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I can't keep my picky kids full!


Arwenivere

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We are on day 13 here, and my biggest frustration so far is listening to my children complain all day long about being hungry. They are picky to boot, so finding things that they are willing to eat has been tricky. It feels like they are eating way too much almond butter because they put it on everything, celery, carrots, apples, bananas. They actually ate their tuna salad for lunch today which was an improvement, but I didn't give them very much cause I didn't know how well they were going to do. The 4 and 5 year finished theirs, but when I asked if they wanted more, the answer was no, but I'm still hungry. I was going to buy them a box of almond crackers today, but then discovered that all the boxes also had rice in them! Ah! What else can I do?

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That's a tough one, for sure. Poor you... dealing with your own challenges & then listening to the kids on top of it. Can you stuff them at breakfast with extra eggs? (Setting them up for a good day.) Add a ton more ghee or coconut oil or duck fat or whatever you are using to everything they eat? If you are making homemade mayo & they like it, get them to eat a big spoonful, promising to give them another one after they finish colouring a nice new picture for your fridge. Do they like coconut milk? Maybe try whirling a frozen banana with coconut milk to finish a meal? I think I'd be aiming to give them the maximum caloric density as I could at the start of every meal, because little tummies don't hold a lot, so satiety really matters.

Of course, "I'm hungry!" could also mean "I'm missing the foods you used to feed me!" too. In which case, aiming to keep them stuffed with things they will eat is probably your only recourse. (Change their taste buds before you tackle that quantity issue.)

Do they like games? Write down their favourite W30 foods... get them to help with this; agree to everything; quietly toss out the ones that don't fit... put each food on a slip of paper & put them all in a cup... add in the ones that the Easter Bunny likes ("really dear, he does") or Simba or some other beloved character that eats meats/vegs if you need to add more in order to get a variety... and let them draw out one piece of paper whenever they & you agree that they are hungry... with the promise that they will get to eat whatever comes out of the cup. Put that slip aside so they know that sooner or later they'll get to something awesome. Kids love surprises, and are easily distracted by a surprise.

GOOD LUCK!!

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  • 1 month later...

This can definitely be a tough one...

However I'm not as strict (with the recreation part of loved things (with whole30 approved ingredients)) with my daughter (think banana - egg pancakes). She really enjoys meatballs in tomato sauce with zoodles or baked "fries" and chicken tenders with nut coating.  Also you can simply ask them what they enjoy and let them pick their favorite items at the store (which child doesn't love that?).

Nutrition wise most children still have build-in food wisdom. So let them eat more fat, if they want to. But instead of nuts you can offer them Avocado. What I find true also is when eating nuts, give them ones with the shell! The time to crack them open slows down the eating process, so they will feel satisfied with less. (You know how easy it is to overeat nuts because you can just "throw" them inside...).

Besides: do your children go to daycare/kindergarden/pre-school , where they eat lunch? How about their relatives? Do they see them eating differently?

My daughter is a picky eater, too, but I really can say, that if you lead by example, they will follow. So do your children see you struggle? This must be a different time for you, too - how do you express it towards them? Do you complain about it or say things like "yeah, I know it's not that delicious" or "I'd rather have ___ , too, but it's not allowed"? Children at the age of 4 or 5 can understand some part of it, too. So maybe a family gathering, where you explain WHY you are doing this will help them align.

 

Good luck!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm really struggling with this. My kids are 9 and 15 and and they are constantly "hungry" for snacks, but my 9 yr old son can sit for 2 hrs not eating a dinner he "doesn't like" even if he's enjoyed it before. I'm about at my wits' end because he steals food when everyone is asleep. Emergency Larabars, baking ingredients, old Weight Watchers food I've forgotten about.  He has ADHDso it's not an uncommon habit, but he's going to keep himself from seeing the mental/physical rewards and eat us out of house and home to boot!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/13/2017 at 4:56 AM, Tashaskye said:

I'm really struggling with this. My kids are 9 and 15 and and they are constantly "hungry" for snacks, but my 9 yr old son can sit for 2 hrs not eating a dinner he "doesn't like" even if he's enjoyed it before. I'm about at my wits' end because he steals food when everyone is asleep. Emergency Larabars, baking ingredients, old Weight Watchers food I've forgotten about.  He has ADHDso it's not an uncommon habit, but he's going to keep himself from seeing the mental/physical rewards and eat us out of house and home to boot!

My 8 year old is doing the same thing (only on day 3) and has been known to do the same thing. Just today he snuck some non-compliant juice boxes and had drunk almost all of them over the course of a week! For us, we dealt with it as an honesty/stealing issue because we have pre-set rules in our home about taking food without permission. So he received a consequence for taking the drinks. I then reiterated what we're trying to learn from the Whole30 and that this kind of behavior will sabotage his results and he won't reap the benefits. But in the end we are working on being flexible with our kid's potentially bad food choices, as we want this to be an overall positive experience.

Some other ideas I'm coming up with, but haven't incorporated yet, will be to READ A LITTLE SNIPPET from the Whole30 every night to everyone to remind them about the "Why" and "how" of what we're doing. I will be making a PAPER CHAIN of the days we have left on the Whole 30 and using the phrase 'we're only doing this for x more days! We can do this!'  I will be making a BLACK BEAN CHOCOLATE CAKE (no sugars) in celebration of the completion of our whole30 journey and encourage the children to look forward to this as a reward for their hard work. 

Hope that helps! And I'm following this feed for more ideas, as my kids have been turning up their noses to a LOT of the meals I've made so far!! (Grrr) I have 7 children, 12 and under. Wish me luck!

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8 hours ago, Nedster7 said:

My 8 year old is doing the same thing (only on day 3) and has been known to do the same thing. Just today he snuck some non-compliant juice boxes and had drunk almost all of them over the course of a week! For us, we dealt with it as an honesty/stealing issue because we have pre-set rules in our home about taking food without permission. So he received a consequence for taking the drinks. I then reiterated what we're trying to learn from the Whole30 and that this kind of behavior will sabotage his results and he won't reap the benefits. But in the end we are working on being flexible with our kid's potentially bad food choices, as we want this to be an overall positive experience.

Some other ideas I'm coming up with, but haven't incorporated yet, will be to READ A LITTLE SNIPPET from the Whole30 every night to everyone to remind them about the "Why" and "how" of what we're doing. I will be making a PAPER CHAIN of the days we have left on the Whole 30 and using the phrase 'we're only doing this for x more days! We can do this!'  I will be making a BLACK BEAN CHOCOLATE CAKE (no sugars) in celebration of the completion of our whole30 journey and encourage the children to look forward to this as a reward for their hard work. 

Hope that helps! And I'm following this feed for more ideas, as my kids have been turning up their noses to a LOT of the meals I've made so far!! (Grrr) I have 7 children, 12 and under. Wish me luck!

If you won't have done reintros yet, I'm not sure a black bean chocolate cake would be the best way to celebrate since legumes are one of the things specifically excluded from the Whole30. Maybe a paleo recipe instead so it's ingredients that would have compliant Whole30 ingredients (with the exception of probably honey or maple syrup to sweeten). Then it's not a total shock of a non-compliant ingredient. I also found out that legumes are not my friends when I did reintros so to me that's like "hey! you did this great thing for your body, here's a cake that may make you feel like poo".

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On 3/22/2017 at 5:14 AM, laura_juggles said:

If you won't have done reintros yet, I'm not sure a black bean chocolate cake would be the best way to celebrate since legumes are one of the things specifically excluded from the Whole30. Maybe a paleo recipe instead so it's ingredients that would have compliant Whole30 ingredients (with the exception of probably honey or maple syrup to sweeten). Then it's not a total shock of a non-compliant ingredient. I also found out that legumes are not my friends when I did reintros so to me that's like "hey! you did this great thing for your body, here's a cake that may make you feel like poo".

Haha! Doesn't sound very fun. Well, I thought the first day of reintroducing was legumes. There wouldn't be anything else in there that would be non whole30, except for xylitol and stevia... So I don't think it would be a bad choice on day 31. But if I'm missing something, please tell me. 

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Theoretically this would be fine to have for legume reintroduction, but one thing to keep in mind is that xylitol causes gas, bloating and diarrhea for some people, and legumes also cause gas and bloating for some people, so if you have both at once, it may be hard to know for sure which is causing any problems you may have. If you can do the cake with something other than the xylitol, you might want to do that.

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10 hours ago, kirkor said:

I think she means, it's quite possible that legumes could cause a negative reaction in at least some of your kids, so the idea of setting up the cake as a reward could backfire.

@Nedster7 What kirkor said is exactly what I meant. I had a terrible reaction to legumes when I did my reintros, so if I was a kid and my mom was like "yay! We did it! Finished the Whole30 as a family!" and then I had a piece of cake that made me feel like death would be preferable to the way my stomach felt...not fun. 

Xylitol and stevia are also heavily processed...Something like this paleo cake is sweetened with maple syrup which, while it is completely sugar, is less processed. http://myheartbeets.com/paleo-chocolate-cake/

Your kids might be fine with legumes. But they might not. If you really want to make it celebratory and fun with no strings attached, I wouldn't use legumes in a cake. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/13/2017 at 4:53 PM, Seafarer said:

Do they like games? Write down their favourite W30 foods... get them to help with this; agree to everything; quietly toss out the ones that don't fit... put each food on a slip of paper & put them all in a cup... add in the ones that the Easter Bunny likes ("really dear, he does") or Simba or some other beloved character that eats meats/vegs if you need to add more in order to get a variety... and let them draw out one piece of paper whenever they & you agree that they are hungry... with the promise that they will get to eat whatever comes out of the cup. Put that slip aside so they know that sooner or later they'll get to something awesome. Kids love surprises, and are easily distracted by a surprise.

GOOD LUCK!!

Tease them that Simba eats bugs. Should you add that to a piece of paper for them?  Lol

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