Nutrition For Stress Management & For Life!

One of the most important aspects of self-care, and caring for our families, is the food we put into our bodies. Our food choices can bring us energy or weigh us down, can bring feelings of health and wellness or sluggishness, anxiety, and distress.  

We are excited to introduce you to the MyPyramid.gov site, which has nutrition information for you, including several interactive planning tools.  Having a balanced diet and drinking plenty of water (0.06 glasses of 8 oz per day is a new recommendation in a study sponsored by the USDA.  Someone who weighs 150 pounds should drink 9 glasses per day, according to this study on dehydration in older Americans.)  (See More Links & Resources at the bottom of the page for alternatives to My Pyramid.)

Special Needs kids can sometimes have special dietary needs, and the nutrition information we will present is not meant in any way to conflict with your child's special dietary requirements.  We are very familiar with dietary restrictions and special diets for medical reasons! 

If you are wanting information about prevention of childhood obesity, the We Can! program is a perfect place to go!  The website has great information, tips and inspiration on this topic.  Granted, this information is geared towards typical children, but there is a great focus on building healthy bodies and healthy habits.  Eating a balanced diet is a learned behavior!  Also, check out the Let's Move site.

It is very important to organize your and your child's nutrition - having basic nutritional guidelines and information will help make you aware of your choices while buying groceries, so that you can focus on both health and economy while shopping.  Organizing grocery shopping and menus on a weekly/daily basis can be a challenge, especially if your family is working with both normal diets and special needs or medical diets.   Even planning well can sometimes run up against scheduling problems and "the best laid plans" can go out the window!   MyPyramid can help with shopping and planning with their online tools. Making healthy choices for food and activity also gives you another area of your life that you can positively control - having a sense of control is one of the major components to 'stress hardiness' (see Bounce Back! The Resilient Caregiver).  So, take control of your healthy eating habits and you will be taking care of your child's most valuable resource - you! 

More Links & Resources (including some alternative resources):

Inside the Pyramid - New 2010 guidelines are available (not too much different than 2005)

MyPyramid Plan - a personal planner for you!

Menu Planner - create a menu for you and your family!

 My Food-a-pedia - look up and compare foods for nutrition and their place on the pyramid

My Pyramid for Preschoolers

My Pyramid for Kids - nutrition information, games, etc.

The Vegan Lunchbox - looking for creative and healthy alternatives? Great for kids & adults!  And if you don't want to do the vegan thing, you can always substitute some animal proteins.  This is a fun food blogger with two great books that have made my son's special-diet lunch time much more happy and satisfying, and revitalized my cooking in general.

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet - an alternative to My Pyramid by Dr. Andrew Weil - worth exploring. 
The Anti-Inflammatory Pyramid
 

The Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramid - another alternative pyramid based on Harvard University's research