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    FLOWERLILLY_777   9,705
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Ive been MIA, sorry!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Hello my sparkpeople peeps! Sorry i haven't been on to support you guys. I really missed you and in the last month that I have been off i gained 5lb :(. So i definitely need you! This holiday season has been a but kicker. I have had more fast food and sugary sweets this month that ive had all year and i feel HORRIBLE! I am trying to get back on track. Found out that my hubby (who is only 26) may have fatty liver. For those of you that don't know what that means. Its excess fat on your liver that can one day lead to liver failure and cirrhosis. It like having a drinkers liver with out drinking. He also has high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I am so worried about him! I have loved that man since i was 14 years old and there is so much wrong with his health i feel like i could loose him at any minute. So i am not only here for me i am here for my family this time. I have a 22 month old beautiful little girl who needs her daddy. Speaking of my beauty do any other overweight parents worry about screwing up their kids for life. I want so badly for my child to never have to deal with being obese and I want her to love herself. I feel like its such a struggle to instil good eating habits and love for veggies in a 2 year old! She wont eat anything healthy i cool. She only wants chicken nuggets and french fries. I keep giving her veggies even though she doesn't eat them, but she is so stubborn! I want her to learn the habits i never did so she can be successful from the start. I know children learn from example. I learned how to be a fast food junkie from my mommy, I just want more for her. So here i am my sparkies good to see you again and wish me luck!
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  Member Comments About This Blog Post:

AKIMA06 4/12/2012 6:04PM

  Hang in there and keep pushing the veggies on your daughter. I was lax on that with my kids and trying to get them to eat vegetables now is hard but I think that the younger they are when you change things that the easier it is. I haven't read that or anything I don't think but it just makes sense to me.

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L*I*T*A* 12/23/2011 10:55PM

    emoticon emoticon emoticon

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LYNDALOVES2HIKE 12/23/2011 4:14PM

    I'm so sorry you're going through this but fortunately I have GOOD NEWS!! Your hubby's fatty liver, high blood pressure and high cholesterol can all be reversed 100% by good eating and moderate exercise! It's only a problem if he continues the poor habits so what better incentive could your family have?? As for your daughter, she has gotten into a power struggle over who's in charge and of course, you don't want her to continue the negative habits so look at it this way - if she whined because she wanted alcohol, would you say OK? If she wanted heroin, arsenic or anything else that might be fatal, you'd find a way to change it.

All of us need a little time to adjust to changes - to say to a child that chicken nuggets and french fries are OK one day makes it harder to say 'you can't have that' the next day so you'll have to outsmart her! Make 'chicken strips' at home - get the frozen kind that's already breaded if you have to - then gradually move the meat choices toward ordinary grilled chicken rather than trying to do it in one step. As for the french fries, you can make healthier 'fries' in the oven, then move toward using sweet potatoes, then start including other roasted vegetables. Eventually her taste buds will become as used to vegetables as it has to chicken nuggets and french fries now.

One way to 'hide' vegetables is to puree them and mix with tomato sauce to eat with pasta - you can get whole grain pasta and slowly try out other things such as brown rice, quinoa or beans - she may not even realize she's making the shift!! Don't talk about it - just do it! If the junk isn't around or isn't available, the whole family will thrive. Healthy eating doesn't have to be expensive or even time-consuming.

Another thing that was really effective with my surrogate granddaughter to help her make the shift from the nuggets-and-fries to healthier foods was to grow some lettuce and tomatoes together. I showed her how to pick the lettuce and tomatoes herself, bit my tongue when she made mistakes but pointed out calmly how to improve her choices - I don't have much space so I put a couple of 'half-barrels' in the patio to grow them - it's so easy to do and I got starter plants at first because it's so hard for a young child to 'wait' for seeds to sprout, although we also planted some seeds and I always let a small amount of the lettuce 'go to seed' so we can plant the next batch. After that, we grew bell peppers, zucchini and some other 'bulletproof' veggies - Of course, another part of this is 'letting' her 'help' do the cooking - obviously with super-close supervision! But even a 2-yr--old can 'help' and being part of the 'big girl process' has had an astonishing effect! Now whenever she is asked what she wants, she asks for salad, vegetable soup or some other healthy food - she even turned down PIZZA on her 5th birthday so we could 'pick a salad' and cook dinner. Pretty cool results, don't you think?

Make it fun, Mom, and you'll be surprised how easy it is - not only that, you will be as proud as a human can be of her growth and the overall effect on your family! Let me know how this 'experiment' turns out!!
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Comment edited on: 12/23/2011 4:16:28 PM

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LADYIRISH317 12/23/2011 11:25AM

    I am so sorry for all you're going through. You and your family will be in my prayers.

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DETERMINED_SOUL 12/23/2011 10:50AM

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