I buy them higher carb food I dislike like white bread (which they prefer over wheat anyway), and cereals I don't care for, ramen I don't like, etc. For pancakes or crepes, fried chicken and such we all just eat the low carb versions. It usually seems to me everything I don't like is the stuff they do like!

I fix low carb family meals. I have teens so if they are still hungry after we eat (which they almost always are) or if they don't like the wonderful spinach, asparagus or squash I am having, they are free to make a carby food. They hate my flax crackers I use for dips but I buy them chips they can use. I do ask that they eat them in the dining room because. Well. CHIPS.

Both my kids (had five, only two still home) are slim and highly energetic/high metabolism. If they had weight issues I'd do it differently.

Edit: ps. Just thot of another example we use a lot. Mac and cheese. Give me a homemade real cheese Mac and cheese made with a roux... Watch out. I don't think I could resist. But I buy them those ones with the powdered fake cheese stuff. They LOVE them and hate the good stuff. Kids!

Have you considered making certain shelves or drawers in the kitchen the "kid zone?" Maybe put all the refrigerated or frozen things that you don't want to be eating in the (hopefully opaque) drawers or on their own shelf, where you're less likely to see them. Same with pantry items: put your stuff in a separate cabinet from theirs. Even if you know it's there, it may help you to not constantly have it staring you in the face.

I know your longer term/ideal solution would be to get rid of the "junk," and I'm not about to try giving my thoughts on that one, as I don't have kids. But, maybe just hiding it from yourself will help you in the short term.

Good luck!

As a young woman who has always had weight issues the best thing my mom did was limit the junk food in the house. We're in the process of purging the house of all the carbage, she and dad are slowly eating some of it and other stuff get's tossed when it's found. Depending on their ages they may not really notice as foods change, and if they're given replacements(and aren't picky eaters) they probably won't care. One of my mom's things was cooking breakfast for the week, especially during winter. Oatmeal(irish), cream of wheat, quinoa, can all be cooked in the crockpot over night on sunday with flavors added. Try a combo of flavors you don't like and they do. Super strict low carb may not be the way to go at first. Maybe you can focus on less 'convenience' or processed foods first, then move to lower carb options. Just my two cents.

JessicaLCHF wrote: »

JennyToy1 wrote: »

if you are just feeling tempted....Put their stuff in one area of the pantry/cabinets and yours in another. Not having to stare at it all the time is helpful. If something is super tempting (rice krispie treats is mine)...

Re: Rice Krispie treats
See, I could NOT handle those in the house. No way. No how.

For something like that if they HAD to have them for whatever reason, I'd buy them when away from home in a single serve pkg and give them to them there!

You gotta know your hot buttons, and you gotta do what you gotta do! This is a family. We help each other. We find a way to make it work for everyone.

exactly!!!

I do the designated shelf thing with my guy, too. He refuses to give up certain things. As long as he eats them before they go bad, I really couldn't care. He has a shelf in the fridge with his junk and leftovers. He has a full shelf in the pantry, and he also has the end table on his end of the couch. Once I mentally designated those "his" areas, it became easier for me to manage, because if I felt like I was "stealing" from him or would have to sneak out and buy replacements or have to **GULP** own up to my crimes. This was pre-LCHF days.

Now, most of his foods aren't even a blip on my radar. He can have oreos for months (whereas if I had them around me, they might last hours, or at most, days, before I binged them out of existence) and I don't even notice...

Bread - you can make low carb versions if you feel you must indulge. I would gear towards shifting your kids away from the stuff, too. switch from white to a white-wheat to a mild wheat to a whole wheat to a fun one - or make true sourdough...the fermented bits will be helpful to all...

Waffles - make a huge batch on the weekend, and freeze them - for quick mornings. Make them LC. You'll be surprised how you might get a complaint or two at first, but long term, they really won't notice, especially if you incorporate alternate flours.

Baked Beans - this is likely the sugar craving. Take a hard look at the ingredients - do you really want to serve your kids essentially candied beans with chemicals????

Pasta - slowly shift from white (paste - ugh, once you stop this, you won't miss them AT ALL) to better quality pasta. If you can't control portions, then work on switching to some of the bean based pastas or shirytaki pasta (someone posted why they hated them until they learned to cook them properly).

Carby veggies - one, get rid of canned stuff. Buy frozen. Steamed frozen veggies taste better. If your kids are reluctant to try a new veggie, make a game out of going out grocery shopping with them each week and letting them pick one new veggie to try. Then let them help you decide how to make it (recipe research WITH them). Getting them engaged makes them more willing to give things a chance. If you make it a new family fun thing, it might end up changing things in a fun, enjoyable way for all of you.

Every Saturday when you make pancakes, make low carb pancakes. Traditions do not have to change, but healthy changes are rarely bad.

Hard questions - do you really want them eating dessert essentially when they have yogurt? I bet they would have fun adding a bit of berries and homemade granola (can be made with low carb friendly stuff) into plain yogurt with vanilla and some stevia. If you make new foods a fun adventure, it isn't as difficult. Single serving cups of mac and cheese - read those ingredients. Do you really want to feed chemicals and additives and horrible stuff to your kiddo? Find an alternative you can all live with. If you consider these foods real and true poison to YOU, why do you want to poison your kids - just because they "like" something or are a "freak" for it? Isn't that what got YOU where you are today????? Kids are amazingly picky and yet amazingly flexible when you involved them in the decisions. Yes, educate them. Yes, discuss things with them, but in the end, you are the grown up, and sometimes you have to make the hard and uncomfortable decisions that will make them unhappy in the short term but will teach them resiliency in the long term. My daughter was this age when she started learning about nutrition at school. SHE engaged ME in making things healthier in our home. We went on some fun culinary adventures together, and we were willing to try all kinds of things just to see what we all liked together. I know this makes a little more work, but it makes memories, it gets you all engaged together, and it makes you a team while they learn a deeper respect for all that you do and for the fact that your focus on their total health above all else!!!!!!! At 8 and 9, they are impressionable and forming their palates and habits for the rest of their lives. Get them to watch things like FatHead and the other movies we watch. A moderate low carb plan NEVER hurt anyone that I've ever heard of!!! Set your whole family up for greatness. Engage them in helping keep the whole family on track... Shared responsibility makes it easier on EVERYONE. Sure, there will always be something, but compromise and researching things are skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Change is always uncomfortable at first, but if you save them from a lifetime of the suffering you're going through now, wouldn't that make some cranky moments now well worth it??? (hugs)

Not eating carbs was a decision in my case. Thought I was going to die the first two weeks. The wife and 17 year old kids are deep into carbs so they are always in reach and I have to move them in the fridge to get to my stuff. There was a table with 100,000 calories of carbs at church today but that was a non issue because I have decided not to eat sugar containing food and grains. Again breaking the carb addiction was painful but my joint pain left within 30 days and I have no desire to experience it again and all the health issues that have resolved over the last 10 months. In my case it is just a left/right brain thing.

.... but I still struggle with access though because my SO won't give it up although he likes my LC meals and his kids can't function without a lot of the processed stuff

parkdad73 wrote: »

I'm surprised this is an issue. I thought it was a universal law that "If Mom is on a Diet (WOE) EVERYONE is on a diet!"

On the other hand if dad is on a diet he can do that craziness on his own!

So true ....the annoying thing is dad always loses more weight than mum without even realising he is on a diet!