Dieting & Family dinners

[Livingoffcoffee]

Please can I get some tips for how to diet/eat healthy with a young toddler? I'd be happy to have salad for lunch and roasted veg & chicken/veggie sausages for dinner every day, but my 17mo obviously needs more variety. Or do I just need to resign myself to cooking two meals for a while?

I think there is a middle ground, are you low carbing? A toddler is fine to have chicken and roasted veg for dinner but maybe do some cous cous to go with it. If you have veggie sausages and veg make a big batch of mash and freeze in portions so your toddler can have that too. Are you really only going to have the same two things for dinner every day? There are plenty of other healthy things you could have that would give your tot more variety, fish, eggs, veg curries etc?

DH and I really will do just 1 or 2 things for dinner all week, at least on weekdays (pre-DC). I've been doing all kinds of varied dinners, but since lockdown weight has added up. I wanted to do the F45 Challenge diet, which I've done before, but it's very low carb/low fat. A big batch of mash to add for DS is a good idea

In which case I’d do a mixture of what you are having with a carb for ds (cous cous, frozen mash, frozen rice pouches that steam in the microwave, all quick). But I would be careful that you don’t create a rod for your own back and end up with a child that will only eat two meals. So maybe give him other things for variety, just pick minimal effort things so not to give yourself too much extra work. Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese, scrambled egg on toast with tomatoes, cheese and mushroom omelettes, baked salmon, rice and veg etc.

@DDIJ Do you just have to cook two meals for everything then?

I’ve lost 10kg recently (10st 10lbs down to 9st 1lb) and I cook for a 5 and 6 year old too. Typically, we’ll all have the same thing, but I’ll omit the carb and cook steamed green veg instead.

We have things like spaghetti bolognese, homemade curry, chicken wrapped in Parma ham etc. They’ll have sweet potato fries, rice, cous cous, flatbreads with theirs. Sometimes if DH and I want something spicy, I’ll just cook them something different and we’ll eat later.

I’ve also walked lots.