Guilt Around Wasted 'Healthy' Food? How to FINALLY Get Motivated to Create Lifelong Habits
You start the weekend out with really good intentions. You meal plan, you make a grocery list, you get everything on your list….and then…you don’t do the work during the week and you find wilted lettuce, vegetables in the crisper drawer. Which you throw away.
How many times has this happened to you?
Today we’re going to talk about how to remedy this…with some key tips that I know you’re going to find helpful
Transcript of the Episode
Andrea Heyman 00:00 Hi friends, it's Andrea Heyman with another episode of Adventures In Feeding My Fam. I have a really fun episode today. But first, let me kind of paint the situation. So imagine you start the weekend out with really, really good intentions, you do your meal planning, you make a grocery list, you get everything on your list from the grocery store. And then you don't do the work during the week. And then at the end of the week, you find wilted lettuce and vegetables in the crisper drawer. Ah, which you end up throwing away. How many times has this happened to you? Yeah, me too. And I know it's happened to a lot of you because I hear this from so many of you. Today, we're going to talk about how to remedy this with some key tips that I know you're gonna find really, really helpful. A lot of you have also been coming to me with great questions about how to get started meal planning, saying things like Andrea, I don't even know where to get started. So we've been given so many messages, through the internet, through friends and family through written media, that it's really hard to sort through all that. And it can become difficult to decide what you really want from your food. Are you trying to lose weight? Are you trying to manage diabetes? What are you trying to do? And so it can become such a challenge to balance your nutrition, meet all your health goals, all while feeding your family and your kids healthy foods. It's really a lot to manage. If this is you, I can definitely help you get started. Hop on one of my free discovery calls. We can sort through all the various factors in your life, and map out a plan to help you make it easy. And more importantly, make the mealtime look like what you want it to look like. I'll put that link in the show notes. But you can find the discovery call link at adventures and feeding my fan comm backslash work with hyphen, mi
Adventures In Feeding My Fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman, and I've been a registered dietitian for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three so I understand the challenges in tumor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests, we'll discuss family food traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them. So if you guys have been listening to me for a while you know that I am a registered dietitian. And I actually specialize in weight management. However, I hate the diet and weight loss industry. Or I should say the typical weight loss and diet industry. Because the diet messages out there are so strong, and I don't like it. People come to me for weight loss advice and counseling. And they want some sort of gimmick. And then they kind of seem disappointed when I don't give them one. And that diet mentality is so ingrained in so many people, because they've tried various diets over the years, something might have worked for a little while. But you know, just never sticks. And I want people actually I'm going to insist that you all ditch that diet mentality. And I want you to shift toward just healthy sustainable eating habits and really solid balanced habits that you want. And believe it or not having that kind of a mentality can really help you in fact, meet your health and wellness goals. That's the pretty cool thing. And the reality is, is that As parents, we want our kids to have positive images of food. And if they see us kind of going through these diet plans and strict regimens, I guess we can say if they see us doing that, that's what they're going to learn. And that's probably the last thing you want to teach your kids. I've got five tips here to help you get motivated, but get you motivated in the right way. So tip number one, I want you to set realistic goals for success. This is the first step to maintaining those super healthy, realistic balanced eating habits that you want to establish in your home. One of the strongest predictors of long term shifts in eating habits, success lies in setting the right goal at the start. If you set a really lofty goal, like, I'm going to prepare five brand new recipes every week, and they're going to be very elaborate meals. That's a pretty lofty goal, and most likely you're setting yourself up to fail. Instead, if you're more realistic, you can say something like, I will prepare two new meals every week, that's much more doable. Or I'll pack three healthy lunches out of the five work days this week. And meeting those more realistic goals. If you kind of break it down into pieces can set you up for success, you can build on your momentum, and you gain some confidence in yourself. Okay, tip number two to maintain that motivation is to go slow. changing your habits is not easy. And it doesn't happen overnight. So make changes to your routine slow. And think about one change at a time that allows you to focus solely on that one goal that you've set, so that you can make it into a habit. And once it's a habit, you can add another goal that you want to build on so that you can feel the success build on the momentum and use that to continue to shift your habits. Tip number three, expect setbacks. Remember, no one's perfect, there's really no such thing as perfect. And I don't even like using that word when it relates to eating habits and behavior change. changing habits is hard. If it were easy, I literally would not have a job. So if you find yourself shifting back into your old routines, don't throw in the towel completely. All is not lost. Remember, it'll be easier to restart something that you've already kind of working toward, then from starting from scratch. So just don't use that mentality that, oh, I've ruined everything. And when you have some sort of a setback, you can restart and reach your goals still. Alright, tip number four, don't be a perfectionist. Like I said, there's really no such thing as perfect. In the world, like I don't even know what that means. But as it relates to your eating habits, your meal planning your meal prep for your family, there's no such thing as perfect. And all or nothing attitude is not only impossible, but it's pretty destructive to ourselves into our happiness really, like striving for what we think is perfect. Just doesn't ever leave anyone in a good place, right? So remember that life happens, even your best laid plans may not work out. That's okay. doesn't erase any effort that you've previously made. You can do things a little bit at a time, and you will get there. Okay, last tip for some motivation to meet your meal plan and meal prep goals. Use the buddy system. It's hard to make major lifestyle changes when you're kind of swimming upstream all by yourself. So finding other people with similar goals can greatly improve your odds of success. So when your willpower kind of flags or stalls, having some people to call on or to support, you can really help you meet your goals. So you can use this podcast as a regular motivator and I hope it acts as that for you. Or you can join in the Facebook group also called adventures and feeding my fam. And you'll find there a bunch of really helpful, supportive individuals that can keep you accountable. We're a friendly group there and we are happy to help you in like I said keep you accountable. So I hope these five tips are the keys to help Helping you get motivated to meet your meal prep meal planning goals, and let me know what you thought of it. So if you liked this episode, please subscribe and rate the show, leave a review and also share it with a friend so that we can all grow together all support one another in our goals because it is not easy to feed a family and it really is an adventure. If you want to find me You can find me on Instagram at adventures and feeding my fam or again in the Facebook group that I mentioned before adventures in feeding my fam make it super easy with the same name across the board. Alright, until next time, take care.