Saturday, March 21, 2009

What's in the Frig?

This weekend, many members at the WW meetings I was working at confessed to opening the refrigerator just out of pure habit. Many had stated that their families do the same thing including the children. I remember doing this as a child, often going to the frig, opening it staring aimlessly, stating "I'm hungry", looking for something good to eat, stating "There's nothing to eat!", shutting the frig and going back to what I was doing. Why?

Shamefully, I have to admit that I still do this on occasion. Lately, my horrible habit has been dipping into the open frosting container and scooping out a BIG tablespoon of sugar madness. Not because I'm craving the sweet, but cause there's no other junk in the frig. Fortunately, I only indulge in the frig habit when I'm the only one in the the kitchen so my kids don't see this. Another reason the kids haven't picked this habit up is because our refrigerator is above our freezer. Believe me, they go into the freezer!!

The habits we create stick with us until we change them. I am so glad that I am not teaching my kids to go to the refrigerator for comfort. They realize that they will get food when they need it. I always offer breakfast, pack them a lunch, always offer a snack after school and they always get a nutrious dinner, not to mention dessert.

The refrigerator habit is a mystery to me...another habit that I am proud to say has all but disappeared is the "buying a candy bar at the cash register" habit that I had for a LONG time too. Any other mysteries? We used to always open a bag of chips and have them gone within a few days. This weekend, the girls asked for some potato chips. The "best by" date said March 8! We opened these chips on New Year's!! Amazing that the mystery of the missing chips no longer happens in our house either.

Happy Spring! It's raining here today, but we'll be trying to do some more Spring cleaning.

2 comments:

Andrew is getting fit said...

Heh! I did it this evening a few times!

Becky Fyfe said...

We always have lots of fresh fruit on hand, and the kids know they are allowed to eat as much of it as they want. So when they complain between meals that they are hungry, I can always steer them towards the fruit basket.