Father knows best!

Last night was rough. I really wanted to make a run to a local hot dog joint and get a fully loaded Chicago style red-hot and fresh cut fries. My inner skinny girl won that fight (patting myself on the back, thank you very much). I made the kids and I a delicious and healthy meal consisting of organic whole wheat bowtie pasta, seasoned organic grilled chicken breast and organic broccoli steamed with a little garlic! Yeh, it's not impressive. I never said I was a gourmet cook, people. It wasn't a Chicago style red-hot...but it filled me up, and I didn't have any after-meal guilt...that almost felt better than a full belly.

My dad always says to me "Jesser, you need to eat to live, not live to eat!". Easy for him to say! He still has a kick ass metabolism, even at 59 years old! I admit though, dad is right! It's good advice we should all live by. Every bite I have taken up to this point has been mindless, and the food I ate made it to my lower GI tract only because I liked the way it tasted! I mean, I wasn't REEALLY hungry for that handful of M&Ms! I just like the crunchy candy coated little treasures that fill my mouth and melt into little pools of chocolate heaven. And I don't just eat one teeny candy at a time. I can down a whole bag in two mouthfuls, duh, it's better that way! But, this is where I go under renovation.

Jessa Rae is under construction. Please excuse the dust!

This morning, I was so excited to eat my new organic granola cereal. Then I calculated the points. Holy crap! It's 5 points for 2/3 cup of the cereal and 1/2 cup of skim milk! My husband laughed at me as I poured the cereal, then milk, into the measuring cups with a scowl on my face. I don't like this one bit. I want to just go sit down with my kids and have Cap'n Crunch Berries until my teeth feel like they're wearing sweaters! Eat to live, Jess. Eat to live...don't live to eat. Father knows best! I have to shift getting excited about food consumption and look at it as a necessity rather than a treat. Being an adult sucks.

Buh-bye Cap'n! It was nice knowing you!

So, my challenge for myself this week (and you, too) is to identify when I'm TRULY hungry from now on. Not standing in front of my pantry scratching my butt going "Hmmm, something salty or sweet sounds good to pop in my mouth"...but..."Ok, my belly is sending my pea brain a message that it needs something in it. I'm worth taking the time to think about the fuel I'm filling this future hot-mobile with."!

I've been thin more of my life than I've been, ahem, full-figured, and it's hard to switch gears and teach yourself how to eat properly, isn't it? It's such a simple idea. Eat. Place food in mouth and chew. Aha! But the key is, what are ya chewing? Fresh fruit or a Twinkie?

I'll leave you with something I learned from Michael Pollan, an author:

In his 20 years of reporting on food, Michael has picked up a number of rules to eat by.

They're now collected in an eater's manual, Food Rules. His guidelines to good eating include:

1: Eat food.

2: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

7: Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce.

13: Eat only foods that will eventually rot.

39: Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.