I’m Baaaaaaaack!

Welcome back – to you, reader, and to me. The absence has been long and so full of change and craziness. My life changes include a journey from being a bachelorette and part-time RD living in a travel trailer in my brother’s front yard to being a full-time RD and full-time wife with 2 stepkids. The transition made keeping up the blog just a lee-tle unrealistic, so it had to take a back-burner for a time, but I’m ready to get back into learning more about what my patients face when they make a commitment to improve health, prevent and manage chronic conditions, and change their lives.

I’ll be honest – at first I was intimidated about trying to follow a diet with a family in tow:

“Will I have to make separate food for myself? What if my family doesn’t like any of the food? Will it be too expensive to feed everyone on these diets? Ehh….I don’t think doing that blog really makes sense with a family.”

Satisfied with my very justified self-care decision, I went about my life but something kept nagging at me until I let it hit me – my patients have families. My patients have picky kids (and spouses). They don’t get the luxury of saying “Ehh…that’s not important right now.” They have to choose – figure out a way to take care of yourself with a family or simply don’t take care of yourself.

My hypocrisy got the better of me. So will I be eating separate things from my family? Sometimes. Will they dislike some of the food? Probably. But we’re going on this journey because that’s being healthy in real life – challenges and all.

So this time I’m back. For real. I promise.

And to assure you of my commitment, I grocery shopped for my next diet today. The diet I have chosen to use as I re-start is….

The Heart Healthy Diet recommended by the American Heart Association! The spoils of my venture are shown below:

Note that the pile is MUCH bigger than when I was cooking just for me – and this doesn’t even include some extras I bought for the fam.

Or the meat. Doesn’t that seem like a lot of meat? And yes, I smooshed a salmon burger on the way home. Sad.

The meal plan I’m using is courtesy of EatingWell.com and can be found here.

UPDATE: Eating Well has since changed this meal plan. If you click the link, you will see their new Heart Healthy meal plan.

Stay tuned for more information on what the Heart Healthy Diet is and how it’s going for me!