Do you have children? I'm wondering about nutritional balance in your families. I've found it hard sometimes to be able to stick to the way I'm supposed to eat, and still give my children the nutrition their little bodies need to be healthy. Is anyone else dealing with this? What are some things you've done in your home to make sure everyone's able to get what they need?

If you're cooking healthy to give your children good, clean nutrition, it will be easy to stick to your nutrition as well Don't keep a lot of instant type foods around (Read: hot dogs, fried nuggets), or sugary cereals, etc. Foster clean eating early in their lives and it will be much easier for them in the future, too.

I have a 9 year old and she's a great eater. I cook dinner for her and my husband; chicken, pork chops, steak, veggies and the like and try to IGNORE all the tempting smells. We're not big fast food eaters and my kid HATES hot dogs and chicken nuggets so I'm good there. She has a steak and baked potato appetite. LOL. I keep her favorite snack on hand, tomatoes. She is allowed to have tomatoes any time she wants. I don't have to worry about her too much. She polices ME! I took her to Subway over the weekend. She got her sandwich, chips, and bottle of Water. I got 2 small scoops of tuna fish. She opened her chips and asked me "are you allowed to have any chips, Mama?". I told her no and she put them away so she didn't eat them in front of me. She's a keeper.

I agree.. Most "kid" food is pure junk.. start your kid out right.

I have 3 kids and I cook dinner every night. I eat the same as they do with some slight modifications. For example tonight we are having Pasta Bolognese. I plan on removing a bit of the meat sauce and add just a very small amount of pasta. I need more meat then pasta. Then I'll add all the pasta to the sauce for them. Garlic bread, I won't have any, but I might try a tiny bit, the size of a finger nail. I'll have a 1/4 of a fig for desert if there's room left in my pouch. The rest of the family will have figs drizzled with honey and cheese for desert. Yesterday with had baked wild cod with a bread crumb crust and steamed veggies. It scrapped the crust of the fish for my portion and I left a small amount of veggies in the steamer and additional 5 minutes so they would be softer for me. What I am trying to say is it can work. Even when we have french fries, I'll have a 1/4 of a fry with my Protein portion of the meal and instead of a vegetable I'll have a fruit. Usually a single grape, lol. My pouch is that small but I do get a bite or two of a vegetable or a fruit with every meal.

I find I make better choices for my family now. Everybody wins.

I have always been big on cooking my family home cooked meals. Actually in my preop visits my nut and I discussed this Many times. My surgery was the week of thanksgiving, I actually came home on thanksgiving night and my main concern with having it that week was that I am the family cook! My husband and I each have a daughter, mine is 8 and his is 5. Mine is with us full time and his is half of the time. It has taken my step-daughter years to learn that will not get macaroni and cheese for every meal at our home. One day when I asked her what ideas she had for dinner she said 1) corn dogs! 2) macaroni and cheese with hot dogs 3) spaghetti-o's....my response was well we do not buy those items for our house, but I will gladly make spaghetti. (Note: we have one child that will eat ANYTHING.....olives, loves beets, Brussels sprouts, radishes, etc. but she is a horrible sleeper....and one child will go to bed and not get up until you wake her up but that chuld will not eat much of anything, God thinks it is funny I am sure) As a family we have meals that everyone loves like spaghetti, chili of any variety, chicken pot pie with homemade biscuits, biscuits and gravy with eggs, mini pizzas(so everyone gets what they like), egg scramble bowls, French toast sticks, and lasagna soup. Now, from a Bari standpoint I am only on puréed foods however we spent months changing our eating habits as a whole family prior to my surgery. We started last winter to make vegetarian chili with four kinds of beans and three kinds of peppers, my kids always take seconds on that. My pantry NO LONGER has a snack section in it like it did before. My daughter loves popcorn and I never have so I keep bags of it on hand for her as a snack when she wants something during movie night. No temptation there. I buy the girls true moo single serve ice cream cups in chocolate vanilla swirl for desserts if I don't make one, that also doesn't temp me because I've always been high maintenance in ice cream....hagan daas, coffee, rum raisin, dove bars. My husband is a cheese and cracker snack kind of man and when I am allowed to have cheese again, I will share that pleasure with him one little piece at a time. Tonight I made turkey chili with two kinds of beans for added protein, and I puréed my portion and added a small amount of cheddar to melt into it, it was delicious. Do I miss corn bread? Yes! But I do NOT miss taking five pills after my dinner so it is well worth the trade off! I hope this helps, and if anyone needs any recipes I will gladly start sharing! Happy LOSING!!!!

I have a 9 year old and she's a great eater. I cook dinner for her and my husband; chicken, pork chops, steak, veggies and the like and try to IGNORE all the tempting smells. We're not big fast food eaters and my kid HATES hot dogs and chicken nuggets so I'm good there. She has a steak and baked potato appetite. LOL. I keep her favorite snack on hand, tomatoes. She is allowed to have tomatoes any time she wants. I don't have to worry about her too much. She polices ME! I took her to Subway over the weekend. She got her sandwich, chips, and bottle of water. I got 2 small scoops of tuna fish. She opened her chips and asked me "are you allowed to have any chips, Mama?". I told her no and she put them away so she didn't eat them in front of me. She's a keeper.

What an awesome kid you have!!!