Author: Healthi Coach Stefanie Wohlgemuth
I get it, some of you are reading this title and think I’m crazy. The kids are on top of you all day, it’s hard to find the exact food you want to stay on plan, and money is tight. But hear me out!
Weight loss is a precarious balance between building new habits and not losing motivation. When you first start, you have so much to explore. You calculate exactly, you measure and you try out new things. The weight comes off and you feel energized. Fast forward a couple of weeks or months, you now know exactly what to eat that will keep you within your Bites. You have your staple meals that you cook religiously and you know how to be successful…but it’s starting to get a bit boring.
The excitement from the beginning is gone, you eyeball your measurements and overall just go through the motions. Your weight loss might have even slowed down. And then here comes COVID-19 and you can’t help but panic. Because you’re thrown out of your routine like someone stealing your safety blanket. You find yourself thinking: I can’t do this without my sugar free syrup! But you can! And you can do it by adapting to the new normal and by going back to what made weight loss so exciting in the beginning: trying new things!
Instead of worrying what you can’t have, focus on what you do have: maybe it’s time, maybe it’s a little helper that needs to be entertained, or maybe it’s new foods. Try new recipes. Especially those back to basic ones! Have you ever made your own bread? Your own pasta? Sauce from scratch? Your own preserves? Your own tortillas? Why not try cooking something from scratch and inviting your family to join you in the adventure? Little hands can knead the dough and learn about correct measurements to make a dough. They can help roll out tortillas and be challenged to make the roundest or thinnest one!
In all this you will experience new dishes and you will start calculating bites from scratch again. Homemade pasta or tortillas might be more bites, but during the time of making them you won’t be sitting on the couch with a snack. You’ll be learning new things and making memories. You will be excited to try what you made not because “you gotta eat something” but because you’re proud of what you made. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find that cooking from scratch gives you new flavors and experiences that leave you full and satisfied for less Bites.
