Planning

About six months ago, when we renewed our ties with the local gym, my husband and I also switched to a diet that cut down drastically on carbs.     With breakfast being a simple tea and sometimes an egg, and lunch to consist of a healthy choice at work, we really only had to figure out dinner.  Over the weeks, we experimented with various meal plans until we came up with a dinner routine that worked for us and that stayed true to our resolve to eat less carb heavy food.

We have fallen into a pattern of keeping to this diet on weekdays and somewhat indulging on the weekends (with one carb day and the other, being a 'mostly-eat-from-out' but relatively low carb).  Those changes have produced results and we both lost weight as expected.

However, recently we started to get a little concerned at the amount of sugar and processed food, our little ones consume.   Especially, the First Grader, who at six (running on 13) has free rein to all the kitchen cabinets and what’s stored within them.  At least the Toddler still has to ask for things although we are seeing strong opinions/tastes forming already.

For a while, I tried to convince myself that being extremely busy, working parents with very little time to spare was somewhat of an excuse.  But that excuse is starting to look increasingly flimsy.

So we casually tossed about the idea on a Sunday night and today, Monday morning, when I called him up at work to ask if he would be onboard with us converting to a 'no-processed' food diet, his exact words were, " That's exactly what I was going to suggest".  Imagine that !!  (On a side note, we don't often have these telepathic moments, so it feels almost magical.  Like it was meant to be…

What this means to us is that we will be eating only fresh food of all kinds or foods that have only been minimally processed (to that extent, I suppose it is a bit mis-leading to keep saying "no processed" foods at all).  For instance, organic, unsweetened applesauce bought at a store, is technically processed but as long as it is free of unwanted chemicals and additives, it will be accepted (for now, at least). 

I will be hitting up the local Whole Foods and Trader Joes, working out a meal plan, including breakfast, lunch and dinner for the kids and ourselves.  I will post daily and weekly mealplans, weekly shopping lists with prices and total food budget.

I found this wonderful website called 100 Days of Real Food.  And picked up quite a  bit.  As all the experts suggest, this can be really overwhelming, so we are going to take it step by step.  I signed up for the “10 days of real food” pledge at the above mentioned website and what it essentially is, is just signing up to do 10 days of real food only.

My apprehensions as we go in:

·         Will I find the time to make this work?  Kid’s breakfasts, lunches, mandatory school snacks, toddler snacks, dinners.  OMG. 

·         Will the First Grader have sugar-withdrawal?

·         Will the Toddler, who is rather petite to begin with, refuse to eat?

·         Will we adults be able to stick to it or will we cheat?

·         How expensive will all of this be.

Time should tell.