sprinkling of less healthy items. There's no doubt we've come a long way from the processed foods that I succumbed to buying in the earlier child-rearing years.

           

-- Are we eating more fruits & vegetables?

            We hit an all-time high of eating F&V when we were individually tracking our intake against a goal.  We've discovered that roasting veggies is one of the easiest & tastiest ways to prepare them.  As for veggies in the lunches, David actually filled a snack baggy of raw red bell pepper slices, mini carrots, and green beans to include in his lunch on his own initiative.  Alleluia- my perseverance with including a variety of veggies in the packed lunches is paying off.  After coming home from a sleepover void of healthy food the other day, Jen actually went to the fridge and made herself a salad.  They're learning how to get & keep themselves on center with eating F&V.

-- Do we kick-start the day with a nourishing breakfast?

            Generally yes.   It helped to hyper-focus on it by using the Breakfast Maker tool (see April blog).

-- Is there more variety in our lunches?

            The saving grace is making enough at dinner to provide leftovers for lunch.

-- Are the kids developing some cooking skills?

            Scheduling monthly Monday kid cook nights during the summer gave them the skills & confidence to cook a few meals.  I posed the question to David today, "If mom & dad were gone for a week, would you be able to cook dinners for yourself?"  He listed the meals he could make- spaghetti, taco's, Colorado Calzone, BLT sandwiches, hoagie melts, egg burrito's, and bratwursts.  Not bad for a 14 year old.

-- Am I more easily able to "wing it" using wholesome ingredients with dinner prep rather than be a slave to a recipe?

            I've definitely made progress here.  A busy Nov & Dec with a lot of travel, Kristen's flight graduation & wedding- made it necessary for me to take a more flexible approach to creating dinners with ingredients on hand rather than a planned menu using recipes.

Although far from perfect (however you define that) in all areas,  we are better off today than when I began the Eating Well Project last February.  The "reset" button has been pressed many a time.  It's something that is necessary to do over & over again as we refine our habits and lifestyle in order to be, do, and feel our best.  To use a sailing analogy, we're continually adjusting the sails to the changes in the wind in order to move forward on our journey.

Small, do-able steps taken one day at a time, lends for lasting behavior.