It’s an exciting time! The holidays are over, and many of us are looking forward to starting fresh and becoming healthier!
Looking forward to chucking all of the processed foods in your house, eating three vegetables with every meal, transforming your refrigerator so that it only contains homemade condiments, keeping up with meal planning consistently, packing healthy lunches every day for your kids, making all of your own baked goods using only whole grains and unprocessed sugars, and never touching store bought candy again for the rest of your life? That’s awesome! These are all wonderful goals. Hoping to do it all by tomorrow? I love your ambition, but chill out with a piece of chocolate. That may not be reality.
As someone who is encouraging you to eat a healthy diet, let me be clear. When I say, “chill out with a piece of chocolate,” I totally mean, “relax while you munch a radish.” Obviously. But my point is that if you try to make too many good changes at once, setting 42 healthy living goals in an effort to completely transform your life overnight, you may become so overwhelmed that within two days you’ll decide that there’s no way you can keep up with this healthy, real food business. At the very least, you’ll likely freak out the people around you, giving them the impression that life as they know it and their loved one’s sanity (that would be yours) just got thrown out with the Fruitie Magrooties.
Let me remind you that every healthy change you make is a wonderful step in the right direction. Usually, taking one step at a time makes the transition from junk food to real food much more doable as opposed to making many drastic changes all at once. People who go from all to nothing (or nothing to all, as the case may be) are much more likely to get frustrated, become overwhelmed, and give up before they even really get started.
You didn’t learn to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide, reduce fractions, and master hyperbolic trigonometry all in the same day did you? Neither will you transform your kitchen and eating habits all in the same day. Or week. Or month.
Take small steps toward switching from processed food to real food. Begin to cut out the bad slowly, while introducing the good at a pace that is doable for you and your family. Why not make a list of healthy habits you’d like to begin, then prioritize them in order of importance to you? Or start with the easiest ones first. Once you get the hang of one, you can tackle another.
Before you know it, you’ll be a whiz at hyperbolic trigonometry. Or rather, you’ll be like me and have no idea what that even is. But by golly, you’ll be drinking plenty of water and eating much less sugar than you used to. And on it goes.
Fruitie Magrooties, it was nice knowing you. Healthy living, here we come!
What is one step you can start taking today that will be doable for you and your family as you work your way toward a healthier lifestyle?
One of my first steps was throwing out candy. We acquired lots of candy during the holidays! I emptied the candy jar into the trash can yesterday. Then tonight at church, someone gave our 5 boys a Christmas gift…a HUGE box of Mike and Ike’s! I mean huge!! The box is seriously the size of a monopoly box! I just laughed (to myself of course!). :)
What was that about needing God’s help?! ;)
A Monopoly box size? Wowza! Isn’t that just how it goes? Maybe your boys will eat a few, then ants will find their way into the box… :)
My first step is going thru your e-course, “The First Five Steps to a Real Food Kitchen”. I’ve started the first lesson and love it! I also love the video! Hope there are more!
Amy
Yay, hope the eCourse is a blessing to you!
Switching to real maple syrup and using real butter. I do not use a lot of prepared foods, but I do use Uncle Ben’s wild rice, so I will probably be looking into recipes for wild rice to replace that soon. I have always used a local dairy store for milk, eggs, etc. Their dairy is just south of the city, and I am so thankful to have one of their stores about half a mile from me.
Those are perfect first changes to make. That local dairy a half mile away from you? Awesome.
Hi Laura,
I am not sure, maybe I will stop buying cold cereal. I have been on the journey since 2010 when I first stumbled upon your site. I have switched to butter, olive oil, coconut oil, raw sugar and grass fed ground beef. Raw milk is 8.00 a gallon and other grass fed beef is 7-8 dollars a pound and up.I confess “I am lazy”. There, I said it. And, I am scared of blowing my budget on “real food” and not knowing what to make that my kids will eat. I have gotten very discouraged at their pickyness, to the point that dinner is something I DREAD and I have resorted to cold cereal for breakfast and to “whatever” for lunch. Snacks are Little Debbie’s and cookies with the occasional yogurt or fruit cup.
I am in between a rock and a hard place. I have a reasonable food budget (225.00 a week) but I guess I am afraid to take the plunge. My husband gives me liberty to spend it how I see fit but I always get petrified in the middle of a shopping trip that I am not going to be able to make this work. So I start grabbing the things I am familiar with i.e. Hamburger Helper. I know…ewww.
Another confession- I am a tee-totaler. I am a “All or Nothing” person.I feel guilty if I serve a meal knowing something in it is not a healthy ingredient such as white pasta instead of whole wheat.
I just don’t know what to do.
Man oh man do I understand the all or nothing stuff. That’s been me. I’m finally chilling (with a chunk of chocolate) so that I feel peace about compromises. Really, any good change is a good change, even if you’re still falling back on cold cereal sometimes. And don’t forget this: https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/the-reality-is-we-cant-do-this-without-gods-help-31-days-of-real-food-reality-day-1 :)
Thank you
It’s very hard for me to get any changes made. The family all have different allergies. Dairy,Egg yellow, Onion (even the smell of onion) and Gluten. I am trying to switch us all to a paleo/vegan + meat sort of diet but yeesh… Thats a lot of planning on a very small budget…. Think $200 for four ppl for a whole month. It’s very slow going especially when nobody likes anything new (^_^)
That’s super tough! You might check into allergy desensitization from a natural doctor. All of my family’s allergies have been easily eliminated this way. Here’s more info: http://www.naet.com/
“Chill out” is EXCELLENT advice! 10 years ago I started my eating healthy routine. I started making my changes on the 1st day each month and only ONE each month. Gave us time to adjust to the one change at a time. Goals are wonderful, but like everything else slow and steady…….your emails are wonderful. Some I do not totally agree but 98% I do. I am 68 yrs old and have been working for the last 5 yrs to rid my house of all chemicals, have a 1/4 acre of garden and 1/4 acre of fruit/berry orchard. So it is a life time commentment to keep going forward, one baby step after another..keep the great column going.
Carol
This is very encouraging to hear. Slow and steady!
My first step is reintroducing myself to my kitchen. {Kendra, kitchen; kitchen, Kendra. Wow, what’s that big box-looking thing in the middle of the room?}
It’s not quite that bad, but we need to break our scavenging-for-dinner habit.
Hahaha! Enjoy getting to know your kitchen again, and the big box thing. (Stove, perhaps?) :)
I want to work on making more bread from scratch and other bread items like tortillas. I can’t believe how much I can spend on these products each month. I do make them sometimes but keeping up with the demand seems so impossible. Maybe I will try one baking day a month and stock up the freezer. Thanks for your encouragement!
Good idea! I seem to go in phases on staying on top of this…and then not making bread for months. :)
Laura, I love this post. I have Crohns disease and require a low fiber diet. One of my “safe” foods was eggs, and over the past month eggs now make me violently ill. I eat mainly refined carbs. I realized that I go days in a row without a single vegetable or fruit.
I don’t want to live this way. I am overweight and my protein is low. I have resolved to simply make sure that every meal I eat includes a fruit or vegetable. Due to my low fiber diet, I will probably be eating a lot of canned pears, bananas, etc.
I also want to eat fish and chicken at least once a week.
This is a step that might seem ridiculous to most people, but considering my current diet, this is a HUGE improvement. Hopefully I can work my way up to better nutrition.