I’ve been dreading writing this post all week! I had a really bad week as far as my eating goes. I had been doing SO good for the first couple of weeks of January, thanks to the challenge that Jerry and I did. Since my health goal for the year was to eat more vegetables, I suggested that Jerry do it, too. He’s not a fan of vegetables, but I told him that maybe if he keeps trying them, he’ll eventually like them. I think that our taste buds change based on what our current diet is, so maybe if he starts including veggies here and there, he’ll start to really like them.

The problem is, I feel so bad making food that I “know” he won’t like. I love mushrooms, but I almost never making anything with mushrooms because Jerry and the kids don’t like them. Same with a lot of other fruits and veggies. So, he said that if I promise to make recipes that I think he won’t like (recipes that include vegetables that I like but rarely make), then he’ll eat them and *try* to like them.

I’ve been looking at Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen checklist to try to work in those items to my daily diet, and one of them is leafy greens. I never eat leafy greens; out of all the vegetables, they just aren’t my favorite. They’re on the list only slightly above celery, and that’s pretty bad.

Rather than trying to get creative on a daily basis, I decided to just eat a small salad (he suggests at least two cups of leafy greens a day) before dinner. I don’t make anything fancy–just mesclun mix and a homemade dressing (I got the recipe from the How Not To Die cookbook).

I was very surprised to discover that I really like eating the salad before dinner! Salad for a meal is a disappointment (an unpopular opinion, I know) but having it before dinner was kind of a game changer for me. I actually really like the taste of it, and the extra volume of food makes it easier to eat less food overall. I stay full a lot longer, too, so it makes it MUCH easier not to snack at night.

Anyway, aside from the salad, we’ve also been eating a lot of other vegetables. Unfortunately, over the last week, Jerry and I started snacking a lot (again). Less vegetables. Junkier food. It’s not even just the food, but our attitudes–in general, we’ve been lazier, more carefree, and even flippant. Not at all like responsible adults! Hahaha.

So many things shifted at once–going from horrible luck over a period of a year and a half, to paying off the house and car, to Noah moving out, to Jerry’s new work schedule, to Eli turning 18–and our attitudes certainly changed right along with it. There have been so many positive changes (like Jerry’s work schedule and paying off the house) that it seems like we’ve both been able to take a deep breath and relax after being so on edge for a year and a half. We’d constantly been waiting for the next thing to go wrong. Obviously we can’t stop bad things from happening, but we’ve been loving this break 😉

My weight, however, has not. I’m actually not going to post a weigh-in today. I hadn’t been planning to skip it, but I forgot to actually weigh myself this morning. Since I was dreading it anyway, I’m just going to give myself a week to try to get myself back in control before weighing in. Jerry and I both mentioned that we feel like crap (physically) since we have been eating so poorly this week, after two weeks of eating healthier than ever. So we’re back at it today–continuing our challenge of eating more vegetables. And acting like mature, responsible parents rather than carefree teenagers! Hahaha.