Dear 15-year-old Kaitlin Gratia,
It’s me— You in ten years. Age 25! We’ve just had the most celebrated New Year of the century, and I’ve been thinking a lot about you this past year.
And I’ve collected a few things I think you should hear.
We won’t do it all here; I’ll send more letters in the future. Don’t wait up for them. I don’t know the schedule either—this isn’t a homework assignment from our guardian angel.
I just know I’d have liked someone to have told me these things.
So, first things first: I see you.
15 was hard. I understand. I remember. Grandma and Grandpa just passed away for you.
Let me tell you something, though. It’s ten years later, and we still send messages to Grandpa’s Facebook. You’ll learn to live with them, but it never really goes away. We still cry when we think about it for too long.
So, before we start crying, onto the topic of this first letter: Nutrition.
Girl, your eating habits are horrible. That pizza and cookies everyday for school lunch gotta stop. No amount of marching band, theatre dance rehearsal, nor late-night walks are gonna lose that belly weight.
We’re not huge, but round in the belly, and it’s a demon to get rid of. Especially now that we wear mostly skirts and dresses.
That said, it wasn’t until our adventure to Eastern Europe that we learned the secret to our rough morning nausea.
Some of these tricks seem weird, I know, but stick with me. They work, I promise!
Which leads me to the first one, our secret to mornings:
1. Eat a Single Cub of Cheese First Thing
No. Seriously. Just keep a package of them in the fridge. And go for them very first thing.
I know. It’s downstairs – that’s a long way to go when the brain’s still not awake. It’ll be easier in college with that minifridge in your room. But trust me, go for that cheese cube.
It was 2017 on a trip abroad for our degree (junior year and finally decided!)—we were quite active during the days and our breakfasts were very early. We knew we couldn’t risk passing out in the field, so we ate.
That country taught us a lot about eating. Sausage, cheese, and raw veggies every morning with a cup of tea! (We’ll talk about lunch and dinner later on.)
Sausage. Cheese. Veggies (usually cucumbers).
Such a weird breakfast, but it. was. amazing. We didn’t get nauseous once!
Girl, I’m telling you, don’t give your stomach the chance to wake up and realize it’s empty! This is what’s making us sick. (Exactly what Mom says, I know, and I’m sorry, but she was right!)
Once. Just do this one morning.
First thing, go get a cube of cheese. Eat it. Your brain will immediately wake up, and you’ll feel awake and refreshed, even though you are so sleep-deprived all the time, it’s a damn miracle you keep grades at all.
I promise you— It will not make you sick. It will make all the difference!
Try it one. morning. One.
2. Drink Water
Can you believe it? We actually do this. We drink water. We’ve never made it up to the six glasses of 10 ounces each day—that’s still an insane number. But we get through a glass or two each day.
I still get most of my fluids from tea (you’ll get to the point where you don’t put sugar in anymore except for special occasions). According to my bullet journal (an artistic planner), I easily finish two cups of tea in the mornings before work. Then, at least one there, and at least one before bed.
There’s definitely a needed balance in the ratio of liquids versus food in the stomach—also reasons why you feel nauseous in the mornings.
It’ll be a couple years yet, I think, before you’ll like nuts, but honestly, salted cashews are so good! AND, the salt will help you crave water. 🙂
Which brings me to…
3. Snack Throughout the Day
Girl, carry food.
We’re a growing girl. Scratch that. We’re a girl. We eat. We will always eat, and that’s cool.
We just gotta do it right.
Candy isn’t a good snack. And not having anything other than tea in our stomach all the way until lunch where we eat greasy, school-lunch pizza and those cookies—I said it before. That’s gotta stop. You know it needs to stop.
Not a lot of options at school. I get it. But Mom wants us to eat, especially in the morning. If you tell her you want snack foods from the grocery store, you know she’ll show up with piles of it.
Aim her in the right direction: whatever it is that you think you’d eat during school (nuts, dried fruit, cereal, whatever it is), TELL HER!
Better yet, go with her. I know she’s always there now, but when you go away to college (and other countries), you guys will text a lot.
Alright, I’m stopping. Tonight is not the time for that letter, not after your week.
The point is, SNACK. EAT. Carry it with you, and snack in class (or inbetween classes)—you’ll feel much better.
Your stomach will stop feeling ill, you’ll sleep better, and you’ll stop relapsing to that pizza.
4. Eat When You’re Hungry, Not When You’re Bored
This is something I’ve only started to implement for us, but I think it could benefit you, too.
This is hard, especially coming out of university into this year (THAT is a whole other letter).
I know this tip seems to be counteracting with the last one, and it kind of is – but only kind of.
I got used to carrying snacks these past two years of school (our last two years – I know you’ve already counted and that’s a lot of years in college, but believe me, it’s worth it). Cashews and dried fruits got me through these two years, and they’ve kept me from overeating at meals.
It’s not even our fault—I am not blaming you for our health now.
All-in-all, we’re pretty healthy. During college, we decided not to keep as active as we were in high school, because it hurts our muscles. That was a mistake. I am so stiff now, it is not even funny.
Thankfully, YouTube has lots of stretching and yoga videos. (Girl, you are going to love yoga. Honestly, start it now.)
Other than not being very active, we are only a smidge overweight, and that’s only if you’re not looking at our BMI. You and I have always prefered flatter stomachs; we don’t have that, but we’re not round. No one would ever know unless they saw us naked, and your older self has gotten very good at hiding our stomach. (Just wait till high-waisted jeans come into style!)
But overall, we are fairly healthy. With a little activity and monitoring our bored-eating habits, we’d be perfect!
TIP: Drink water when you think you’re hungry. Our brain’s sensors for hunger and thirst are the same. Chances are you’re thirsty, no hungry! 🙂
5. Bigger Lunch, Smaller Dinner
Another lovely lesson from that one Eastern European country (I’d tell you, but it’ll ruin the surprise!) is size of meals.
As a Westerner (and actually, us, as an American), I’d never considered this to be different elsewhere in the world. I think Eastern Europe’s got the right idea.
We’ve talked about their breakfasts, but lunch and dinner are kind of switched. What we think of as lunches (light meals, i.e. stew/soup, etc.) are actually eaten at dinnertime, and what we think of as dinners (heavy meals, i.e. meats, potatoes, etc.) are eaten at lunchtime.
Girl, this was life-changing!
Even three years later in 2020 (yeah, seriously), I’m still having that [country name]’s breakfast. I’m struggling a bit more with the lunch/dinner size-reversal now that we’re living back with Mom and Dad (it’s temporary, don’t worry). But while I was living alone at school, we did this reversal.
And you know what? No more food-babies in bed! It was great.
(Fair warning: If you try to implement this, you HAVE TO implement the cube of cheese tip, too. You will wake up absolutely famished—aka nauseous and dizzy—if you eat very little at dinner. Just saying.)
6. Mostly Plants at Dinner
Following the same line of thinking as above, in true Michael Pollan-style, mostly plants at dinner. (Have you read that book yet? Do. It’s called ‘Food Rules’.)
The older we get, the more I realize, plants are really filling.
Don’t worry, we are definitely not vegetarians. You do not give up cow in the future (you will, however, learn British bacon is far better than American bacon). We are still #MittelmanCarnivores.
But since we’re talking about food-babies and health, channel your inner rabbit. The school-lunch vegetables are scary, I UNDERSTAND, but roast some sweet potatoes or green beans or asparagus and take it to school in a baggie.
I know I really don’t have to tell you, my younger self, to eat the veggie-sides Mom includes with dinners, but encourage her to make veggie meals. We both know if anyone can make it taste really good, she can.
7. Cook for Yourself
I know. What I am even saying? “We hate cooking.”
Actually, we don’t.
We hate helping in the kitchen because we don’t get to do what we want to. It’s always following instructions, and no one takes our fear of the oven noises seriously. (We’re still on our own on that front.)
But especially after being so far from home these past two years, we signed up for one of those meal-delivery weekly boxes. Y’know, where the ingredients and the recipes get shipped to our door. (If that’s not a thing yet, just wait. It’s wonderful.)
Following those recipes are so easy. Honestly, it’s the perfect time to put in headphones to The Vampire Diaries or Bones. (And if we’re watching Bones grossness while cooking, our roommates tend to avoid chatting to us – win-win.)
Cooking for us has become a wonderful, zen space for us to just enjoy a show or music uninterrupted by our housemates.
8. Experiment in the Kitchen
Somewhere along the road, you’ll start making adjustments to those recipes.
Let it happen. Turns out, Mom did pass on to us some of her kitchen instincts.
9. Indulge
My very last tip to you: allow yourself to indulge.
Eat that chocolate bar in one sitting. Drink the hot chocolate even though you know you’ll feel ill afterwards. Make that same mistake more than once.
Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of having a bad relationship with food. We’ve never had an eating disorder. But we definitely have a questionable relationship with food.
Our lack of self-control when it comes to hunger keeps us eating, but what we eat isn’t great for us, and then we feel weird about eating something that isn’t perfectly healthy.
I’ve been working hard not to be like that. And that’s my job, as the 25-year-old.
You, as the 15-year-old, should be testing our boundaries and figuring out what works and does not work for us.
Allow us to indulge in a way I didn’t. That’s much healthier than worrying about it.
(I love you.)
