Nutrition Insights

If you had asked me a year ago what my morning routine looked like, I would’ve confidently said something impressive like “hydration, mindfulness, and disciplined movement.” What I would not have said, because it sounds slightly unhinged out of context, is: “I wake up before the sun, negotiate with two emotionally complex dogs, and then go on a three-hour walking journey that feels like I’m training for a low-budget documentary called Man vs. Leash .” But here we are. Morning

(A cautionary tale about supplements, memory lapses, and the limits of human dignity) This weekend I learned a valuable lesson about supplements. More specifically, I learned a valuable lesson about paying attention to which supplements you’ve already taken before enthusiastically taking them again like our golden-mutt, Gus, who just found a second bowl of food. Now, before we get too deep into this story, it’s important for you to understand something about me: I am not a bi

Let me start with a confession. I love food. Not in a casual, “Oh I enjoy a nice dinner” kind of way. I mean I really love food. Different cuisines, different flavors, new recipes, strange ingredients I can’t pronounce… if it’s edible and someone on the internet says it’s amazing, there is a very real chance I will attempt to make it. Which sounds adventurous and sophisticated until you remember one small detail. I have a family. With teenagers. Who play sports. Which means d

There is a very specific kind of frustration that people who write a reasonable amount understand. It happens when you sit down at your computer, open a blank document, crack your knuckles like a concert pianist preparing for a masterpiece… and absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. No brilliant health insight. No life-changing nutrition tip. No deeply meaningful reflection about fiber intake. Just a blinking cursor that feels increasingly judgmental the longer you stare at it.

Let me paint you a picture. It’s a Tuesday in October. Not a dramatic Tuesday. Not a particularly memorable Tuesday. Just… Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday that shows up every single week during sports season and quietly tries to defeat you. Your oldest has football practice that ends at 6:15. Your youngest has strength training across town at 6:30. Both of them need an actual meal, not a granola bar, not whatever the concession stand is claiming is a hot dog, before 7:30 when so

Nobody really explains what you should  and shouldn’t  do when you start a health journey. Or maybe they do and I just wasn’t paying attention. That’s entirely possible too. Either way, if someone had handed me the following story a few months ago, it probably would have saved me some frustration… although, if I’m being honest, I likely would have been too stubborn or “too busy” to read it anyway. But just in case you’re smarter than I was, which, statistically speaking, ther

Pull up a chair for a minute. This is the part of the conversation where we lean back, maybe rest our elbows on the table, and admit things we probably wouldn’t say out loud in the middle of the grocery store. Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m holding a Cara Cara orange that costs more per pound than the regular leaded gas my first car ran on (yep... I am exactly that old: leaded gas). My first car was… let’s call it character-building. If vehicles could talk, that car wou

A funny thing happened to me recently. Actually, if I’m being honest, this “funny thing” has been happening to me for years. I just finally stopped pretending it wasn’t happening. Picture this: it’s dinner time. We make something delicious and comforting, say a big pot of spaghetti. Not a modest, polite little plate of spaghetti either. I’m talking about the kind of portion that requires structural engineering. A mountain of noodles. Sauce generously applied. Possibly some ga

Let’s talk about the glamorous, high-adrenaline sport of feeding a family of four in 2026. Because truly? It feels like an Olympic event. We are just like every other household in America right now, standing in the grocery aisle, staring at the total climbing higher than our teenage boys’ caloric needs. And speaking of those teenage boys… ours would prefer if the global food system reorganized itself around chicken strips (preferably from Raising Cane's), pizza, and double ch

Not in a dramatic, “this will change your life forever” way. Just in a very normal, standing-in-the-kitchen-staring-at-the-shelf way. Because choosing between traditional semolina pasta and protein pasta isn’t really about crowning a champion. It’s more like asking, “What are we trying to accomplish tonight?” Are we chasing protein? Watching blood sugar? Trying to stretch the grocery budget without remortgaging our home for some noodles? Let’s break this down in a way that fe

I’ve been sitting with this thought for a while now, turning it over in my head like a rotisserie chicken under a heat lamp, and I think it’s finally ready to come out. Over the past year, I did what many of us have done at 9:47 p.m. while holding a snack we said we weren’t going to eat… I wandered into the world of online fitness and health personalities. You know the ones. Impeccable lighting. Meal prep containers that look like they were arranged by a museum curator. The k

So the big question: how far can one simple $4.99 rotisserie chicken from Costco really go to feed a family of four? We took this bird to the brink. Let’s recap our poultry-powered adventure. Day One:  Chicken noodle soup. Cozy, classic, makes you feel like someone loves you even if you made it yourself. After dinner? We still had 16 cups of broth  and 1.5 pounds of chicken  left. At this point, I started looking at that container of stock like it was a savings account. Day T

Let’s first continue with me still being appalled with grocery prices here: grocery shopping lately feels a little like applying for a small business loan. You walk in for “a few things” and walk out wondering if you accidentally financed the national debt. So I started asking myself a very normal, very humble question: How are regular families supposed to do this without stress-eating tortilla chips in the parking lot? Yes, we can clip coupons. Yes, we can use Mperks and sho

Oh my goodness. Can we just take a collective moment in the grocery store parking lot and breathe? Because what is happening here? I walked in the other day with a normal, sane, responsible adult grocery list. I walked out feeling like I had just tried to negotiate a hostage situation with a head of lettuce and my wallet. It’s not that the store didn’t have what I needed. It had everything. It just had… less of everything. For more money. The 16-ounce bag of frozen peas? Now

Alright, grab your coffee. Let’s talk about the 7:00 p.m. Oreo Summit Meeting. You know the one. Dinner’s done. The kitchen is technically closed. The lights are a little dimmer. And then, like clockwork, your brain whispers: “Hey… you know what would make this moment magical? Three Oreos. Or six. We don’t need to count.” For the past week, that has been me. Every night around 7 p.m., I start craving something sweet. And not in a maybe a strawberry, kind of way. I’m talking a

There’s a special kind of… something, I’m not sure what yet, that comes from walking your dogs at 4:15 in the morning. It’s pitch black. The rest of the world is asleep. There’s no traffic. Just you, your thoughts, and two dogs who believe every snowbank holds groundbreaking investigative material. Snow or shine, actually never shine, because who are we kidding, it's 4:15... AM. For a long time, that was my thing. Long walks. Some fast. Some slow. A lot of sniff breaks (for t

First, can I just say this out loud? Some mornings feel heavier than they should. Today is one of those mornings for me. I woke up with what I can only describe as a serious mental block. The kind where your brain feels like it’s buffering… and the little spinning wheel is just mocking you. I didn’t work out. I haven’t done anything that feels physically meaningful in months. And somewhere between the coffee and the quiet, this whisper crept in: You’re kind of failing at this

There’s a special kind of panic that sets in when your doctor says the words “you need to change your diet.”  It’s not a regular panic. It’s the same panic you feel when your computer freezes and you forgot to save your work, mixed with the grief of realizing your favorite jeans might not fit the way they used to. And here’s the part nobody really warns you about: changing how you eat isn’t just logistical. It’s psychological. It pokes at comfort, identity, routine, and that

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my long and deeply committed relationship with “the next great diet,” it’s this: my taste buds and I are in a lifelong partnership, and every time I try to force them into an arranged marriage with a diet they hate, the whole thing ends in spectacular, hilarious failure. Improving your nutrition is supposed to make your life better. And yet, somehow, we keep turning it into a reality show challenge called How Long Can I Pretend to Enjoy

There are seasons in family life where dinner feels less like a peaceful ritual and more like an Olympic relay event. In our house, with two teenage boys orbiting football fields, gyms, basketball and volleyball courts, and anywhere else whistles are being blown, we’ve accepted that most evenings look less like a wholesome family commercial and more like a behind-the-scenes documentary about logistics. Some days one kid is eating at 4 p.m. because he has lifting, practice, an