An Unintentional Test: Old Eating Habits

When things started to get tough at home and work a few months ago, my usual steadfast resolve to make my own from scratch and eat healthy foods wavered. Then crashed. Then burned. Big time.

Queue lots of eating out, eating junk food, drinking soda. Every trip to the grocery store meant either donuts(if in the morning) or a candy bar(if in the evening). I'm definitely an emotional eater, no doubt about it. Even sitting here now- after the day from Hades- I can't help but wish I had a plain glazed donut for each hand.

That's bad.

Pretty much our diet reverted back to what I'd consider to be the average American's diet. McD's, chips, soda, candy bars, easy processed meals, etc. Here's what I noticed in my 8-ish week binge with the dark side:

1. It's expensive.

2. It tastes gross.

3. It only added to my overall feelings of, well, feeling yucky.

Some may be surprised at the first item. Generally our organic diet is equated with a more expensive grocery bill. And in some things, it can be. But I think the idea that processed food is less expensive than organic whole foods is very false. Organic processed food, well, ok that definitely is more expensive. Pre-pregnancy and general life disasters my organic grocery bill was around $50 a week. That's for a family of 4 and feeding some extra mouths during the week. Now it's more like $100. That's not counting eating out.

Number two surprised me. Not sure why! As with the last 3 pregnancies, as soon as we get knocked up it's like some sensor kicks on and I can taste or smell chemicals a mile away. Fake sugars, preservatives, etc. I'm like a human divining rod for fake food! There was a time I delighted in eating the chocolate off a Milky Way; I'd flatten the remaining caramel and nougat, roll it up and finish it off. So I grabbed a Milky Way one day to eat clandestinely on the way home. And you know what? It was gross. I couldn't even finish it.

Of course there was plenty else going on that would explain some of the yuck feelings. But there's no question eating poorly contributed in a negative way. I justified everything I ate via cravings or the *need* to gain weight for the pregnancy. Not smart, Stacy!

 So, what's a girl to do?

Start being smart, for one. This weekend I put time into making a pantry list of everything I already have. Then sat down and came up with a list of meal ideas based around the pantry list. Even busted out my Fix it and Freeze it book to choose a half-dozen freezer meal ideas I'll work on.

It's time to get back in the saddle and take care of myself. And the baby I'm growing. If you've fallen off the proverbial saddle, too, hop back in with me. And pass the organic broccoli, please!