10 Lifestyle Changes Our Family Made This Year to Lose Weight: Part 2

On Monday I shared the things my husband implemented earlier this year and he is at a 30 pound weight loss. The kids and I started changing our eating habits over the summer and I learned a lot from the nutritionist our daughter sees. Today I’ll share what we’re doing. As a family we’ve lost 63 pounds this year.

• We adopted a Kitchen Open/Kitchen Closed mentality. I noticed our youngest enjoyed talking and asking about food more than I liked and I didn’t want her day wrapped up in that line of thinking. Her nutritionist suggested the kitchen open/closed as a way to teach her to only think and talk about food when the kitchen is open, which isn’t often. It’s made a great difference.  Dessert is also not an option until a good hour or more after dinner and isn’t sugary, etc…
• Go. I’ve seen books based on the stop light system and this is similar to that. The go foods are ones you’re encouraged to eat. As you can imagine, green leafy vegetables are a definite go.  Other go foods include fresh, frozen, canned in juice fruits, whole-grain breads, fat-free or 1% low-fat milk, extra lean ground beef, chicken and turkey without skin.
•  Slow. Slow foods aren’t great for you but they aren’t awful, either. For us slow foods include rice, lean ground beef, peanut butter, tuna in oil and 2% milk.
•  Whoa. Whoa foods are just that, stop and push it away. I thought whoa foods would be hard to say goodbye to but you know what? Not so. We got those foods out of the house and used them as a once a month treat. Thing is our daughter doesn’t even ask for the whoa foods at all. She went the entire summer without ice cream, even though we offered it. I’m someone that had an intimate relationship with M&M’s…even for breakfast. These days my chocolate is a no sugar added fudgsicle or a sprinkle of chocolate chips with a serving of peanuts. Take them out of your daily or even weekly schedule and make the whoa foods a rare treat.
• Homemade French Fries. We’re not a fancy family when it comes to eating. My husband wants a meat, potato, and veggie with his dinner and often I served fries or tater tots. I now make homemade fries and again use it as a “Slow” choice. I cut potatoes up, dusted with olive oil, sprinkled a little salt and baked at 350 for 20 minutes (varies). The kids like this version more than the bagged fries.
• Rice cakes and stove popped popcorn. Hubby has embraced the rice cake as a dessert option. He can even buy the generic kind and eat the cheese kind, something I just can’t do. I can eat the caramel ones and find them a lot tastier than rice cakes from years ago. The snack the kids love is stove popped popcorn with olive oil. Again, we watch our servings with MyFitnessPal.
• The plate. This might be the biggest change of all. I didn’t understand the pyramid system and I pretty much ignored the food groups I grew up knowing. The plate system is so easy. Half the plate is for fruits and vegetables. One quarter is for proteins and the other quarter is for carbs. Our youngest is not a breakfast eater but we were encouraged to just put a carb and protein together if we could. I buy whole wheat Ritz crackers and put a tiny amount of peanut butter on it. After school snacks are allowed but are sugar free Jell-O (that to make it fun I make in cake molds like Hello Kitty and a football), veggie tray, 5 whole wheat crackers (sometimes with thin pieces of yellow cheddar of cheese. For lunch sometimes I’ll do the same and add a slice of cut up lean deli turkey).

We’re not where we want to be but as Joyce Meyer says, thank God I’m not where I was. I’m down 19lbs, our daughter is down 8, and our son is down 5, all from July.  I know we need to improve on moving more, especially with swimming season over.  But this is what we’re doing and I hope there is something here that can encourage you!

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