It is amazing how I am regularly reminded how much food is wrapped up in our emotions and psyche. Food is so much a part of who we are, how we express who we are and how we choose to spend our time. And it is certainly how many of us express our love for others.
I love fixing food for others. It makes me happy to see people enjoy a meal I have fixed. When my children are home, I am eager to fix their favorite foods. It is important to me that they have good food, enough food and that they do not go wanting. Hence the crisis...
My middle son, a tall, athletic fellow with a hallow leg and zero weight issues, has come home to live over the summer. The moment he arrived home it was clear that the amount of food and kinds of food we have around was just not going to be enough. Fortunately with my new lifestyle regime, the food is tasty, attractive and worthy of anyone's palette. The problem is that a 400 calorie meal is about half to two-thirds of what my son needs and the snacks are so low in calories they don't help much either. I realized I needed to ramp up the amount of food at a meal for him as well as the types of snack foods. But how to do this and avoid getting me totally off track. I may be on the right road but temptation is temptation!
Could I just add more bread and desserts at meals and not partake? Of course, anyone reading this would instantly know that would be a bad idea. I faltered through last weekend with that false notion and ended up eating 1/3 of a pan of brownies before forcing them out of sight (before I would have eaten 1/2 of the pan...is this progress?...). With my bloated brownie belly I realized I needed a better plan. It was time to take a hot bath and think.
I had to think through my emotions about providing my son food and the truth about how I could still be a loving mom and not have a plate of brownies ever ready on the kitchen counter. Is this possible? My answer was a resounding "YES"! After all my journey is about lifestyle solutions...living a better life WITH my family. So I talked it over with my husband and he encouraged the simple solution of sticking with the same meal plans and recipes but increasing the quantity for 6 servings instead of 4. I liked this idea a lot, my son would get a double helping of food and we would even have leftovers, which I like for lunches so I don't always have to spend time prepping food for each meal of the day. This was sounding like a really good idea. So the next morning I spent time revamping meals I had already planned so I could get more of what I needed at the grocery store and also sat down to plan this next weeks meals. All is good with the world again.
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