Of course just because I was all over this idea didn't mean my family would be as well. I have a 15, 14 and 12 year old. Now these are teenagers and we all know that teenagers love there sweets and junk food. I mean come on eating healthy is not cool or fun. I also have a 5 year old who would rather go without dinner every night then eat something that is not in one of her 5 food groups which consist of, ramen noodles, chicken nuggets, chips and cheese, mac n cheese (from a box) and any candy or sugar loaded anything. She thinks vegetables and meat in it's real form are evil and most fruits she would do without as well. Fruit to her is a glass of juice and we are not talking 100% juice here. Then there is my husband. He loves food especially eating out and all those great and wonderful comfort foods. He is willing to eat healthy at least. So of course taking all of this into consideration this task seemed more daunting then ever.
I was not willing to just give up without trying. I feel to strongly about this to not at least give it a 100% try. I had to explain it to them in the same way as I had to tell myself. Remind them of all the things they can still eat and not the things they can't.
So here is what I decided to do. Now my husband was out of town last week so I was able to just focus on the kids first. I brought up the idea to them last week just gradually, I mentioned it in conversation to get there minds turning. They of course immediately were saying no way we are not doing that. There resistance was not to much of a surprise to me I expected it. Now, I was having this conversation pretty much just with my teenagers, my little one was a completely different story all together. She is to young to understand why we would do this and why she can't eat what she wants. So with her it is more a conversation about what is healthy and what is not. It will be me just finding creative ways to get her to try new things and slowly encourage her to eat things she has not. An example of this was today I bought Quinoa and I told her it was something fun to eat with an even funnier name. She thought the name was hilarious and was very excited about it. So this will be different with her then my older ones but I am determined to make it work with her as well.
I mentioned it to my husband while he was out of town but not real thoroughly. He is such a good sport. While the kids had been hearing about it all week I just dumped it on him in one day. Poor guy I am sure his first thought was this woman is crazy, I am gone for a week and I come home and she wants to now take all of my food away. However, he has agreed to support me in this and give it a try. I love him for that and am so grateful that he will join me on this journey with the family.
So after our week long conversations I told everyone we would be having family meeting and movie night last Saturday. After dinner at the table I went over the 14 steps with everyone. We talked about what this all meant and what was involved. I explained to them why I felt the way I did about this and they asked questions and of course complained a little. I mean they are teenagers what do you expect. After our family meeting I had everyone sit down and watch Food Inc. together. This gave us all an incite into where are food comes from and why we need to eat differently. This movie was an eye opener for all of us. It was hard to watch at times but very very worth it.
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