Is your being primal, hurting your family? Nutritionally that is. page 2

[NZ primal Gwamma]

You go girl - I reckon they would be huge too. I so love your humor, and a twinkle in ones eye is fantabulous. I am an early childhood educator - and we so have to nurture our twinkle kids. They are our future - I believe

[bloodorchid]

thank you

[NZ primal Gwamma]

So - do you have a twinkle in your eye ?????
and where is tn ????

[PureFunctionalFitness]

Sure, I hear you, it is really hard. I am in the same situation. You just can't win, so have to make the best of it and hope that over time, as your health improves, you look better, feel better, mood improves etc, that they will gravitate towards your healthy lifestyle.

Also, perhaps trying to get family involved in cooking food, the cookbook that Mark includes has some great stuff in it, tasty for ANYONE.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone, just stating the health facts, which is one of the main things the OP was concerned with.

[j3nn]

I wouldn't assume that a SAD diet is necessarily of the low-fat, high-carb persuasion. The SAD can go several directions; lots of unhealthy industrial oils and high omega-6; low-fat, high-sugar/grains or a cyclical combination of both. They add vegetable oils to some sodas, so I'd never assume everyone was on a deliberate low-fat diet when I hear SAD. Americans actually get tons of low-quality fats and protein in their diets. It's the excess calories and sedentary lifestyles that contribute to poor health more than just high carb intake alone.

[zoebird]

Honestly, I can't say -- because I don't know how much they are eating, what, and where/how and so on.

I think that if you're the one cooking and buying the food, you can take SAD off the list and just bring home the primal. What they eat outside of the house is their business. It'll be far less than normal SAD stuff this way.

But, I'm like that. We don't have "treats" in the house -- cookies, cakes, ice cream, crisps/chips, etc. All of these are one-off purchases when it's time for them. Thus, his SAD exposure is really minimal. I mean, i'm the worst culprit of giving him SAD foods, so. . . you know. . . it's controlled really.

[PureFunctionalFitness]

I wouldn't assume that a SAD diet is necessarily of the low-fat, high-carb persuasion. The SAD can go several directions; lots of unhealthy industrial oils and high omega-6; low-fat, high-sugar/grains or a cyclical combination of both. They add vegetable oils to some sodas, so I'd never assume everyone was on a deliberate low-fat diet when I hear SAD. Americans actually get tons of low-quality fats and protein in their diets. It's the excess calories and sedentary lifestyles that contribute to poor health more than just high carb intake alone.

My reading on the OP's post that his family were eating some of his diet, and some of their typical diet, most likely a SAD one. So, as the OP is eating primal (and that would imply high fat?), then it kinda made me think that the family were eating aspects from both diets. So high fat primal type foods, and SAD foods, which as you say, probably contains plenty of the wrong types of fat, HFCS, processed carbs too. So by implication, they are eating high carb/high fat, with the fat probably coming from the primal foods and the SAD foods too. So possibly a double whammy!

As Zeobird said, you can take SAD off the list, or alternatively, slowly wean them off it. Make sweet potato wedges instead of chips, oven bake some veggies in olive oil, make some satay with beef an peanut butter sauce. Might not be totally primal, but a step in the right direction, and they'll love it !!

[RitaRose]

i was blessed with breasts but if i had balls, they'd be huge

Chesticles.

[PHaselow]

OK, so this is a serious question.... Obviously. I am working at being primal. I do 95% of the cooking in my home. My wife and kids have no interest in being primal. They basically are happy with the SAD. But they want to eat what I make too. So they are really mixing 2 ways of eating, and to me, it seems like possibly a recipe for disaster. They get all the extra fat, AND all the stuff that we, as primal, avoid.

I have only been at this a week, but as I watch them eating my primal food, and also their SAD, well, it scares me.

Give it time.

If you do the cooking, do you do the shopping? Transition the house into mostly primal with a few of the SAD conveniences to avoid outright mutiny. Lots of vegetables and some fruit. Less chips and crackers. What do you cook, typically? If you are worried about all of the fat, make the food not so fatty and then add fat to your portion via extra butter, coconut oil, ghee or even something like bacon grease saved from frying (I use that a lot).

I don't know how old your kids are, but if they are young then you have a great opportunity to change their eating habits. When they get older, like my kids (3 teens), you lose a lot of control. I am making clean, simple meals for them: steak, green beans, mashed potatoes. Chicken, squash, fruit salad. Things like that. It isn't a perfect Primal diet, but it certainly isn't SAD. My meal would be the meat and some of the vegetables without the fruit. I'd maybe add an avocado. Or sometimes I cook up a meal like a bacon/cabbage/onion/ground meat stir fry that I make nice and fatty and keep in the fridge to eat on my own when I want more fat. They won't eat that; I do!

Trick them. A slow transition to Primal might be the way to go. Maybe they won't even notice as you replace their old habits with new ones? Worth a try.

I'm sorry. Right now you are excited about your progress and want everyone to share your enthusiasm. We will share it with you! And, over time, your wife might join in. Don't give up on her yet. Change is hard for some people.

[Primal Papa]

Give it time.


I don't know how old your kids are, but if they are young then you have a great opportunity to change their eating habits. When they get older, like my kids (3 teens), you lose a lot of control........

I'm sorry. Right now you are excited about your progress and want everyone to share your enthusiasm. We will share it with you! And, over time, your wife might join in. Don't give up on her yet. Change is hard for some people.

MY daughters are 11, and YES I am excited! Week one is complete and I lost 10 - 12 pounds. I don't know the exact number because my scale needed new batteries when I started, and it was acting rather wonky. After new batteries it has been consistent... consistently going DOWN, that is!