Do you find yourself always just “having a taste” of your children’s food as you prepare their lunches for school or their dinner (especially if they eat sooner than the rest of the family)? Do you find yourself finishing their dinner because it looks good and how could they not eat all of it?! Instead of being wasteful (you convince yourself), do you just eat the last couple bites before cleaning the plate and putting it in the dishwasher? How about popping just a few of the toddler puffs, cereal bars, yogurt melts, cookies and crackers during each snack time?
Even if you only have a few tastes, the calories and sugar really add up. This includes high glycemic fruit! One of the things we are trying to do to shape up for summer is remove the simple carbs and sugar from our bloodstream. So even if a few puffs or a handful of sweetened cereal don’t seem that bad, eating those simple carbs keep the cravings alive.
Do you realize how many calories and sugar you are getting from your children’s snacks and leftovers?
I’m very guilty of this (the descriptive paragraph above is WAY too detailed for me not to fess up). My weaknesses are the Gerber Arrowroot cookies and the cheddar potato puffs. So, I’ve actually designated one of the Count Me Healthy Laurel silver bracelets from the stack on my left arm to count daily “mindless bites” which can come from things like eating while watching TV, while standing up having a conversation, multi-tasking chores or eating bites of Camden’s food. I’m not saying you can’t snack, just don’t eat on auto-pilot. The goal is to not move any beads over, but if it’s 4-6 by the end of the day I’m still doing well. The bracelet acts as a gentle reminder to be mindful that all the extra bites add up. This is a hard one to change, especially since we as mothers never really have a chance to eat a real meal sitting down. It takes discipline, but it will pay off big time come swimsuit season. – CC
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