Losing weight in a house full of snacks
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Don’t keep them in the house. Let your kids pick something 1x/ day. It doesn’t save $$ to buy in larger quantities if you have to keep replacing what you are. Your h can get his own. Eliminating the constant snacking will be good for everyone. Make it intentional and enjoyable, then move on to something else.4
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@GlamGoals66 your case I think is typical for most with kids in the house.
Back in Oct 2014 I went Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) trying to manage my joint pain at the age of 63. The son and daughter had just turned 16 bringing in tons of sugar stuff setting on the table, counter and everywhere. For 40 years I had been trying to lose weight only to eat something sweet and wind up eating all of the sweet stuff in sight and where they stashed some of it out of my sight.
Finally I got pissed and left food with added sugars and or any form of any grain. It was a hellish 2 weeks but it has been about 4 years since I have wanted to raid their sweet stuff because my 40 years of carb binging was over mainly in 30 days after going Keto.
I wanted to master a way of eating for pain management and LCHF (keeping total carbs to about 50 grams daily) has been my ticket back to the best health in decades.
The funny thing is how much all three have cut back on processed foods without me saying anything after they saw how I was regaining my ability to walk more that 100 feet without needing to rest and all of my lab work becoming normal for the first time in their lifetime. Swimming in carbs was something I had to deal with because that was my monkey and not theirs.
I do not know what will resolve your craving to bing but you will find your way forward in time. I was old and running out of time but I do not think I would have ever "tapered" off of carbs personally because I had tried for years. The freedom to live these last 4 years has been beyond AWESOME.
Best of success.2 -
Think about how your eating is setting a bad example for your kids. Eat what they eat for meals and have healthy snacks - you've gotten a ton of great examples. This will set a better example for them. And rewarding them with junk food is the worst way to reward them but is a great way to set them up for a lifetime of bad eating habits. Exchange that with activities. They may balk at first but most kids like doing things with their parents and will find this more rewarding.3
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happytree923 wrote: »OP, I'm noticing that you're using a lot of absolute statements- I don't have time to eat, I don't have any self control, etc. I'm saying this because I have a major issue with this too, thinking 'it's too difficult for my specific circumstances' will drag you down. When I start thinking like this I find it helpful to go into the success stories section and look for people who were successful with circumstances similar to mine.
As far as your self control, I would bet that your perceived lack of self control is just straight hunger. You're active looking after young children and from what it sounds like, not eating full meals at all during the day. You can create meals out of snacks as people have suggested above, combining cheese sticks, fruit, etc. into a single meal. Look up ideas for bento lunches, some of them will be full recipes but a lot are just combinations of different things that only need to be cut up.
I was gonna say, if I had to subsist on Lean Cuisine I would eat my own arm out of desperation.
Do some prep on weekends. Demand help from your husband while you do it. I find it's most helpful to prep parts of meals rather than whole meals: slice vegetables, wash fruit, prep protein such as a roast pork loin and roast chicken, prep slow cooking grains and beans. Then you can easily throw meals together and it's less tempting to make bad decisions.
Also, if the kids are too young to shop for themselves, you are shopping for them, and they don't need to eat so much junk. A little junk won't kill them, but they should be reaching for real fruit, not "fruit" snacks. Fruit does not take a long time to prepare.5 -
I remember the day I had to decide to just have a strong resolve that I was going to eat differently than my daughter and my husband. She had to have her frozen pizza's Mac n' cheese.. cheese burgers and fries.. all that.
I bought my own healthy food and ate differently than them. I realized I couldn't control what they ate but I could control what I ate. After making the firm decision ... I never ate their food at all and I lost all my weight. In recent years I regained.. but I am now at goal weight again.
I am now an empty nester..and LOVE that I have zero junk food in the house..and my husband is older and very much wanting to lose all his weight..so junk in the house is no longer a problem.
But looking back with some wisdom.. I would have just told them. "we're eating healthy at home now.. it is just the way it is.. and made sure all the food in the house was healthy.. and that would be that! I wish I had, as now may daughter is grown, recently she's been gaining weight and it looks like she may end up with a weight problem.2 -
GlamGoals66 wrote: »Why would you feed your own kids junk food in such amounts? If something is not good for your diet, it most certainly is not good for the kids either. One thing to have a treat here and there, another to stock junkfood. Why not lead by example and teach the kids that a perfect snach can be a fruit, a yoghurt, some nuts, cheese and so on?
My kids only get junk food at snack times. One in the morning, one in the afternoon for the toddler, and only one in the afternoon for the big kid. And it's mostly not cookies and brownies, (treats like that are more for rewards, bust still in the house) it's more goldfish crackers and cheerios with the occassional oreo. Just generally very carby/caloric foods that are fine as a snack, but not so much to fill my entire diet. (And the toddler loves cheese, but hasn't figured out the spoon just yet to manage yogurt without coating the entire kitchen in a layer, but hates me feeding her because "I'm big and can do it myself!"
What's wrong with serving your kids fruit and veg for snacks? Things like carrot sticks, apple slices, etc.
And as for the rewards, you could consider changing them to doing interesting things like going to the playground, beach, zoo, etc. or things like books, colouring books, etc.
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Kids don't need to snack. You're not depriving them if you aren't constantly feeding them.
And I would back up a lot of the sentiments of others: Why not eat the same as your kids? Kids do not need to exist on "kids food" (a term I abhor). They have just as complex pallets as their parents, so introduce them to foods that you like so you get a chance to eat with each other (and you actually get to eat)8 -
Kids don't need to snack. You're not depriving them if you aren't constantly feeding them.
And I would back up a lot of the sentiments of others: Why not eat the same as your kids? Kids do not need to exist on "kids food" (a term I abhor). They have just as complex pallets as their parents, so introduce them to foods that you like so you get a chance to eat with each other (and you actually get to eat)
+1
Once my brother and I got onto solid foods, my mother made one meal, at each meal time, and we all ate it.
The only time we were allowed choice was at breakfast. We could choose from one of several different cereals.
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Why not get everyone on a healthier eating habit? It's a great thing to build healthy eating habits while they are young. I know the kids wouldn't be psyched about it at first but you can always not give them an option.4
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Something I started doing is keeping a little notebook. If I really want something, I write it down, write the calories, write what I had instead, and write how many calories I saved by doing that. It helps me really visualize how much I would have been eating I'd I had whatever I wanted3
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Healthy eating should not have zero taste. For instance, last night I made chicken sausages with potatoes roasted with onions in butter. It was delicious.
I can sympathize with you on the snacks. The key for me is to come up with my plan which currently is 16:8 IF with lunch, one snack, and dinner and stick strictly to the logging. So if you do grad something else factor it in to your calories.
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The big thing is you need to look at your calories like your paycheck. You have to convince yourself that you cannot live beyond your means. If you have $200 and want to buy a purse that is $220, you need to work some overtime; when it comes to weight loss, exercise is your overtime. Increase your bank of overtime and you can snack more if you need to, but prepare and you should not need the extra calories.
I like this!
It's sort of how I look at it. Gotta pay for what you want otherwise you end up in calorie card debt!
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My simple solution is to lock all the good stuff in box boxes in the pantry. Seriously. :-) Only my family knows the codes to get in them, so they can have their treats. But *I* can't have their treats. I don't miss them. I don't even want them. If they were where I could get them though, I'd not be able to think about anything else but eating them. it seemed like a really extreme solution when I bought the boxes, but sometimes you've just got to do whatever it takes. I appreciate that that's not the best solution when you have little kids.
The harder solution is about spending about 4 years and counting learning what my trigger foods are and only eating them when I am 100% certain I can stop after a normal helping. To help me stop after a normal helping, I measure out one serving and put the rest of the package away. And then, when I'm not 100% certain, learning to walk away, do something else something else to create a delay when I feel like I want something that I know is going to trigger me. Often I can just forget all about it if I can stop myself and give myself a few minutes to calm down. If I have to, I leave the house and walk around the block. Otherwise, I find a chore or an activity to do somewhere away from the food. I don't always catch myself in time, so then I take the walk or whatever after I've eaten the first cookie, which usually stops me eating more. And I make sure to treat myself with kindness and understanding when I eat too much.
It makes it easier if I can I can still graze throughout the day on other stuff, and that at weekends I eat at maintenance so that I can relax around food. I eat lots of protein, fibre and fat because graze a lot less when my day has been very high in those things. I try to make myself proper meals that are balanced. I pre-prepare them, and buy pre-prepared veggies and stuff to make it easier and quicker.
I have a range of go-tos that are definitely treats but don't trigger me to eat more. Anything high protein and sugar-free works. That usually means preparing them myself, but really, it's not much work to make frozen yoghurt or protein cookies, or steam some edamame or even just weigh out some peanuts into little bags.
I honestly don't think I'll ever completely fix this. A troubled relationship with food seems to be welded to my personality. Accepting that has helped, oddly. But I think it is possible to improve, all the time as long as I keep paying attention. I lost 100 pounds despite my crazy food cravings. Now I'm learning to manage them better so that I'm never 100 pounds overweight again. I've had to develop a mindset that says I'm acting in my own best interests rather than depriving myself. That I'm happier when I cook myself actual meals and eat real food. I'm more calm and relaxed when I don't eat my trigger foods. These days I actually associate eating them with the awful out of control feeling that comes afterwards, so I often genuinely don't want them. That's taken a lot of work, and it's not even effective 100% of the time. But constantly working on this has meant that I've kept MOST of the weight off, and definitely the rate at which I regained (because life, injury, stress, laxness, illness...) was very slow compared to what it would have been otherwise.
I think what it really comes down to in the end is remembering that you, especially as a busy mum, really need and deserve to spend time and money on feeding yourself in a way that is healthy and happy. You have to give yourself that as freely and generously as you give it to your kids.2 -
rheddmobile wrote: »
I was gonna say, if I had to subsist on Lean Cuisine I would eat my own arm out of desperation.
Those things make me so sad. I weirdly feel MORE hungry after I've eaten one. They only have so few calories because they are tiny portions served in a sea of watery sauce that makes them look bigger than they are. They are baby food masquerading as an adult meal.
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This thread got crazy long so I admit I didn't read the whole thing. However it sounds like OP wants to have snacks and I don't think that's an issue. I lost all my weight and I still snack. Here are some ideas I use and I'm sure some are repeats:
1. Popcorn (I use Boom Chick-a-Pop from Costco at 140 cal/4 cups)
2. Carrots or red bell pepper
3. Sugar free applesauce
4. low fat string cheese
5. Fresh fruit - much more filling than candy
6. Kool-aid drops in water
7. Sugar free pudding with low fat cool whip
8. Plain yogurt with fruit (berries) and artificial sweetner
9. Pretzel crackers with laughing cow cheese
The options are endless. As for the lack of control that often is an issue of eating the wrong foods. Try to make sure veggies are always a part of your meal. The higher the fibre the better. For example I sub shredded cabbage on tacos for shredded lettuce. Be sure you get enough protein. Watch how many carbs you eat in the form of processed foods. I find when I start eating too much carb (particularly processed) and not enough protein I lose control.
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rheddmobile wrote: »
I was gonna say, if I had to subsist on Lean Cuisine I would eat my own arm out of desperation.
Those things make me so sad. I weirdly feel MORE hungry after I've eaten one. They only have so few calories because they are tiny portions served in a sea of watery sauce that makes them look bigger than they are. They are baby food masquerading as an adult meal.
I'm 80% sure Lean Cuisines are a long-running extremely profitable prank. I'm sorry to anyone who likes them but I can't figure out how anyone could eat them as a full meal.4 -
happytree923 wrote: »I'm 80% sure Lean Cuisines are a long-running extremely profitable prank. I'm sorry to anyone who likes them but I can't figure out how anyone could eat them as a full meal.
They're fine as a base to add veggies and chicken breast to. Lunch, but not satisfying enough for dinner.1 -
happytree923 wrote: »OP, I'm noticing that you're using a lot of absolute statements- I don't have time to eat, I don't have any self control, etc. I'm saying this because I have a major issue with this too, thinking 'it's too difficult for my specific circumstances' will drag you down. When I start thinking like this I find it helpful to go into the success stories section and look for people who were successful with circumstances similar to mine.
As far as your self control, I would bet that your perceived lack of self control is just straight hunger. You're active looking after young children and from what it sounds like, not eating full meals at all during the day. You can create meals out of snacks as people have suggested above, combining cheese sticks, fruit, etc. into a single meal. Look up ideas for bento lunches, some of them will be full recipes but a lot are just combinations of different things that only need to be cut up.
I agree that the OP may be hungry, and also not getting enough protein. Lack of protein (and/or sleep, and regular exercise) is a recipe for the munchies for me.
@GlamGoals66 how much weight are you trying to lose and what is your weekly weight loss goal set to?
What is your protein goal, and do you meet it regularly?2 -
happytree923 wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »
I was gonna say, if I had to subsist on Lean Cuisine I would eat my own arm out of desperation.
Those things make me so sad. I weirdly feel MORE hungry after I've eaten one. They only have so few calories because they are tiny portions served in a sea of watery sauce that makes them look bigger than they are. They are baby food masquerading as an adult meal.
I'm 80% sure Lean Cuisines are a long-running extremely profitable prank. I'm sorry to anyone who likes them but I can't figure out how anyone could eat them as a full meal.
Yep, they are absolutely not in any way a full meal. I very occasionally buy them on special offer and use them as a sauce for other things, like chicken and spinach. I'd never, ever eat a Lean Cuisine or similar diet "ping cuisine" meal on it's own. It's a sure fire way to lead me to binging on the contents of the fridge. AND because they are basically selling you frozen water, unless you get them for a rock bottom price, they are a total rip off.0 -
for some years it was just me & husband. He eats lots of sweets, I like salty so I just have snacks around that I like & don't even try to have a little bit of his because it might get me started. the last 2 months, my dtr & her 3 kids have been staying with us temporary so there's all the snacks you mentioned. I stay away from their stuff but do make my own sweet snacks I like to have sometimes. Mostly non fat plain greek yogurt with 2-4 Tbl of lite cool whip I eat it plain or add some strawberry jam, or got coco mix. Tastes like a mouse & very filling. I also found low can recipe for chocolate cheese cake bites & am making apple pie with very little sugar. I decided not to eat certain things0
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