One step at a time...

Clean Eating Magazine has an ad in their magazine that says  "Improve your life one meal at a time." And it can really be that simple. You don't have to revamp your entire way of eating in one day or week or even month to start improving your health! If you can, that's great. If you can't, do sweat it!

Take baby steps. When you start to exchange one healthier food for a not so healthy food, the change is so gradual that it doesn't shock you and your family. My method 7.5 years ago was to find one healthy recipe at a time or find a healthier way to cook chicken and if we liked it, that became a part of the next week's menus. That way a majority of your meals and snacks are still familiar and as you continue this the dishes or snacks that were new several weeks ago that you  have been regularly incorporating into your weekly meal plans, are now becoming familiar too!

I never wanted to cook something for myself and then something else for my family. That won't last! It's just too much work and eventually the majority wins out! So what I did as I tried these new recipes, I still made sure there were choices on the table so that food didn't become an issue. "You have to eat the chicken because we are going to eat healthy and if you don't like it you can go hungry..." Have you heard that before? :)  A safer way to change your family over to eating healthy with you, is to make gradual changes.

Initially, my changes were very small. I would make our favorite chicken casserole and buy lower fat cream of celery soup and use a little less cheese. No one knew I had changed it. Then with that same casserole I found a dry mix I could make myself to replace all of the cream soup (yeah...canned cream of anything soup..you really don't want to know..) and I put the cheese on top instead of mixing it in and I added more fresh veggies at the meal so there were more healthy choices. Later on I subbed in whole wheat spaghetti for the white and used chicken breast instead of whole chicken. Can you see how I gradually made our favorite casserole into a healthy casserole?

Eventually, I quit making casseroles and lasagna. And now 7.5 years later, my boys prefer...they actually prefer: grilled fish or grilled chicken breast with veggies on the side, spaghetti sauce with extra mushrooms and lean ground turkey, toast without butter... That last one really shocked me one day because I thought as a treat (because I would still love it) I would butter their toast.  One son said.."yuck..why did you butter the toast?"  He wanted dry toast.

Now before you think my boys walk around with nutritional halos on, they eat cookies, syrup on pancakes, candy and ice cream! They eat anything placed before them at our holiday family meals. But, when given the choice, they prefer and enjoy healthy food. And that's been my goal all these years that they learn how good food makes them feel and that ice cream and cake is fun, but not something for every day.

So I challenge you to find one thing this week to change. Try not buttering your toast this week. Switch to lowfat cream cheese and put just a skiff on your bagel instead of a slab. Put less sugar in your coffee. If you make cookies, put in a little whole wheat flour. Buy whole wheat spaghetti instead of white.

Just find one thing this week that you like and make that change in your diet. You don't have to have a perfect diet today to start getting healthier!

One step at a time. Aren't you worth it?

In this together,

Anne