New eBook! FOR YOU – PREGNANCY 2nd/3rd Trimester

It's kind of weird for me to write a post about how I purposely expose my little ones to some fast food and sweet treats. It's even weirder to write my perspective on this topic considering my degree is in nutrition and I am a personal trainer. I'm aware with my background that most would assume I would be 100% a health freak and that would trickle down to the way I feed my one and a half-year-old twins. The best way for me to begin to explain why I am the mom that I am is to share three experiences that highly influenced me and the way that I view food with children. Experience 1: When I was just a little girl (around 8-9 years old) I had a childhood friend that lived very close by. She came over to my house often and usually unannounced. This was never an issue considering I came from a family of 6 kids. My mom always said, "aw what's one more kid?!" Let's call my childhood friend Ella. To describe Ella, she was beautiful and very thin. I remember being in awe of how thin she was because I was chubbier until 6th grade when I hit my growth spurt. Anyways, the first thing she would say when she came through the door is, "Hey can I have a snack?" We would start going through the cupboards and help ourselves to what we wanted. I noticed that Ella always went for the unhealthier options such as a zebra cake - anyone else remember those? After she was finished with that she would head back to find something else to her liking. As a little girl, I just thought it was fun to have a friend over, play, and eat treats so I really did not think much of it until we got a little older. I remember heading to Ella's house one day thinking that she spontaneously comes to mine so why couldn't I go to hers. I knocked on the door and waited. Ella answered but opened the door just a crack, saw me and slipped outside to meet me. She said, "let's go to your house and eat!" I thought it was kind of unusual but agreed and off we went to have some snacks and play. Eventually, I found out that her meals were portioned out by her [...]