The Modified Mommy: August 2012

For awhile now I have known that "whole" or "real" foods are better for us to eat than other stuff. Organic has always been a topic of light controversy in my different circles, with some believing strongly for or against it, and others landing somewhere in the middle. I have my own opinions, but hadn't put forth too much effort in researching it because, frankly, we don't have a lot of money to spend on switching to organic.

To make a long story short, after recently digging a little deeper, I'm leaning towards the organic side when it comes to meat. I'm not red hot about it, but it's shaken me enough to want to change about 90% of my meat consumption. Since a salary increase didn't accompany this new mindset of mine, I decided to cut out meat almost completely from my diet. This is a HUGE change for me. As a family, we eat meat every day - at least once. Plus, I know from past experience that I don't do well with depriving myself. It always backfires. I can't go around making myself hungry or else I'll just eat the next whole super size bag of double chocolate gooey candy I find, and then stuff myself with cheetos. My challenge here was (and sometimes still is) difficult: cut out almost all meat for myself, continue feeding enough meat to my very carnivorous husband, stay full, and don't fill the meat-void with sugar.

Well, it's been a few weeks now and I can say it has worked and it's so much easier than I thought! With pinterest and a little creativity, I have come up with ways to modify meals without making 2 separate meals every single night, and I don't even miss the meat one bit - honest. Plus, taking the meat out has forced me to put more healthy things in. I am enjoying fresh veggies more now than I ever had. I just had to learn to make them so that they taste good, rather than force them down as some yucky and bland side dish. I do eat meat usually once or twice a week, but much less at those times than I had before. (Hey, free chick-fil-a on Monday nights is close to impossible to give up!)

As an added bonus that I hadn't anticipated, this change helped jumpstart my baby-weight loss that I felt I had been stuck on for so long. I attribute this to a combination of things: taking out a lot of fatty meat, adding in more veggies, keeping an eye on my hidden sugar intake (pastas, dressings, etc), and filling up with protein - which I can now say really does fill you up quicker and keep you full longer.

Here are a few pictures of some of my new favorite meals. We have even had a few nights totally meatless that Stephen has enjoyed!