Friends with Benefits

If you start eating better, everyone benefits. Regardless if you are the only one in your home on a weight loss program, everyone else benefits too. Weight Watchers funded a research study to see if losing weight was beneficial to other family members.

Surprise, surprise your efforts at eating better benefits, everyone.

This should not be a surprise.

I have had many clients tell me that their spouse has lost weight when they start to change their eating habits. One example of this benefit is a client I worked with who had 4 kids under the age of 10. Both she and her husband worked full-time, shift work. They ate a lot of convenience foods. She decided the first step in eating healthier was to stop drinking Pepsi.

This was a big deal. She drank at least 2-4 cans of Pepsi every day. Her strategy of replacing pop with water was a big step for her, but really she thought this would be an easy way to change and not inconvenience her family.

But, it made a difference.

Her kids, aged 5-12 years old, asked why she was drinking water. She simply stated that she wanted to lose weight and start eating healthier, by cutting out sugar and reading food labels. That made a big impression on her family.

Her kids decided they would drink only water too and they did. They started reading all the labels on all the food in their kitchen and saying things like “Mom, we shouldn’t be eating this. There is too much sugar.”

                  Eat like you love yourself

Chronic disease starts early.

We know that heart disease risk factors are now seen in children. By the age of ten years old, 100% of children tested had the first stage of atherosclerosis.

Losing weight is good for you and good for your family. The best news is that even if they don’t know it, everyone benefits.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla