Life Balance - The Balanced Kitchen

3 Simple Steps to Take Now to Prepare for the Holiday Season

October 27, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

We are on the edge of the holiday abyss. That time of year when there is so much happening and so much to do that we can easily lose track of our own self-care. Ironically, it is the time of year when we most need to be feeding ourselves well in order to fight off colds, flus, and other nasty bugs and yet we often find ourselves grabbing take out an extra time (or two or three or five) a week or falling back on convenience foods that we know don’t make us feel that great but are easy and comforting when we are feeling stressed. Yup, we are on the edge of that time. Ugh.

In years past I have shared recipes (like this, this, this, and this) and tricks (like these and these) that can help to boost ourselves up at these stressful times, but this time around I want to get super practical, people. I want to share with you what I decided was going to be the most helpful for me and it isn’t sexy or glitzy, but I am pretty darn sure that it is going to save my butt in the weeks to come… I am organizing and stocking up….

Managing Treat Season for Ourselves and Our Kids

October 13, 2016 By Jessica Braider 1 Comment

As much as we may want to live in denial, we are about to enter what I like to call treat season, that time of year from Halloween through New Years when there are seemingly endless supplies of sweet treats. This is a time of year that used to stress me out both because of my own treat consumption and because I felt like I was in a constant state of negotiation with my kids. In the past two years, though, I have not found it nearly as stressful and I wanted to share with you the things that I have done that I think have been helpful, both for myself and for my kids….

3 Ways I Let Go of Hating My Body and Learned to Love It (at least a little bit)

September 29, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

On Tuesday night I went to see the new movie Embrace which is an incredibly powerful documentary about the struggles that so many of us face around body image. It discussed the ways in which women are sent messages that their bodies are not good enough and the cycles of self-loathing and shame that build up over our lifetimes. And yet it was also an incredibly hopeful and empowering movie because it really made the case for another way. It set out a new approach for how we should honor and love our bodies as vehicles for life rather than objects to be judged by those around us (and ourselves).

As I was sitting there, I was thinking about all of the conversations I have had in the course of my work with clients, workshop participants, and friends about the anxieties that so many of us have about how our bodies look and how much shame and worry we experience around food, which we see as our Achilles heal. We believe that if we were just more controlled about what we ate, everything would be better. I say “we” here because this used to be my life. I lived in a constant state of obsession about what I was eating. I would negotiate with myself, deprive myself, count calories, workout to “earn” calories back, and not even enjoy the food I did eat because I was either anxious about whether or not I had made the “right” choice or I was wolfing it down because I was so hungry. In short, I was miserable. In the past few years, though, things have gotten much better for me. I no longer track what I eat or feel guilty when I have “junk food.” Sure, I still have days when I am not happy with my body or feel like I have overeaten, but those are now short lived, and often hormonal, which I’m cool with.

I am so grateful that this shift has happened for me and I wanted to share with you a couple of things that I truly believe have helped me to find this path:…

Bare Minimum Cooking: 3 Tricks for Easy Meals During Busy Times

September 15, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Over the past few days I have been having a lot of conversations with people about how overwhelmed they are feeling. I have come to think that for many of us September is a month of unexpected overwhelm. Here’s my best guess as to why September can be so brutal: for many of us September is a time of transition—a new school year, work commitments start up after summertime lulls, and other communities we are involved with start to kick into high gear with fall activities—and then there are all those pesky things that need to be taken care off that we put off over the summer, or maybe that is just me. So suddenly we find ourselves trying to get into new routines, take care of long lists of things that really should have been done months ago, and snap out of the slower pace of summer. It can be rough and oftentimes something has got to give… and for a lot of people that something is cooking.

But what if you don’t want cooking to be the thing that drops? What if you are working to get into a good routine with cooking so that you can eat healthier, save money, expose your kids to foods other than grilled cheese and macaroni and cheese, etc? Then it is time to do the bare minimum.

Many of you know that one of my main goals is to help people to realize how accessible and simple cooking can truly be. I firmly believe that even in the busiest of times, cooking is possible and worthwhile. So how to you keep cooking as a regular part of your routine when things are so crazy?…

When Self-Perception Gets in Our Way, or Lessons I Learned on the Side of a Mountain

September 1, 2016 By Jessica Braider 2 Comments

Each year I take a 24-hour break from my family to go on a hiking adventure with a great friend of mine, who also happens to be named Jessica. In years past we have hiked a 14,000-foot mountain and braved 60 mile per hour winds on rocky terrain (definitely thought I was going to get blown off the mountain that time). Each year has pushed me past my comfort level and has left me feeling exhilarated and strong. This year I was kind of nervous about the hike. I wondered whether I was in good enough shape. I wondered if my body, which has been feeling a bit creaky, was up to the challenge, but I set off with Jessica knowing that I had a great friend by my side who would support me no matter what.

As we set out, the sun was rising, the moon was setting, the light was soft, the air was brisk, and it felt like the perfect day for a hike. I felt strong and confident… and then I looked up along the trail and saw the peak we were aiming for.

See that pointy peak in the distance? Yup, that is where we were headed.

I had a moment of panic and thought, “there is no way I am going to be able to do this!!” As we walked I silently started to prepare myself, and my ego, to know when it was time to say I couldn’t go any further
(I have been known to push myself too far—Jess still teases me about how I fought through altitude sickness to make it to the top of the 14-er, insisting that I would make it even though she wasn’t sure it was the best idea)….

4 Tricks to Taking the Stress Out of Packing Lunch

August 11, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

As much as I don’t want to admit it, the summer is rapidly coming to an end. For many of us, this means a return to “real life” and regular routines. It is also oftentimes a time that many of us choose to focus on getting back into good habits after summertime indulgences. One of the best ways that you can help yourself to get back on track is to pack lunches, whether it is for school or work. A lot of people I talk to dread packing lunches for their kids and/or themselves. It feels time consuming, boring, and uninspiring. Instead, they choose to buy lunches for themselves or pay for school lunches. As you know, I am not a hardliner and I heartily believe that there are definitely times when buying lunch is a solid option, but there are two main reasons why I advocate for packing your own lunch: health and money.

Yes, it is possible to get a healthy lunch out or in the school cafeteria, but I know that at least for me, when I am super hungry and standing in line to order food or looking at a wide array of options the temptation to choose the less healthy option is always strong. And if I am being truly honest, I often succumb to that temptation and then, of course, regret it later on when I feel gross and sluggish. If you pack your own lunch, on the other hand, you are much more likely to make better choices that will give you (and your kids, if you are packing for them) lasting energy and focus. Plus things like sugar and sodium content will be much lower if you are packing the food from home.

As for money, buying lunch is expensive! If you buy lunch out you are likely to spend about $10. Just think, if you brought lunch to work instead of buying it just once a week you could save $500 and that number jumps to $2,000 if you brought from home four days a week and only ate out once. $2,000! That is most definitely worth the effort.

Now, I’m not going to lie, packing lunches can take some effort, but if you follow the approach I am about to lay out it really won’t be overwhelming and the pay off for your health and wallet will make it totally worth it!…

Embracing the Imperfect: The power and productiveness of accepting reality

June 16, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

This is our dead week without school, camps, or travel plans and it was supposed to be a fun and highly productive week full of adventures with my boys and major things getting crossed off my to-do list. I had a vision: we were going to explore new playgrounds and go for bike rides, we were going to go to museums, and the boys were going to help me with some house projects I have been longing to do. I was going to be a supermom and we were going to have an amazing time!

And then my 8-year-old got sick. For two days he didn’t leave the couch, which led my 5-year-old to get squirrely and crabby, and my plans for our perfect week to go up in smoke. Normally this kind of week would have made me grumpy, stressed, and anxious to get out of the house but I was shocked to find that, for the most part, I was able to just accept the reality that was my home-bound life.

So this morning, instead of going for a bike ride, we ended up at a local coffee shop, board games in hand, to eat a late breakfast of chocolate croissants and juice. Gone were my mealtimes and generally healthy food choices. Gone was my hope for some exercise and time outside with the boys. But when I stopped to notice, it was more than ok, it was actually fun. I didn’t feel anxious about the calories consumed, the sugar ingested, the lack of fruit or vegetables, or the fact that nothing was getting crossed off my list, instead I just embraced the reality of what was possible and enjoyed the time we were having….

How to Make Jarred Tomato Sauce Actually Taste Good!

June 2, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

A month or so ago I did a cooking demonstration and workshop where I talked about easy ways to integrate healthier alternatives into your daily diet. One of my props for that workshop was a jar of store-bought marinara sauce. Now, as many of you know, I usually make my tomato sauce from scratch, but I had this sauce sitting in my pantry and wasn’t about to let food go to waste, so the other night I decided to put it to use for dinner. To be totally honest, I was actually a little nervous about using the sauce. What if everyone liked it better than my regular sauces? What if it really saved a huge amount of time?

My fears of everyone liking it better than my regular sauce were quickly assuaged when I took my first taste as it had a very strong metallic taste. So with that little bit of relief in the back of my mind I set out to try to doctor the sauce so that it would taste better. In the end, it wasn’t my regular sauce and it really didn’t save me much time compared to my skillet sauce, but I was pretty happy with the outcome.

So you may be asking yourself, “why is she sharing this information with us when she is a proponent of home cooking?” Here’s why: because home cooking starts at all different places for different people. For some of us, cooking is a fun and creative outlet but for others it is stressful and kind of a huge unknown and doing something like doctoring a jar of sauce can be a great way to build up some confidence in the kitchen. Also because while there may be days when we have lots of time and energy for cooking, there are other days when we just don’t, but by doing little things we can make the processed foods we fall back on healthier and tastier! And, finally, because there should be no shame in jarred sauce or any food!…

4 Ways This Health Coach Is Not Healthy as You Think I Am and Why I Am OK with That

February 11, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

“Oh! Well then I shouldn’t tell you what I had for dinner last night!”

Is a response I often get when people find out what I do for a living and it always makes me a tiny bit sad and just a smidge self-conscious. Why? Because it shows that people worry that I am going to judge them for their food choices. It betrays the shame people feel about what they are eating. It is yet another reminder that in our culture food and morality sometimes go hand-in-hand. More and more the message seems to be: if you aren’t eating “healthy,” then there is something wrong with you—if you still eat sugar, drink soda, have chips, buy fast food, or depend on processed foods, you are poisoning yourself and anyone else you might be feeding.

The more that I work as a health and cooking coach, the more I believe that this sort of thinking about food and eating is more damaging than eating any of those “bad” foods.

When I first started trying to change my own diet to eat healthier I was completely overwhelmed by all of the messages I was getting: don’t eat wheat; sugar is poison; don’t eat dairy; only eat organic; include x, y, and z superfoods in your daily diet; drink one glass of red wine a day; never drink wine; drink 1 cup of coffee a day; coffee will destroy your adrenal gland and you’ll never have energy again, etc. It got to a point where I would go food shopping and feel paralyzed, even in a health food store!

And then I realized it was too much. I was reverting back to my days of disordered eating. I had lost touch with why I had gone into this work I the first place—that I wanted to share my passion for food and show people how accessible and life changing simple cooking can truly be. So I made a conscious decision to let go. Yes, I was going to continue to find fun ways to make my diet healthier. Yes, I was going to include more fruits and vegetables. Yes, I was going to cook mostly from whole ingredients. But I was not going to deprive myself (or my family) of foods that we truly enjoyed and I was not going to feel guilt when it came to food. In other words, I found a balance….

Ways to Keep You Sane and Well Fed During the Blizzard (or any other times you are housebound)

January 21, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

If the forecasters are right, we here in the Washington, DC area are about to get socked with a blizzard that is expected to leave 2 feet of snow in its wake. This will likely shut things down around here in a big way for at least a day (probably more knowing this crazy city).

So as we all hunker down, here are some cooking and activity tips that might help you stay sane (and fed), even if you didn’t make it to the grocery store….