There are greater lessons from food to be learned from food. It's been said that the way you do anything is the way you do everything. That said, I'm very proud of Harry today.

Harry spent the past week in a combination of celebration over his high school graduation and the start of his first (full-time) job. With it came days of eating the foods he's allergic or sensitive to for the following reasons:

- Celebrating: "I deserve this even though it makes me feel sick."
- Hunger: "I know this is going to make me feel sick, but I want it and I'm too hungry to resist it."
- Lack of choices: "Whoops, here I am at work, having not bothered to pack food and it's either go hungry or eat something that makes me feel sick."
- Habit: "Now that I've eaten poorly all week, I'm back on automatic, eating foods that make me feel badly."

However, Harry and I went to the chiropractor yesterday and when he asked Harry who's responsibility it was to eat well so that he'd feel well, Harry took full responsibility. It made my heart proud because if there's anything a mother wants it's for her kids to grow up and take responsibility for their actions.

And, because as any health coach who specializes in nutrition will tell you, the one thing we agonize over is watching people repeatedly eat food that's bad for them. And the vast majority of us (myself included) keep eating food that's bad for us over and over, no matter how much we know it's bad for us or even how rotten it makes us feel.

Even before getting to the chiro's office Harry knew it was time to get back on track. We were already talking strategies because with his new schedule, we need a new plan. The same goes for the rest of us: if your life changes, your plan will need to change, too.

Here's our top five strategies for helping Harry eat right this summer:

1. Eat before going out. This is probably the number one suggestion made in every women's magazine before the winter holidays set in. If you eat before leaving home, you won't be hungry when you're out and therefore, although you may have to deal with temptation to eat something you shouldn't, temptation alone is better than temptation coupled with hunger (which Harry, like most people, finds impossible to resist).
2. Party food especially is tempting. Food cravings are real. Acknowledging them, but when they hit, and remind yourself of how poorly the foods you're avoiding make you feel (or how overeating makes you feel poorly, gain weight, whatever).
3. Bring a healthy dish or a dish you can eat to share.
4. Pack your own. Harry's allergic to wheat, so packing his own bread means he can make a sandwich if that's what's being served. He's packing his own lunch and dinner before he goes to work. My husband who's also allergic to wheat sometimes brings his own crackers to restaurants so he has something to enjoy when the bread basket is placed on the table.
5. Speak up. At a few parties, the burgers and hot dogs were handed out already on buns. It's a small thing to ask to get the meat without the bread and this kind of small favor does not impose on your hosts.

As a Chinese proverb says, "Fall down seven times, get up eight", Harry may keep slipping up and eating what he shouldn't from time to time. Which is fine. As long as he keeps getting up again and getting back on his diet. He now recognizes the effect food has on his body and that his health is in his hands. Which is why I'm a proud, proud mom.

Do you have other ways to eat healthfully when you're out?