Nashville Wife

Last month, at the request of some of my readers, I shared a post with healthy eating tips. Rather than cram everything into one post, I figured I would break it up into two parts.

Ice cream is Mr. Handsome’s weakness. Honestly, homemade milkshakes are usually the only sweets he eats aside from baked goods. And the once-in-a-while donut from Five Daughters. Several months ago, he decided to only eat ice cream on weekends and has done a fantastic job sticking to that about 90% of the time. I’ve been really proud of his self-control.

My principle of choosing items with the shortest ingredient list is very applicable to ice cream. The vast majority of ice creams on the market are filled with artificial ingredients.

Another thing that I keep in mind is that products that are advertised as having low or no sugar or fat aren’t automatically healthier. In fact, you could make the argument that they are often “less healthy” than their conventional counterparts.

Low sugar or sugar-free dessert items almost always contain artificial sweeteners. My opinion is that if you are going to have a treat, go with the real thing (real sugar). Not only do artificial substitutes often taste fake (at lease in my opinion), but studies have shown that they can be quite bad for the human body. Here is a specific example: Cottage cheese that is low fat or fat-free often contains stabilizers to make it creamy, so I opt for the full-fat (4%) cottage cheese and just make sure to control my portion sizes.

We both really enjoy a cup of coffee each day, whether it’s decaf or caffeinated. Well, Mr. Handsome won’t drink decaf, but I will. Neither of us takes sugar in our coffee, but we do like a bit of heavy cream. In the evenings after Little Buddy is in bed, I enjoy a bit of snack food. The “natural” section of grocery stores like Kroger has a great selection of snack foods that don’t contain artificial ingredients and are lower in fat but are still satisfying. They certrainly aren’t health foods because they do contain some fat and salt, but they are much better than conventional potato chips.

I’ve also trained myself to see frozen fruit as a treat. Slightly thawed in the microwave, so it’s soft but still cold, and it makes a great reward after a long day.

It’s crucial to do everything in moderation. Choose a few things that really make you happy (cream in your coffee, a piece of chocolate, a single homemade cookie) and find ways to make those treats as healthy as possible.

As far as exercise goes, my goal is to exercise 4-5 times per week. There are a lot of great YouTube videos (I like Blogilates) and DVDs (Walk away the Pounds).