Family & bad eating habits...

goldenvulture

My family has really bad eating habits. Like, huge portions, if it's not takeout/fast food, it's something fried at home. They buy a lot of chips, and cookies, soda, etc. I'm here trying to be healthy, but it's hard when I'm the only one.

I'm trying to cut out certain foods, and it's not helpful when they buy the food. I just threw out yesterday like a 3/4 full jar of nutella (it was mine, not theirs) because I knew that if i had it in the house, I'd be tempted to eat it. I'm a huge desert fiend, so I try not to buy any ice cream, cake, nothing sweet. But of course, my parents go and buy like 3 huge boxes of chocolate chip cookies...

I know "self control" and all. But it's hard when I'm restricting for so long, keeping these foods out of my diet, and then they come home with cookies! Or pizza!

Any advice? I've talked to my parents several times about how they should try and get healthy too, they NEVER (seriously, never) eat anything that's green, or low fat, or anything, and they agree, but they keep on...

Tamm04

First thing coming to mind is shop for yourself and have a special area of just your food. A place in the cupboard labeled for you where you know you can ONLY eat that food. And push yourself to stick to it. Maybe cook healthier meals and encourage your family to try them....they might like them!

cmeade20

Out of sight out of mind works for me. For example I can walk past a cake 1,000 times and never want a piece. Put chocolate chip cookies in view and I'm done. So if someone buys chocolate chip cookies, they go into a cabinet that I never use, because if I don't see them I'll forget about them.

Querian

I like the dedicated cupboard idea. Also why don't you volunteer to start cooking for the family one night a week so you can practice healthy cooking while also introducing them to some healthier foods?

jrniven

Do they like to read? If so get them to read "Salt Sugar Fat How The Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss. If they do not like to read. Get them to watch some food documentaries like "Food Inc" or "Forks over knives". Change their minds, and they should want to change their bodies.

healthygreek

It's more difficult to eat well when there's a lot of crap in the house but no one can dictate to others what to eat. Just stick to your own good eating habits with treats fitting into your calorie alotment and make sure you are feeding yourself well enough so their "foods" don't tempt you as much.

RobynLB83

Maybe buy your own food and keep it in your own drawer in the fridge, and don't look anywhere else in the kitchen? Just have tunnel vision, and pretend the cookies aren't there?

nikilis

for a start, I cant believe you threw out a jar or nutella. srsly? you can fit in a cookie or two or a 20g portion of nutella into your diet.

I get trying to break bad food habits, but restriction sometimes just makes it worse.

theres a lot of people out there who cant afford to buy nutella. thats epically wasteful to throw it away.

zyxst

Why are you cutting out certain foods? Is there a medical issue, or are these binge triggers? I don't have much help to offer for those because I don't have them. I'm the opposite where I will binge if I don't have some sort of dessert/sweet every day.

nikilis

I like the dedicated cupboard idea. Also why don't you volunteer to start cooking for the family one night a week so you can practice healthy cooking while also introducing them to some healthier foods?

probably the latter of this post is on the money. you need to make it seem like their idea. when they see you loosing weight and you are cooking tasty healthy meals which they may start seeing the benefit from (smoothies are epic for this) the cogs in their mind will hopefully turn and they will hopefully think "hmm... i'd like to loose some weight, ______ looks so healthy".

thats the only way its gonna work. its like inception.

verptwerp

For years I had a similar problem with my husband ....... I decided to focus on having healthy foods available for myself ...... surprisingly, little by little he started eating better as well ....... now he's lost some weight & taking all the credit :laugh:

Some good suggestions here ...... best of luck to you :drinker:

goldenvulture

Well, I'm allergic to dairy, and gluten makes me feel terrible, so I'm in the process of finding out if I have a problem with gluten as well with my doctor.

Other things are just binge triggers.

goldenvulture

Yes I threw out Nutella, haha. It honestly just made me feel better not having it around.

Thanks for the advice! I'm going to see if I can clean out an area in the kitchen for my food, and keep it as far away as all the other food.