Good For You = Expensive

Last night I had a nutritionist visit us (friend of a friend). Here are the reasons:

• my teenager is quite thin and eats very few things due to braces and a moderate case of finicky-ness. I worry about her being healthy, etc
• my 10 year old is very active and ALWAYS hungry and I get tired of him asking for MORE to eat every two hours
• I eat cereal for breakfast, and I'm starving by the time I get to work. I hate bringing a sandwich for lunch. I swear on my iPod that I get sick from the cafeteria food in my building, every time I make a salad, or buy one of their mayo-loaded paninis. It's just not good.

So she came to see us and we sat and talked about options for each of us. She stayed for almost 2 hours and I paid her roughly what I make in two hours, having consulted my friend before hand. So it seemed like a good deal to me. The kids loved her and were very actively involved in thinking of things they like and discussing things to try.

Here are some of the ideas she gave us, which will seem basic to anyone who actually eats well, but then there are the rest of us... haha.

For my daughter:

• waffles with peanut butter, which we were already doing fairly often on school mornings
• a sub with (only) cheese and lettuce and some mayo is actually OK, which I hadn't thought. (You should see the looks the poor kid gets when she orders that. She just doesn't LIKE lunch meat.)
• cooked carrots and/ or broccoli (soft for braces) with ranch dressing
• peanut butter and banana sandwich, which she's never tried and I'll have to sell her on that idea Friday morning.
• avocados, which I never knew were a source of soft protein(my kid won't eat eggs, no matter if they're boiled, scrambled, etc)
• string cheese, yogurt, the usual dairy snacks like that
• smoothies for breakfast - yogurt, frozen berries, banana, a bit of juice. The kids are pretty excited about this one and have decided we need to do this every wednesday, to break up the middle of the week.
• hummus... this got the most extreme reaction when mentioned. However she tried a smidge today on a cracker and decided it's not bad. However the one I bought has a ton of lemon and has tahini in it. What is that, and is that why it's so spicy? I need to google. My son hated it.
• wheat bread... which I had them eating, until a certain spouse took over most of the grocery shopping a few years back. So I need to get that back as our habit

For my son the biggest problem seems to be that he snacks on carbs only, and needs to have protein (yogurt or cheese or cream cheese) with those carbs to make them stick and avoid the blood sugar spike. Better snacks, like apples & lowfat cheese, or some other fruit combination. Also we're trying to get him on veggies and ranch dip instead of chips or those damn goldfish crackers. Now I know, what I send to school won't necessarily be what he eats, but I can encourage those things on the weekends when he's right in front of my eyeballs.

As for me, she gave me some good ideas that break away from the sandwich rut that I hate. Pasta salad with veggies and chicken, tuna, or shrimp (lite italian dressing). Hummus on a wrap or a bagel(which I had today, whole wheat bagel, not bad with a little garlic mixed in but you wouldn't want to kiss me right now - if you ever did... ) Also the protein + carb thing for a midmorning snack, which will hopefully help me at work since my boss thinks 11 - 12:30 is a PERFECT TIME for a staff meeting.

The only downside is that I just spent $200 at the market, between getting hummus and boca burgers to try, and dried fruit and nuts to make trail mix, (watch out for banana chips, they're actually DEEP FRIED... wtf ??? ) and all sorts of things that I need for our family cookout this weekend. :::thud:::

SO when I'm broke, at least we'll all be healthy.