Food.

The number one resolution at the beginning of each year: Eat better. I’ve never technically set a New Year’s resolution around food, but if you know my story with food struggles along with my goal-oriented mind, food has centered more than a handful of my goals. It’s like when I gave up peanut butter for Lent because that would for sure bring me closer to Jesus and had nothing to do with manipulating a sacred season to cut a single processed food I consumed daily out of my life for 46 days.
Food has been such the evolving journey in my life. It started as a search for low-calorie foods because I felt fat, but that only created different issues without curing the ones I already carried. Then connections began being made in my mind about ingredients versus nutrition facts, & food started making sense. It was still hard though because there were a lot of options. Eat meat. Only eat vegetables. Whole wheat is okay. Gluten is the devil. Skim vs. whole milk. Avoid cheese. So I tried different challenges. No meat. No dairy. Paleo. Strict portion control. Juice cleansing. I’m a sucker for a good challenge—it gives direction & purpose & leaves me feeling like I’m in a constant state of improvement. The issue is that I can’t seem to do a challenge for the sake of the challenge—I always want results. So when Blake & I did a 21-day challenge together this past August involving both food and exercise & he lost 11 pounds while I lost a whopping ZERO, I decided not to do challenges with Blake anymore. Because then, not only was I competing with myself but with him, & I lost to both. This isn’t actually true because I was doing good things for my body, but if we have the wrong motive behind the action, the good can go undetected.
I was so close to starting a new challenge this month— but then I decided to try a different approach.
Balance.
Let’s see how that goes.
Because when I eat like crap, I feel like it. But when I put a boatload of pressure on myself to eat the perfect diet, I still end up feeling like crap because I ate pizza at small group or ate chicken nuggets with my daughter or ate ice cream with Blake. It doesn’t matter how much good I do– a single mess up feels catastrophic. That’s a bunch of silly. I want to fuel my body well & teach my kid to do the same, but this competition to be perfect with the title FAILURE when we’re not is the farthest thing I want for Collins or myself. This goes for food & everything else. So take that resolution, 2016.
I’m currently in the middle of a PBS documentary, In Defense of Food, with Michael Pollen. It’s based on his book (which I haven’t read) & is SO interesting. I highly recommend it if you care about my opinion at all, which I’m hoping you do since you’re reading my blog (Hi, mom & dad!).
Collins & I made a new recipe today, & I’m so pumped about it. She hates avocado—like really hates it.

first time trying it. still the face she makes today.
So this cherry chocolate avocado pudding could be a breakthrough (from Detoxinista). Avocados have so much to offer nutritionally, but you can’t taste it one bit in this recipe. Team Avocado!
The only thing I changed was substituting frozen raspberries for the cherries because it’s what I had on hand– still worked. I meant to take more pictures, but we’re trying out this idea of Collins being my “little helper,” & it basically means I have a full-time taste tester.
1 ripe avocado
¾ C frozen cherries
2 T cocoa powder
3 T almond milk
3-4 pitted Medjool dates
splash of vanilla
sprinkle of salt
Give all ingredients a whirl in your food processor, scraping the sides occasionally. Dig in, or chill for later. Yum!

props to Blake for making this fun pod at work so Collins can cook with me!