Healthier Eating Habits for Your Family

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Related Episodes:

• How Your Childhood Affects Eating Habits Now
• Re-Write Your Eating Habits Story

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Full Episode Transcript:

Healthier Eating Habits for Your Family

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. So, it looks like we are in autumn now. A little bit depressing since we know that summer is behind us, and winter is coming. Not that winter can’t be fun just like summer, but those shorter days can be a little bit of a bummer.

I know many of you look forward to the holidays that fall and winter bring, so now is a very important time to start looking toward healthier eating habits.

So, in this podcast episode, I want to talk about healthier eating habits for your family, for the entire year and years to come, but especially as we move into the season where there tends to be less physical activity and more consumption of food.

Healthier eating habits for your family members is a fantastic motivator for you to change yours for the better. It’s not only you who gets the health benefits, but your children, significant other, or even other family members or friends outside of the people you live with.

Just think about all the people around you who can be positively influenced by your new, healthier eating habits. Plus, when they’re positively influenced and start to improve theirs, it only makes it easier for you to continue your new habits.

Alright, so I’m going to tell you the number one way for healthier eating habits for your family. That is, for you to be the example. Just simply by you focusing on you and letting them see that and potentially follow suit.

I got the idea to do this episode sort of indirectly from a client of mine. One of her main motivations for her to change her eating habits is to help her children have healthier eating habits. I just think that this is so inspiring for other moms out there. And if you’re not a mom, maybe you have a significant other who could benefit from healthier eating habits. Or maybe even other family members who don’t live you with you.

And I will say that it is possible for your family members, such as your children or significant other to change their eating habits without you changing yours, but it is much easier for them to do so if you are setting the example by initiating a change in yourself. And I’ll talk about why.

So conversely, it is very possible for you to change your eating habits, even if your family does not want to change theirs. My husband Paul’s a perfect example. When he was married to his now ex-wife, he decided that he wanted to start being more physically active and start taking better care of his health. He knew that not only getting into good physical shape with exercise would be helpful, but also changing his eating habits was going to be a big part of this.

He decided to do this independently of what her lifestyle was. And he succeeded. He decided that he was going to do it for himself, without expecting her to change if she didn’t want to. I think this is key. You can’t control someone else, but you can be a good example for someone else. If they’re making observations, they might start thinking in a different way and then start doing it differently.

Okay, so one of the reasons why helping your family change their eating habits by example, is because when they observe and learn, it seems like their idea in a sense. Think about it. If you feel like you’re being forced to do something, you’re going to be very resistant and not want to do it even more. If Paul had pestered or lectured his ex-wife about changing her eating habits, she might have gotten very annoyed or even angry, which will not have a good result.

If you don’t feel like you’re being forced, coerced, or pestered, and you’re just observing someone making changes and benefiting from these changes, you might start getting curious. Especially like I mentioned if they’re benefiting from these changes. And of course, developing healthier eating habits means you will get benefits.

And children learn by example. Young children, teens, even adult children. Think about it, this can make it easier for you. You don’t have to have the hassle of trying to get them to eat a certain way if you just focus on your actions first. This can avoid a lot of headaches.

Also, it helps children and adults to learn how to make decisions for themselves. So, if they see you changing your eating habits and getting benefit from that, they have a new piece of information. That’s one of the important things about decision making, right? Making sure that you have the information you need to make a good decision.

Like I said, you can’t control your children, your significant other, other family members, but you can provide them with better information by setting the example, and then they get to decide with that information what they want to do.

So, I think healthier eating habits for your family absolutely starts with you intentionally changing your eating habits and being the example. There are also some things you can do to help increase the appeal in forming healthier eating habits, so that it may increase the likelihood that your family members change theirs.

Taking a look at these specific eating habit or eating habits that you think your family can do better with is a great place to start. Do you feel like you wish you had more dinners at home, rather than getting takeout? If so, what’s a small commitment that you can make that you feel like would be easy to implement for the next few weeks?

For example, if your family typically gets takeout food or something similar five nights a week, then consider setting a goal of just doing that four nights a week for a few weeks. Then, 3 nights a week for a few weeks, until you’ve reached what you ideally would like to get down to.

What will be very helpful is to choose those nights ahead of time that you’re going to cook dinner at home versus getting takeout. To the best of your ability at least. I know that things can come up schedule-wise but try to choose those days ahead of time as best you can.

And don’t worry about being perfect with follow through. Just get right back on it. The reason why you want to make those small changes, is because you want to make it as easy as possible to follow through. Make it easy for your brain to do the thing that you want to do, especially since it’s already used to doing things a certain way. Already used to certain eating habits.

Then on the days that you are cooking dinner at home, maybe make a point to say how nice it is to be sitting down as a family and eating a home cooked meal. Maybe even get one of your children or your significant other to help you out. Even if it’s just a small task.

It could make it more enjoyable and more of a family event. When something is more enjoyable, it’s more likely to be repeated. Our brains really love pleasurable experiences. That might entail putting on some music while you’re making dinner. Or listening to a podcast. Listening to this podcast.

When your brain associates you doing a certain task or activity with a pleasurable experience, such as listening to music, then when you think about that task or activity, it’ll seem less like a chore, because you’ll remember the pleasurable experience that went along with it.

For example, I don’t always love cooking. I enjoy cooking more in the colder months than I do in the summer months. I don’t really want to be in the kitchen cooking for a long time, when I can be heating up leftovers or making something quick and easy and get right back outside or right back to the activities that I want to be doing in the summer.

One of the things I do though is I turn on the record player, and turn it up kind of loud, so it can be more of an experience to cook dinner. So, then the next time I know I have to do some meal prep or a fair amount of cooking, I remind myself that I can turn the music up pretty loudly if I want to. And I don’t have to worry about annoying the neighbors, because they are not close by at all.

Alright, another example of healthier eating habits for your family. If you wanted to start encouraging your children or significant other or other family members to eat some healthier snacks, then you start out with eating some healthier snacks. Make it so that they can see you eating the healthier snacks. You can certainly offer them some. Maybe they’ll take you up on it, maybe not.

Now of course, when it comes to children, you can set some rules and constraints of course. If you don’t want your child to eat more than two cookies, then you being the adult, can set the rule of no more than two cookies.

And don’t be afraid to do this with older children, or teens. You are the parent; you get to decide. They also get to decide if they want to follow the rules you set. If not, then there may be a consequence that you set as well. Just keep in mind that you can’t control them, but setting a rule just gives them a choice. They can choose to not abide by the rule like I said, but then there may be a consequence.

Speaking of that, that applies to every decision you make regarding food as well. You can eat whatever you want and how much you want, but there will be consequences. Some positive ones, such as you getting to enjoy whatever it is that you chose to enjoy. Some negative ones, such as continuation of an eating habit that you maybe would rather not have, weight gain over time, feeling bloated or physically uncomfortable.

So, you always have the option to eat what you want to eat and how much, but there always will be a consequence. Often, it’s not a consequence that you want. So, if you find yourself saying I can’t eat this or I can’t eat that, it’s more that you can, but you would rather not have the negative consequences of doing so. The same thing is true with your children as well.

Now, just a little side note, you can set rules for children to follow in your house, but asking a significant other to follow rules is a little bit trickier. Or any adult. You can certainly ask, but that person can say no, because he or she is an adult and has agency, and they’re not your child.

So, if you ask them to not eat cookies ever again, because otherwise you’ll be tempted and they say, “no,” they have every right to say “no.” It doesn’t mean anything about you. It just means that they find it to be too undesirable or too difficult to completely give up cookies. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you enough. It just means they’re exercising their agency to choose for themselves.

When navigating family situations and eating habits, that is something that I can help you with as an eating habit coach, because it’s not always easy. I can help you find better ways to communicate. I can help you with your own thoughts about someone else’s behavior or someone else’s words.

My role as a coach is not to just help you with your actions or inactions regarding eating habits and anything related, but also with how you’re thinking and feeling, and with what you’re saying or communicating. Might not even just be with your children or your significant other, but also parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, all the family members.

Because everyone has their own set of beliefs and their own behaviors that they’re used to doing, or their own habits, and you can’t control them or their thoughts, but you can control yours. And I can help you with that.

Okay, I’m gonna give one more tip for healthier eating habits for your family. Sometimes it’s easier to get everyone on board at least to some extent, by making it feel like teamwork. So, for this, I recommend just being open and honest with whoever it is that you’re living with. So, if it’s just a significant other, if it’s just children, if it’s all of those. You tell them your goal and why you want to reach that goal. Tell them why it’s important to you.

Someone may not understand your specific goal, but when you tell them why it’s so important to you, they can oftentimes either relate or at least feel more open to what you’re about to suggest if they understand your reason why. Then you can approach it as “OK, this is what I was thinking we could do if you are all on board with trying this with me”.

When you present it like that, it can make people feel like they want to contribute. Like they want to help out. It can maybe even be a little bit exciting for kids especially.

I have a tiny example that’s not related to eating whatsoever. But when I was a kid, and my brother and I were home on a snow day, I really wanted to shovel our neighbor’s driveway. I’m pretty sure we shoveled ours first and then I suggested to my brother that we shovel our neighbor’s driveway.

I figured he was not going to want to do that, so I told him the reason why I thought it would be nice. I thought it would be a really nice surprise for them to come home to a shoveled driveway. Especially since their driveway was long. I was not expecting any sort of payment from them, in fact that didn’t even cross my mind. To me, the reward was the anticipation of them being pleasantly surprised when they came home from work.

So, I presented it to my brother like this. “Hey Jake, wouldn’t that be really cool if we shoveled the Traver’s driveway for them and they were really surprised when they got home?” He quickly agreed and we went to work shoveling the driveway and were happy to do it. We were so excited for them to come home later and see their driveway.

Now guaranteed, my brother would have much rather gone back inside our warm house and played with his teenage mutant Ninja Turtles instead, but I got the sense from him that he got a little bit excited for the task just by the way I presented it.

And it was fun. It didn’t really seem like that much work.

So, think about what healthier eating habits you would like for your family, and think about why, then present a possible plan with them. Be sure to make sure to present it in a way that you’re all working together as a team towards this cool goal that’s going to benefit everyone. Because it will. And make sure to have that bit of excitement sort of an energy behind your words, because that’ll help inspire them into action.

Alright my career women. This is just a little bit on healthier eating habits for your family. We can figure out many more ways to help you with healthier eating habits for your family, whether you have children, or it’s just you any significant other, or other family members like parents or siblings.

Let’s talk about what your specific challenges are regarding eating habits, and I can tell you what will help you get from where you are now with your eating habits to where you want to be. To do so, just book a free consultation with the link on the episode page if you’re listening from my website. Or if you’re listening right from a podcast listening app like iTunes or Spotify, I’ve put the link in the episode description.

Thanks for listening, take care and I’ll talk to you soon.