I really appreciated that so many of you left comments sharing your thoughts, struggles, and insights as to why eating a healthy diet may be difficult for you or for others. I have experienced all of these same feelings and shucks, I still do sometimes.
I have definitely not “arrived” when it comes to this healthy eating journey we’re all on. My family does not eat a completely healthy diet at all times. There are many times that I compromise on what would be the best choice to feed my family. There are times I pull out cereal because I can’t make myself get out of bed in the morning to cook the breakfast I have planned. There are times when, while I totally know better than to buy the chips with hydrogenated oils in them, doggonnit, I want them anyway and I don’t care what’s in them, so there. (Which is why you should never dangle a Nacho Cheese flavored Dorito in front of me. I will eat it. I love those awful things.)
Doritos aside, there are many areas of healthy eating I haven’t mastered yet. And guess what? I don’t even know if I want to master them. How’s that for a bad attitude that sort of flies in the face of my “No More Excuses” intro post? I don’t love eating completely raw foods. Fermented foods, while they are great for digestion, aren’t my favorites. And soaking grains? I’m beginning to find that practice very annoying and am therefore becoming a bit rebellious about it. There, I said it.
I’ve run the gamut of emotion on this healthy eating journey I’ve been on for the past several years. The biggest feeling: Guilt. Now that’s a fun one.
Guilt when I don’t feed my family perfectly. Guilt when I don’t feel like cooking. Guilt when I know I could be doing better. Guilt when it feels like other moms are feeding their children a healthier diet than I’m feeding mine. Guilt when I read about what someone else is doing, but I just don’t feel like I want to go there yet.
Which is what leads me to the point of this post: Please do not let anything I share on my blog, and specifically in this new No More Excuses series, overwhelm, frustrate, annoy, or otherwise make you want to throw Doritos at me. (On second thought…) :)
I want to share my thoughts in the No More Excuses series to encourage you to consider how you might be able to feed your family a healthy diet and help you know that it is possible for you. But let’s also subtitle it the “No More Guilt” series, because we women have to stick together. We may all be in different places in our healthy eating journey, but we’re all on the same team. No comparisions allowed. No guilt. No pressure. Just encouragement and ideas, sharing and inspiring.
And maybe, the occasional Dorito. Someone stop me.