Eat Healthy and stick to whole, healthy food this holiday season, and you’ll feel so good, isn’t hard to give yourself, your family and friends the gift of delicious, nutrient-rich meals over the holidays. Share the numerous benefits and your experience with your family , they might discover, enjoy, finally adopt and even thank you for showing them this healthy eating lifestyle
Dealing With Family Questions About Your Whole Lifestyle
When you are at home with just your spouse and kids, it is easy to follow the Whole Food lifestyle. You cook your meals and do your grocery shopping, and it doesn’t really become an issue. However, when you attend family gatherings where food is a main component, this changes quite a bit. It turns into you having to explain your dietary restrictions so that there is enough food for you to eat while there, or you cook the meal and explain the variations that will be included. Here are some tips for dealing with family questions about the whole lifestyle.
Start With the Benefits
When you begin talking about the whole food lifestyle, start by sharing all the amazing benefits. By now, you should have already seen some of the benefits that are often talked about, such as weight loss or lack of cravings. Explain that it was a struggle in the beginning, but soon you no longer had cravings for sugar, grains, and bread. Tell how much weight you have lost, or how much better you feel in your body and mind. Mention any specific physical benefits, such as extra energy or lack of the headaches you were struggling with before. People want to know why you are doing something, so this is a really good place to start.
Explain the Medical Advantages
Also bring up the many medical conditions that can be linked to eating grains and sugar, and then go into how the whole foods diet can help with these same ailments. It is good to mention the ones that affecting you or your loved ones directly, but also talk about some of the other ones. For example, you can talk about how your friend’s skin conditions and hives are better, that your spouse no longer has severe allergies, and everyone in the family now has a lower risk of diabetes. But also mention some of the other medical conditions often linked to food, such as:
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Asthma
- Mental disorders
- Celiac disease
- Chronic fatigue
- Joint pain
- Thyroid conditions
- Infertility
Bring Your Own Whole Food Dish
If you are going to someone else’s house, they won’t change the entire holiday meal just to fit one person’s dietary restrictions. However, Thanksgiving dinner often allows guests to each bring a dish, so this is the perfect opportunity to have at least one side dish you know you can eat. Then you can have that with turkey, and one of the vegetable side dishes that appears to also be safe on your diet.
How to be Whole When Staying With Non Whole Family –
If you are planning on traveling to a relative’s house and staying with them during the holidays, you might find some challenges when it comes to Holiday Season and foods you eat throughout the vacation. These tips are going to help you navigate this new situation, eat healthy and stay stress free
Be Open and Honest
When you are staying with family that doesn’t follow the whole food lifestyle, it is a good idea to let them know ahead of time what your food restrictions are. This can help prevent them from planning an elaborate meal for you that includes most foods you can’t even eat. Be open and honest, explaining why you follow this lifestyle and what you can and can’t eat. Explain that you don’t mind eating out for meals so that you can get what you want or that you will help prepare meals your own family can have while following this diet.
Choose the Restaurant
While you can usually get something from any restaurant, it helps to choose the restaurant when eating out with family. This lets you look up the menu online first so you know what the options are. Choose a steak and seafood restaurant, or a restaurant with a gluten-free menu. The gluten-free menu is good to start because there are already not a lot of grains that are going to be used in the dishes.
Cook Your Own Meals
Treat your hosts to a meal you have cooked yourself to say thank you for putting you up during the holidays, and so that you can control what you eat for at least this one meal. There are plenty of meals that non whole food people will enjoy thoroughly, but that don’t include any components you can’t eat. You can always bring along some rolls and other food items that your hosts can eat, but that you just skip. However, make sure the main part of the meal, including the meat and veggies, is whole foods friendly so you don’t feel like you are missing out.
Bring Along Some Whole Food Snacks
Snacks are good to bring with you that don’t need to be prepared so that in between meals, you aren’t tempted to try to the cookies or other treats they have provided during the holiday season. Bring snacks you can keep with your own personal belongings if you prefer, such as bags of chopped veggies that don’t need refrigeration, nuts and seeds, or whole food approved all-in-one nutrition bars.
Easy Ways to Make Eating Whole Fun For Kids during the Holidays
When you are at home, it isn’t too difficult to keep your entire family on track with the whole foods diet since you eat dinner as a family, and you are in charge of what is prepared. Unfortunately, kids do have a hard time during holidays when all their friends are eating something completely different from them. Keep reading for a few tips on making eating fun for kids at Thanksgiving.
Start the Whole Diet Before Thanksgiving and Christmas
A really important thing to keep in mind is that if you make this change right before the holidays, it is going to be a lot more difficult to make it easier for your kids. You need to give them time to adapt to the changes and get rid of some of their cravings for bread and sugar. You can do this by starting the whole foods diet at least a month or so before Thanksgiving, preferably before Halloween as well so that the lack of their favorite candy isn’t as big of a deal either.
Go Through Recipes Together
Involving your kids in the entire process is another really good way to get them more involved. You want your kids to feel like they are part of the process, and one good way to do this is by going through recipes together. Of course, depending n their age, you might first want to select some recipes you are considering, based on what is allowed on the whole foods diet. Try to print them all out and sit at the table so you and your kids can look at them and choose which ones you should make. Let them pick at least one recipe on their own for a side dish or dessert, or even come up with one of their own as long as it is whole foods-approved.
Bake the Desserts Together
Baking can be a lot of fun for kids, so let them help you with whole foods desserts for the holiday’s celebration dinners ! Younger kids can do a lot of the picking or rolling cooking into balls, while older kids are good at using stand mixing, chopping ingredients, or putting raw nuts into a good processor. They can usually help fill muffin tins and add toppings to pies as well. This allows your kids to have some fun and see how your Whole Food diet is put together.
With these simple tips and tricks, your kids won’t be as bummed out about the difference in their Thanksgiving or Christmas meal to someone else’s.