Real Moms Really Do Love to Eat

Denial is not something Chicago author Beth Aldrich advocates. If you want to eat that cupcake, enjoy it, but make sure you balance your meals with healthier options during the rest of the week.

Aldrich is like most moms—busy. At one point in her life, she was a popular media personality with a series on PBS and a magazine publisher. Eating healthy took a backseat to taking care of her family and nurturing a successful career outside the home. Then, an automobile accident changed her outlook and purpose in life.

“I began to think about the smaller things in life—the little pleasures, the momentary joys that build on each other to create happiness,” says Aldrich. She began questioning her purpose in life and realized the answer dealt with both health and pleasure.

Before long, she found herself making monthly trips to New York City to study holistic nutrition and health counseling at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She trained with the school founder, Joshua Rosenthal, and other people committed to natural health, whole food and the pursuit of a fulfilling life, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Deepak Chopra.

It was only after becoming certified as a health counselor and working with clients, many of which were busy moms, that she noticed a disturbing pattern. “Moms were so busy that they had given up on healthy eating and had given in to chicken nuggets and mac-n-cheese,” she says.

She collaborated with her friend, Eve Adamson, and focused on the 12-part plan she created and used while working with clients to write her latest book, Real Moms Love to Eat.

“I really try to give women options for living healthy, so that they can enjoy food without all of the hang-ups,” Aldrich says. Her book is a bit tongue-in-cheek, often using emotional and sexual analogies to eating well, but the tone is intentional.

“Real moms appreciate the candid and funny approach to food, dieting and weight loss,” adds Aldrich. “It’s very serious to most of us, but it’s also crazy funny how much we all keep track of our food, create boundaries around food and discriminate against a sweet innocent little cupcake. Can we all just enjoy food and learn to eat healthy and stop dieting?”

Dieting is not part of the plan. Instead, Aldrich recommends lifestyle changes in incremental doses of five per week.

Peppered at the beginning of every chapter, Aldrich notes that the five easy, manageable tasks, when done in order and slowly, soon become a natural part of the reader’s day, week, month and life.

“Good habits take time, and if readers just give it a try, they’ll see that the suggestions make sense and they work!” says Aldrich. “If you customize your food with the suggestions given each week, the weight really does level off. If you don’t need to lose weight, you’ll gain more energy, if you do need to lose, it will slowly (and permanently) come off.”

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Aldrich cautions that her plan is not all about food and eating healthy. Lifestyle change recommendations come in the form of an organized kitchen, banishing plastics from cupboards and purifying pots and pans.

“I included a section [on these topics] because so many people don’t realize that when there’s organization in the kitchen, the heart of the home, everything just flows better,” Aldrich says. “You’re less stressed and it makes your life easier.” These changes also are simple and cost-effective.

What struck Aldrich the most in writing Real Moms Love to Eat is that most people blindly follow and believe food packaging and crazy diets without question.

“I just was amazed at the information that is out there about how many diet books there are and how many people never read the ingredients label,” says Aldrich. “Instead, they just read the fat, calories and protein levels, not realizing that the key ingredients are artificial! We need to educate consumers and bring the awareness back to eating whole, fresh and natural foods.”

Real Moms Love to Eat is designed with busy people in mind. Small, incremental changes add up, but the calories don’t have to. So take the advice of Beth Aldrich: go ahead; have that cupcake and enjoy its sinful taste.

Megy Karydes is a professional writer who does not deny herself a piece of chocolate every day because it keeps her sane. Connect with her at KarydesConsulting.com.