With a diabetic in the house as well as a kid with a fructose intolerance (it gives him explosive diarrhea and until we figured it out he had quit gaining weight at all!) we talk more about types of food and how they affect us. We talk about how everything has different vitamins in it, so we need to eat lots of different kinds of foods to get everything our bodies need. We tell them that vegetables and fruits are packed full of vitamins and that we should eat lots of those. And, then we tell them that some foods really don’t have any vitamins at all in them. For a long time my kids would ask “is this an ‘all the time’ food or a ‘sometimes’ food?” Treats like ice cream and popsicles are yummy, but those are a “sometimes” food and we need to make sure we fill our bodies with healthy stuff first. Explaining things that way I think has helped them understand why we eat what we do (and why I say no to certain foods), and it helps them to make better choices for themselves. For example, my kids love popsicles but of course the first ingredient in most of them is HFCS (tummy ache for Justin!) so when they see that stuff in the store I tell him to look at the ingredients so he can see for himself what’s in it. (And they hear me say a lot “that’s just sugar and food coloring”) So instead of buying the popsicles, we go home and blend up fruit and make our own and they are just as happy. It makes my day when Justin tells me my homemade food is way better than the stuff at the store. I have intentionally brainwashed him into believing that, but I also make a lot of homemade stuff because of his fructose intolerance so I love that he loves my cooking.

I also read a blog a while back where the mom said they made a game out of “counting the colors” in their meals. The kids would get excited about how many different colors a meal had (fake colors didn’t count) and mom was happy because they were eating lots of different types of food. I thought that was a great way to explain it to little kids!

Anyway… it’s tricky. Even if we’re really good about putting the emphasis on health and not size, my kids are going to start seeing and hearing things elsewhere that may affect the way the see themselves. And I hope by then they’ve learned enough about nutrition that they understand that size doesn’t really matter and that super skinny doesn’t necessarily equal healthy either. Meanwhile, when my kids ask why my belly is so big even though the baby already came out, I just tell them it takes a long time for mommy’s body to get back to normal.

I think the most important thing we can show our children is that we love ourselves no matter what, no matter what weight you are, no matter what size of pants you wear, no matter how tall or short you are. It’s important to show them that you love you. I think it’s good to show them that the reason you are doing this is because you love yourself and you want to be around longer for all of them.

If you are concerned about sharing with them how many pounds you lost, perhaps you should share with them numbers like this is what my cholesterol was or my blood pressure….and this is what it means. Share with them how you are feeling and what losing all this weight equates to; greater energy and being able to do things with them that you weren’t able to do before.

You are an inspiration, and I’m glad it didn’t take you lying on an operating table to have open-heart surgery or having a leg amputated due to diabetes (both of these have happened to family members) to wake up and take better care of yourself. Keep up the good work!

~Tammy