Hi Friend!
Last week on vacation we had a lot of family meals. We ate breakfast at the hotel before making our 2nd leg of the road trip to OBX (Outer Banks, NC). We ate dinner with our friends upon arrival and we ate most every breakfast, lunch and dinner with our friends. We ate at the bagel shop in the morning a couple of times. We ate lunch on the beach a couple of times. We got BBQ take out, we had dinners at the Paper Canoe and Duck Deli, we ate ice cream at the ice cream shop and for the rest of our meals (breakfast, lunches, dinners and snacks) we ate at the long, rectangular kitchen table, in the house on stilts we rented. And pretty much every meal was family style. Family style for those that forget or don't know is when the meal is put in the center of the table and everyone chooses what and how much they want to eat from the items in the middle and puts it on their plate.
Why Are Family Meals Important? It sure beats eating by yourself and if you want to make change happen for health, body composition changes and performance, family meals can support your goals. Plus its fun.
- Meals support food regulation and appropriate growth.
- Meals make you a family.
- Meals support good parenting.
- Meals provide children with social and emotional support.
- Meals connect us to our history.
- Meals reassure children they will be fed.
- Meals teach children to behave well in polite company.
- Meals teach children to like a variety of food.
Meals with others, as you can see are pretty powerful aside from the supporting of nutrition they provide. They're also important for single people and people without kids because its more difficult to develop bad habits when you eat with someone and you're more likely to keep your schedule if you have a schedule and other people are dependent on it. Plus you get exposure to different foods that the other people at the table may enjoy, you get to practice table manners (chewing with your mouth closed, not talking with a full mouth, putting your fork down between bites, ...).
And if that isn't enough, consistently scheduled family meals, 7 days a week, whether its a work / school week, or a travel day / week or vacation are part of your nutrition plan for health, body transformation and performance goals.
Side Note: It's unrealistic to eat every meal and snack each day of every week with your family or others, but the high goal would be to get 6-7 meals eaten family style, with 3-5 average and 1-2 a minimum.
When considering your goals for health, body transformation and/or performance, remember that in Alwyn Cosgroves Hierarchy of Fat Loss, the #1 thing you can do to decrease body fat and build muscle is to focus on nutrition. You CAN NOT out train a bad diet.
Take Home Message So schedule regular meals, 7 days a week. Make sure there is something that everyone likes to eat served at every meal. And practice it consistently, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, whether your on vacation, with family, traveling or if its a regular work / school week. Start with baby steps and keep going, meal by meal, day by day, week by week, ... year by year.
Do this and in the long run, you'll WIN! And win at whatever it is you choose because like Yoda might say, "to win, if you want, you must practice daily".
Looking for picnic lunch dates on M / W / F from 12-1pm,
Coach Mike
p.s. Here's the link to Ellyn Satter's book I referenced.
p.p.s. Here's the link to Alwyn Cosgroves Hierarchy of Fat Loss.
p.p.p.s. If I can help you, reply and let me know.
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