Making Your Own Gerber Meals

Finding food that my 1 year old doesn't throw on the floor is sometimes challenging, especially when he is teething. I try my hardest to get him to eat clean, non-processed foods but I am guilty of giving him the occasional Gerber meal when he refuses to eat what I offer. I think I finally figured out why he will scarf down one of those in seconds though. I noticed that there is chicken broth in almost every meal. I've tried to add it to the meals I make him but that didn't work out.  After thinking about it for a while, I decided to boil ravioli, rice, veggies and other things with the chicken broth (I use this recipe to make my own or I use one with only real ingredients) instead of water and he magically started to eat them! Yay, take that Gerber!

Happy New Year!

It's a new year and people are making new resolutions. I don't know about you, but I have noticed that fewer people create resolutions each year. I wonder if it is because they have failed so many years before. I used to always have the same resolution...to lose X amount of pounds. I learned from my mother that January 1st was when I needed to start my diet and I would usually make until January 27th. You see, that's my dad's birthday and well, I needed to be off my diet of I could eat cake. Then I would eat a whole bunch of other crap because I was off my diet and I couldn't start again until after Valentine's Day. This would be the vicious cycle that would happen year after year until I ultimately gave up and waited for the next new year.

Last year, I finally realized that I needed to drop the all or nothing attitude and become a better example for my son. I was still trying to drop the baby weight so I made my resolution something that was attainable for me...to become a healthier version of myself. I knew that "dieting" would not work since it hasn't in the past. I was already working out at home and convinced my husband to start running with me. We made better food choices and I was within 5 pounds of my pre pregnancy weight when we ran our first family 5k on February 10th, 2013. This is the same day I found out that I was pregnant again. My doctor advised me to stop running since I hadn't been at it for very long and to take up walking instead. I tried to eat well but I ate whatever I could hold down. My energy was zapped because my son (who was 6 months old at the time) was still not sleeping through the night consistently which led me to convenient foods and take-out. It was rough and although I did give in to cravings, I didn't give up. In October, about a week after having my daughter, I came across 100 days of real food blog and fell in love. It included Lisa's story about her family cutting out processed food AND her recipes.  I started baking and making everything from scratch to prepare for her 10 day challenge. On Halloween my husband and I started it and never looked back. I even made clean dishes for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sure, I struggled with my goals throughout the year but I never gave up. I even managed to lose some weight over the holidays and am currently 7 pounds away from where I was in February last year. Success!

This year I plan to continue to set good examples for my family but my New Year's resolution is to try to spread knowledge about clean eating and fitness by sharing recipes and workouts. If you are new to clean eating, I recommend making small changes at first. Swap your regular bread and pasta for 100% whole wheat,  start reading the ingredient labels, eat more fruit&veggies and start researching. It can be very overwhelming to completely change how you are used to eating and if you make small changes you are more likely to stick with them. Good luck and Happy New Year!