Does your family, kids especially, eat the same foods as you do when dieting?

abbynormalartist
abbynormalartist Posts: 318 Member
in Food and Nutrition
First off - I'm not talking about limiting the calories for kids. Just want to know if you make separate meals for your kids when you're dieting or if they eat the same sorts of things you do.

We've always been pretty healthy eaters but I've started eating at a deficit because I'd like to loose a few pounds. Rather than eat all the same food as before with smaller portions, I've been finding lower calorie options that I personally feel are more satisfying. I've replaced chicken, pasta and bread with a lot of wraps, eggs, spinach, onion, feta, salad and shrimp. I've never made separate dinners for my kids (breakfast and lunch is a different matter) but my 5 year old is not digging a lot of my choices. And, I've found a few meals that are pretty healthy, tasty and fit in my calorie plan for the day so I like to have them a couple times a week. Do you say "tough" and give your kids a spinach and egg white wrap for dinner for the second time in a week or make them something different?

Again, my kids love lots of fruit and veggies and always eat them with their dinner so I'm not concerned about that... they just miss lasagna, pizza, chicken legs and shudder to think of eating onions, spinach or "stinky cheese".

Replies

  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I think both adults and children benefit from a (I would have said "normal", but nobody seems to know what normal means anymore, so, okay) varied and balanced diet. No need to go to either extreme, only chicken and pasta, or egg white wraps and protein shakes. Chicken, bread, pasta, lasagne, pizza, onions, feta, shrimp, spinach and wraps (torillas) are all within the scope of normal food, for me. We have our favorites, but children's and adults' tastebuds are adaptive. At any rate, have some different foods from day to day.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    It's fairer to say that I eat the same foods that they do. I haven't replaced anything, I just eat less.
  • Lizzy622
    Lizzy622 Posts: 3,705 Member
    I never cooked differently for my kids but I also never took lasagna, pizza and chicken legs off the rotation. I made more subtle changes like baking instead of frying and using high fiber and protein pasta. I also make a 3 bean chili that is mostly vegetables and just a little beef for flavor that they love. I also incorporated my kids in the process. We would go to the farmers market and pick up a fruit or vegetable that we never tried before and figure out what to do with it together.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    No.

    We all eat the same foods.
  • ElizabethHanrahan
    ElizabethHanrahan Posts: 102 Member
    I think that children should eat the same things that the adults eat. My oldest son wouldn't eat pasta after about 4 until he was an adult, He wanted baked potato instead. My husband decided that he couldn't eat tomatoes, so he wanted alfredo sauce for his spaghetti and also wanted macaroni instead of spaghetti. I am allergic to milk, so I had to make red sauce for spaghetti nights. After making what amounted to 4 meals for a spaghetti night, I just told everyone that there would be no more. We didn't eat spaghetti for almost 4 years. But with that being said, I also think that children should be allowed to pick 1 meal a week that they shop for and help prepare. This is a way not only to teach them about nutrition but also how to cook for themselves when older.
  • crazyycatladyy1
    crazyycatladyy1 Posts: 156 Member
    edited May 2017
    I've been eating a separate menu than my family for the last 5ish years-through my weight loss phase and now several years into maintenance. I do IF and eat at different times than my family does. I've also experimented with different eating styles throughout this whole thing, and would never try and push these onto my husband/kids. I'm the cook in the family and I make them the meals that they like, and then I make my own meals based on what I like/calorie goals/what woe I'm currently playing with.

    eta: to elaborate a bit more-my biggest meal of the day is at lunchtime. My family's biggest meal of the day is at suppertime, (at suppertime I have my smallest meal and it's 30 minutes-an hour after my family eats).
  • abbynormalartist
    abbynormalartist Posts: 318 Member
    Anther point I forgot to mention is that my husband has been doing intermittent fasting for the last 6 months or so. We're all very comfortable with it but it means that he makes his own meals, and while he sits with us at dinner time, he doesn't really eat until later in the evening. I don't feel like making casseroles or time consuming meals that I'll have to freeze or eat for a week when it's just my daughter and me (the baby eats anything). And really, I never hugely cared for some of the things my daughter misses, like lasagna. I used to make it because it was what my husband wanted and he'd eat a good portion of it. Now that it's just the two of us (plus an easy baby), I'd like to make the things I enjoy most... but it's not what my daughter is used to eating. She tries to be an "adventurous eater" but doesn't have a desire to tuck into spanakopita or stir fry.
  • Juniper210
    Juniper210 Posts: 77 Member
    It varies depending on what I'm planning on eating that night. If it's something that I know that they'll eat, I just make it for everyone, and if it's a bit too "diety" then I'll make them something else and make my meal. Sometimes I'll make the same main course, but do different sides for them. They also get much larger portions than I do since they are teenage boys and their calorie requirements are much much higher than mine.
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    I moved out before my mom started losing weight, but it's kind of a compromise. My dad will mostly eat what my mom makes (or vice versa), but they will make small substitutions to fit their diets. For example, my mom will prepare fruit to put on pancakes whereas my dad has syrup, and my dad will make his own mashed potatoes because the mashed cauliflower my mom makes gives him gas. Generally, though, they're able to both have the same thing.
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,646 Member
    edited May 2017
    Yup!
    We all eat the same foods.
  • mg105
    mg105 Posts: 1 Member
    We eat all the same foods but my husband and I are both eating better. My son is 5 and is pretty good about eating what I make. If he really hates it he can have a pb and j. I have used alot of recipes from the spark people recipe app. They have a lot of good choices. We made a chili mac that was amazing and low calorie. I can't cut out carbs because I'm obsessed and I know I would end up binge eating a loaf of bread and ruin all my hard work.
  • FlippingFins
    FlippingFins Posts: 20 Member
    My daughter's always eaten different meals to me quite frequently. This is because I ensure that her diet is nutritionally balanced and very healthy, but don't actually like many nutritionally balanced and healthy 'quick to prepare' meals myself.

    My own diet is limited and quite processed. Not something that I'm proud of, but equally not something that I'm able to change for more than a week without giving in.

    I'm raising her on all of the wonderful foods that I wasn't raised on, in the hope that she'll grow to have much more flexible tastes than mine.

    I tried making traditional family meals for us to share for a while, but I don't have the time or money to cook entirely from scratch and I didn't want her having lots of salt/sugar/additives found in kits and shop-bought sauces, so I gave up on that idea quite quickly.

    I know that children learn from what they see, so I also make a point of describing to her the nutritional benefits of each item that she eats and explaining why my food might not be suitable for her. So far, this seems to be paying off.

    On top of all of this, I firmly believe that we should all have personal choice about what we eat, so I've never agreed with "you'll eat what the rest of the family is eating" if someone doesn't like it. I wouldn't accept being told at a restaurant that there is no menu and I'll have to eat what everyone else is having, even if it's not something that I would enjoy. I also wouldn't go to the grocery store and buy lots of foods I don't like, subjecting myself to them just because others do. I don't think that she should have to eat what I eat, just because she's the child. So she has a very strong say in her own meals and what she wants to add on to her menu, and what should be taken off.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
    Mostly. I might make spaghetti squash for myself and regular spaghetti for my family - some small difference like that, but never a full different meal.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    No. I haven't changed my diet or meals at all, I just eat less of them
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
    We've always eaten all the same. I don't have time to figure out different meals.
  • Madwife2009
    Madwife2009 Posts: 1,369 Member
    I generally eat the same as my family; I'm not a believer in making two different meals, plus this is what I'll be eating when I've finally attained the body that I'll be happy with. I just have smaller portions.

    The only exceptions are pasta because I don't like it and starchy foods (cake, biscuits, chips, potato, bread, pizza etc) because I literally cannot eat them (too difficult to swallow without a bucket of water to flush it down and I don't like slooshing around after a meal). So when the rest of the family have pizza, pasta etc I'll have a simple salad (protein and lots of salad veg).

    I don't eat chocolate either (medical issue) but I certainly don't stop my children having some occasionally. I think that allowing them the odd bit of chocolate/cake/biscuit normalises these foods. My FIL never had sweets as a child (too poor) and as a result, every time I saw him, he was eating sweets.

    My family get lots of fruit and veg and generally have a balanced diet. We don't eat out very much (I don't think that we've eaten out at all this year) as it's too expensive and we've avoided fast food since my DH had a heart attack. I was saying to my children just last week that my youngest has never had a MacDonald's Happy Meal to which they all said that she hadn't missed anything worth having!
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    Our family eats the same stuff. A few variations based on preferences and portions, but by and large, we eat the same foods.
  • pennygm72
    pennygm72 Posts: 179 Member
    I have to make a few adaptations as I'm eating low fat (medical reasons) and they certainly don't need to do that, so for example we've switched to wholewheat wraps, brown rice and pasta but when I'm having a wrap with cottage cheese and ham, they'll have full fat cream cheese and ham, for pasta they'll have mince (ground) beef and I'll have tinned tuna, we'll all have the same tomato base sauce. I sometimes swap my baked cod for sausages for the children. Like yours they've always been good eaters, they will try anything, love spice,fish, fresh veg and fruit, they are both very active and are slim but well muscled, eating what I eat would be harmful for them so I simply swap.

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