Having turned 50 in December 2013, weighing in at 114.9 kg at only 179cm tall, having 4 children 10 and under, and being in need of knee replacement surgery- well the writing was on the wall!
Lose weight big time and Get Healthy!!
After various half hearted attempts with dieticians, books, fad diets which left me feeling always hungry, the penny finally dropped after seeing cerealkillersmovie.com
So now it’s a Fat Life for Me as I use my body as an experiment to see if Father Grows Less on a Low Carb High Fat eating lifestyle.
You are invited to watch my results and determine if you want to join the Fat Life.
Cheers
Steve
Hi Steve great work so far. Pete was telling me about your progress today. I would love to hear how you have done it? I need to lose 8 to 10 kg’s and also have a dodgy knee. Regards.
Chris
No worries Chris
I’ll be in touch.
Regards
Steve
Great work old mate.. You must have stopped buying the Power’s 30 packs.
Im trying to lose a bit around the belly also. Alot harder to do these days
Hope your well
Hi Sneak
I’m going well. beer not as frequent a visitor as previously.
Easier to lose some weight than you think – maybe I can help. Let me know.
Cheers
Steve
Hi Steve,
I’m collecting ideas to help my own son (11) lose weight. He is very addicted to sugar, even though I have (of course) been encouraging him as much as possible with healthy, low-carb foods. Sweet, snack foods are very enticing, and it’s been hard for me to figure out how to compete with that! I’m looking for any ideas and help, from your experience and anyone else whom you’ve found.
Thank you!
Nina
Hi Nina
Sorry to take so long to get back to you.
My approach with this was to ask my daughter what has worked to get her motivated and keep her on track, thinking that this would be seen as an exciting project for her.
Well, you know 11 year olds! It was like pulling teeth.
Anyway, we did sit down together to discuss and she has come up with some points that may or may not be relevant to your situation, here they are:
1.Something that helped me was everyone coming up to me and noticing that I had lost weight.
2.A hard thing for me was school because everyone was eating different food to me. But now we make low carb muffins or bread etc. it’s much better.
3.Something that also helped was when we started making foods that were nice to eat and were healthy like homemade bread, homemade cake and cheesecake, homemade custard and more.
4. My mum and Dad really helped me because they got the whole family into this way of eating
5. Mum and Dad allow me to have a free day each week so I can still eat what I want at parties and at friends houses – but I try not to over do it.
Well, there’s Eve’s (albeit brief) summary of what helps her.
She has her moments but is generally fine with eating Low Carb High Fat.
She likes to cook (but not clean up!) so from the outset we have looked to get her involved in a fun way with meal preparation and looking for new meal ideas where she has learnt a lot about what ingredients go into meals and we discuss their nutritional value.
Our family is heavily involved in the community and both my wife and I are on committees, or coach or involved in some way in our children’s activities which allows us to be around to supervise, inform and educate – and sometimes discipline so that the children are aware of our views and expectations with regard to their eating ( which are not always aligned, but are more often than not).
We try to be quite open with our extended family about what the children can and can’t eat when they visit, and generally this is respected , although it is sometimes forgotten once the reality of cooking for extra children kicks in and a pizza seems like the easier alternative.
We discuss how we eat with friends and our family doctor which creates awareness and a support network (although not all agree – which can be awkward). We have approached the school to discuss the amount of sugar that is available there but take a very softly, softly approach with this as we are mindful of not wanting to create a stigma and embarrassing the children.(Don’t think we can make a difference if we’re known as that weird food family).
We tried an incentive program where we gave them money if they brought home all of the sweets they had received at school. Within a few days we were nearly broke and once the kids learnt that we they were not going to get to eat the sweets they stopped bringing them home.
My 8 and 9 year old boys are always on the lookout for some sugar and there is no shortage of people out there willing to give it to them which is difficult, we are lucky that they are both very fit and lean at the moment.
They are generally pretty good however and will usually ask permission if we are around before indulging in poor food (if we occasionally allow it).
We try to re-enforce the health benefits as much as possible and link these to their sporting performances and ambitions and I actively seek out sporting role models that eat this way (e.g. Lebron James, some Australian Cricketers and others) and highlight at every opportunity when these guys walk past the gatorade to seek out a bottle of water for example.
The older children are now very used to reading the ingredients and nutritional information on food products and with Eve this will often influence her decision on whether to eat it or not if it is high in sugar or carbs.
As I’ve now lost 20kg (44lb), I’m able to interact better with the children and with Eve’s weight loss also we’re able to do fun things we couldn’t before e.g. I can pick her up and throw her in the pool, she can do back flips into the pool etc. I again re-enforce our eating at these moments to help create that link between good health, fun and good eating and food choices.
So, in summary, we have tried to build this way of eating into many levels of our lives and inform those around us of our choices for our ourselves and our children (without getting on our soapbox – too often).
It’s a team based approach – as the old saying goes “It takes a village to raise a child”. I just realised this is what we are trying to get to.
Now my 5 year old daughter – Wow! That could be a whole different story!
I hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any questions as I am happy to help where I can.
Regards
Steve