Friday, April 10, 2009

Keeping the Balance

When it comes to healthy living, I was beginning to think I was doing A-Okay. I have slowly and gradually begun to weed out unnecessary cleaning and beauty products that do more harm than good for me, and for the most part, eating healthfully has been one of my top priorities on our healthy regimen....until about 2 months ago. We moved. And with every busy, life-altering event that comes along, certain things do end up getting cast to the wayside. Where as before I was trying to buy things like fresh fruits and veggies and organic cereal, all of a sudden I was buying things like taco bell, Wendy's and Chinese food! Don't get me wrong...these are not bad in moderation, but we were having them about 3 or more times a week, with meals like Maruchan in-between. This went on for about a month of more, and where this kind of food is tasty to be sure, let me just say it doesn't leave you feeling the greatest. :P After we settled in and my kitchen was cleaned and put to good order, I once again fell in love with cooking! How fresh and fun it was to rediscover my cookbook collection (I have a library of cookbooks!) and to go about planning our meals out for the week. Matthew likes it when I do this...I think he just likes knowing there's gonna be food!

So, last week when I was planning our meals the thought occurred to me, "we're eating pretty well, but are we eating all the right things?" My cooking rediscovery hadn't been a bad one, but I was curious as to if we were eating a balanced diet. I did a little research online and my discovery was this: NO. We were doing well in the fruits and breads department, but the vegetable department was seriously lacking. So here I went again. Planning my menu that week took a little more thought than what appealed to our taste buds, but I'm really enjoying the new balanced diet approach. It's fun...and you know what? We both have a lot more energy than we did before. At least I do! A passage in Daniel comes to mind. :) I have included the chart below so you too can check out how you're doing and perhaps by me posting this, I will be kept accountable, too! Happy, healthy eating!


3 comments:

Mom said...

Well I must say that I feel pretty smug sitting here drinking my glass of BarleyMax ( chalk one up for the veggie category), BUT truth be told, I have also been sadly lacking in the healthy eating department. In fact, the good, the bad, and the ugly comes to mind as I think about our eating habits.

Thank you so much for the little jolt of reality and I now feel an increased enthusiasm for caring for my garden and sharing it with YOU!!

Lots of love, Sweet Gail,

Mom

Glenna said...

Gail, this was a great post! I have been thinking about how to eat more healthily and this was a good reminder! I sadly am not eating as many fruits and veggies as a I need to! With that being said, I am surely going to try harder to! Love you!

Grace said...

Thanks for the post, Gaily. It's always good to remember how we really should be eating. I found the new healthy eating pyramid which is a bit different than the original food guide pyramid. I copied and pasted the website here so that you could check it out! Thanks for the encouragement for eating healthy!

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/pyramid-full-story/index.html