Holidays Mean Family

I am sitting a hotel room in Maryland, as I write this.  I was going to sit down in an hour or so to pen this entry, but in the middle of my shower, shampoo in my hair, the water just stopped.  Not a trickle, not a drip....NADA.  After calling the front desk, I am told that a plumber ran into a 'snag' and maybe, MAYBE, in a half hour we can have water again.  MAYBE?  Gimme a break.  Not in my happy place right now.

I am in Maryland to spend Easter with my mother, brother and his family.  The wife is holding down the home front, back in Jersey with the pups, due to a biology paper she has due this week.  I love you honey and I miss you.  Kiss the furbabies for me. 

This is the new age of holidays for me.  Holidays have always been about celebrating with food and beverage.  It became less and less about the people and more and more about what I would cook and how lavish it could be.  We were brought up believing that you serve great food to your family and friends in order to show them you how much you loved them, right?  This programming is going to be hard to overwrite, but I know it's the right thing to do.   Spend time with the ones you love.  You can enjoy them over a nice piece of fish or a honkin' leg of lamb or sugar glazed ham.  You decide.  I would love the latter, it's just not what it is all about for me these days.  Loving your family can mean nurturing them healthily, instead of, gorging them unhealthily.

This next part will probably piss of a number of people.  Oh well.  I speak the truth as I know it.  Feel free to comment below or email me dissenting opinions.  Here goes.  Giving your kids baskets full of sugar and fat is not loving them.  It is giving them a learned behavior that we should celebrate through gluttony and excess.  A little candy?  Sure. Why not.  A 2 lb. rabbit of chocolate, 1 lb. of Reese's Egg's (sorry 'Chelle), 2 dozen Peeps and 4 cups worth of Jelly Bellies, will not only rot the teeth from their heads, but it will define a set point in their little metabolic systems that will become harder and harder to overcome, as they get older.  Maybe that's the reason they call them Jelly Belly... they are named for the aftermath. 

Look at your kids through a stranger's eye.  Are they overweight?  A good many of you have to answer yes, if you are honest.  I know that I do not have kids and it is easy for me to say these things, but perhaps that gives me a perspective that is more objective.  Teach your children to celebrate family and friends themselves, not the food we all gather around.  Find creative and fun ways to reinforce this principle. Play games, tell old funny stories, hell...take a walk!  I did today with brother Bill and sister Fiona.  It was very, very nice. 

I'm optimistic that I'll be setting a good example for once, tomorrow.  I'll be making wholesome dishes of my own to enjoy at the meal with the ones that are dear to me.  By doing so, I am hopeful that I will have many more Easters and Thanksgivings and Christmases to be with them all.  And if I am lucky, I can show them the error of my ways and help them avoid those times that often serve as points of regression into bad habits.

Happy Easter and Passover,
M

What I ate today and how I exercised:

Breakfast ~ Grapenuts cereal w/1 banana and unsweetened almond milk

Lunch ~ Big salad of Mesclun greens, a can of white tuna and homemade basil balsamic vinaigrette

Snack ~ I normally wouldn't seek out such a snack, but upon checking into my hotel, they gave me a goody bag that contained a Special K Vanilla Crunch Bar.  90 calories and tasty.  Not a good daily option with the artificial stuff included.

Dinner ~ I am cooking a healthy meal for my family!  FUN!  Tilapia over spinach and white beans, along with some brown rice on the side.

Exercise ~ a 2 mile walk, with 2 of my favorite people