We were still in college when we got married. We shopped the cheapest grocery store, looked for deals, and ate like, well, college students. Frozen pizzas 2 for $1? Sounds great! Pasta Roni with chunks of ham and frozen peas thrown in was a completely balanced meal that was on repeat in my mind. Spencer did a lot of the “cooking” since his school load was lighter than mine was at the time. He also did the laundry, too, because it was in the creepiest shed behind our four-plex. Love that man.
Anyway . . .
I continued with low fat choices and even got upset when Spencer repeatedly brought Doritos and root beer home. Didn’t he know healthy eating was important? Our first big frustration stemmed around food.
“Why do you keep buying this stuff?!”
“You don’t have to eat it!”
“Stop saying that!! If it’s here, I’ll eat it!”
Have you ever felt like that? If it’s in the house, it calls my name. Literally, it calls my name every single time I walk by. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the pantry or high on top of the refrigerator. We laugh about it now. And we understand each other, and ourselves, better too.
(But, I still prefer junk foods out of my house so I don’t eat all the things. Understanding yourself is key to finding a healthy balance, not just for your diet, but for your life.)
Three years after we were married during my first pregnancy, I didn’t alter my diet much, and definitely indulged in cheese fries and a loaded ice cream sundae days before my daughter was born. I had stopped eating most vegetables because they sounded so awful, and frankly didn’t pay much attention to what I ate except continuing to avoid “junk food.”
After my daughter was born, I started thinking of how I could give her the best start. Between spending all my time with her, sleep training, reading, singing songs, and learning about first baby foods, I thought I had what was “best” all figured out.
I decided she would eat what we ate. I didn’t want to buy baby food. It was expensive and smelled nasty. I figured it wouldn’t taste that good anyway. I steamed and pureed every fruit and vegetable I could think of in the beginning and often added them to whole grain baby cereal.
I started learning how to cook. I watched cooking shows while I nursed and started trying new recipes. As my daughter got older, I pureed what we ate and gave it to her too. It was usually a hit, and most days, I felt like I was doing the food part of this whole mom thing alright.
I started to think more and more about the “best way” to eat, and the quest for the best started to take more of my time and consume my thoughts. I didn’t realize how much it was taking over at the time. Hindsight sure is 20/20.
Catch up on Part 1
