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I
t’s a new year,whichmeans the resolution
making process has begun. This year, I
want to cook more healthy meals for my
family. Julia Child once said, “You don’t have
to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces
— just good food from fresh ingredients.”
In order for my healthy home-cooking
resolution to work, I need everyone to want
to eat what I cook. My biggest obstacle will
be to get my boys (4 and almost 3) interested
in anything other than chicken nuggets and
French fries. For help, I decided to turn to
my good friend, Sam Presetenbach. She is
mom to two sweet little girls and expecting
her third baby in May. Sam has been in the
fitness industry for 13 years, and she and her
husband, Harold, own a private personal
training facility, Lift Training Studios, and a
Health Coaching practice. I figured if Sam
got her kids to like broccoli, she must know
what she’s doing.
Sam, I don’t want to putmy family on adiet.
Can you explain the difference between a
diet and a lifestyle?
A diet is a temporary fix, essentially a
bandaid to cover unhealthy habits that
have been instilled in us since birth. Losing
weight and eating healthier goes deeper
than the number on the scale. A
Lifestyle
solution means truly reconditioning your
palate and your mind to see that the things
we like today (though extremely tasty or
satisfying) will not be the things our future
selves at our ideal weight and health will
prefer. It also means becoming aware of
our imperfections and accepting that in the
balance of health, periodically there are also
unhealthy things.When we stop picturing a
healthy lifestyle as this pristine un-cracked
thing, it then becomes more obtainable for
us mere mortals.
I once heard someone say that they eat
their children’s leftovers, but it’s ok because
they don’t feed their children anything they
wouldn’t eat. How can parents get their
children to WANT to eat healthy foods
instead of junk all of the time?
Sometimes we don’t want to eat our
vegetables or fruit or drink our water. If we,
at our mature ages, with all of our wisdom,
don’t want to do what we know we need to
do, we need to have lots and lots of patience
with our little ones.
If we want our children to be healthy we
need to build a
Foundation
, and act as role
models for them to mimic. It’s not okay to
follow the maxim, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Most children learn by sight first, so when
parents actively model how to eat healthy,
even to eat unhealthy in moderation and
with the proper mindset and emotions, it
will become the norm for your kids. This
means not keeping overly tempting foods in
the house (things you wouldn’t want your
children to eat daily), if you can’t refrain
from eating it yourself. It means stocking
the fridge with fresh tasty snacks and being
prepared with Ziplocs so you can throw
nuts or other things in a to-go bag versus
running through a drive-thru.
Look, I know I don’t like to eat plain chicken
breast and steamed broccoli every week.
It’s honestly kind of boring. Be creative.
And don’t ask your children to eat Brussels
sprouts if they gagged on green beans.
Start slow and keep your expectations low.
Make it
Creative and Fun
. I used to sing
silly songs, act like the food was an animal
and make animal noises every time they ate
it. And, yes, I even had a vegetable dance I
would do every time they ate!
Rome wasn’t built in a night. If you haven’t
started your child on veggies right at
6-9 months and the first foods they knew
Chocolate Almond
Butter Date Balls
These are so easy kids can
do almost all of the work by
themselves. Adults should work
the food processor, though.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
10 dates, pitted and cut in half
½
cup almond butter
1
tablespoon cocoa
1
teaspoon cinnamon
½
cut coconut flakes, for coating
HOW TO PREP
Combine all ingredients in processor
and blend until thick dough forms.
Place dough on a cold surface, and
allow kids to roll into logs or balls,
and lightly toss in a mixture of cocoa
and coconut flakes.
were rice cereals, starch and crackers, have
Patience and Determination
, and just accept
you have a little work to do and a potentially
longer road. Or maybe you were like me
with my first and her first foods were
avocado and banana and all kinds of great
super foods, but then life got real hectic
and I succumbed to the quicker things. Her
taste buds got used to it and I had to do
some back tracking.
Listen, it’s work, but it’s so worth it! My
kids eat all kinds of veggies. In fact, most of
our meals are mostly veggies, healthy fats,
proteins and fruits and they’re used to it
being like that now. You would never know
that just a year and a half ago I was jumping
up and down like a mad woman every time
my kids ate a piece of broccoli! Now the kids
help me pick healthy recipes and even cook.
Shopfit • Eat fit
by
Mandy Rouse Martinolich
Mandy Rouse Martinolich and family
shop fit • eat fit