I am going from Kimkins to Atkins and have let the kids eat the stuff (sugary, starchy, ) in the cupboard until it is getting sparce. I want to start incorporating a much better diet for them. Are any of the rest of you having good experiences with putting your kids on LC? What are feeding them for snack and whatnot? Do you just add a few more starches at dinner?

Thanks for the advice.

Hillary, I don't have any kids, but Valerie (valerieslivingbooks) has 11 of them and is a great believer in Atkins. I'm sure she can give you some ideas of what she has been doing. I think it's great you are getting your children on the road to a healthy lifestyle. My heart goes out to these kids who are really overweight. It' a battle they will probably fight for a lifetime.

I have 6 kids at home, and the biggest trouble with feeding them is that they all like and dislike different things. So no matter what I make, there will be someone who is unhappy with the choice.

My 5 younger kids all eat lunch at school, so I make their lunches according to school policy and what they like. (They can't have any peanut / nut products in the school or anything that may have come into contact with nut products.) They of course promote fresh fruit and vegetables, etc. But I also have to take into account what my kids will actually eat, and what they will throw away or trade off. I'd rather know my kids have eaten a full lunch rather than give them things they won't eat and have them be hungry throughout the day.

As for dinner, I usually base the meal around the protein...chicken, fish, steak, pork, or whatever. I then make an Atkins friendly veggy and/or salad, and then I will make a starch for them as well (potato, pasta, rice). So when we all sit down to eat as a family, I will eat the meat and veggies and they will eat that as well as the starch. It works out for us. I don't usually have to make something different for myself (occasionally I will have to though) and we can still all enjoy eating our meal together.

Do you have snacks for them? My family is a big snacky family and I want to change that. We eat a lot of sugar (they do) and I want to have other ideas.

Thanks for the advice.

Hey Hilary:

Sorry, I'm in the middle of a religious holiday and I should really be doing something else, but I wanted to check in and I saw your message. This question is really close to my heart because my wife and I recently got our three children "converted" to Atkins.

They were big time sugar addicts as well and it was a big thing. Not only that, but my daughter and middle son are both allergic to eggs and nuts. Breakfast took some real imagination! They are pretty skinny active children but they were always hungry. The sugary foods didn't do much to quell their appetites. Now, they can go 4 to 6 hours pretty easily between meals.

For snacks, they eat turkey and cheese rollups, broccoli and cauliflower dipped in ranch, dry roasted macadamia nuts, beef jerky and salad. We've noticed that if we provide enough fat and protein, they don't need to snack much, but the next meal needs to come at about 5 hours.

We started slow with them, much the same way that Valerie did. We would make the meat and vegetable and then provide a starch for them so we could still eat as a family. Slowly but surely, we began replacing their foods with lower carb things until we cut it off completely. We started with drinks. We love kool-aid so we got the Splenda kool-aid and big bags of Splenda. Once they got used to that, it sort of served as the gateway to many other things. Oh, they complained at first, but then they got used to it. My oldest tried some Sprite over a friend's house and he about spit it out because it was "too sweet." Can you imagine a modern 15 year-old saying that?

We reasoned that they have a much larger carb tolerance than us, so we can make them more flax bread recipes and give them just about anything sweetened with Splenda even though we might not eat it ourselves. For instance, they get low carb tortillas, low carb jelly and more nuts and fruits than we might allow ourselves.

We made a deal with them that if they keep to low carb even at their friend's houses, we allow them to get Bryer's Carb Smart ice cream practically every night after dinner. It's become a family tradition and it doesn't stall weight loss.

Lastly, we have really made an effort to educate them on the dangers of sugar by talking about it and sharing studies and articles that we've read. We've explained that you have to eat fat in order not to get fat. Why? Because the body knows it's not in starvation and it's free to burn it's own fat. My 15 year-old is a wrestler and he is putting the science to work. Over the summer he's pretty lazy so I told him that with low carb, his body would be able to keep his muscle while not working out. This would make it much easy to get back into wrestling once school starts. He just started his wrestling workouts this week and he's already at his wrestling weight.

That's my two cents on the subject. Best of luck managing your own family's nutrition!

All the best,

Charles

Charles - you are my new hero. I don't know what else to say. You rock. Is there anything that you don't know a lot about?

Yes, Hilary, there is. However, I have this Internet thing so I can pretty much pop in a Google and get up to speed pretty quick. I try to stay close to Atkins and excercise because that's what I know. I stay away from recipes and Kimkins because I don't have any experience there. However, when the "refugees" are ready to start Atkins, I hope I can be there for them.

Regards,

Charles

Charles, your kids are so blessed! Kudos to you for making such an investment in their current and future health.

Hilary, your kids will get used to it.... Their tastes will change. I really think that children adapt to what they eat.

I remember when my oldest children were little. Their cousins were always curious about our whole food, concentrated nutrition diet. They would ask for tastes of my kids' food and *loved* everything they tasted, up until about age 3 or 4. (They preferred our food.)

These are kids who live off refined carbs--the more sugary and artificially colorful the better. At about age 3 or 4, they started saying that our food tasted strange to them, and they stopped asking for it.

But I have friends who changed their kids' diets *and just like us adults* those children quickly adapted and began to enjoy more nutritious food.

I encourage my children to eat meat and fat. They eat lots of eggs for breakfast. I do let them have whole grain birthday cakes and whole grain/lower sugar cookies occasionally....

My husband and I suspect that because our children are more active and have not harmed their bodies with a junk-fest they can handle a higher amount of carbohydrate than I can.

But when it comes to treats like that, they really are desserts in the old-fashioned sense. First they eat their meat and veggies and then they have a dessert a few times a month. They also have LC ice cream once or twice a week. Making carbs a treat, after eating a balanced meal, does tend to moderate insulin response as well as appetite. (Not true for everyone, of course. Some people--like me--are a lot more sensitive to carbs.)

We will definitely learn more in the future, so I'm not saying this is *the* way or anything like that. Also, our children might need to make changes as they become less active and grow older. We'll see.

I just wanted to encourage you that children are adaptable and will learn to enjoy eating more nutritious foods, just like we have. :-) (You will see how many people on this forum report that their tastes have totally changed. No reason the same won't be true of your dc.)

BTW, I really suspect that the effects of refined carbs may be beyond what the diet doctors have reported so far. I really do. I know it's just anecdotal, but it's honestly typical of families I know that restrict refined carbs: Excepting a very rare taste away from home, my dc have never had refined carbs. (We also avoid artificial sweeteners, colorings, and flavorings.)

I have 11 children ages 17 to 6 months. That works out to 96 child-years here. :-)In all of that, we've had one doctor visit for one child for illness (ear infection), resulting in exactly one antibiotic prescription. No more.

That's remarkable among children, generally speaking, but it seems to be just typical among families that I know who strictly control their children's access to refined carbs/junk food.

Oh, uh, I'll just tag this on. I just noticed one of your other questions.... If children aren't having carbs constantly, they will be a lot less hungry between meals. They can easily do 3 meals/day or 3 meals + one snack.

The snack issue becomes a lot less of an issue than it is with kids who are constantly "starving" on the sugar-insulin cycle.

My kids grandparents' cannot believe how much these kids eat (A LOT) compared to their cousins. (My kids have a lot of cousins.) But this is because they do not snack much at all; when it's time to eat, they eat a *full* meal and then they are content for hours. (A bonus: it's easier to keep the kitchen clean if 11 children aren't each eating several times a day!)

Again, not the only right way and maybe not the best way.... I'm just telling you what works for us right now.

Valerie,

Thank you so much! It is good to hear that. I am a vegetarian and tried to watch all of the refined stuff, but it always got the best of me. I am wondering if we could make a whole forumf or this because I have seen three other questions just like this out there and they can't be the only ones asking...

Serendipitous that I found this thread...I fully intend to convert our family's menu to LC (4 kids) but I have NO IDEA where to start. I actually started a blog about it but haven't had the energy or focus to do it. It is so easy to resort to junk...this thread renews my hope. I don't want my kids needing to diet when they are my age...I want to teach them now--for life!

That sounds like I am something else, but the real truth is I kept losing where these threads were so it is easier for my little brain to find them here!


THANK YOU JIMMY!!!

My pleasure, ya'll! Let me know if you have other suggestions and I'll get 'er done!

I think that snacking is an individual thing. Some people seem to need a snack, others can do without. It's the same with kids.

It must have been hard, Charles, to get your kids used to the idea of eating low carb, but you did it the right way. You reasoned with them, showed them the research, and helped them stick to it.

With smaller children, just start them out right, don't let them get that sweet tooth, or that "chip & pretzel" tooth! There are a lot of healthy, low carb treats you can make for your kids. You can find recipes all over the internet. If you aren't a cook, it's time to learn!

I make George Stella's cheesecake, everyone loves it! You could make it in mini cupcake pans and keep them in the fridge for the kids to nibble on when a sweet treat is the only thing they want. If they aren't allergic, nuts are great. And most kids can handle a lot more fruit than we can, so keep it around.

Good, wholesome food, without sugar, low in starch, real food, that's what kids need, and will want it if you provide it for them.

I'm so proud of all of you for the effort you make to keep your kids healthy and happy. I'm convinced that much of the emotional problems we see in youngsters is due to the crappy diet they eat. Keep up the fight for their health.

This is a great thread - I was just wondering over the weekend if I should be changing the way my kids eat, and then I find this here - how timely.

My kids aren't allowed sugary stuff at home, and we avoid fast food places (except EVOS) like the plague, but they get a cookie once in a while as a special treat, or birthday cake at parties. At home, I only fed them "healthy" whole grain stuff. However, I have been noticing that they eat much more carbs than protien. I buy them the whole wheat pasta with omega 3 added in, and they love it, but I started wondering if I should be feeding them Dreamfield's instead. Also, their favorite breakfast is flax seed waffles, or the Kashi Go Lean waffles with sunbutter (that's mashed up sunflower seeds - my son is allergic to peanuts, eggs and dairy) and sugar-free syrup. I chose those because they have protein and "healthy" grains in them, but again, I am starting to wonder.

Neither of them have weight issues at this point. They are only 2 and 3 years old and both are at the 50th percentile for weight, and over 50th for height, but I don't want them ending up with problems in the future. The allergy issues - particularly the egg and dairy thing certainly present more of a challenge for me, but I like the idea about using the low carb tortillas. My grocery store even sells the whole wheat carb chopper ones now instead of the white, so I could definitely do those.

The banana addiciton will be the hardest to break I think. My kids LOVE bananas, and I always thought of bananas and apples as healthy snacks, but I suppose I can find less sugary options. Luckily, they love green beans, but right now it's the only veggie I can get them to eat!

Kelly:

Don't give up. My daughter is also allergic to eggs and nuts and certain types of fish. It was a challenge with her, especially breakfast. Eventually we settled on two sausage patties, cheese on a low carb tortilla. She eats about 8:00 a.m. and she's not hungry until noon when she has lunch. That's amazing to us because she used to be hungry much sooner than that.

Best,

Charles

Charles - good idea! My kids do like sausage - that's a good protien to start the day off with.

Kelly:

I get this bag of frozen sausage patties at Super Wal-Mart across from the main meat in one of the floor bins. It has no nitrates or nitrites and it's the beef kind. They also have pork ones there. They are high in fat and protein and the kids really love them. Even my 15-year old can get to lunch with two plus an omelet. (We're talking about 5 hours!)

Charles

We don't eat pork, so I think I'll sneak out before breakfast and snag a couple of these if I can!

Thanks for the tip!