Cravings, Sabotaging, and Diet Changes

I've been falling off the diet wagon more times than I'm totally comfortable with lately. I don't know if it is the underlying stress of trying to figure out Kid's schooling situation (although I think this is very likely) or what. But let's say a week that included eating an ENTIRE bucket of animal crackers followed up closely behind with a Cinnabon is not exactly representative of the kind of diet I'd like to be following.

One of the things that comes into play for me is just busy mom syndrome. I meet the kids' needs first...ALWAYS... and so sometimes that means I'm starving and I know I should make a sandwich but I grab a handful of animal crackers and then say "oh what the heck I'll just eat 3 servings of these and call it lunch". The thing is I do this ALL the time. ALL the time. I thoughtfully make balanced meals for the kids and then grab a coffee and some more empty ready-to-eat sweet carbs of one sort or another and think "I'll eat an apple later...".

So the time has come for me to start to take responsibility for the food I put in my mouth throughout the day. How am I going to do that? Well I think I'm going to have to extend my meal planning to include my lunch and snacks. I've had a couple of different ideas. I eat six times a day. Outside of breakfast and dinner (which are already planned) I eat four 200-300 calorie mini-meals. One idea included writing out several mini meals onto index cards and drawing one out for each meal. What I like about this idea is that there would a lot of choices and it takes into account that I might have different cravings for different meals. Don't want hummus & pretzels? How about apples & peanut butter? It would help me to come up with a healthy meal suggestion even when I'm feeling to busy and frazzled to think of one. The problem is it doesn't take into account what we have in the house on that particular day. I mean how many mini-meals can I have stocked up every week?

I think the reality is that I just don't want to meal plan all my meals. It seems daunting and tedious and a bit rigid. But the truth is I eat the same types of thing day in and day out... it is not like I'm eating at a buffet everyday. And there are days where I just eat what I see on the counter because that is what is easiest and not because what I really wanted for lunch was half a gnawed on banana and Kid's bread crusts. So I'm sucking it up. I really admire the way Eurydice eats... and guess what? She plans out her entire day so I am going to do it too. Of course there will be days when I really don't want a turkey sandwich or whatever I had picked out and that's life and that's fine. I think in the big picture this will help me make better choices more consistently. And yes I still plan to eat at least one dark chocolate caramel a day!

You can read my daily meal plan over on the sidebar. Want to know if I kept to it? Well maybe I'll let you know...