Just Say No to Leftovers

You know that eating your toddler's leftovers isn't good for your diet, but you did ever wonder exactly how many extra calories you're packing on by eating just a few tablespoons of mac and cheese and nibbling on sandwich crusts? According to the July 2006 issue of Fitness magazine, it's as much as 200-300 calories a day. If you're eating leftovers for three toddlers, as I have been, that's as much as 900 extra calories a day! A person of my height and weight would have to workout on the elliptical trainer for about 3 hours straight just to burn off the leftovers. Again, that's just to burn off the leftovers, the existing weight wouldn't even be touched during this 3-hour marathon!

I've gotta start dishing out less food to the kids to prevent leftovers in the first place. Our pediatrician has repeatedly told me that my expectation of how much they should be eating is much greater than their appetities but I never listen. I always feel like they are just going to starve themselves if they don't eat this one meal. I'm slowly reconditioning the way I think but it's hard, especially since I grew up with a mom who always insisted we clean our plates because so many children in this world are dying of hunger and it's such a "sin" to throw food away. (By the way, I never force my kids to finish their plates, I know that's wrong, instead I let them eat as much as they want and then eat everyone's leftovers like a human garbage disposal because I hate to see food being wasted). I know, I need serious therapy, but starting today I'm going to try my hardest to dole out less food to the kids, say "no" to leftovers, and say "yes" to pilates.