OK so if you are sticking with me and reading this post (day 4 of 30 in the photo journal), you are probably starting to seriously doubt that you are reading the blog of a dietitian. Did you see what made it’s way onto the table tonight – Donuts?!?
What I want to tell you is that we are having a “bad” week as far as nutrition goes. However, as a dietitian this is why I never get my clients to tell me about their typical day when I do a diet history. I always ask them to tell what they have eaten so far that day and/or yesterday, depending on when I am talking with them. This is because typical days don’t include donuts for dinner and the truth is – we have a lot fewer typical days than we might think. I also think that in our heads when we think typical days about nutrition, what we are actually thinking about is ideal.
Ideal/Typical Days
An ideal typical day for me will go something like this:
- 5:10am – feeling just slightly awake when the alarm goes off, hit snooze for 10 minutes, snuggle with the love of my life (his name is Chris).
- 5:20am – Get up with Chris and do a short 10 minute weight/strength training work out (my favourite right now is Fit by Mik – check her videos out on youtube.com if you like)
- 5:30am – Back upstairs and get ready for the day – get dressed, make breakfast and lunch, pack my kids backpacks
- 6:15am – Family breakfast
- 7:00am – Everyone out the door for the day, drop the kids off at daycare and cycle to work
- 7:30am – Arrive at work
- 3:45pm – Leave work, cycle home to get the kids
- 4:30pm – Everyone home, unpack back packs, get dinner on the table
- 5:00pm – Dinner on the table, have an enjoyable family meal
- 6:00pm – Start bedtime routines (baths, stories, etc)
- 7:00pm – Tuck the boys in bed, prep dinner for the following night, unload dishwasher (potentially pick up groceries and fold laundry – typically on Wednesday nights)
- 8:00pm – MY TIME! WOOT WOOT!
- 9:00pm – Lights out!
Ok, so that’s a pretty detailed view of my ideal typical day. What it doesn’t include though are the days that my kids have soccer, or the days me or my husband work late, or the days that I didn’t get dinner prepped the night before and so are totally scrambling when I get home to get something on the table, or the days when we are over-due for a grocery pick up and the fridge is looking a bit bare, or the days my husband or I are travelling, or days like to today when my husband was helping someone move and brought home a box donuts… You get the idea.
Lot’s of things get in the way of our ideal-typical
So there you have it – yet another disclaimer on why my great, super nutritious menu went from perfect to, dare I say it, typically untypical. Here’s what we had – Baked Greek Giant Beans. We used canned giant beans and have this at least once per month. Its a favourite in our house (and aligns well with Mediterranean Diet Meal patterns!). This was served with basmati rice and pan-fried bok choy. The boy choy recipe was new to our family – my husband and I really liked it. My son thought it was too spicy. I also put out a bowl of frozen mango pieces, since I wasn’t sure if the bok choy would be a hit with the boys and I wanted to ensure they were being offered a vegetable or a fruit.
So why opt to serve the donuts at dinner if I had this great menu planned? I mean the honest truth is that I would rather my kids eats them then me. You don’t know this about me yet but I have a MAJOR sweet tooth. If I left those things on the counter, I would make short work of them after my kids go to bed. I also know that donuts are part of a normal, healthy diet. In fact, at least if you work in health care, donuts are really common. Before the pandemic, I don’t think you could go into a break room in a hospital anywhere without finding a box of timbits!
An impromptu nutrition lesson for my kids
So here’s a chance (yet again this week!) to teach my kids about how to maintain a healthy relationship with food, in a food environment that is literally loaded with “unhealthy” treats at every turn. And here’s the truth, even having a dietitian as a mother, won’t protect them from it. And even worse, my kids are growing up, so while I could sneakily dump those donuts in the compost bin before either of them knew – it wouldn’t help them when they get a older and wander into their own break room that is conveniently stocked with tasty treats that are NOT on the ideal-typical menu plan.
Setting the table
So I set the table, putting all the foods that were on the original menu plan AND the donuts go right on the table with everything else. This helps create an “all foods fit/all foods are equal” kind of mindset. This is different then what I learned as a kid that you have earn dessert by eating an arbitrary amount (as set by my parents) of healthy foods. Consider that earning dessert by eating healthy foods teaches kids to ignore how full they are – because what is says is that desserts are not something you eat because you are hungry, they are something that you eat AFTER you stopped being hungry. Remember the goal we want to teach our kids – is to eat when you are hungry, stop eating when you are full.
So what did they eat?
Needless to say, my children eagerly descended on the table once they saw the box of donuts and promptly picked out the donut they wanted. BUT they also took some beans, rice, bok choy (which as I already mentioned was declared “too spicy”) and mango. Several helpings of rice, mango AND donuts later – the four of us were caught up with each other’s day and I was saved from eating 6 donuts tonight after the kids were in bed! Win-win all around!
