I am finally on a great new, inspired path towards feeling good in my own skin, with a lot of help and guidance from the South Beach diet. Making my own meal plans, packing a lunch for myself, logging my diet and weight, it's all good... Almost, dare I say, "fun"!

Where I'm struggling, or at least anticipating a struggle in the future, is that I am our household's chief food manager, the one who makes dinner, grocery shops, packs kids lunches, even my husband's lunches and snacks for work ( our agreement for budget and scheduling reasons).

So here I am with lowfat cottage cheese, forgetting that bread exists, while I have to buy, toast, butter, and pack the stuff day after day, not to mention serve bowls of chips and cereal, buy bagels, etc, etc. I don't want my own dieting to affect my family's life or tastes, but how do you set up strong enough boundaries to deal with this. "out of sight out of mind" could work for me...but it's not practical right now.

Any tips from anyone in a similar situation? I can imagine it might be the same for someone working in a restaurant, too....

Cheers!

Sharing the house with people who don't share your eating habits is challenging. For a year and a half I've been living alone and that made it easier to follow a healthy diet, since there were no temptations in the house and I only had to worry about my own tastes in term of food. On the other hand, there was no accountability either, so I could go on a chocolate binge for a weekend and nobody would see me and slap my wrist.

Recently my boyfriend and I have moved together and this means that both of us need to make some compromises. He is hypersensitive and has some food sensitivities due to medication and a heart condition, so I can no longer cook everything that I used to cook for myself. For example, I like spicy food, but I can't cook that for the both of us because he does not tolerate spiciness. On top of it, he's my exact opposite when it comes to planning - I'm all bullet point lists and planning ahead my meals for several days, he just improvises every time he cooks, which wreaks havoc with my calorie plans.

We're still working on finding the best way to handle this, but personally I see multiple opportunities in this challenge:

- it strengthens my resolve to stick to healthy eating, because now I can set an example for him as well.
- it allows me to slowly improve his eating habits and the quality of the food he is eating.
- it gives me the opportunity to inform and educate him on nutrition and allow him to (hopefully) make better choices for himself when we're not eating together.

And a funny little thing, I've discovered that it's easier for me to resist eating something I shouldn't (like sweets) if it's someone else offering it to me and even trying to "seduce" me into eating it than if I was alone with the food item in question.

This would be a great time to get your whole family eating healthy foods. They don't need chips, either. When you get everyone involved in reading labels and making healthy choices, it can be fun and can change their lives forever.

My husband and kids are reaping the benefits of my healthy menu planning and food choices. They're not losing weight, because they're not on diets. But they're not eating junk anymore, either, and are much more aware of what they're putting in their mouths and how it makes them feel.

Thank you NCChickie and Kittenmancer...you're right. Now I am looking at fixing my family as an opportunity to both feed them healthier foods as well as practice my own plan. I'm also finding that I'm doomed if I start licking the spoon or grabbing a leftover bite of their snack. That's what creates the feeling of being deprived and the "injustice" of it all when other people get to eat what I'm currently cutting out of my diet. Just not STARTING to taste makes it easy to keep on plan, even when I'm preparing things not on my list at the moment like bread or pasta. But anyway, I'm limiting certain foods because they make ME feel bad, in MY body.... seeing this clearly makes me happy to keep on track.
Thanks for the support!

Well, how is this... I am a bread baker. I don't eat bread any more. I am a cake decorator. I don't eat cake any more either. I gave up grains as they wreak havoc on my blood sugar levels. But, I'm also a really good cook in general, so I've adapted things.

Now, I still bake bread 2-3 times a week and I still bake an occasional cake, but it's usually not for home consumption, but for some event. We always ate really good meals, but it's the snack foods in the house that were bad. We still have the cookies and stuff, but I just don't get tempted by those, unbelievably.

For meals, I make a meat/bean main dish, a veggie side dish and a carb side dish. I just skip the carb side dish. it allows me to cut my calories but I still don't have to be a short order cook.

I have no solutions for you, but I just wanted to say that you are not alone. Although I am calorie counting and can eat any type of food, I often don't want to "spend" my calories on something that I'm just "so-so" about but that packs a lot of calories. For example, prior to watching my weight, my husband and I would have some sort of fresh pasta dish about four nights a week. I like pasta, but it's one of those things I can do without on a regular basis, so when I cook pasta as a side dish for dinner now, I just cook enough for my husband. I have veggies on the side instead (usually).

As for other things like sweets, it is a challenge, no lie. For me it's somewhat easier, though, because the sweets my husband likes aren't the ones I like. However, I have resorted to telling my husband to actually hide food from me so that I won't eat it. He laughs but he does it, and at least I don't have to look at it daily.

I am in the same boat. And i LOVE to cook! (And bake bread like the previous poster!)

I pretty much told my husband and kids that they would eat slop or fend for themselves for the first month of my lifestyle change. My hubby was sweet and would occasionally make something substanial for the kids. LOL

The thing is, I had to teach MYSELF how to eat right first. I felt guilty that they were still eating random crap, but it was too overwhelming to change my whole way of eating, working out, living...AND...make healthy meal plans 3x a day plus packed lunches!!!

I promised myself that over time I would slowly work back in cooking and baking. And I have. Sometimes I cook meals for them and eat something completely different. Their meals aren't BAD, but my portion would be so small that it is just better for me to eat something else that fits into my calorie range.

Sometimes I do opt to eat what they are having, just a small portion.

Sometimes I eat some of what they are having, but in a different way. Like I make red beans and rice with reduced fat trukey sausage. I take a small serving off it and use it as salad dressing. YUM! It makes me feel like I am eating what they are eating.

Sometimes I incorporate new, healthier meals and packed lunches.

But at the end of it all, we have really always eaten well...I just ate way too much of it! The kids and hubby have some new, healthy choices that I have found during my journey, so that is cool. But I just have to keep living life and finding that sweet spot of compromise. I make cookies, but don't eat any. I enjoy just making them!

I think about this a lot because I was raised by a dieting mom and part of that made me contemplate food too much to the point where I had major issues with under-eating, self esteem problems, and eventually went to therapy and nutritional therapy to really change my thinking. I was raised without a lot of snacks that other kids had, but I never really missed them. I was just overly conscious of "good" vs "bad" foods, and became a little bit of a closet eater, and subsequently a chubby child.

I started going to therapy when I was pregnant because I knew I needed to get rid of that mindset before having my now four year old daughter. I didn't want her to grow up with a lot of the mentality I had, so there is no dieting/body issue/or weight talk in my household. I am giving her the tools of a lifetime by raising her with the mindset that fast food/candy/junk food/ice cream is a treat and not a daily occurrence, and that healthy foods are delicious and do good things for our bodies. I absolutely don't keep tabs on how much she eats, I just provide her with healthy options and she actually likes them.

We went out to eat with friends a few nights ago and out of all of the kids meals (grilled cheese, mac and cheese, chicken fingers, fries) she chose a veggie burger and apple slices. She likes to eat nuts and fruit as snacks and she even told the cashier at Trader Joe's yesterday that her favorite foods are broccoli, cauliflower, and rice.

The longer you keep a healthy household (just tweak foods that they're used to, not necessarily give them cottage cheese like you're eating) the more it will benefit everybody involved. If they like chips, maybe transition over to popcorn popped with a little olive oil. If they like ice cream, try the blended frozen bananas (my daughter likes a little nutella or natural peanut butter mixed in).

There are plenty of healthy foods that would appeal to the entire household, but don't worry too much. If you just provide them with the options, they will eat. They have no other choice lol (joke!)

OH, and in terms of you. You will get to a point where it's no longer mind over matter. It just takes time to really not miss those foods that you may still have around like bread or potatoes. Stay strong!