Feeding Your Kids Healthy Food without Civil War

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Welcome to the Virgin Diet Lifestyle show with your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York Times best selling author. JJ Virginia I'm a mom, so I.

Know what it's like to get your kids to eat healthy. You want to do the right thing, but you're up against some major challenges. Between the school parties, the seductive advertisements and feeling overwhelmed with everything else going on that some days you just want to order a pizza and be done with it. Alright, breathe deep. I'm going to give you some simple strategies to help you get your kids to eat healthier. And I got to tell you, I follow the 8020 rule here. This is not about perfection. Go for a baby. Work on getting your kids to eat healthy most of the time. And this is important for a few reasons. First off, they're not going to go crazy and binge out at the first sign of a cookie. And they'll also understand that they should eat the good stuff first and that it's okay to have a small occasional treat. Now the good news is kids actually get full and then they won't go for the dessert, unlike most of us adults, right? So first up, exposure equals preference. So the more you expose your kids to the healthy choices, the more likely they're going to make better decisions. And what's important here is that you don't give up the first time you try something new, especially something advanced like Brussels sprouts. It may take as many as 11 tries before they start to like something. And this is where it is important to introduce things with the spirit of adventure. Make it fun, not a war zone, and try to create things that are as close to other favorites as possible. I once had a nutrition mentor say, heck, if you have to put chocolate syrup on their vegetables to get them to eat their broccoli, do it. Well, that seems a bit extreme, but you can use a fun dipping sauce they already like, say marinara or hummus. And you can also hide some Great veggies in places that they would never ever suspect. You can add some spinach to the morning smoothie. You can shred up some zucchini into their marinara sauce. You can mix in some spaghetti sauce, squash with the rice or quinoa pasta. Or toss in some chopped onions and peppers into their burgers. Which brings up my next strategy and that is to involve your kids as much as possible. Take them to the farmer's market and have them pick out a new fruit or vegetable to try. Have them find a recipe they'd like to make with you. Have your kids be in charge of the menu. One dinner each week is all theirs. Pull out the sugar impact plate and work with them to figure out what you're going to need for that menu. Like what protein sources, what veggies, what fats, what low impact carbs. And you know, this doesn't have to be a big deal. This can be as easy as cutting up some roast chicken, serving up a half of a sweet potato with grass fed butter and steaming up some broccoli. Easy. Now have them help prepare for their lunchbox the night before. This is such a great habit to get into anyway and it lets you off the hook a bit. So some easy things to throw into their lunchbox and okay, so you can take turkey or roast beef and you can make little roll ups. You can use a coconut wrap or a rice wrap. Thermos is such an amazing tool here. You can either put a protein shake in or you can put soup in it. And then of course maybe some hummus with some veggies, some nuts, some rice or bean chips or some celery sticks with almond butter. Again, the more you involve them here and those are all easy things that they could make, they're going to take some ownership here. The more ownership they take, the better. Go get some easy grab and go healthy foods. Okay. They'll make them for their lunch, but also they'll reach for them when they come home if they need a snack and you want to put them in ivue. So make them easy for them to get to. If they're all the way in the back at the top of the fridge, they're not going to know they're there. So you put them right at iview in the fridge, in the freezer, in the pantry. So this could be things like say a protein popsicle in the freezer. Those are easy to make. All you do, you take some virgin diet protein powder, some unsweetened coconut or almond milk, and then your favorite Fruit. You put them in little popsicle molds and you freeze them. Easy. Great nutrition, inexpensive. Also keep some sliced turkey, some sliced roast beef, some sliced roast chicken, some fresh fruit, celery and carrot sticks, almond butter, guacamole, hummus, all of those eye level in the fridge. And then keep some nuts. Kale chips. They've got kale chips now with all sorts of yummy flavorings. They will like them. Try them. I've actually gotten my kids to eat all sorts of different kale chips, but virgin diet bars. Keep all those iview in the pantry. Now the party at your kid's school. I remember going to one of these parties just being horrified because they had like beanie weenies and juice and cupcakes and cookies. I'm like, what the heck here? I realized then I needed to offer to help plan the menu so it's just not a sugar free for all, which is what these things turn into. And then you get your kid back and you're like, oh my gosh. Oh no. You know, So I used to walk in there and go, I need to just take my kid out of here now. Luckily, my kids were so used to eating a low sugar impact diet that if they ate more than a little bit, they just felt sick.

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So there's another easy one. Now birthday parties, you gotta have cake. It would just be mean not to have cake. But what you can do is you don't have to give them the big old cake with the huge frosting. I still remember the fights over the frosting. So little cupcakes serving size already decided, right? Do a little cupcake platter tower. Those are fun or cake. And just slice it small and put in some of that so delicious ice cream. And by the way, here's the deal with kids. If you start the pinata right as you serve the cake, like have the cake out and then go grab the pinata, they're going to abandon the dessert for the fun anyway. You know, you don't need to design the party around the food. I'm always amazed at how kids parties are designed all around the food when they really just want to go play and have fun. And the food really doesn't get touched much except for the adults. So keep it simple and focus on the fun. Especially fun that makes them run around a lot. Because you're going to be the most popular mom when your friends get their kids back and they're tough, tired and they need a nap and they're not all sugared up, right? I still remember I got this call from school and it was, come pick up your son. This was my older son, Grant, and he was probably, I think like eight at the time. And they go, you got to pick up your son. He's climbing the walls. And I go, what do you mean he's climbing the walls? What happened? They go, well he won this Christmas wrapping sales contest. And so he got, for his prize, he got this pound bag of M and Ms. And I go, let me get this straight. You gave an 8 year old kid a pound bag of M and Ms, unpoliced, and he ate them? Of course. And he was going crazy. I'm like, you keep them, you know, you keep them till it wears off. And so we didn't have these at home. I keep the enemy out of the house. There's no soda in there. There's no candy in there. Because you know what? If it's not there, guess what? They can't eat it. They don't have a car, they don't have a wallet. They're not going grocery shopping looking for that stuff. And when they do, they realize how rotten it makes them feel. One of the things I've done for Halloween and you think, mean mom, but this really works well, is I let them go out, get all the candy they want, and then they come in. I'm like, go ahead, have some. Because I discovered that if they eat more than a couple pieces, they just feel sick. Grant told me, he goes, you know, it's interesting. He didn't say it's interesting. He was like 10, I think. He goes, I've eaten all this candy. I feel totally sick, but I'm hungry. Talk about connecting the dots between how you feel and what you're eating. And I said, great, you know what, I'll buy the candy back from you. And they were all into it. Buy the candy back. And finally teach your kids they want to do the right thing. Really. So teach them that healthy eating is something that's going to be really good for them. And make them relate to it by showing how their favorite superhero or their movie character eats so they can do all of these cool things. And then also show them how you're feeding the pets. I make my dog fresh organic chicken. But you know, look what you're doing with your pets so they stay healthy so you can play with them. You know, kids, they want to do the right thing and they want to learn. So you want to involve them and you teach them how to make the best low sugar impact choices. You're going to give them a huge advantage, not just now, but for their whole lifetime. If you'd like a free transcript of today's show, text 58885 and enter JJKIDS. Put a space, your first name space and your email address. Again, that number is 58885 and you enter JJKids space your first name, space and your email address in the Sugar Impact Diet. I help you clear up the confusion around sugar and take back the control that sugar has over your life. In just two weeks, you'll lose your sweet tooth and shrink your waistline. Why wait? Start those two weeks today.

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