WFMW - Food Challenges

I haven't done a WFWM in a while, when Shannon took that summer break, I got out of the habit but I'm back now and ready to start up again.

I've been reading a lot about nutrition in the last 6 months or so but have found myself getting overwhelmed. Plus, it isn't like there's a consensus on what is good nutritious food. One book might label something, like milk, a wonder food while another will say, unless it is raw you might as well be feeding your body poison. It's scary and leaves me wondering if I should just stop caring and eat mac and cheese from a box.

But obviously, that won't work so we have started setting food goals. Here are my guidelines:

• Set 1 goal at a time. It's hard because I want to make all these changes at once but if I stick with one goal until I am comfortable and confident with it, it will actually last. If I make a bunch of changes at one time, I get burnt out and go back to what I am comfortable with.
• Don't set a time limit. It isn't one goal a week. It is one goal until that is part of our routine. Sometimes that will only take a week or two, sometimes it will take longer. The one we just finished lasted over a month.
• Focus on ideas that aren't controversial. Yes, later I will have to make some decisions about who to believe but for now, there is lots I can do that almost everyone agrees on. That way I feel more confident and don't end up second guessing my decision.
  
• Take it as a personal challenge. It isn't something I have to do. I am an adult and since I make the dinners now, no one is forcing me to eat a certain way (just like me mom said so many times when I was younger). It is a choice that I am making and somethings might be harder, but I find that thinking of it as my food challenge puts my competitive spirit to work.

My first food challenge, although I didn't call it that, was to serve fish at least one meal a week. It was hard as I only knew how to make two meals with fish, tuna pasta salad and tuna noodle casserole, and neither is one I would want to eat more than once a month. And yes, we made some big messes and had a few disgusting dinners but we didn't starve and now it's second nature. My fish meal is one of my easiest and tastiest every week.

Other goals we have done:
-Eat beans at least 3 times a week. Again, this was a hard one as I didn't think I liked beans and I didn't know what to do with them. This blog helped a lot and after about 5 weeks, it wasn't that hard to come up with 3 meals with beans. I even managed to do it this week when, due to the hurricane, the stores were so bare that the only type of bean I could find was dry black beans.

- Cut out beverages. We now drink mostly water, sometimes milk.

- Have at least two servings of vegetables at dinner. This is our current goal. We do pretty well with the 5-a-day idea for fruits and vegetables, but that is mostly fruits. Hopefully in a few weeks, that will no longer be the case.