Flip Your Food

Pancakes.  Burgers. Eggs Over Easy. Pineapple Upside Down Cake. No wait, sorry, that isn’t what I meant by “flipping”. If you aren’t mad at me now, I’ll continue. When you plan any meal, start with thinking first about what good and nutritious thing you can include. I think we’ve all been trained to think (or shamed into thinking) about what we should eliminate or minimize in our meals. Thinking things like if I make a pizza I should really cut down on the cheese or if I make a traditional egg breakfast I should cut down or cut out the butter and bacon. This type of thinking is exhausting and I think it sort of sets us up for failure. If you are always eliminating, you can never win, there will always be something else that you can think to minimize or eliminate.


Stir-fry - Peas, two kinds of peppers, red onion, green onion, garlic, ginger, and tofu.

So instead, try this. Focus your energy and thoughts on adding good things to your meals.

Add vegetables to your pizzas, add fresh fruit or avocado to your breakfast. Build a pasta dish or a stir-fry by first planning what vegetables to include. For your next chicken casserole, instead thinking first about the sauce and cheese, start by thinking about what whole grain you want to use (quinoa? brown rice?), whether you can add any carrot or onion or other vegetables, or use olive oil instead of butter.

Over time with this approach you’ll see that the less nutritious parts of your meal, the parts that you probably should be minimizing and eliminating will start to be minimized and eliminated. When you make a pasta that has a ton of vegetables in it, when you serve yourself your normal serving, there will be less pasta in it. Or when you make a sandwich and you try to get tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and avocado on it, you’ll kind of run out room to include much meat and cheese. But I can bet that sandwich will still be damn good and filling.

Spinach, edamame and cashews with brown and wild rice.

This is a good step in having a healthier relationship with food. This switches our thoughts while planning a meal from negative and combative (what I need to try not to eat) to a positive one — how much nutritious food can I pack into this meal. And eating really should be a positive experience. For years I was counting calories and I think it kind of made me crazy. I was so focused on the “bad” part of every meal: how much bread was in that? how much oil? how much cheese? And one day, my boyfriend, probably annoyed at my neurotic behavior, asked me why I was beating myself up all the time? And pointed out that whatever we were eating had salmon, olive oil, almonds, broccoli….all items that regularly make “superfood” lists. He was totally right (yes, yes, I said it, he was right). So give it a try, eat some good food, and give yourself a good pat on the back for your effort (or reward yourself with a slice of this made-over carrot cake)