My food has actually been really boring this week, but apparently boring suits me because my eating has been really on point and I’m feeling pretty awesome!

On Sunday I took the kids to my father-in-law’s house to watch LDS General Conference with him and my sister-in-law’s family. We got there a little early and made a (mostly) healthy breakfast that we could enjoy while we watched together. There was a ton of cut up fruit, scrambled eggs, and toast and donuts for anyone who wanted. I wasn’t even tempted, which felt really awesome!

On Monday I made a huge pan of chicken with a siracha glaze, and another pan of roasted green beans and asparagus. They tasted amazing, and they’ve basically been the centerpiece of nearly every meal since.

Half of these containers I meal prepped had this chicken as the base!

So for breakfasts I threw some over-easy eggs on top and even my veggies were pre-cooked! I don’t always have this much protein at breakfast, but I’ve been lifting really heavy this week so I’m bumping up my overall protein intake a bit.

It’s funny how many people told me this burrito looked really gross, but I swear it tasted amazing! I sometimes use sushi-nori (basically a sheet of dry seaweed) as a wrap when I need food to-go. This morning I threw some eggs, roasted green beans, and mashed avocado inside and breakfast was crazy yummy AND portable! Win-win, even if it looks a little weird…

Although I do aim for variety in our meals, I don’t feel like it’s a big deal to eat leftovers for a few days, especially with how busy we’ve been lately. Tonight or tomorrow I’ll prep another huge batch of chicken, and we’ll have something totally different the next few days! I don’t think my hubby loves eating leftovers, but until things calm down this is what we need to do to stay on track. 🙂

Teaching kids about nutrition

I don’t know if most people have this experience, but I have found that as my kids get older, getting them to eat healthy foods has gotten considerably harder. Kinsey will turn her nose up at a healthy meal, throw it out, and ask if we can go to McDonald’s 10 minutes later fairly regularly. Micah generally refuses all fruits and vegetables, and Jonah will eat everything in front of him one day, and refuse everything the next.

All kids have their quirks, and it seems like food is something that brings them out fairly regularly. I want to teach my kids about good nutrition without making it too complicated or having them get stressed about it. This is something we struggle with as a family a great deal, but I’ve found a few things that are helping so far:

• Don’t demonize treats, but be clear that they’re not healthy. We tell Micah that healthy foods give him super powers, so we would explain that too much ice cream would make his superpowers go away. It’s a good way to allow for a little bit now and then.
• Don’t keep too many unhealthy foods or treats in the house. If they know there’s a frozen pizza as a backup, they’ll sneak their food to the dogs and beg for pizza all. night. long. I’m okay with my kids having some occasional treats, but making it a daily thing makes healthy eating even harder.
• Get the kids involved in meal planning and cooking. This can be a little tricky with toddlers, but even Micah can crack eggs into a bowl for me. Letting them choose between a few healthy options tends to yield the biggest success for us.
• Have a simple alternative for when they really hate something.  I don’t like to cook two meals, but if the kids really try something and genuinely hate it I’ll generally allow them to substitute a sandwich. Allowing them that out has made them more willing to try new foods, because they know if they hate it they’re not stuck with it.
• Find a way to make healthy food fun! I read about a blogger who only served her kids food in “pictures”, so that they were concentrating on eating the dog or the flower, and not that mommy put a bunch of broccoli next to the mac and cheese. We pick different super powers that the foods will give the toddlers — maybe today the chicken will give Micah super strength, or the veggies will make him super fast! He really likes to watch superhero cartoons so this is pretty effective for him, but could probably be adapted to any childhood obsession.

How do you get  your kids, especially toddlers, to eat healthy foods?

What have you been eating this week?