Healthful Habit 2/52

Healthful Habits is a way for our family to intentionally implement a more wholesome style of living one small step at a time. The process of executing these small changes over the course of a year enables them to become lifelong habits.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

{ Aristotle }

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"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

{A. A. Milne}

Breakfast is good for you. Most nutritionists claim it's the best meal of the day. Benefits I've heard connected to eating breakfast include greater weight loss, better brain function, more effective metabolism, more benefit from exercise, and increased concentration. Our family has known all that for a long time. We still don't eat it.

Hubby's "breakfast" usually consists of his daily mocha. I got better about eating first thing in the morning while pregnant, but since baby girl's arrival I've slipped back into my old habits. Which means I'm doing good if I eat a banana. And our desire the eat real food has only seemed to make the whole morning meal thing even harder, since we can no longer grab that bowl of genetically-modified, sugar-laced cereal or the chocolate-covered fiber bar.

The ideal goal is for our breakfast to contain...

... fiber

... fruit and/or vegetable*

... source of calcium

... source of protein

Eventually, I'd love to tackle each morning with whole wheat banana pancakes or quinoa porridge. But we're approaching this one small change at a time. So, the second healthful habit of the year is a real food breakfast every morning. Even if what appears on my plate is eclectic. Even if it's not traditional breakfast food. Even if it's not a perfect nutritional balance. We're building a habit, one step at a time.

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* RELATED COMMENT:

Since this week's healthful habit is technically not a change in terms of reducing toxins or eliminating chemicals, we plan to implement it with a twist. The morning breakfast goal is going to be combined with that of incorporating vegetables into at least 4/7 of the mornings. As Nina Planck so accurately remarks in her book, "If you don't buy produce, you'll never eat it" (158). So we will buy vegetables, and we will find creative "breakfasty" ways to eat them.