In the last six months, Husband and I have shifted our lifestyle to include six days of the week where we eat only complex carbs, and very few of them at that, and absolutely no sugar. One day a week, we allow ourselves to splurge, which usually ends in one or both of us feeling pretty sick, because chocolate is so hard to parcel out in small doses.
At the beginning of the year, however, we, like many of our friends and family and acquaintances, made it our goal to tighten up the healthy eating even more. Husband said he wasn’t going to allow sugar until he’d reached his ideal weight, which, honestly, will probably take the whole year. I decided to underachieve and just do a 30-day jump start.
However. That 30-day jump start only lasted seven days.
Let me tell you why.
This is actually a very unusual thing for me. I’m a pretty self-motivated person. I think the scientific term is “gritty.” When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I persevere, almost to a fault (as in, I will die trying to meet a commitment if I’ve agreed to it). But I could not do this. Why?
Because of my children.
When I was in college, about to marry Husband, I spent a whole year avoiding sugar. It was easy at the time. I just told myself I wasn’t going to eat sugar, and I didn’t. The only variable that has changed in those years, besides getting older, is children.
I recently finished a book about the power of habits, and in it was an example about how people who choose to make a habit of working out also choose to eat healthier. This has been studied by science, with MRIs of people’s brains to prove that habits are strong and mighty. The problem, as I see it, is that the adults whose brains were imaged were not specifically parents.
Parents have an almost impossible task before them if they want to suddenly change their diets in drastic ways. Let’s go over some of the challenges.
1. Kids have ravenous appetites.
Which means, if we’re trying to keep carbs off the table, the only thing that will fill our children’s belly in a way they deem satisfactory is carbs. Otherwise they’ll eat twelve turkey burgers and be hugging the toilet tonight. We’ve tried stuffing their faces with stalks of celery, two pounds of salad, fifteen carrots, but they are always still hungry.
2. Healthy meals are (usually) unattractive.
We drizzled some olive oil and artichoke hearts over some chicken the other night, tossed a bit of arugula on the side, and our kids complained like the sky was falling on top of them. We’ve eaten this meal before. For several years now. But my kids have an almost unconscious aversion to anything that looks weird. Most of the meals I cook look weird. I’m sorry. I’m not a Top Chef contestant, and, frankly, I wouldn’t want to be.
3. Parents don’t get to eat normal meals.
When we place dinner on the table, that’s only the beginning. There are a thousand other things that have to happen before we can actually sit down and eat, and by the time we do sit down, our meal is already cold, and the kids are asking for seconds. So we end up cramming asparagus into our mouth before someone gets down from the table without being excused and destroys the whole place in a matter of seconds.
4. There’s so little to look forward to in a day.
Why not look forward to chocolate? You’ve just conquered a day with children (or maybe just survived. Nothing wrong with that). Might as well reward yourself for it, right?
All humor aside, I did have to reevaluate why I was putting stricter parameters around my eating. I’ve always struggled with body image and confidence, and what it boiled down to, for me, was that I wanted to look good. That’s not a good enough reason. Life’s too short to deny yourself simple pleasures just because you want to reach an practically impossible ideal (I have had six kids, after all).
So I’m back to six days on, one day off. Which reminds me—today is my splurge day. Please excuse me while I go pop a few peanut butter cups and revel in the bliss that is chocolate.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this inside look at my life and how kids sabotage parents’ efforts to eat healthy. Every Friday, I publish a short blog on something personal that includes a valuable takeaway. For more of my essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
