Healthy Eating Habits, Good Intentions, and the Produce I Swore I Would Use

I would like it formally noted that I just washed two plums.

Two whole plums.

I am currently waiting for my parade.

Nothing extravagant. A few balloons would be perfectly fine. Maybe a small marching band. At the very least, someone holding a sign that says, SHE WASHED THE PRODUCE HERSELF. Because normally, I have a very efficient system: I buy the produce, and then I graciously hand the honor of washing it to my husband.

Marriage is about teamwork.

And delegation.

Mostly delegation.

Still, I keep buying it. Mixed greens, arugula, cilantro, parsley, green onions. I could keep going, but I think you already understand the situation.

Every single order begins with the best intentions in the world. This is going to be the week of beautiful bowls—grains, roasted vegetables, some kind of protein, gorgeous greens scattered over the top. Maybe perfectly sliced cucumber. Perhaps even a sauce that I somehow had the foresight to prepare ahead of time.

Healthy eating habits are going beautifully in my imagination.

In that version of my life, lunch appears effortlessly at 12:30 on a Tuesday and looks like something I would have happily paid $24 for at a restaurant. And honestly? Sometimes I actually pull it off. Other days, life has other plans. I'm hungry, everyone needs something at once, and I eat whatever is fastest while still landing somewhere in the general vicinity of healthy.

Healthy-adjacent.

I firmly believe healthy-adjacent deserves far more respect than it currently gets.

Healthy Eating Habits and the Heartbreaking Tale of Sir Cilantro

The herbs are where things tend to get emotional.

There is something uniquely heartbreaking about discovering a forgotten bunch of cilantro in the back of the refrigerator. You know exactly the cilantro I'm talking about. It started the week so full of promise—bright, green, practically vibrating with potential. Ready for greatness.

And now?

Sir Cilantro, I am so sorry. You deserved better.

Maybe you were destined for a grain bowl. Maybe tacos. Maybe I was going to make some spectacular sauce I had seen somewhere online and absolutely, completely believed I would remember how to find again. We had plans, Sir Cilantro. Real ones.

And this is where the funny part gives way to something that genuinely bothers me. I hate wasting food. Not in a casual, oh, that's too bad kind of way. I mean it actually upsets me, in a way I cannot entirely explain to people who don't feel the same. So when something goes bad, I don't simply toss it and move on like a well-adjusted person. I give a speech.

My husband gets to stand there while I hold a wilted bunch of parsley and say some version of, "There are people who don't have enough food, and here we are letting perfectly good food go bad." He nods. He has heard this speech before. Many times. And he knows, bless him, that I'm not really lecturing him. I'm lecturing us. Mostly myself.

Food feels precious to me. Being able to fill a refrigerator is a privilege, and I never want to grow so accustomed to having enough that I forget what that actually means. Which, admittedly, makes the recurring cilantro situation even more unfortunate.

And yet, a few days later, I will order cilantro again.

And parsley.

And arugula.

Because apparently my optimism has a very short memory.

When Good Intentions Meet the Grocery Store

Last week there weren't any grocery pickup slots available, so I had to go into the store myself.

Hungry.

This was not responsible decision-making.

I walked in needing groceries and came out with a cart that looked like Cheech & Chong had been handed access to the produce department and a no-limit credit card. Hungry Me, it turns out, believes we are simultaneously feeding a small village and opening a juice bar. Everything looked good. Everything seemed necessary. And every single item came with its own little imaginary future attached to it.

I'll make this.

We'll definitely eat that.

Oh, I can absolutely do something with these.

That might actually be my favorite part of grocery shopping, if I'm being honest with myself. You're not just buying food. You're buying possibility. That bunch of parsley is Wednesday's dinner before Wednesday has even arrived. The arugula is a lunch you're going to make when life slows down just a little. The plums are sitting there in a bowl, waiting patiently for someone to finally wash them.

And apparently today, that someone was me.

Two of them.

You're welcome, everyone.

Healthy Eating Habits Are Really About Trying Again

There is something quietly tender about all those good intentions we carry into a new week.

We go in thinking we're going to take better care of ourselves this time. Cook more. Waste less. Feed the people we love something real and nourishing. Maybe—finally—use the entire bunch of cilantro before it stages a quiet protest in the vegetable drawer. And then real life shows up, the way it always does, and plans shift. We get tired. Something faster wins. The parsley gets pushed behind the leftovers, and five days later we're standing at the open refrigerator door, genuinely apologizing to it.

Maybe that's why I keep buying the produce anyway.

Not because I believe I'll suddenly become perfect at healthy eating habits, meal planning, or keeping track of what is quietly aging in the vegetable drawer. I keep buying it because I still believe we're going to try. Every bag of arugula is a small act of optimism. Every bunch of cilantro is another quiet vote for the week ahead. Every washed plum is apparently grounds for a national celebration, and I stand by that.

Maybe that isn't such a terrible way to move through life—trying again, making another bowl, buying another bunch of parsley even though the evidence is not exactly in our favor. Believing that this time we might remember it before it becomes a tiny green tragedy in the back of the refrigerator.

Hope comes in many forms.

Sometimes it looks like faith. Sometimes it looks like starting over. And sometimes it looks like a bunch of cilantro you have absolutely no business buying again.

Sir Cilantro, welcome back.

We'll do better this time.

Probably.

Waddle on dear reader. ❤️

About the Author | Day 234

I'm a coach, a writer, an entrepreneur, and a mother—and apparently also a woman who can feel genuine remorse over a forgotten bunch of cilantro.

For 234 days now, I've been writing about the ordinary moments of my life that somehow have a way of pointing toward something bigger. Some days that means writing about heartbreak, healing, motherhood, or the experiences that quietly change us. Other days, apparently, it means standing over a refrigerator drawer and mourning herbs I fully intended to use.

Both kinds of days belong here.

So much of real life happens inside these small, unremarkable moments. We make plans. We mean every word of them. We imagine the version of ourselves we're going to be next week—the one who remembers the parsley, assembles the beautiful grain bowl, wastes nothing, and somehow has it all beautifully under control. Then real life walks in and makes itself comfortable.

For me, healthy eating habits have never been about perfection. They're about trying to feed myself and the people I love well, staying grateful that there is food in our refrigerator at all, and caring enough that wasting it still bothers me after all these years. Maybe that's exactly why I keep buying the cilantro. Not because I've mastered meal planning—Sir Cilantro can testify otherwise. I buy it because there is something quietly hopeful about believing we'll do a little better this time.

And maybe that's true about more than groceries.

We mess up. We forget things. We fall short of our own good intentions in ways that feel embarrassing and very, very human. Then somehow, we wake up and try again anyway.

So I'll keep buying the arugula.

I'll keep apologizing to the occasional herb.

And today, I washed two plums all by myself.

Growth.

Day 234 of 365. Let's go.....