Cold Turkey Just Doesn't Work in My Family

In all honesty, I am the only overweight member of my family. My kids have been blessed with the ability to eat virtually anything they want to without gaining weight. If I let them, and sometimes I have, my four kids will live off of frozen pizza, Ramen noodles, spaghettios and pizza pockets. If it were up to the younger two they would never eat fruits or vegetables.  I know that their junk food diets are completely my fault. I was depressed and often downright lazy during a lot of their younger years so I missed out on the "training" phase.

Over the last few months I have really started trying to get in shape and lose the weight. It was then that I took a good long look at how my kids eat. I actively searched blogs and health sites looking for answers as to how to change my family's eating habits. There are lots of suggestions.

• Throw every bit of junk food/processed food out of your pantry.
• Stop buying sugary treats and drinks
• Change to eating whole wheat
• Cut out processed foods, etc. 

I don't know about you, but I don't have the grocery budget to throw out my pantry.

And those families that do their 30 day clean eating challenges (or whatever number of days they choose) make it seem easy. At least they do to me. After reading enough of these challenges I began to notice a pattern. Most of these families already ate veggies with every meal (just maybe not organic) or they ate at least semi healthy overall. They weren't showing pictures of the overweight/obese kids on the playground or mounds of mac and cheese with no greens in sight. Most, if not all, of these families had children under the age of six. In my experience it is a lot easier to convince those under the age of six than it is a teenager, much less two teens and a pre-teen that thinks chicken nuggets are a major food group.

In honor of those whose families are older or are simply addicted to junk food, fast food and processed foods, I present Operation: Ditch the Junk Food. My junk/fast food addicted family of six is about to tackle a year of transforming our eating habits. Shhh, they don't quite know it yet. But I have a plan to slowly get us out of eating crappy food for 75% of our meals to only eating 10% of processed foods. 100% all clean eating isn't realistic, at least not for our family.

Each month will have a new set of rules/changes that I will be implementing.
On this blog I will record:

• How things are going (like if my 11 year old is holding a hunger strike or if I am ready to pull my hair out)
• Foods/recipes that work or that bomb fabulously
• Changes I see in each of the kids as well as my husband and I. This includes weight lost, crankiness, headaches or lack thereof, etc.
• How our budget is holding up since we all "know" that processed foods seem cheaper than healthier food. 

So if you're interested in seeing if the experiment works then check back in. If you just want to hassle me then move along.