Advice for Mom of 3 who need to eat?

No Snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Except on Days that start with S. Too simple for you? Simple is why it works. Look here for questions, introductions, support, success stories.

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Marie
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Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:34 pm
Location: Manitoba, Canada

Advice for Mom of 3 who need to eat?

Post by Marie » Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:43 am

Hi everyone,

I joined 2 weeks ago and had a great 1st week, felt very good about my accomplishments. But, unfortunately my kids need lunch food and I'm the type of Mom who likes to bake their muffins/cookies, etc. so that I know what's in them. Tonight my daughter and friends baked choc choc chip cookies. I did really well until about 9PM when I broke down and had 2 with a glass of milk. I shortly afterward had a gutt ache.

My question is : how do you stay on track with no-sing when there are temptations in my home that I need to have available for the 3 children whose lunches I make. Not to mention they are growing rapidly (15, 13 & 10) and are always hungry looking for something to eat??

Thanks for your help,
Marie

phano
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Location: California

Post by phano » Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:04 am

Some people have suggested, in the context of treats at work, to wrap up a couple and save them for the weekend. While that's harder at home--you might have to literally hide the cookies to save them--it might be easier to hold out if you know that you're delaying the cookies rather than denying them.

The memory of previous gut aches is also a good negative motivator!

You might also think about trying to wean your kids onto more fruit & veggie type snacks--or at least not always cookies and muffins, which are tempting for you and maybe not the best for them on a regular basis.

Something that's helped me is to have a standing date with my son to make pancakes or muffins or cupcakes on Saturday.

Really nice herbal teas can be another good snack substitute. Licorice tea is naturally sweet, and it might help silence cravings.

Keep experimenting. This is very much a process of learning what works for you.

Good luck!
:wink:

kccc
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Post by kccc » Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:19 pm

Random ideas and thoughts... take what you can use and let the rest go by. It's a personal trial-and-error process.

1) When I make chocolate chip cookies, I drop them on a sheet as if I were going to bake them, put them in the freezer for 10 minutes until firm, then put them in a Rubbermaid container and keep them in the freezer. You can bake from frozen - just add a minute or two to cooking time.

That trick means that I can bake exactly 2 cookies per person for a dessert, or have cookies in about 10 minutes for company... and they're not around the house tempting me. Plus they taste better fresh out of the oven!

2) At our house "snacks" and "sweets" are two separate things. Sweets are dessert only. Snacks are fruit, nuts, yogurt, cheese and crackers, etc. (I have a younger child, so that's easier to enforce.) One easy change would be to put a bowl of fruit out, and direct them there first. What's most readily available often gets eaten first!

3) And the opposite is true - what's not readily available is not as tempting. Buy an opaque cookie-jar, and keep it on a high shelf, not the counter.

4) When I was the age your kids are, I could bake cookies. Turn the generation of sweets over to one of them. (Edited to add... I see that you are: your daughter baked the cookies. Ask her to put them away too.)

5) Bake/buy things that they like but you don't.

Pick any idea or set that works for you, try it, and keep trying! :)

Too solid flesh
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Advice for Mom of 3 who need to eat?

Post by Too solid flesh » Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:03 pm

I find this difficult, too. Many of my failures are due to my daughter's delicious baking! Recently I have found that eating one baked item as part of a meal means that I am not tempted to eat more as snacks.

Maybe your two older children are old enough to make their lunches themselves (from the healthy items you have available), which reduces the temptation to you?

A slim Mum I know who regularly bakes mini muffins for packed lunches immediately freezes them.

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:35 pm

This is tough. I have some clue what you're going through because I've got 2 young children myself (there's a tupperware of fresh baked cookies in the fridge as I write this).

The solution is not easy at first, but it gets easy if you make it over that initial hump: clarity about what you are supposed to do (not eat the cookies your self) * compliance * time = habit.

Big picture, "strategically," that's about all there is to it. But there are useful littler picture "tactical" tips that can make a difference. A bunch of good ones have been suggested here. I don't really have anything new to add, except to vote for putting sweets aside specifically for your S-day consumption is a great tactic. Let everyone know that "this tupperware is for me!" It's your S-day reward lock box. And maybe sharpie an s or no-s sign on it as a reminder (to yourself as well). I wish cafepress let me make no-s branded tupperware!

After a while, it'll just feel wrong to eat sweets on N-days. But in the meantime, the "lock box" tactic can help you get there.

Reinhard

P.S I like KCCC's separation between snacks and sweets. By keeping sweets as deserts, you'll eat much less because you'll already be full. Plus it's got the power of tradition behind it. Could be a useful tactic for people struggling with excessive S-days. It'll also make reaching for a sweet during the week even more taboo -- because it's not something you would do even on an S-day. You'll have totally rewired the association.

Dawn
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Post by Dawn » Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:29 pm

I have 3 boys, a 16 year old and 13 year old twins. They are eating all the time. I work from home too, which means I have access to food all day. I also make a lot from scratch, which is all the more delicious - damn my amazing cooking skills! I am new too and have only been doing this for 3 weeks, but I have not had one failure yet! Here is what I do: I split breakfast and lunch into two mini meals, that keeps me fueled, focused and headache free, which was a problem when I tried to go too long in between meals. My only problem is the 7 to 9PM hours. I have a cup of sugar free hot cocoa around 8PM. I know many people would consider this a snack, but for 25 calories I am not worried about it. It is a million times better than what I used to do and I do plan to cut that out as soon as I feel strong enough, but at this point it keeps me honest during my most bewitching hours. Like many of the others I too stash food away for my S days. I did this on Valentines Day with 4 chocolates and I really enjoyed them that weekend. My only problem is over doing things on Sundays. I get that panicked feeling that I won't be able to have snacks or sweets for an entire week. But I am really going to address that this weekend. I have family coming over so the food will be at its best (or worst, depending how you look at it). I need to determine when I really need something, so that I don't have that deprived feeling that always kills a good diet plan. I need find out what is just enough to keep me going, but not too much to keep me from my goal of losing 3ish pounds a month. I want to lose 20 pounds. I hope you found this helpful.

Good luck!
Dawn

kccc
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Post by kccc » Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:02 pm

reinhard wrote: P.S I like KCCC's separation between snacks and sweets. By keeping sweets as deserts, you'll eat much less because you'll already be full. Plus it's got the power of tradition behind it. Could be a useful tactic for people struggling with excessive S-days. It'll also make reaching for a sweet during the week even more taboo -- because it's not something you would do even on an S-day. You'll have totally rewired the association.
I confess that this distinction came about because I want my child to grow up with good food habits. Kids snack a lot when they're growing and I wanted to use snacks as opportunities for "real food." That started when he was very small, and evolved. It works well, because I can let him eat when he's hungry (so as not to over-ride body cues at an early age, which I think causes problems for many of us), but not worry about him eating tons of junk. It seems to me that because he doesn't get sweets for snacks, he's less likely to eat for reasons other than genuine hunger.

In a related vein, I have found if I set out a plate of cut-up fruit/veg while I'm preparing dinner, he'll eat a serving or more while the rest of the meal is coming together - more than he would if served with the meal, with correspondingly less bread or rice or whatever. My rule of thumb is to make whatever I WANT him to eat most accessible and whatever I don't want him to eat least accessible. (Candy from birthday goody bags and the like goes into an opaque container on top of the fridge, to be eaten a piece-at-a-time after meals.)

Charis
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Post by Charis » Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:47 pm

I love and use a lot of the things others have suggested. I would suggest one more thing. When I started nos last May I let my family know that I would no longer be eating sweets during the week unless it was a special occassion. I am not sure they thought it would last but eventually they saw that I was true to my word and got use to the idea. They have even learned that it is safe to leave their desserts/sweets etc with me during the week knowing I won't eat it. They have gradually learned that I won't be baking during the week and I actually discourage them from baking also unless there is a specific reason for it. I bake only on the weekends now. When I do bake for school lunches I will go ahead and portion it out into snack bags and put it with my other lunch making stuff that I keep on one specific shelf. No one is suppose to take anything from that shelf unless they are making lunches. (This doesn't always work as I have two very active teenagers - one of them a son who seems to be adding an inch of height every month - but for the most part they leave the stuff there alone).

So maybe I have really listed two things 1) condition the family to not expect sweets during the week and 2) divide and conquer the baking you do so it is not laying out to tempt you

Hope that helps

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:42 pm

Freezing the cookie dough is a great idea, so is freezing the baked cookies. It's a variation of the "out of sight, out of mind" idea.

Put one or two cookies in sandwich bags and freeze. You can grab bags out of the freezer to put in your kid's lunches, they'll be thawed by lunch.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

Marie
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Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:34 pm
Location: Manitoba, Canada

Thankyou!

Post by Marie » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:26 pm

Wow, I thought I wasn't getting any replies to my question since I rec'd notices in my inbox the first time I posted and this time I didn't have any. I thought I'd just check in and I'm so glad to read all of this great advice and to hear that others have or are working through the same struggles.

I'm already freezing individ portions of baked items that are for lunches so that I'm not tempted and this is working very well. I also have these items in the back of the fridge freezer so that nobody sees them either when they open up the door.

Thanks for ALL of the encouragement, I know it will help me personally as I've been neglecting the NoS rules this week.

Marie

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