Fitting different WOE in with family life

[BogstandardBelle]

Hi

I've recently gone back to LC way of eating, which I know really suited me when I was younger. Time has passed since then: DP is now DH and we've acquired 2 boys along the way! Life is a lot busier, compounded by the fact that I've recently gone back to work, and DH already has a really full-on job.

Question: how do you balance your personal eating plan with feeding a family that eats differently?

Do you cook separate meals? Do you eat separately? How do you explain to your kids why you are eating something different to them? How do you explain no longer taking part in family traditions (Friday night pizza night, Sunday morning waffles etc) ?

I've put off changing the way I eat for a long time because I've struggled with the above. I know I will be a better mum if I am healthy - but I feel like a killjoy not joining in the waffle fest on Sunday mornings...

I'd like to hear how you all handle it. I remember my mum being permanently on a diet - skipping meals, doing Cambridge ultra lo-cal shakes - and it didn't teach me anything good about eating. I hope my WOE is better in that respect - scarfing down tons of salad at every meal has to be a better model ;-)

Interesting question OP.

Two possible thoughts/answers:

1. Portions. One slice of pizza. Half a waffle, or even a quarter. Tiny bit of pudding. One small portion of shepherd pie rather than "family size" and seconds .

1. With all the above (except waffles of course) - loads of salads, salads, salads. Interesting ones to prevent boredom. And the family can learn to enjoy them too.

1. Breakfast is usually the easiest to eat in a diet way without it impacting socially. E.g. fruit and yoghourt rather than toast, cereals. But you can also have a cooked breakfast, but smaller portions again.

I do/did struggle with keeping 'junk' in the house, biscuits etc though. Maybe buy them biscuits you hate? Or just don't have them in the house in the first place - they're not good habits anyway for children. Or just buy them occasionally - they won't last anyway for long.

re. being busy. I think you need to keep lots of healthy food - salads, fruit, nuts etc in the house (make a list). So that people don't go hungry/starving. As you have a DH, ask him to deal with the high carb cooking so you can avoid that side of things?

p.s. (out of curiosity) did your mother stay slim or was it more that it was psychologically unhealthy?

Interesting response penguIn! It has really made me think that my issues are psychological -aren’t they always!

1. I don’t even want to eat small amounts of pizza etc... it’s more not wanting to pour cold water on rituals that we’ve established over the years. I guess I feel guilty at not joining in. Growing up, we all are the same except when my mum didn’t eat.

My mum was on a constant diet throughout my childhood - yet looking back at photos she’s really slim! The problem with her was that she basically dislikes pretty much all veg and salad, so she was always looking for other ways to lose weight - being healthy was not a priority, looking thin was. I honestly thought I hated veg until I left home and actually tried cooking and eating them myself - what a revelation! My kids have always seen DH and I eat piles of salad and veg, which is good - even if they are pretty fussy themselves. So to answer yr question my mum taught me that:

Being thin is important, being healthy is not.
Veg and salad are horrible and eating them is a penance.
Food is unimportant and a low priority in life (she’d have lived on toast, baked potatoes, lentil soup and wine given the choice).

It’s hard to make a healthy lifestyle out of that - I still feel like I’m faking it!

It is hard :(

I cook separately for the children first.

My food (medical reasons and a medical diet) is hard to follow so I am learning to batch cook. So I make 6 portions and freeze 5. Therefore nearly all my food is defrost and reheat.

My husband tends to cook something nicer for himself. Though he is welcome to eat mine if he wanted too.

So three meal times and three meals in our house.

However it is easy to explain to the kids. They know how ill my bowel disease makes me and I have told them that this type of food will help me feel better.

One of the things I didn't like about low carb was that I was obviously eating differently to my family. I wanted us all to eat healthily rather than seeing me eat different food. I wasn't keen on cutting carbs out of childrens diets even for one meal. I did find it quite easy though to make a sauce like Bolognese or chilli and have cauliflower rice while they had real rice. I did make a cauliflower base pizza and them a bread based pizza once too. I couldn't sustain the low carb partly because of the time taken to do different meals which I didn't want. But maybe if you want to do it, you just have to adapt the rituals and make separate but similar meals.