Leading a healthy lifestyle begins in the kitchen

If you have made it a priority in your household to clean up your family's eating habits, summer time is a great time to do so with your family being home and off school. Leading a healthy lifestyle begins in the kitchen, and by having your children be an active part in cleaning out your cupboards, and pantries along with fun trips to local farmer markets and food specialty stores can be educational, as well as fun quality family time.

A kitchen revamp is a great way to introduce new and forgotten foods, colors and textures to you and your family's taste buds but before that a few simple steps, are in order to get your kitchen up to speed to enable a healthy lifestyle.

• Have your children help you clean and organize your pantry and cupboards with you. Check expiration dates, throw out foods that you KNOW have no nutritional value to you or your kids, and which have been adding to your waist line. Keep canned goods grouped together, tomato products, and staples in an easily accessible area.
• Clean and organize your fridge and freezer. Designate a specific drawer for to-go snack items for you or your children such as: apples, a variety of berries, pears, oranges, peaches, grapes, carrots, celery sticks and grape tomatoes. Same for your commonly used items. Keep leftovers in a specific area of your fridge, and organize your freezer with a section for meats, vegetables, entree dinners etc.
• Make sure that all your small household appliances are clean, in working order and easily accessible.
• Label your shelves, as well as everything that gets stored in the freezer and fridge.
• Frequently used baking and cooking utensils should be either hung on the wall, or in an open container on the counter for easy access. Cook books and recipe boxes should be in close proximity as well.
• Make sure your kitchen's counters and work areas are clean and clutter-free as an inviting kitchen, is one step closer to a healthier you.

Now that your kitchen is de-cluttered, clean, and organized it is time to replenish it with the right building blocks for a healthy lifestyle for you and your family.

• Stock your fridge and freezer with lean proteins such as: skinless chicken breast, lean cuts of beef, venison, turkey, salmon, taliapia, legumes and fat-free dairy products.
• In addition depending on what is in season, stock your kitchen with a rainbow of fresh fruits and vegetables and introduce a new fruit or vegetable to your children by taking them to a nearby farmer's market. 
• Take your children to your local library or go on the internet and find stories, games or food-illustrated books and make story-time special time with your children teaching them about where fruits and vegetables come from and the benefits of them. 
• Choose clear versions of salad dressings versus creamy ones or make your own from scratch. Same goes for condiments, read labels and choose mustard over mayonnaise for example. 
• Limit or ban the following 7 C's if you can: They consist in Colas, Candy, Cakes, Cookies, Crackers, ice Cream, and Cereal. Choose more healthy versions from the health food store, and if you like trail mix for example start making your own with more healthful ingredients. Remember a trim waistline is made in the kitchen.
• Stock your fridge with reusable water bottles and invest in a water filtering system. 

Like everything in life, leading a healthy lifestyle involves planning, just like if you were to go on a road trip. If you leave your meals up to the last minute, you are bound to set yourself up for failure. Therefore planning your meals ahead of time is in order. 

Try to pick one day a week, to do your grocery shopping, stick to your grocery list, and cook a few meals for the week. Prepare your home-made tomato sauce ahead of time, use some that week and freeze the rest. If time is of the essence, when cooking for you or your family double your portions, so that one meal can be used that week, the remainder is to be frozen for another time.

And remember a healthy lifestyle is spending quality time with your family around the dinner table enjoying your meals.

Be well.

Moji Doyle

Moji Doyle Wellness Consulting

Prenatal Fitness & Beyond

www.mojidoyle.com