Everyday Paleo (5 page)

In a pinch you can grab a couple of hard-boiled eggs, toss some blueberries and a small handful of sliced almonds in a Tupperware, and breakfast is served and portable. Kids love the blueberries still a bit frozen; it’s like having a dessert in the morning.

The Mental Mind Game
of Managing Change and Tossing the Family on Board!

B
efore we dive into getting the family on board, let’s talk a bit about managing all of these changes. After all, you must change your own thinking patterns, habits, and choices before trying to influence change in those around you. I know, change can be absolutely terrifying. Change is something in life that we often have no control over, and yet the things we
can
control often come around to bite us in the behind, or make our behinds bigger and very unhealthy. If you get what I am saying, you realize that food is one of those things in life that we
do
have control over. This fact can be pretty darn comforting in a crazy world in which we have no earthly idea what the heck might happen next. Will we still have our job tomorrow? Will our relationships stay stable? Will my kids stay out of trouble? Will you still love me if . . . ? Will the sky fall if I
decide
to make a change?

Although having control over what we eat might feel good, along with having that control comes responsibility and accountability. We often eat to comfort ourselves, to celebrate, to ditch boredom, and to mask our emotions. If eating has become more habitual and therapeutic than life sustaining, you will need to refocus on what continually feels good, which, over all else, is the wonderful feeling of being healthy. Yes, the initial feeling of comfort that we receive from eating a doughnut is pretty delightful, but the long-lasting effects of self-medicating with food is debilitating and depressing, and it will eventually kill you. Remember, if you feel better physically, guess what—you will feel better mentally—and what might have begun as a scary and somewhat difficult change will catapult you into a whole new existence.

Living a life of health makes everything else so much more manageable, and being healthy can really, honestly, not kidding bring happiness and contentment in other areas of your life as well! You have the power to break a vicious cycle; you simply have to be ready, stay focused, and make the decision to change.

Look into the future for just a minute and imagine how it would feel to wake up in the morning with energy. You throw on your jeans, and dang they fit so nicely. You eat breakfast and feel a sense of confidence that the morning is conquerable. You do not need to take pills for what ails you; you simply grab your paleo lunch and head out the door. Tough stuff comes up, but you are physically in check, balanced, clear headed, awake, and able to make sense of all the madness.

Eating paleo does not erase the hard times, the stress, or the difficulties, but it will give you a chance to have the physical and mental capacity to better cope with what obstacles might be in your way. Remember, only
you
are able to control what you eat, and I urge you to take control and stay committed to your choice to change.

You must tell yourself and believe that eating paleo is not a “diet” that you might “fail” at, but rather a way of life that will keep you healthy and alive a lot longer than your previous way of eating. Keeping this thought in the forefront of your head will help you when you want to dive into a bowl of cereal-topped ice cream cake. If I offered you a pill and told you it would comfort you for a moment but most likely kill you thirty years down the road in a most uncomfortable fashion, would you take it? I sure do hope not.

I have tons of compassion for those struggling to make the transition to a healthier way of living, but I also feel strongly that our easy-to-access, whatever-we-want lifestyles have brought some of us to a place where we do not want anything to be hard unless it
has
to be. The reality check is: In order to get results, look better, feel better, and live better, it takes hard work.

Paleo Kids

Ok, now let’s move on to the kiddos! The most frequent question I get is how to bring the family on board, especially children. The majority of parents appear to be faced with “picky” eaters. Either their children simply won’t sit down and eat, or if they do eat, it’s a lot of one thing, and that one thing is not what the parent wants them to eat.

Does the following scenario sound familiar? Mealtime is upon you and you feel as if you are preparing for battle. Instead of joy, family bonding, and happy conversation, dinner is torturous, twisted, and a time to be dreaded, knowing that you will have to beg and plead with your little ones to eat even one bite of protein, much less anything that looks like a vegetable. OK, so maybe that description is a little over the top and some folks land somewhere in the middle, but either way, introducing paleo does not have to be another battle. In fact, switching the family to a paleo lifestyle should be the end of any previous food wars, and your food life will eventually become incredibly easier to manage.

Before I unveil the secrets to paleo kid success, let’s talk about why kids and paleo are important. The health and longevity of your children depend on your decision to feed them a paleo diet. The above statement is not meant to make you feel guilty or wrong, it’s purely factual. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of childhood-onset type 2 diabetes has increased at an alarming rate over the last two decades. Type 2 diabetes was originally called “adult-onset diabetes” because it was typically only diagnosed in adults over the age of forty. Today, one in three children are at risk of developing this devastating condition. Furthermore, if you have not noticed with your own eyes, childhood obesity has been on an overwhelming climb over the last twenty years (seeing any correlation yet between the high-carb/low-fat trend and the certain near-future death of our youth?). With childhood obesity, besides upping the risk for type 2 diabetes, our kids are also facing a much higher likelihood of suffering from lots of other illnesses early on in life, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, and depression. In fact, we are looking at a generation of children in which a large majority might die due to obesity-related diseases even before we do! What happened to worrying about our kids’ first kiss, whether or not they make good grades, or how late they stay out with their friends?

The statistics are frightening, but this happens to be our current reality, so let’s get started together on getting the kids on track.

Your first concern might be that by switching your children to a paleo diet, they risk the chance of missing out on all the essential nutrients necessary to support a developing body, brain, and immune system. The truth is, with a paleo diet, a child is actually
more
likely to obtain, absorb, and utilize all the necessary macronutrients essential to health and longevity. By eating paleo foods—remember, the foods our bodies are meant to run on—you and your child will be consuming more nutrient-dense foods than before, and no matter how you look at it, foods that are more nutrient rich always win.

If one were to compare a standard American meal to a paleo meal, the paleo meal will prove to be more nutritious. And by removing gut-irritating, inflammation-causing grains, legumes, and dairy products from your child’s meals, you will enable your child to adequately digest and use the nutrients consumed through the optimal paleo diet.

As important as it is to understand why your child should eat paleo, it is just as important to understand how their little minds work so that switching over to the paleo diet is a successful venture. Please understand that kids live for attention. Getting attention, either in a positive or negative manner, is why kids wake up in the morning and why they refuse to go to bed at night. This is totally normal, and how we manage their needs for attention will determine whether or not change, whatever it might be, will result in monumental tantrums or a rewarding journey together.

When transitioning your family to paleo eating, this is the first fact that I suggest you keep in mind: The more attention you give to the reality that you are changing what you all are eating, the more resistant your kids will be to your efforts. Just as I suggested in the first chapter, you must also make the “fun kid food” and the processed and grain-based foods disappear. Do not make the disappearance of these foods a production. When the kids are sleeping or away at school is the optimal time to remove these food items from the home. Tossing out the fruit loops in front of the brood could cause an instant uprising, but if these choices disappear without commotion, it will not be as noticeable or disturbing to the little ones.

Introducing Paleo to the Kids

Everyone is typically hungry at breakfast, so this should be the first paleo meal you introduce to the family. Put the food on the table and do
not
make a fuss about how “different” the food is. Make it appear as your normal routine because it will become your normal routine. Kids always do so much better when there is some sort of routine.

Serve up healthy plates to your little ones, and then sit down and eat with them without mentioning or suggesting that anything is different. When you serve the healthy paleo breakfast for the first time, and do not have the non-paleo alternative, most kids will not freak out. This is especially true when you focus on having fun, eating, and socializing, rather than what is missing. After all, most kids really like scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit. If they do not, that will be OK, too—we’ll work around it. Just remember to be patient. If your child only eats the bacon and the fruit or only the eggs, consider your first paleo breakfast a success and move on. Do not force your child to eat everything. He or she will not starve or suffer from eating an “incomplete” meal.

If you have a kid who does freak out, don’t freak out too—this is the reinforcement (the attention) they are looking for, and the tantrums will continue. Some children will miss the toast and jelly or cereal right away, even if they are used to eating protein at breakfast, but giving in or arguing will only prolong the successful transition. Instead, calmly and cheerfully say, “This is all we have!” However, for this to work, you must not have an unhealthy option available. With no cereal in the cupboards or waffles in the freezer, your child will realize that there is no point trying to convince you to serve something you don’t have.

Please rest assured that if your child opts to not eat, he or she will not stave. I have had parents tell me otherwise, but after some prying, I typically find out that they tried for one day and ended up giving in and pulling out the hidden pop-tarts. Trust me, your child will not be forever damaged if he or she skips a day of breakfast. If you reinforce your child’s behavior by giving tons of attention to it, they will not give up the fight, but if you do not reinforce the behavior, your child will get distracted with something else, be hungry, and at some point eat what you put in front of him or her.

Another important thing to remember: paleo food does not have to “look” like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My middle child, Jaden, is not a huge fan of eggs in the morning. When he gets tired of eggs, I’ll let him choose what he’ll have for breakfast for the next few days. Often he’ll choose “Karina’s Yam Hash,” or sometimes he’ll opt for chicken sausage and a coconut milk smoothie, or even leftovers from the night before. Giving your child the power to choose is golden, and if you only have paleo options to choose from, you both win!

Another example of switching up mealtime habits would be breakfast for dinner. My oldest son loves to make breakfast for dinner, and when he’s in charge of cooking the evening meal, we’ll often eat scrumptious omelets before bedtime. The point is if you and your family are eating some protein, veggies, and healthy fat, you are getting the job done. Be creative and not so stringent with how each meal should “look.” If eggs are not the protein source in the morning, that is perfectly fine-this is your chance to get creative!

The most important point to remember when transitioning the kids is that food can still be fun, even without the cartoon character boxes. The best way to get your kids excited about the new foods you are offering is to involve them in the process. Kids love to cook, and I urge you to try to make meal prep a family affair. Give each child an important job in the kitchen and talk about what you are making together. Have your children retrieve the required ingredients from the refrigerator or pantry and talk about what you are using. If you are using a vegetable they have never seen before, explore it together. Let them wash the vegetable, touch it, smell it, and break off a piece. Tell them how it grows, how it’s harvested, and ask them to describe to you what it smells like and what it reminds them of. Make it a process, an experiment, and an exciting adventure. Allow your children to choose a vegetable or protein source to try at mealtime and decide together how you will prepare it. Do not be afraid of making a mess. Spills can be cleaned, and getting the little ones in the kitchen will be the first step in nurturing and developing their lifelong positive relationship with food. If your children are allowed to be with you at the counter, stirring, tasting, pouring, and creating, they are so much more likely to eat the food they had a hand in making.