Weight Loss Tips: Family Edition
Losing weight as a family can be a daunting process. A family is a group of people and any time a group of people have a common goal there is bound to be conflict whether it is in the form of different opinions or power struggles.
Still, weight loss for an entire family is possible. The most important thing is for the parents to be on board because you are the ones that will be deciding what food are in the house and how they are prepared.
Follow these weight loss tips to overcome challenges of losing weight as a family.
Weight Loss Tips: Family Edition #1
Sweep the kitchen clean of junk food! Snacking is a huge factor in weight gain and keeping us from losing weight.
The main reason is because most of us snack mindlessly. We take chips in front of the television or we grab three cookies while trying to decide what to really eat. When we’re faced with other family members eating these in front of also leads to many temptations and further decrease our chance of success together.
Eliminating junk snacks will help our kids learn to realize when they are actually hungry and not just bored. This is a good habit to form for the rest of life and, let’s be honest; most of us could probably cut back on our snacking too.
Weight Loss Tips: Family Edition #2
Educate yourself and your family about what a calorie is and what food is for. Understanding that food equals energy for your body can give everyone a better understanding of the purpose of food beyond just taste and this will help all of you to keep the focus on being healthy instead of just being “skinny” or other aesthetic reasons.
Weight Loss Tips: Family Edition #3
Family workouts are a great way to promote weight loss. You can take your family on walks or bike rides after dinner and you can plan weekend activities such as hiking or playing a sport such as baseball, basketball or even throwing a frisbee around together at a park.
By planning active events for your family you will be helping them learn good habits but you will also be forming memories that will form your kid’s attitudes toward exercise and even what they feel a family should be.
Unfortunately these kind of planned outings are so uncommon now a days and unless we make an proactive decision to put our family first then health will always take a secondary or tertiary position.
Weight Loss Tips: Family Edition #4
Avoid an all or nothing attitude. There is no way to avoid junk food forever. Instead of teaching your children (and yourself) that there are bad foods and good foods you should teach them that there are everyday foods and special day foods.
This means teaching them that cake and ice cream is perfectly fine at a birthday party but it isn’t suitable to eat regularly.
Weight Loss Tips: Family Edition #5
Keep things positive. In order to be successful with a healthy lifestyle (adults and children, alike) need praise and reassurance. Instead of berating each other for slip-ups try and emphasize all the good choices that were made before that one bad choice. This will encourage everyone to keep on track.
Find rewards for eating healthy and exercising that are not food related. You could give a smaller child extra time for outside play or an older child the chance to pick a movie on family movie night.
You should also avoid rewards for weight loss. The emphasis should be on making healthy choices.
Have any questions or feedback on this article? Please leave me a comment below…
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Thank you for visiting! Weight Loss and Training is a health blog which features all the best weight loss tips that I have learned over my 20 years of training. My background includes a degree in Kinesiology from the world renown Simon Fraser University, certification in nutritional sciences from UBC, and Personal Trainer Specialist certification from Can Fit Pro.