Day 18

 You know, by day two of the 21 Day Challenge, most of us in the house were saying "how are we going to make it through another 18 days of this?!"  And now I can't believe it's almost over!


It's definitely becoming more of predictable at this point. I can now just run through my mind the contents of the fridge and know whether or not if I have enough food for meals for that day. In the beginning I felt it too overwhelming to even think about lunch when we hadn't even made breakfast, so we really just made it one meal and snack at a time. 


Last night I was just done with cooking, food, and cleaning. Sometimes you just have to leave it all alone. At 6:30 I just went into my room and left the kitchen clean up to my kids and Tom. And they did a great job cleaning up and putting away food while I chilled out on the computer. (Thanks, dear!) 

Anyway, I didn't pack lunch boxes last night, so I had to do it this morning (on top of having to make breakfast), which made for a chaotic morning. Fun times. I did decide to do something differently for the lunch boxes though. I took a handful of about anything I could find, put it in a snack-size Ziplock bag, and added a banana and clementine. My thinking was "let's see how much they will really eat if I give them several different choice, and in smaller amounts...will they end up eating more?"  


It seemed to work well! They all came back with mostly empty lunch boxes. 


I didn't make a breakfast, breakast, but rather let them pick what they wanted from the lunch box.


So (as closely as I can remember) I packed: 

Pistachios
2 oz sunflower butter
Large slice of roast beef
Celery sticks
1/3 bell pepper
Banana
Clementine
Coconut flakes (about an ounce) 
Cheese (for Amy)

must be a few other things, but I can't recall them.   Anyway, they all ate but one thing (different thing for each of them) and when I saw them around 4:30 (Tom picked them up) I asked if they had had enough food for the day. They all said yes. I asked if they were hungry, two said no, and Regina said "not really, but a little."  


So now I have to rethink the idea that kids need one major food item and one or two side items for lunch. Maybe with kids have a huge hunk of turkey seems too much for them and they don't want have "just turkey!"   It will take a little more time but it might be worth it. 


Anyway, a fast-favorite dinner of ours is fajitas! Chicken, steak, and shrimp mixed with sauteed onions and peppers. We added in a lot of avocado, some sour cream (full fat, of course) and lettuce/tomato. Veronica is the only girl who will willingly eat avocado (though it's a small amount), but I did have each kid eat at least one tablespoon of guacamole. It really does help to fill everybody up. Since I found avocado oil, and it has little taste, I think I can start adding this to the kids foods, and they won't even notice. Extra fats and calories!


The baby has gone back to be very clingy and picky about what she'll eat. Argh. I did get her to eat some yogurt, peppers, a little chicken, and cucumbers today. I drenched the vegetables with olive oil so she would at least get some fats. I guess I'll keep working on her. 

I made a huge salad with steak strips, olive oil, and lemon for lunch. Yummy, yummy. And for snack I had a banana (mainly for the potassium) and a piece of cheese. It's only my second (or third?) piece of fruit in the last 18 days, so I felt fine about eating it. So good.


Tom needs to really up his water intake. So anybody out there who have good thoughts on how he can get more in without hating it so much, please share! 


Btw, I noticed today that Regina's stomach--which has been perpetually bloated (looking six month pregnant) since she was two years old--has dramatically flattened. Finally! I really think it was the grains causing it, but I never would have guessed it could have caused it to bloat that much!


I still have to figure out how many calories per meal they kids are getting, but I think the extra oils will help a lot.


Night!