[ Sunday’s kabobs ]
[ Mustache wine glasses made by Julie ]
[ My beautiful sister, Faye & Pixy Bean ]
Yesterday was spent surrounded by my family…along with the most delicious, home-cooked meal.
I mean, isn’t there something special about being back ‘at home?’ Everything’s so easy {!!!}, comfy, & familiar.
My dad makes this amazing cilantro vinaigrette- it’s all fresh ingreds & super light ( FYI: I’m dying for the recipe, Dadsy!!! ).
So anyway, the dressing was mixed into an edamame & avocado salad with a side of vegetarian tamales + bell pepper/red onion/chicken kabobs. All of us ate outside under twinkle lights while the sun was setting…perfection!
And let’s be real: some chilled champagne & strawberry slices were definitely involved too.
It’s so nice being surrounded by people that ‘get’ me. A huge plus: my family actually enjoys healthy eating ( thank GOD! ).
So here’s my question: does your family eat healthy? If not, how do you adapt to their unhealthy habits? ESP when it involves…family?! Puh-leaseeee give me details.
x.L
[ The most delicious combination ]
[ Champs + berries ]
[ Tabletop orchids ]
[ Pre-dinner snacks ]
I REALLY wish my family enjoyed healthy eating. This has been a struggle for as long as I can remember. I like to eat very clean, except for the occasional fried food and desserts. My immediate family members (mom, dad, sister) are overweight. They don’t understand why I like to exercise daily and eat healthy. I really wish this was a passion we could share. I hope that someday when I start my own family this will be something we share!
My parents try their best to eat healthy and accomodate me 🙂 I’m very thankful to them for that!
I still live at home and my brother and cousin eat absolute trash – I mean muffins, poptarts, candy bars, chips, nacho cheese, soda, absolute garbage all over the kitchen!
At first it was hard to resist, years ago, but now I don’t even feel tempted by it all, I know too much to be enticed by icky fake stuff! I keep my own section in the fridge with all my healthy food and non-perishable stuff in my own room in a little container 🙂
When I go to an event – such as a cook out or something and I know that there will be nothing healthy, I try to bring some healthy things of my own – veggie and hummus platter, fresh fruit salad, chicken kabobs, etc.
Your Sister looks just as gorgeous as you!!! It looks like you had a nice Time with your Family 🙂
We also love to eat healthy, especially because of our Little One. We want him to grow up with healthy Food and also try to get everything from Organic Food Stores or the Farmers Market. It is just a Lifestyle, that suits us so much better and that we enjoy living 🙂
Happy Tuesday!
xoxo
I’ve recently moved back in with my parents to live at home while I attend med school. I’m a pretty healthy clean eater and try not to eat too much sugar or carbs after 1/2.. the rest of my family aren’t awful eaters, but they’re a far cry from good.
During the past few years during visits at home I would always get in arguments with them for eating not very healthy. Mostly because my parents expressed interest in losing weight, primarily for health reasons, but then I would watch them eat the same each day and get very frustrated.
Its gotten somewhat better now- I try to be less overbearing about the way I eat and try to address eating healthier with a more positive attitude. When they have steak I have some, just a smaller portion and show them how by slicing it thinly they can enjoy the steak and still feel satisfied, but tend to consume less of it in one sitting.
My mom tends to lord over the kitchen when preparing meals, so I’ve asked that there always be atleast one vegetable at meals, and that beans and potatoes don’t fit in this category. I also make a salad for at least half of the meals we eat as a family and try to serve them first so people fill up a bit.
My dad tends to be very traditional and stubborn about certain food things because he’s convinced they won’t taste good.. like refusing to add an extra egg white or two to eggs, or refusing to use reduced fat mayo or (gasp) a little sour cream or Greek yogurt in place of some of the mayo in tuna salad. So I just started offering to make breakfast for the two of us, or pack his lunch for work.
I try to ease him into things.. like adding an extra egg white instead of making a full egg white omelet and only telling him after he’s eaten it that it was a little different that what he usually makes. He tends to be a lot more receptive to that. By making things first and then telling him how to make them he’s started adding chia seeds to his oatmeal and mixing his super sugary vanilla yogurt 1/2 and 1/2 with plain greek yogurt.
I’ve also tried packing him snacks and trying to express the importance of an afternoon snack since he comes home from work really hungry and then overeats at dinner.
I’ve also asked my mom to get smaller plates since I believe most of our family has portion control problems.
Overall I’ve found that addressing unhealthy eating in a condescending way can really put a strain on family relationships. I’ve had to learn to accept and love my family regardless of what they eat. I’ve kind of had to approach my family eating healthier with no expectations, and then slowly let my healthier eating habits trickle into their everyday life.
What a delightful day! You’re lucky your family is also health-conscious. My mom and bro are good clean eaters and juicers, but my dad is a typical burger/beer guy. I’m always on him to eat more veggies! He bought a Vitamix last month since I’ve raved about mine for the past two years but doesn’t know what to do with it! I have to show him the way. I brought my fam “healthy” cookies yesterday- coconut flour/banana/choco chip but they hated them! Oh well, more for me! 🙂
so cool that she made those mustache glasses!
looking forward to being able to have a nice drink again 😉
I’m lucky that my family is fully-supportive of my clean eating lifestyle! I tried the 3-day juice cleanse and my mom even helped me prepare the juices each morning.
I wouldn’t say my family is as enthusiastic about healthy eating as I am but they definitely go out of their way to accomodate my lifestyle and I am so fo thankful for that!
I’m going to be tackling this healthy eating thing with family in a few weeks. We’re moving back to my boyfriend’s hometown and will live with his parents for awhile until we find a place of our own. They are not the healthiest of eaters…at all. But they express the same concerns as Julia’s (she commented above) parents about weight loss, etc. We started eating healthier and working out about a year ago and have seen amazing results, but when we were at their house for Christmas, I overdid it on their heavy Norwegian food and felt teeeeerrrrible alllllll week!
So now that we’ll be living with them, we’re going to try to get some of our habits in there and get rid of some of theirs. Any tips on how to subtly help them change their habits would be awesome. Julia’s tips will definitely help, too!!!
I love the mustache wine glasses.
I wish my family enjoyed being healthy! I am the only one (grandparents included) that is not very overweight. I’ve tried to get them interested in healthy eating and exercise and show them how awesome (and easy!) it can be. It worked for a little while when I was still living at home and doing the shopping, cooking every meal and forcing them to come with me on dog walks but when I moved out they lapsed to, if possible, worse eating habits then before. I’ve finally convinced my mum to join my gym and start working out with me so hopefully, that’ll lead to inspiration to clean up their diet as well!
My husband and I try to eat clean and healthy and we exercise regularly (the exercising is easier for us than the eating healthy :/ but we still do pretty good). However, I was raised with the “clean your plate” mindset in the South so my plate pretty much always had something fried and large portions and it took me a while to get out of that habit (always thinking of the children in Africa, right?) and both our parents still do not have healthy lifestyles. My in-laws are older and don’t get around as well as they used to and don’t make time for any exercise. Being from a coastal town, they eat a lot of fish and veggies but they also eat a lot of junk food and sweets and large portions of it. My mom is younger but also does not exercise and has even poorer eating habits. All of them are overweight. My mom complains of being overweight, back pain and knee pain all the time yet she doesn’t change her lifestyle at all. I love her dearly but I hate listening to that! Unless it’s a major holiday where we’re eating some huge, homecooked meal (all I can do then is watch my portions – it would be totally rude to not eat it!) we’re usually eating out when we’re with either of them so we just try to be good examples and order something light. If they stay with us, we cook as if we normally would (usually a salad, grilled/baked fish or chicken with a veggie and small portion of a starch). We live far away from both our parents so I can’t exercise with my mom but I try to encourage her (without being condescending as someone above mentioned – she does not respond to that!). I’m not sure what more to do?? I can’t really say anything to my in-laws but I know my hubby worries about them too!
My family is somewhat supportive of me attempting to eat clean, but is such a struggle as they are ‘skinny fat’ so don’t seem to see the need to eat clean. When I lived in Cali it was much easier to eat clean as I had my own food budget, now it try to buy certain things that I make myself and add clean items to the family meals. It’s is hard though!