Self Sabatoge and sabatoging my family

Hi Leigh.

One thing you have to stop doing is beating yourself up. You have only been doing this for less than a month. This is not a diet you are going on. This is just what you said it would be, "A Lifestyle Change," which means its going to take some getting use to.

Be proud of yourself for slowing down on your soda intake. Began removing/swapping out foods weekly. Pick something that you know is wrong for you and give yourself 30 days to get rid of it, but do it on a day by day basis. I've often heard that it takes 30 days form a habit.

Darren Hardy, author of "The Compound Effect," suggest buying a tablet small enough to keep in your purse, and every time you eat something, doesn't matter what, you write it down in that tablet. According to him, you get to the point where you don't want to go through the problem of pulling that tablet out every time you eat something, so you'll skip it. Its a very motivational book. I have been personally been trying this, and it seems to work for me. I keep my tablet on my desk while I'm at work. If I eat anything that is not on my planned list, I add it to my tablet as well right then and there. Going back over the days foods that I've eaten can sometimes be embarrassing, but it pushes me to do better the next day.

Do you grocery shop on an empty stomach? If so, STOP! Make sure that you eat BEFORE going to the grocery store, that helps me. If I go in on an empty stomach, I tend to pick up everything I want, rather than shopping for what I need. Also, try staying on the parameter of the store. If you notice, whichever grocery store you go to, all of your healthy foods are on the outside surrounding all of the process foods. There are times when going inside the aisles are unavoidable, but there are very few healthy food aisles inside.

If you have completed your shopping, why are you buying dinner at Mccy Ds? Websites like Eatingwell.com and SparkPeople.com have quick healthy meal recipes you could use to prepare meals throughout the week.. If you can make yourself prep your meals on the weekends, it might help a lot throughout the week as well. Prepare you fish and chicken in batches so all you have to do is pull it out the fridge and heat it up.

You can swap her bologna out for lite bologna, deli ham, turkey and chicken. Buy the 100 cal cookie packs. Maybe you could talk to your husband about waiting until she goes to bed before eating ice cream if his eating it triggers her desire for it. Maybe you can talk him out of it period... Just a thought on that last one.

I'm not a dietician or nutritionist. Most of what I've typed is pure opinion and personal experience. I hope I have been of some assistance to you.

Peggy

I'm sorry, I didn't read all of the wonderful replies before adding my 2 cents to the purse.

I have 4 kids in school and lunches look like this:

1 sandwich or wrap with either tuna salad, egg salad, deli meat, cream cheese, chicken salad (peanut butter isn't allowed because some kids have allergies)
1 juice box - it's the only juice they drink in the day and usually it's pure fruit juice: apple, orange or a mixed one. Occasionally I'll treat them to a Five Alive or Iced Tea
1 or 2 pieces of fruit or veggies: carrot sticks and an apple, or a banana and an orange (bigger kids have 2)
1 dairy something - yogurt or a cheese string
1 junky snacky thing e.g. crackers, granola bar, rice crispy treat, cookie, rice cakes

After school snacks are usually 3 food groups:

Fruit, nuts, milk
Fruit, crackers, cheese, water
Celery with peanut butter, milk
etc.

The kids will have maybe hot dogs or pizza or fish sticks 1-2 times a week on busy nights. The rest of the time our evening meals are meat, starch, veggies and milk. Desserts are 2-3 times a week maybe... depends on what other sweets they may have had during the day.

EDIT: The other thing to remember is that you must set a reasonable goal. You can't go from eating junk to being healthy by suddenly restricting to 1200 calories. Set your MFP goal to lose 1/2 a pound weekly. Then just try and stick to that. Don't make it harder than it has to be. Once you get a handle on that, you could drop your goal to lose 1 lb/week. You have to make this manageable. It's hard when you're a busy mom and wife and have a billion other responsibilities (esp. with a toddler!) So go easy on yourself. Learn from your mistakes. Adjust. Keep going. You can do this.

Hi Leigh,
I struggle with portion size too. I have found a pyrex measuring cup and a cheap food scale are wicked helpful for me. I make my plate by measuring out my portions before I call the family to dinner. I think my son sometimes judges appropriate servings to start with by what my plate looks like. The scale helps with measuring meat portions. I know it is a hassle but when I stop measuring, my weight starts to creep back up.
Apples are my friends. I slice them up and dip them into light vanilla yogurt and it is yummy yummy. Your kids would probably like that too. They are good cubed in salads and they make a great side dish lightly stewed with vanilla and sweetener like stevia or truvia. You can even add a touch of butter if you have the calories for it.
Get your kids to make smoothies instead of eating ice cream. You can have a contest to see who makes the best one. Just use fruit, ice (if your fruit is fresh) and almond milk. You can use regular milk too, but I like the flavor of the almond milk. Makes a great grab and go breakfast too.
When my son was little, we always had a contest to see who could make the biggest crunch with raw baby carrots. He would eat them one right after another trying to win. He is a teenager and we are still having those contests.
A big ole pot of chili makes a nice meal. Beans are good for us calorie/ nutrition/budget watchers. Stretch by serving with brown rice. Make it in the crock pot ahead of time. You can make it fun with a toppings bar.
Stay with it. The rewards of a healthy family are well worth it!
If you in are in a county with and Extension Agent, they may have tons of resources about nutrition and getting kids (and husbands) to eat healthy.

My husband and I keep a monthly dry erase calendar on our fridge. It has everything on it that we have scheduled for the month. We make our menu out writing it on the same calendar so that we can see everything at a glance and do our shopping each Sunday for the week. With our appts, events, and everything on the calendar we are able to adjust our meals. We can see what nights we need to have something quick and easy and what nights we can have a meal together. By planning our meals and eating breakfast before we go to the store, we aren't hungry (and 1/2 the time that junk food doesn't even tempt me), and are able to stick to our list.

We have found some swaps that we can make for the ones that we just can't live without. Have you tried the new Special K Cracker Crisps? They come in various flavors and are really good. You get 27 chips for 110 calories. Is almost a sandwich bag full of chips. Rice A Roni is now making individual servings of a few of their different varities. This works for us because if there is more there to eat we will eat it, but if we each get our own serving, then we are done and happy. Velveeta is also doing the same thing with their shells and cheese. They even do this in the 2%. Both the Rice A Roni and Mac N Cheese are yummy and microwave in about 3 - 31/2 minutes. Try the skinny cow individual sandwiches. They taste good, and again are individual servings instead of having to make bowls and add all the toppings to it as well.

With all of this said, its not to say that we don't sometimes get our nights screwed up by something or other, but the best you can do is make the best of it. Keep pita bread, lunchmeat, and such on hand and have a grilled cheese sandwich with some soup (especially in the winter). The crockpot is also a good resource. You can put any number of things in it, let it cook, and then when you get home, just serve it up and enjoy. Another option might be a foreman. It tends to cook things a little faster than the stove, so even a bad night doesn't have to go bad meal wise.

All the advice I have read from others here is really good as well. Remember it is a Lifestyle change, not a diet, and you are bound to fall off the wagon every once in a while. The point is to get back on track at the next meal. Congratulations on the soda cut down as well. That should help. Also don't forget to drink your water.

No matter what happens, keep you chin up. You can do this. Good luck.

I like many of the posters think you are being too hard on yourself. Letting your 18 month old snack on cheerios and goldfish sounds great to me maybe start adding cut up veggies and fruit or some cheese slices w/ his snacks. Might be a good idea if you are a stay at home mom to designate a snack time for him. Your daughters lunch sounds fine will she eat any other meats like ham, turkey, roast beef, or even a veggie buger? Snacks just replace the cookies w/ similar snacks that you are doing for your 18 mo I would think a nice slice of cheese w/ some triscuits or a slice of deli meat would be nice. Ice cream if the hubby wants it he needs to start buying it. Talk to him let him know you are worried that your daughter might get into the same habits and how much of a struggle it will be for her later on. Maybe he can have his treat after she goes to bed.

Youre really trying congrats on reducing the going out to eat. For those unplanned days when everyone is running late would it be possible to keep some leftovers or frozen meals on hand for a quick heat up?

Keep up the hard work everyday you are a consistent mama and your teaching your babies to approach food in a healtful respectful manner will give them the foundation for a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.

Good job Mama!

Totally understand where you're coming from! I've been here on MFP since the end of last May making my own changes but just found out my son is pre-diabetic at 13. I would suggest looking up recipes on skinnytaste.com or other sites like it. I have had a lot of success with this site that the recipes have been edible by not only me (not that picky) but also edible by the rest of my family (including my very picky son & husband). I would also suggest working on portion sizes. As far as the junk food, just don't have it in the house. You can still have snacks in the house but make them yourself. You can find healthy recipes for almost anything. As for your husband, I had to have the talk with my husband and mother of not having the junk in the house. Just let him know that you're doing this to get everyone healthy and to teach the baby especially, the right things from the begining. Don't be too hard on yourself either, been there done that. Just adjust what you can now and experiment with new ways to make things. As far as quick weekday meals, I've found a lot of recipes for them on skinnytaste also. The crockpot is a great tool for those nights.

I'm not going to make any specific suggestions on food because I am not a nutritionist and everyone's body is different. BUT, I will say that probably the best thing you can do to help yourself succeed at this is to

take a deep breath

take a step back

and adjust your perspective a bit.

As someone who has lost a bunch of weight but more importantly made a LOT of internal changes, here are the things I recommend you keep in mind:

--major changes take A LOT OF TIME. You said in your post that you have dealt with these issues your whole life, so I don't think it's reasonable to expect major change in a short period of time. Compared to your whole life, 1 year is a short period of time and 1 month (which is not even how long you've been at this) is a reallllly short period of time. Yes, I understand the stakes are high but compassion and forgiveness for yourself and your "mistakes" are PARAMOUNT
--the easiest way to fail at making major changes is to attempt to make them all at once. You have a TON of things on your plate (please excuse the pun), and given how much responsibility you have, it's really important that you don't set yourself up for failure. I recommend you take some time to write out what your major goal is and then break that down into as many excruciatingly tiny goals as possible and then start with ONE. AT. A.TIME.
--be nicer to yourself in thoughts, words, and actions. If you are beating yourself up in any way ask yourself "How would I feel if ANYONE treated my family like this?" If your answer is anything but "I'd be totally fine with that" then STOP

living a busy and complicated lifestyle can really make it difficult to eat healthy. eating healthy takes alot of planning and it's hard to do that on the fly when you have to make a snap decision for what to feed everyone quick. i know it's been hard for me the last few years w/ having hardly any downtime to really cook food (and prepacked/prepared food is loaded w/ tons of terrible stuff that keeps the pounds on or adds to them).

so this year i made the same resolution to eat healthier you did. but ALSO i made a resolution to stop wasting money on quick fixes (take out, frozen meals, snacks for munching) and to plan out exactly how much food i need and buy only that w/ a few subsitutions/staples for back up/emergency meals.

what has been helping me is planning out a weeks worth of all things related to food. i plan out what everyone is eating for breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks each day of the week. i do it the sunday before so that i'm privy to any last minute obligations/time constraints. that way i can plan what days i'll need something quick and easy. maybe 2x a week i plan to cook a specific healthy meal for the days i have more time. then i plan to eat certain left overs on the days i'm rushing. then, i look at what groceries i need for the up coming week versus what i have already, and ONLY buy those things i need for THAT week. then i follow the plan so i can pack meals for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. and i follow the plan to know what is for dinner what nights. nights i've got more time, cook a preplanned meal, nights i don't it's left overs or fall back options of slapping together quick and healthy items on hand.

this helps tons for logging on this site too b/c by monday, i already know what i'm eating each meal, each day, for a whole week. the more i plan ahead, the less i have to think "in the moment" .... and it is "in the moment" that i make terrible lazy decisions.

does everyone follow the plan all the time? no way. i even deviate (especially on the weekends). but whenever i fall off the wagon, i just look at the plan and say, "ok, i messed that meal/day up. back on the plan next meal/tomorrow!" and because it's easier to just hop back on than it is to figure out what else to do, i just get back on target.

grocery shopping is done by list and list alone, you do not faulter from the list, you buy the list. You want to make your daughter sandwiches in the week? The list better have on it a roast something that you can make into sandwiches. I do my bulk cooking on Sundays (a pot of soup or a roast or another large meal, taco meat with turkey for me and beef for the hubs, and a couple of odds an ends), and the cooking I do during the week is one offs. If I knew that I wanted to make sandwiches through the week I'd pick up a chicken or turkey that I could roast and carve down for sandwiches. You're making it much more difficult on your self than you have to. When we're having a late night and I don't feel like eating any of the Sunday meals (because those are lunch and dinner all week and you sometimes get tired of it) we have breakfast for dinner . . . not much quicker then eggs, and they get loaded up with protein and veggies from other meals. My son simply eats whatever we're having. You're giving your son cheerios and gold fish? So what? He's 18 months old, what 18 month old doesn't eat that? My 3 year old eats us out of house and home . . . don't worry about what he's eating because as long as you're eating properly he'll be eating properly.

Break it up into managable pieces. Start with meal planning. Put a calendar in front of you with everyone's schedule for the week, then consider what you need to provide for each meal plus snacks. Think about the deal breakers (things you must have in your house) and the more negotiable items. When you shop, no staggering from the list. Remember, treats are okay as long as your lifestyle supports them.

I didn't read all of the posts, but I thought I'd tell you what I do for my kids.

Because my kids are kids and I don't believe in no treats for anyone, much less kids, I have a "one treat per shopping trip" rule. I only grocery shop every other week, and when I do, they get to pick one treat. That one treat is totally their's (as in, my son is not allowed to eat my daughter's), and once it's gone, it's gone. Their treats can be crackers, chips, a pint of ice cream, etc. Pretty much whatever they want. But they know it's all they get for two weeks. Everything else they get to choose from at home is healthy.

I didn't read all of the posts, but I thought I'd tell you what I do for my kids.

Because my kids are kids and I don't believe in no treats for anyone, much less kids, I have a "one treat per shopping trip" rule. I only grocery shop every other week, and when I do, they get to pick one treat. That one treat is totally their's (as in, my son is not allowed to eat my daughter's), and once it's gone, it's gone. Their treats can be crackers, chips, a pint of ice cream, etc. Pretty much whatever they want. But they know it's all they get for two weeks. Everything else they get to choose from at home is healthy.

I like that idea...

My 5 yr old will go nuts for a snack/junk food for a couple of days, then I put in the cupboard (not the pantry where he'll see it), and he tends to forget about it...he went hog wild on Halloween candy for about a week, then I brought the rest into work around thanksgiving after a week and a half of no candy requests.