Happy National Nutrition Month®! As a Registered Dietitian, I enjoy this month as just a way to bring back attention to what a healthy lifestyle means and maybe dig into some health related topics that I've been curious about. While a healthy lifestyle is not confined to just one month, this can be YOUR month to focus on something healthy that is important to you. Also, being March, it's possible some of those New Years resolutions have already fallen by the wayside for many, but no worries, as the saying goes, there is no better time than now.
Many resolutions begin with good intentions, but as another saying goes, the path to Hell is paved with good intentions. Which, given the statistical rate of those giving up on health related resolutions by February, many probably did feel those good intentions were actually a form of Hell themselves in the form of a fad diet in which they could only eat garlic, or some nonsense like that. While I won't get on my soapbox about fad diets in this post (I'm saving that for later), I would like to leave you with some encouraging thoughts in case you need to start your resolution over:
1. We do not live in an all or nothing world. Just because we want to create healthy habits in our lives, does not mean we suddenly have to eat kale at every meal. We will still like the food we like and chances are, we will see those foods in our world still. So change your mindset. It's a balance that starts with small steps leading towards a foundation of healthy nutrition that contains a variety of foods. Sometimes kale, sometimes cake.
2. As long as we are changing our mindset, we also need to decide that "good" vs. "bad" food creates a fork on our good intention path and both paths end in the fiery pit of guilt and/or deprivation. Let's decide that ALL food may or may not end up in our mouths at some point, some is more nutritious, some is less nutritious, but we will make CHOICES and own those choices based on our goals for ourselves to create a healthy balance in our lives.
3. The third and final thought, balance is ALL OF IT. It includes our eating habits, our playing habits, our working habits, and our overall lifestyle habits. While this balance means many things to many people, I truly believe that ENJOYING food is part of this and as Hippocrates once said "Let food be thy medicine..." and maybe the medicine goes down with just a teaspoon of sugar, not a whole spoonful.
So thank you again for reading and I hope you return, but as always if you can't wait for more, check out our Playing with Food Podcast (for kids, but parents are there too). Click here to listen or search your favorite podcast platform for Playing With Food-Eat. Play Balance. Kid friendly gamer talk with a healthy twist. We'll talk again soon!
For more information on National Nutrition Month® go to www.eatright.org
Image provided by Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.