Choices

It is a great morning and I have exercised on the treadmill while watching Ancient Aliens on Netflix and have a slight headache but I am ready to start homeschool with my son and start the morning off with a bang.  It is just after cooking day, so there are tons of great choices for gluten free and paleo meals to choose from.  I offer my son banana pancakes, which he loves, but he doesn't feel like pancakes.  He has me run through every meal in the fridge and freezer to see what sounds good to him, and then he chooses to eat a bowl of Captain Crunch.  Sigh.

It is hard not to feel like a failure as a parent when your child chooses Captain Crunch over every other choice in the house.  I try to tell myself that at least he has the choice and that at some point he will realize the benefits of eating healthy and make a better choice.  Would I have made a better choice at 14?  I doubt it.  Did we ever have sugar cereal in the house?  No, we got hot oatmeal with an extra spoonful of vital gluten if anyone even cared to wake up and fix breakfast.

I feel like he has to make his own choices about what he eats.  I try hard to educate him and point out when he isn't feeling well that it is directly related to the food he eats.  At 14, if I try to force him to eat healthy at home he will gravitate towards everything terrible when he is not at home. 

Many parents don't keep anything in the house which would be a bad choice.  If I had always eaten this way, I would agree that keeping crap out of the house is the best plan. However,  I don't want my son to feel like he has to hide food from me or hide what he is eating when I am not with him.  Hello eating disorder!  If he wants snacks and sugar cereal for breakfast, it makes me cringe, but it is his choice.  Sometimes he wants a tuna sandwich for breakfast and that makes me cringe too, but I make it for him.

My breakfast today consisted of chicken and brussel sprouts cooked in the pan after I fried up some bacon.  This is the second week of the health challenge and we are focusing on doing 20 minutes of cardio every day.  We have also tracked our eating habits and amounts and I am finally doing better keeping track of Calories/Carbs/Proteins.  I should be eating 1500 calories a day to lose weight and 113 grams of protein.  I try to keep my meals at 15 grams of carbohydrate to keep a slow burn of energy going throughout the day.

Things I re-learned this week:  weight training helps you burn calories and increases metabolism for a long time after you are done, you should eat protein within 20 minutes of working out, exercise hurts my knees, gives me a headache, makes my left elbow hurt and isn't my favorite.  I always have the choice to exercise or not exercise, just like my son has his choices.  I am striving to make better health choices and be a better example for him and I might live a healthier life along the way.