The Not So Impossible Mission

So here we are: I've received a call from my daughter's doctor stating that her blood work results came back and that her cholesterol and triglyceride levels were high. (For those who don't understand this lingo yet, triglycerides are a type of fat found in your blood). So now let me explain a little bit about my daughter, since I'm sure there'll be some automatic assumptions of what she eats, her weight, that kind of stuff.  My daughter's name is Kailyn Tatiana. She's a petite, spunky, energetic almost 5 year old with a whole lot of attitude.

Now a couple years ago we transformed our eating habits drastically, even to the points of turning vegans. Well that only lasted a few months, but needless to say it did help us with choosing foods properly and watching what we eat. I'm not saying that we're food saints and we never eat bad. No, not at all! Yes, we indulge in those oh so fattening delicious foods now and again. We're hispanic, I'm Colombian and my husband is Dominican. My daughter, well... mixed. So the food we're used to eating is not so healthy to put it nicely and the portions are monstrous, so it did take a lot of getting used to. Eventually though, we got it down. We eat some organic foods, whole wheat or multigrain and a whole load of chicken. We've laid of rice for a while, even brown rice. So it's usually just pasta and vegetables to supplement our protein.

So now let's talk about my daughter's eating habits.  We let her indulge more than we do, once in a while she eats chicken nuggets, french fries and mac and cheese. But usually she eats what we eat at home. I assume this is not very different than what many kids eat, some may even over indulge in bad eating habits. Well whose to blame them, it's readily accessible and well let's face it, kids are not the most easiest to please when it comes to food. Sometimes you just give them what they want just so they can eat SOMETHING.

By this point you might be saying, I still don't understand why this little girl could possibly have high cholesterol, could it be hereditary.  Possibly.  After I received the doctor's call and after I scared my daughter into agreeing to eat healthier and staying away from all the greasy pre-packaged and fast foods. I sent a text message to the hubby to let him know. Well he informed me that he had high cholesterol when he was young, not when he was 4 but yes, when he was a young child. (Information he could've shared with me a few years back). So now my mission begins. I have six months to try and get her cholesterol down, they'll repeat the blood work at that point to see what her levels are.

So here it is; fruits, veggies, whole grain, nothing over oily/greasy, lots of fiber and lots of activity. I started out with just doing the norm, carrots with peanut butter, fruits for snack. But my daughter's getting tired of the same foods and she's a picky eater with vegetables, so my mission begins to find creative ways to get her to try new things AND not get tired of the foods she does like.

This is my weekly blog in order to share my journey in getting my daughter's cholesterol levels down in fresh and innovative ways. Let's see how it goes, wish me luck!