you are what you eat...

... or something like that, right? I've been putting off the making of this post because I have no pictures of my food. Major blogger fail right here, ha ha! But I suck at taking pictures of my food so you can just use your imagination, right? A few weeks ago I shared a bit about my fitness routine, so today I want to share how my eating habits of changed.
Before I got pregnant with Mia, I didn't really give a second thought to how I ate. As long as I had fruit or a veggie with each meal, I called it good! We ate out a lot (until we cut it back to once a week to save money), ate lots of processed foods, and I was scared of recipes with lots of ingredients. I also had this bad habit of eating past the point of being full. I would often walk (waddle, roll, you get the picture) away from a meal with a bloated belly and have a stomach ache the rest of the night from eating too much. But I worked out (minimally) so I didn't see that there was a problem!
Then I got pregnant and suddenly I was taking care of a microscopic human being and I had someone other than myself to care about. And I cared a lot! I had been pretty good about taking vitamins before, but even Eric made sure I hadn't forgotten before bed each night... he suddenly cared a lot more as well! Luckily for me, I never got morning sickness (my whole pregnancy, so lucky!) but I did have food aversions my first trimester. I didn't really want to eat but I knew I had to, so I had lots of fresh salads, fruits and veggies. I would snack on handfuls of almonds (hate those!) and smoothies. Our meals were pretty bland but they were healthy! Our meals got back to normal once I was past the food aversions phase, but we still ate way more fruits and veggies than before, and I switched things out (ie: white bread to whole wheat bread).
Once Mia was born I was even more conscious of what I ate since I was nursing her. Soda went out the door, I wasn't willing to risk the caffeine keeping Mia up at night! Now that I've been off soda, I actually get a stomach ache when I have more than a couple sips of it... that's obviously a good and bad thing ;) More and more fresh fruits/veggies were included in our diets and I started searching for healthier recipes and getting more "daring" in the kitchen. Sometime between Mia being born and now, I completely stopped buying bread (I only buy it for specific recipes, and make those rarely so it's a definite treat), chips, cereal, and treats, totally switched to brown rice or quinoa and I limited our pasta dishes to once a week. We still do white pasta because Eric hates wheat and compromise is important to us when it comes to food. I can force myself to eat something even if I don't totally love it, but if Eric's not on board I just can't. I'm trying to develop a good, healthy relationship with food in our home, and if Eric hates everything I make, he'll just go grab take out. Compromise. We eat left overs for lunch instead of sandwiches. I really do my best to avoid frozen or canned fruits/veggies (which isn't too hard) and keep my fridge stocked full of fresh produce. Each meal is free game and I hide as many veggies in them as possible! Mia is so used to seeing green and orange stuff in her food and she eats it with no problems... Eric on the other hand, he's still a work in progress :) I'm still working on making the switch to wheat flour, and it may never fully happen. But I'm slowly mixing wheat flour in the white flour to our pancake mixes, etc. I make most of our food from scratch (like 98% of it) and try to follow a lot of the clean eating/whole 30/paleo recipes. I'm not as extreme and can't 100% dive in to those "life styles" because I've got a husband and daughter who would need to be on board... so compromise it is :)
Basically I spend a whole lot more time in the kitchen than I ever used to. It is more work to eat healthier but it just seems completely natural to me now. It doesn't feel like any more work now that it's something I want and crave. Being smaller now (after having a baby!) and stronger than ever before in my life... it's proof that working out and eating right is what is best for me! I just feel good, you know? But that doesn't mean I don't like to indulge, I love it! So treats will never be banished from our home, I'll just tailor some of the treats to make 'em a little healthier ;) And by the time date night rolls around, we just plain deserve a good, hearty ice cream treat and you better believe I feel no guilt while eating it! Same with vacation treats! I refuse to feel guilt when it comes to food.

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Because life is short, do your best to be a better you, which in my opinion, includes indulging without the guilt :) Compromise is what works for us as long as we have the end goal of just. being. better!

P.S. Check out the giveaway on my Instagram for Snap Bibs! This is one all you momma's and future momma's want to win!