I’m on a quest this year to take better care of myself and my health. This includes spending time in the kitchen cooking meals with real food. If you love to cook this isn’t hard, but I hate to cook…I’ve had panic attacks in the kitchen while trying to cook. Even just thinking about cooking can send me into cold sweats, but ordering in or eating crap food makes me feel crappy and keeps my weight at a place that doesn’t make me happy. When I eat more veggies, more protein, and other real foods I feel better. I have more energy and I get more done. I have more overall patience and can take care of others better because I’ve taken care of myself first.
Courage
My word of the year is Courage so my nutritionist asked me to take that word and apply it to the kitchen, food, exercise, and my health in general not just my writing goals. We came up with a list of ways to do this including trying new foods (both at home and when going out or ordering in), cooking more meals, and being more creative when it comes to meal planning and shopping. So, I took some of my Christmas money and bought a cookbook called The Can’t Cook Book! By Jessica Seinfeld and I went through it and picked out one recipe to try. Sweet and Spicy Chicken Wings and it was fairly easy to make and was super tasty so we added it to our monthly rotation of meals. Then I picked out a 2nd recipe (who am I?) and tried that one – this time Chicken Drumsticks with various marinades – we chose the Mustard Rosemary option and I cooked those. Again, fairly easy and really yummy!
Crock Pot
As you may remember, the gas in our building was turned off due to a small explosion (and then the building needed to upgrade pipes so it was MONTHS before it was turned back on) and we got quite a bit of use out of the crockpot. Well, that was easy for me to throw stuff in and set it and forget it while working from home so I’ve been doing 1-2 meals a month this way, especially since my husband has been working a lot of over time (normal for this time of the year). Usually I would just fix crappy food for myself for dinner, make sure my son had something to eat and call it good, because hubby is the one that really loves to cook and is good at it too, but this year I’ve been really trying to eat better even when he’s not home to cook dinner.
Done, not Perfect
Am I perfect? Heck no, I slip up and fall back into old patterns all the time, but it’s one meal here or there not all the time. I had already added good breakfasts and lunches into my routine a few months ago, so adding in dinners and working on my snacks (which I’ll talk about soon) was the next step in my journey to Intuitive Eating and being mindful about what goes into my body and how I feel when I eat a certain way.
What are your favorite dinners? Do you use the crockpot or the new favorite, the Instant Pot, to make dinners easier? Do you have a great easy cookbook you could recommend? I use Pinterest a lot to find easy meals, especially for my slow cooker, so hit me up over there with your ideas and suggestions! And do you love to cook or do you tolerate it? Or…do you ignore it like I used to? Maybe we can keep each other accountable in this area – just let me know in the comments!
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