Unfortunately, being overweight and living an unhealthy life is usually a family affair. Whether you were raised in a family that practiced unhealthy habits (say, lots of TV time and little exercise) or if your health has suffered as a result of eating too much junk food with your partner or children, bad habits are even harder to break when they're kept by the people closest to you.
But don't worry, you can break those habits and turn your life around and get your whole family on board too.
New Show The Big Fat Truth Is Full Of Weight Loss Secrets For The Whole Family
Z Living's original unscripted series
The Big Fat Truth is on a mission to find some big fat truths about weight loss — starting with why so many people regain weight they've lost. Whether it's hardworking nurses, teachers, or mothers, there are certain heroes in our lives who put themselves last, especially when it comes to their health. Host JD Roth shows them how to change their lives and gain the ultimate reward of a healthier lifestyle.
The Good News Is That Being Healthy Is Also A Family Affair.
In
his book of the same title, Roth says that asking your friends and family to get healthy with you can make the entire process of weight loss way easier. And isn't everything easier when you have help? Reaching new heights in health together opens doors to activities and life experiences you never thought you would share, writes Roth.
Here's how you can learn to lean in and get your loved ones on Team Health with you:
Try Some Tough Love
When you make a change, people won't always want to change with you, and you might find that your unhealthy habits are what brought you together in the first place. If all you and your friends do is hang out at bars that serve fried foods, you'll have trouble spending time with them while also making healthy choices.
Roth says it's important to announce your new goals to your loved ones to let them know that things are changing. If you can no longer make date night about burgers, why not make it about cooking a delicious (but healthy) meal at home? You could also try ordering healthier dishes from your typical haunts as a way to get your partner, loved one, or family members to see the benefits of eating right.
If your family or friends are not ready to take the journey with you, that's okay. There are still things your loved ones can do to help you out. Whether it's watching the kids while you go to the gym or agreeing to keep the unhealthy snacks out of the house, you can still get help from your family without making them do the heavy lifting right next to you both literally and figuratively.
Make It Fun For The Whole Family
If you have kids, your diet is their diet by default. When you're trying to getting healthy, it's important to teach your kids the healthy habits you're learning while they're still young enough to form lifelong patterns of behavior. After all, you don't want them to have it as hard as you do now.
One way to do this is by starting at the beginning: Eat a healthy breakfast.
Research shows that kids who eat breakfast do better in school and are healthier in general. Good breakfasts aren't the stuff of sugary cereal, though: they include protein, whole grain, and healthy fats. A great way to get this started is by learning to make healthy breakfast smoothies, yogurt-based bowls, healthy omelettes, and tasty whole grain toasts. Once you learn to start the day healthy, it gets easier for your whole day to follow suit.
Other fun tricks to getting your whole family healthy are making a family goals chart and learning to cook together. Buy some brand new cookbooks let your kids or partner pick some healthy ones they find interesting and try to prepare three meals a week as a family. Not only will this be educational for your kids, but it will help your whole family grow closer. You can make a family goals chart of how many servings of fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins you'll each get in a day, adding in exercise as a bonus. If you turn this into a competition, it's even more fun.
Ditch The Unhealthy Snacks At Home
Finally, the most important part of healthy eating is knowing which foods are too unhealthy to touch. Processed foods like packaged snacks are almost
always a no-go. Learn to replace these foods with fresh alternatives like fruits, whole grain crackers, and healthy cheese in order to make snack time healthy for everyone. When you get the bad out of the house, you can get more good food in. Just dont keep the chips and cookies in the cabinet, bottom line.
And Here's One Of The Big Fat Truth's Biggest Truths...
Every fat person knows that you need to move more and eat less to shed pounds. Not exactly rocket science," Roth says. "Yet that simple formula doesn't get to the root of what makes someone top out at 500 pounds or sometimes just carry an extra fifty. The big fat truth is that the secret to weight loss is what's in your head."
