Homemade Graham Crakers

Making something from scratch is really satisfying. Especially if that something turns out delicious. And you didn't have to remove it from it's bag-within-a-box (is that like a dream within a dream?). And it is healthy for your family. And, therefore, it makes you feel like Martha Stewart could learn a thing or two from you. 

I bet Martha fed her kid graham crackers out of a box. 

I mean, her dogs probably eat treats handcrafted in a small village in Northern Italy. But I bet Alexis ate good ol' Honey Maid when she came off of the bus from Kindergarten. 

And my kids have, too. I mean, who has the time? AND making snacks from home seems weird.As I have run across recipes for everything from crackers to chips to Hostess cakes online, I always end up thinking to myself, "Yeah, but they don't taste like the real thing, I bet." 

The REAL THING!? Meaning what, brain? That a homemade Twinkie won't taste like a factory-made one? DUH! That's because there isn't one "real" ingredient in a Twinkie! I swear, sometimes I'm so infuriating. 

The good news is that most homemade snacks I have made have turned out better than their packaged-a-decade-ago-and-gathering-dust-on-the-supermarket-shelf counterparts with surprising little effort (these crackers mix and bake up in no time!). And, once again, knowing that they were made 1) by my hands and 2) without ingredients that I can't even pronounce let alone tell you what they are for feels great! 

While I am on this small-but-obnoxious soapbox, let me share just one Honey Maid Graham Cracker ingredient, the one that jumped out at me first (well, second, if you don't count SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL, which I never do. [By the way, how is it an AND/OR situation? Do they really not know which gross hydrogenated oil they add to each batch? Is it a SURPRISE! kind of thing?]): Soy Lecithin. Made from genetically modified crops (healthy!), Soy Lecithin is extracted from soybeans either mechanically or chemically using hexane (a liquid hydrocarbon most often used in cleaning agents!). It acts as an emulsifier or a raising agent to a cracker like Honey Maid's Grahams, ensuring that things won't crumble and separate no matter how long those bad boys sit on your shelf (hungry yet?)! Don't you love learning new things?

I realize that avoiding things like this, for me, at least, is completely out of the question at this point in my life (a girl can dream...), but I am all for taking a break from the Soy Lecithins of the world whenever I get the opportunity. Especially if that opportunity comes in the form of spending a fun afternoon with my girls in the kitchen, and ends with a delicious treat.

Because of my interest in making things at home that I would usually buy in the store, I immediately fell in love and had to own this book when I came across it.  That is where this graham cracker recipe comes from. And just in case you are thinking to yourself, "Ick, I bet that doesn't taste like the real thing," I have to tell you, you are absolutely right. They are better.

If you're feeling super cool (I usually am), turn your homemade crackers into s'mores! Did I mention that Alana has a great homemade marshmallow recipe in her book?

Graham Crackers

from The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila

Makes 45 to 50 2x3-inch Crackers

Ingredients: 

•  1 cup AP flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup rye flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, divided
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar (I used light brown with a tsp of molasses)
• 3 Tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 4 Tbs shortening, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 4 Tbs honey
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp granulated sugar

Directions:
 In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flours with the salt, baking soda, baking powder, 1 tsp of the cinnamon, and the brown sugar. Mix using paddle attachment for 10 seconds. Add butter and shortening and mix on medium for 30 seconds.

In a measuring cup, combine honey, vanilla and 1/4 cup cold water until the honey is mostly dissolved. With the mixer running on medium-low, slowly pour the honey mixture into the bowl. Continue to mix an additional 20 seconds. The dough will still be a little crumbly. Push the dough into a ball, wrap it in waxed paper (or plastic wrap), and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days (or freeze here to use later).

Take the dough out of the fridge 20 minutes before you are ready to bake. Preheat your oven to 350. Cut the dough in half and lay one half between two sheets of wax or parchment paper dusted with rye flour. Roll the dough as thin as you can get it, about 1/8 inch thick. Using a pizza wheel, crinkle cutter or knife, cut 2x3-inch rectangles. Use a spatula to separate the rectangles from the paper and set them onto an ungreased baking sheet. The crackers won't spread, so you can place them very close together. Reroll scraps and repeat (or just have your children help you- if they are anything like mine they will use the rolling pin twice, and spend the rest of their time as Mommy's Special Helper eating up dough scraps when your back is turned)- then repeat with the second half of the dough.

In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/2 tsp cinnamon with the granulated sugar, and sprinkle the crackers with the mixture (I may have doubled... okay, tripled this part. But there were a lot of crackers to cover!). Prick each cracker several times with a fork. Bake for 15 minutes, or until just beginning to brown at the edges. Cool on a wire rack. Store in an air-tight container for up to 10 days, or freeze unbaked dough for  months, thaw, roll and bake whenever.

trying to hold back this feeling

We survived our move to the Pacific Northwest! Barely. I am still playing catchup with mounds of homework, laundry (mostly linens from post-flea-bombing. yeah, we have a flea problem in our new home! score.) and blog ideas! I feel like I left off this blog mid-sentence, and that is not a great feeling. 

But, no more!

The kids are in bed, laundry is still spinning, homework is, well, what's one more night? 

I want to tell more of my story post-insulin resistance diagnosis. After my initial meeting with my doctor, the one before all of the blood work that proved his hypothesis - I have moderate insulin resistance, and poly-cystic ovarian syndrome as a byproduct of that insulin resistance - I went home and looked up the diets he had mentioned, and immediately began the "four day jump-start" for The Flat Belly Diet by Prevention Magazine. I was incredibly discouraged and terrifically saddened by his assertions, and I stayed feeling that way for about two days. There were a lot of tears, a lot of head-hanging and whoa-is-me-ing. 

And then it clicked, and my sad feelings began to transform into something infinitely more productive. 

I had just been given an explanation! A reason for the ever-packing-on pounds despite four triathlons and being in the best shape I had been in since I was eighteen. A reason that I was craving carbs all of the time. 

And a reason that I should wake up to that fact, stop the carb cravings in their tracks, and reverse the effects of a completely reversible diagnosis! I had been given my power back! And I sure wasn't going to waste it. 

Once the test results came back in a few days after my epiphany, I was called back into my doctor's office, this time to meet with his nurse practitioner. A test result follow up wasn't high up on good ol' doc's priority list, apparently. I wasn't too disappointed.

But when into the office walked a thin and beautiful woman, I couldn't help thinking to myself, "Oh great, here comes Skipper to lecture me on eating green leafies as if I couldn't bury her in a bike race. Ease up, Mary Ann. I get it." 

...I know I sound like a huge jerk for admitting that. But when you are vulnerable and sitting alone in a doctor's office waiting to hear someone tell you over your medical chart that you need to drop some LB's I don't really think your heart is ready to be in a super charitable place. At least mine wasn't. 

Just in case you didn't catch that.

What Tanya (her actual name) ended up doing, though, was sitting side by side with me at the small table in the room and going over BMI's, blood sugar tests, PCOS implications, and real life diet suggestions in a very natural and kind way. Once I understood what my test results really meant, and how insulin resistance was screwing up my body, my plans for another baby, everything, she broke down a diet that was so easy to remember AND implement that I will be forever grateful. 

Here is what she said (well, the gist of what she said, at least):

"You can't give up carbs. Your body needs carbs to function. Carbs are not evil. However, your cells are rejecting insulin, a hormone, that attaches itself to carbs in your blood stream, and it is leaving excess insulin in your blood stream, along with carbs that have no where to go. So here is the best thing I can tell you to do: you need to count carbs. You should have 30 grams of carbs at breakfast, 35 at lunch and dinner each, and 15 twice a day for snacks. Here is how you count total carbs: Take total carbs of a given serving, subtract grams of fiber (located directly under total carb count on food labels) and that gives you your total grams of carbs per serving. Keep exercising and stick to that, it should help." 

It was as I was meeting with Tanya that I was about to begin my 19 credit semester at school, so I knew that exercise was going to have to take much lower priority for the next three months. But I decided then and there to implement her carb-counting system into my life and see what happened. I took with me a few principles from The Flat Belly Diet but otherwise dropped the strict nature of the food plan, instead adopting Tanya's 30-15-35-15-35 carbohydrate system. 

And that is what I have stuck to since then.
Honestly, exercising during that 19 credit semester went even worse than I had anticipated, and I have yet to get myself on a really great schedule with exercise again, what with all of the Life-In-Turmoil garbage I have had going on these past few months. So basically what I am telling you is that by counting carbs like Tanya showed me, I have dropped the weight. Exercise can only help this picture, of course, and I did it as often as I can, but it was more like twice a week instead of the five or six times/week I was clocking during race training. 

I really miss the Super Hero feeling that exercising gave me!! I need to hit the gym!

I am not going to claim this system as a cure all weight loss method for everyone, but I will say that it completely opened my eyes and has helped me in the weight loss I keep going on and on about! I still have a ways to go, but I have been dying to share how I really have accomplished what I have so far. And there it is!

another one bites the dust

Hey Friends! Sorry I haven't written in a little while. I have been a little busy. And a tiny bit heart-broken. 

Read all about it here. 

The great thing about this news is that I still get to continue my adventure with food, only in a huge, culinarily vast city.  I can't wait to share it with you!

not'cho average nacho: Greek Nachos

Greek food took me by surprise when I was about 22 years old. I had never had anything remotely Mediterranean in my life (pizza and spaghetti not included), when, one day, I stumbled upon Crazy Pita near my mom and dad's house in Henderson, NV. It was there that I first sampled warm-spiced roasted vegetable couscous, sharp Feta salad, flavorful Kefta skewers and, yes, even Hummus, served with a drizzle of olive oil on top with a sprinkle of paprika and warm pita bread on the side. 

This, I thought to myself, is heaven. 

Now Greek food is a weekly staple in my home, including homemade whole wheat pita bread, which I make in a double-batch, cook and freeze for quick lunches of pita sandwiches, pizzas, chips and more! But that's another post. 

 Today I want to share my recipe for Greek Nachos. These are a no-bake nacho using pita chips (homemade, store bought, or - my new-found Trader Joe's* favorite, Whole Wheat Lavash Chips, pictured) piled high with fiber-rich, protein-packed hummus, chopped veggies, a sprinkle of Feta and a drizzle of Greek dressing, also a TJ's* staple in my house. If you have any leftover chicken laying around, it goes great on top of this dish as well! I love to buy a rotisserie chicken from my grocery store at the beginning of the week, carve it up, and use it throughout the week to add protein to salads and nachos. They are super inexpensive, juicy and incredibly flavorful, and a huge time-saver to boot!

By the way, if you're wondering why on earth I am name-dropping all of my Trader Joe's-exclusive groceries, it's because, well, TJ's is my favorite store on the face of the planet. And the blog name doesn't call me a snob for nothing. I stop at a TJ's every single time I get the opportunity to stock up on our family's favorites, and at the top of that favorite's list is their Greek dressing. You can substitute homemade tzatziki sauce (when in doubt, go with Alton Brown. He's my culinary boyfriend), Ranch, other store-bough Greek, or even just a splash of oil and vinegar. 

Or come to my house and I'll give you a bottle. I have about 400 of them lining my pantry shelves.

Greek Nachos, baby!

This recipe is so simple- it makes a great lunch, or, with chicken (or whole chickpeas or white beans for extra protein) even a great, fast weeknight dinner! I have made this recipe a ton of different ways depending on what is in my fridge at the moment, too. I have topped it with roasted zucchini, squash and carrots, and then some crunchy romaine, I have made a cucumber/Feta/tomato/olive tapenade to sprinkle across the top -- any veggies you have will taste delicious with this. Also, I don't know about your kids, but mine love crunchy, fresh veggies, and they love nachos. They gobble this up! 

Whether you are a Mediterranean novice or an old pro, there is nothing better than a big pile of nachos with the flavors that I can't get enough of!

Greek Nachos

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10-20 minutes

  

Ingredients:

• ·        1 bag pita chips, lavash chips, or 2 cups homemade pita chips
• ·        1 1/5 cups Hummus, see below
• ·        3 cups raw veggies, including cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, lettuce, jicama, carrots – the possibilities are endless!
• ·        ¼ cup Feta Cheese
• ·        ¼ cup Greek Dressing, preferably Trader Joe’s, or tzatziki sauce

On serving platter, arrange chips in a single layer. One by one, smear ½ tbs of hummus on each chip. Sprinkle cheese and veggies across the top. Top with lettuce lastly, if using, and drizzle lightly with dressing. Serve.

World’s Best Hummus 

 (adapted from Ina Garten)

Yield: 2 cups

Prep time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

•     4-5 garlic cloves
•     1 can chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
•     1 to 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt (I cut the salt down to 1 tsp when making this recipe for                     nachos, as the chips are salted)
•     1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste, found in the peanut butter or specialty aisle of the                      supermarket)
•     6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
•     2 tablespoons liquid from the chickpeas
•     6-10 dashes hot sauce, depending on taste

Process garlic in food processor fitted with the steel blade until it's minced. Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and process until the hummus is coarsely pureed. Taste, for seasoning, and serve chilled or at room temperature.

ah, memories

Hey, do you remember that one time when you were so excited about changes that you were making in your life that you decided to share them with the world, but then life got so stressful and intimidating and emotionally draining that for all three days of your vacation to Portland you fell off of the deep end and decided that your new lifestyle and motto and everything were complete garbage? And then you realized that the Big Ugly Monster that is emotional eating had reclaimed you and you needed to find a way to break the cycle and get back on track or you just might be lost in a haze of Trader Joe's Chocolate Covered Potato Chips and Diet Coke for all eternity?

My delicious nemesis.

Man, I hate it when that happens. 

Messing up on my goals and perspective this week is forcing me to, once again, come face to face with one of my biggest struggles. I am a perfectionist. If I can't be great at something, I really try not to bother - it gets to me too much! This destructive mindset makes it terrifying for me to set goals- what if I just don't achieve them? My inner-critic wreaks havoc inside my head at the smallest misstep- from something silly that I have said to a huge lapse in judgement. This means that when I fall off of the wagon, I usually lay down in the dirt and hate myself and cry and eat a lot of chocolate- never actually considering that I should just stand up, dust myself off, and climb back on again. 

Knowing my struggle with perfectionism, a trusted friend once asked (read: forced) me to buy and read The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to be and Embrace Who You Are* by Brené Brown.

*Is it just me, or is it Federal Law that self-help books have an incredibly long and cheesy-sounding title?

Brené is an excellent writer and an absolute authority when it comes to shame (a fascinating cultural taboo from the way she writes it - her work is just so enlightening!) and perfectionism. I found her book incredibly  helpful. While reading I continually experienced those moments when you think, "Oh my goodness, she has seen inside my soul and is speaking just to me!" But she hasn't and she wasn't - since sharing what I have learned from her research with others, I have found that I am definitely not alone in grappling with my perfectionist pursuits. Her book changed the way I looked at myself and my current hang-ups, as well as events from my past. The biggest thing I have been trying to implement from her book is the concept of giving myself a break! It seems to be the part of life and failure that I struggle with the most - cutting myself some slack when I have dropped the ball, and not throwing in the towel just because 

(gasp!)

 I am not perfect. 

So, I have failed myself today. Now what?

...I'm not really sure. This part is still really hard for and discouraging to me. I guess I am going to go re-read my favorite chapters of TGOI:LGOWYTYSTBAEWYA (okay, I thought our previous acronyms were bad, but this one is going to make me give up the institution for good) as I try not to think about the incredible amount of garbage I have eaten and how I've sabotaged myself once again and how I'll never ever ever reach my goal if I can't stop eating junk. 

Do you have a hard time bouncing back after a setback? How do you deal?

1, 2 step

It's incredible to me, the effortless NBD aura that all doctors seem to give off. Like all of those doctors on medical drama shows who keep cool as cucumbers as the seventh knife wound victim is wheeled into the E.R. in one shift. As I met with my doctor at my initial appointment, he told me the probable cause for my symptoms along with my two plausible choices. As he did this, he definitely gave me the message:

"Yeah, uh huh. No babies. So, what'll it be? Pills or pounds?" 

He suggested a few diets he had "heard of" that seemed to get good results for other patients, and then he brought the lights down low and decided to make it personal. ...okay, the lights stayed on in all of their full-blast fluorescent glory. I just imagined it that way. Like the part of an 'NSYNC concert - yeah, I've been to a lot of them - where the lights would get low and J.C. would use his bedroom voice to tell all of the lovely ladies out there that he loved them and each and every one of the aforementioned ladies' tummies would get butterflies and then the rest of the group would come out onstage thrusting their hips and singing in five-part harmony about forever love and unicorns and such. 

Only my doc wasn't trying to get me to throw my underwear at him. 

He was just trying to be less of a tool, I think. 

Anyway, he told me a "deeply personal" story about when his wife finally decided to get control of her weight. She decided to go off of all dairy, and the pounds magically melted away. He acted like this was the hardest diet he had ever heard of, and I'm pretty sure he implied more than once that I wasn't woman enough to do it.

The only problem was that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a big dairy girl. If my doc and his wife grew up around here maybe they were brought up on full fat milk from the dairy down the road and cheese on their every baked potato and butter and all of that. But, until the studies came out in overwhelming numbers on the super-terribleness of margarine, that was all I ever had in my house. Milk was either painstakingly squeezed from a cactus flower or shipped to Las Vegas, my birthplace, from some far off land where things like cows could survive in the open. ...by the way, I may have made up the cactus-milk thing. Sorry. 

  Giving up dairy was not my answer. 

I spent the intermediate week between dooms day doctor, blood tests and results looking up the diets my doctor had mentioned. The Flat Belly Diet by Prevention Magazine had some really interesting ideas in it, including information especially applicable to me about the nature of belly fat. Belly fat, it so happens, is a huge marker of diabetics. I have always gathered the bulk of my, well, bulk around my middle, but the flat belly diet suggests a number of reasons besides diabetes that contribute to belly weight, including chronic stress. I sent this picture to my sister-in-law, Mandy, after a particularly bad day and a long phone call spent bawling to her about my worries and woes. I knew that the last two years had been really, really - no, really - hard on me, but it was especially difficult to read through this list and realize I either had or was currently experiencing just about every symptom listed.

I made a list of my own, because, well, that's just what I do, and "Figure out a way to deal better with stress" wound up at the top of the page. 

The basic tenets of The Flat Belly Diet is that the dieter should eat four four-hundred calorie meals per day, each one containing at least one serving of MUFAs -- ANOTHER ACRONYM! Yes! I am on a roll. 

A MUFA is a Monounsaturated Fatty Acid. These are found in things like peanut butter, nuts and seeds, olives, olive oil, and even dark chocolate.

I loved the idea of eating more servings of MUFAs in my daily life - hey, it beats swallowing one giant, nasty fish oil pill every day, right? - and I figured I would start there as far as changes to my diet went. 

Okay, here is the part where I insert that I don't really believe that "diets" work. I have been on enough of them to know. As I wrote about last time, over the past five months I have come to realize that it is me - my attitude, my habits, my beliefs - that must change. I have started to believe that it's only realizing that I can wait, stop, nibble, sip or just say no, and there is nothing wrong with that every single day. There is a saying that makes more sense to me now that I have actually tried to apply this IWKYTMO mantra - We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. I honestly think that knowing this, and I mean really knowing it, is the only "diet" that has or will ever work. It means not expecting perfection, but instead being quick to forgive, forget and move on. It means acknowledging that I don't "deserve" anything but a healthy lifestyle and a clear conscience. 


In the addiction recovery world, I first learned about the concept of Hitting Rock Bottom. For an addict, HRB doesn't mean that you are cured and will be perfect, but it does mean that the pain of the consequences of your actions/addiction finally outweigh the pleasure of indulging in your addiction. Sitting on that crinkly paper bed-liner and trying not to cry while a guy who was charging me $40/second to listen to his patient-but-bored speech on dropping LBs felt an awful lot like falling through the air and landing on the unforgiving rocks below. Reading about MUFAs was the first step in picking myself up and limping forward.
 Incorporating more MUFAs into my diet has been easy. I am already the biggest peanut butter lover on the face of the earth. Spreading a tablespoon on an apple at night when I am feeling snacky feels like a luxury. Grabbing a square of rich dark chocolate and nibbling away at it feels like sinning. Throwing chopped walnuts into my salad feels like giving my heart a high-five. ...you know. In a good way.
For the next few days I stocked my pantry with the MUFAs I wanted to incorporate into meals, and I started on the four-day jumpstart plan listed in The Flat Belly Diet. It was a great way to begin eating more mindfully, and prepping my tummy to down-grade the amount of food being shoved in there every day. I skipped the weird water thing it wanted you to drink every day, but, to be fair, it sounded intensely disgusting to me. If you are interested in The Flat Belly Diet, go to their website, check out the book at your local library, or buy it almost-anywhere for about $5. It's a pretty good, quick read, and it made for a great kick start to a new way of thinking - Read: Actually thinking before, during and after eating - for me. 
PS Hey Doc, Just FYI, I am woman enough to do this. 

diary of a chubby kid

My relationship with food has always been on a Rocky Road. With chocolate on top. 

I know, I know. I'm a cheese ball.

Elvis Face at Disneyland- Do you like my themed ensemble?

But seriously. I have always been a chub. It just so happens that it runs in my family. Or you might say that no one in my family runs. Either way, since as long as I can remember I have been on the stout side of the Little Teapot song. In elementary school my  parents even had to get involved when a few "popular girls" (BTW how is that even a thing in elementary school? Not cool.) were teasing me. I still remember shamefacedly receiving one of their apology letters, written with backward 's' and all.

 

 "Dear Mandy, 'S'orry I called you a whale. I think you're really nice. -Cindy"

You can insert a lisp when you read that if you want. Even though a "popular girl" would probably never lisp. Her elocution teacher would never allow it. I do it, though, just because it's more fun that way.

Being called "whale" hurts almost as much as looking at this picture does.

 I played 's'oftball with Cindy years later and we actually became friends.

We never mentioned the teasing. Or the letter. Or water-dwelling mammals of any kind.

My parents started looking sideways at me in my swimsuit at a swim meet one night soon after the lisping incident and told me that I needed to start watching what I ate.

But I WAS watching what I ate. I watched it all. I watched after school ice cream sundaes (made like a boss with melted peanut butter and Hershey's syrup on top) and chips and snack cakes sliding past my lips all of the time. It was the best tasting food, the food that our cupboards were stocked with. And I loved it all. The whole "You are what you eat" thing really wasn't registering with me.

Soon after that, mom started taking me to a nutritionist before school once a week. There I would have to talk about vegetables and portion sizes and keep a food journal that I was supposed to go over with my nutritionist at our meetings. I was probably ten. It was embarrassing, intimidating and confusing to me at that age. I thought I looked like everyone else in my family. Ate like them. Why was I there? I don't remember how long I went, but I don't think I learned much about being healthy or turning skinny and pretty - and I was much more interested in the latter. I had no idea what I was doing wrong because I had honestly never considered before that food could be bad.

Life went on. I was always involved in sports (I was the consummate tomboy. I told anyone who would listen that baseball teams should admit girls because softball was just too wimpy for me. My first love was Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez. I wanted to be buried under home plate at Dodger's Stadium... Well, I stick by that last one...). I was pretty happy and active. I was the sweet, funny chubby friend that every cool skinny girl needed in their entourage (They will never admit to it, but I am 95% sure that every friend I had in junior high and high school read that in a Teen Vogue somewhere, and treated it like scripture. And rightly so. I mean, it's Teen Vogue. Am I right?).

My gorgeous sister! ...and me, age 18.

I vividly remember the day, my senior year of high school, that my soccer coach called the team together to have a talk about nutrition. This was literally the only time I can remember connecting food to fuel. I was so interested and quite frankly astounded by his demand that we eat balanced meals. Did I need to buy a scale? What did this have to do with soccer? Whatever this meant, I was sure I wasn't doing it right. And I was the type that said "How high?" the moment Coach said "Jump". So I canned food runs to McDonald's and began eating what soon became known as "The Regular" in my local bagel shop- wheat bagel, turkey, mustard, veggies. The owner of the bagelry loved me. This was my idea of balance.

When I left for college I had no idea how to cook, feed myself, or stay healthy. I was eating garbage at all hours of the day and night, and, while I was not alone among my college besties in gaining the Freshman 15, I was probably the only one who was not eating out of character. The only real change was that I had stopped playing competitive sports 5x a week, and so the pounds packed on. During our sophomore year, my roommates and I made a concerted effort to eat smart and healthy, and it was with this amazing group of women that I learned the following: 1) That I love food. Not just to eat, but I love cooking it, I love shopping for it, I love watching other people prepare it, I loved feeding it to others and eating it with others. 2) That I could lose weight and still eat. and 3) That I wanted to have a different relationship with food than I had ever before considered. It was during this crucial year of my life that I decided that I would be a food-lover in the right way. Somehow.

Blowing it up, age 20.

I got married that year, and my love of cooking has grown exponentially each year since then. I am now known among my friends as a pretty great cook, and that's just how I like it. My life revolves around food, especially trying to find the healthiest and best-tasting way to feed my family.

But I am still a chubby girl. You've seen the pictures. And it has nothing to do with intervening years, babies, or lack of trying to stop being chubby. It has to do with my emotional connection to food and the way I am able to completely zone out when there is a plate of great food (or plain chocolate, peanut butter, bacon and/or any combination of the three) nearby. I wake up minutes or seconds later, licking my lips in satisfaction. Then I look down at my empty plate/bowl and wonder where it's all gone.

Chubby in France, the place where a food lover's dreams come true, 23.

 ...okay, I don't actually have food amnesia, but clearly I am lacking in hours spent practicing self control around food. Even as a grown woman, if I couldn't have all of the food I wanted or if I had emotions that were too difficult to deal with, I would resort to sneaking around with food, having rendezvous with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Ben&Jerry late at night in dark corners of my house. 

Coming to terms with this lack of self control has been a very slow and painful process. I am still working on overcoming the intense craving I have to devour all delicious food whenever it is present instead of savoring  it. About a month into practicing my new mantra, although far from perfectly, I read an article on FOMO in Women's Health magazine. FOMO is an adorable acronym for something that is pretty pathetic in all incarnations - the Fear Of Missing Out. As I read through the article, I started to see myself, my patterns from both childhood and adult life, in print on the pages of the magazine. I have always struggled with trying too hard to fit in and please other people and not miss anything important. And, as it turns out, I especially have a major FOMO when it comes to food. I am afraid of saying no to something delicious because good food makes me happy and I just don't want to miss out.

  And, yes. Even as I type that I can hear how ridiculous it sounds. 

From necessity my mantra in the past five months has become, "It won't kill you to miss out." This means telling myself at least one thousand times that I can have a Pronto Pup - the world's best corn dog - at the State Fair this Fall. That I don't need one today, even though they parked their truck of deliciousness just a few feet away from the face painting booth that I am helping my friend, Laura, with for the next 8 hours. It means saying no to cake on other people's birthdays and not feeling weird about it. It means taking a good, hard look at whether I really "deserve" some chocolate in the long afternoons that accompany being the mother of two small children. I am trying to put my relationship with food into a more accurate perspective. I have taken  my passion for it and my knowledge of it and tried to assign it the proper place in my life. And so far I feel like recognizing my skewed perspective has only helped to increase the love for food and health and nutrition that I started cultivating as a nineteen-year-old. Food still makes me happy, but that other, darker side of my relationship with food, the side filled with regret and frustration and fear, is diminishing each time I just say no to *fill in the blank with something yummy*. 

So far I'm sticking with "It won't kill you to miss out" - let's call it IWKYTMO - pretty successfully. 

And I'm taking IWKYTMO one day at a time. Which I fully realize makes me sound like a recovering alcoholic. But, you know what? As someone who has, on more than one occasion, eaten chocolate alone in a dark closet, I am okay with that.