I ate my weight in salad and meat last week — and loved every minute of it.
For me, being half-way through any challenge marks a shift in mindset from survival to planning ahead. I hit a rough patch about midway through the week, but when I came out on the other side (despite a little nutritional stumble), I became even more resolved to start thinking ahead to after the challenge and how I want our nutrition, habits, and traditions as a family to evolve.
A little background on why this is so oddly important to me. I grew up in a big German family steeped in food and tradition, and it was something I took HUGE pride in as a child. I was always bragging about our food-filled family holidays, my aunties, and my cousins. It also made me feel really secure growing up — which as a small, quiet kid I really needed.
Because my extended family is now bigger, more distant, and hundreds of miles away, I feel like Neil and I have a blank slate to kind of forge our own traditions with Kaitlan, especially when it comes to food. And while we strive to eat clean and make our meals fast and efficient through the week, I definitely still want it to be fun and memorable for her. It feels like a daunting thing to approach, especially since she’s on the doorstep of solid meals already and the time to make some of these things habit and attempt new traditions is quickly approaching (maybe that’s just me though).
There isn’t some magical conclusion to this post wherein I figure it all out and have a bullet-point plan to share, just lots of thinking and dreaming at this point. Of weekend cast-iron pizza movie nights, and cookie jars with my mom’s peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe, but also plenty of garden veggies, homemade breadmaking and healthy meal prep on Sundays. I definitely envision a balance of health and fun, but most of all togetherness and enjoyment when it comes to our collective relationship with food.
Thankfully she’s also with my awesomely food-centric parents twice a week, so she’ll have double-duty on the good eats and traditions — and probably cookies.
For the moment though, I’m feeling really good mentally, and confident about how I look. I always wondered how eating similarly to how I did during my pregnancy would look on the “postpartum me,” and I’m definitely keeping it — it’s worth it.
We are currently in the last week, so next week will have some fun comparisons and concluding thoughts!
How do you balance your weekly eats to be both healthy and fun?
