I was reading a post today at LowCarbFriends.com about falling off the LC wagon and got to thinking about why we do that. I know I’m certainly not perfect, and have gone on and off a number of times over the years since I first discovered LC and the course of my children being born. But over the past 6 months or so, something inside me has “clicked.” While I have an occasional non-LC treat or day, I just “know” inside me that that’s all it is – a treat or one day. I know it’s not going to turn into an all-out month’s-long carb fest, or even worse, an “I give up” attitude where I decide that I’m just not going to eat LC because it’s “too hard” or “too much work.”
And that’s where the lightbulb went off. LCing can be a lot of work. You have to cook for yourself. A lot. And that’s hard for us (society in general) today. We’ve got SO MANY more “convenient” options available to us now, from the drive-thru to the deli or frozen foods section at the local grocery that make life easier and allow us not to have to cook everyday (or any day for that matter).
But I think that’s the crux of it. As a society, we’ve gotten a serious case of the lazies. Being a SAHM now, I know I’m not nearly as busy as I was when I was working, but I’ve fallen trap to the convenience of running out and picking something up for supper rather than hauling out the pans and cooking. And I know better. I do. What I make at home is SIGNIFICANTLY more healthy than most any “convenience” food I can pick up. But yeah, I’ve gotten lazy about cooking on more than one occasion.
Then I got to thinking about my mom. She cooked our meals – ALL of our meals – EVERYDAY. And after I was 10 years old, she also worked full-time. Yet she made sure we had a hot breakfast, a healthy sack lunch for school and a homemade supper. Eating out was rare and a special treat. Eating fast food was even more rare. I have racked my brain trying to think of a day where she just said “let’s grab some burgers from the drive-thru for supper.” I can’t think of one time. The only time we ate fast food regularly was when our family moved from Wisconsin to California when I was 7. We had McDonald’s drive-thru for lunch every day for the 5 days it took us to drive cross country. By the end of those 5 days we were all so sick of McDonald’s just the thought of it made us want to vomit.
It was not until I was in high school, making my own money, that I started to eat fast food fairly often. I was in charge of my money, so I could spend it as I pleased. Then as my life started to get busier, I came up with more reasons why I couldn’t take the time to make a healthy, home-made meal: I had an exam to study for, I was student teaching and up to my ears in lesson plans, I was teaching and up to my ears in papers to grade…. you get the idea. But really, it was all just an excuse to be lazy.
But over the past 6 or 8 months, I’ve started reading more books on nutrition and dieting. It’ s becoming somewhat of an addiction. DH will ask “what are you doing” when I’m on the computer, and more often than not, I’m learning something new about nutrition. Maybe I need to go back to school for a new degree? I dunno. What I do know is that it is empowering me. And the more I learn, the more I want to learn. Maybe that is what made LCing “click” this time around for me. I’m not sure about that, either, but I do know that my mindset has definitely changed.
And yeah, cooking takes planning and effort, and then there are dishes to do afterwards, but the more I learn about all of the processed crap that is in our convenience foods (and many non-convenience foods) these days, the more I realize that it is worth the time and effort. For my health, and just as importantly for the health of my family. And that’s what I need to remember whenever a case of the lazies starts creeping up on me.
