My Family Eats Junk Food. What Do I Do?
Recently, I got asked this question:
I’m fully committed to being Paleo, but my significant other and kids are not. They often bring junk food home, which tempts me to eat badly. What should I do?
By far – literally nothing else is close – this is the issue I get the most emails about. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that there’s a great answer.
Dealing With Family Members Who Eat Junk
Many people have found that if they cook Paleo food for their kids or significant other, they’ll usually eat it without noticing. However, in some cases where someone is continually bringing junk into the house, it definitely gets tougher.
There are generally 2 ways that I’ve seen people successfully deal with this.
First, many people just wait it out. Often, family members will come around, either because they start to realize how much better they feel when they eat well, or because they just get lazy when someone else is cooking the food.
The second and more direct route that I’ve seen people take is to sit down with family members and have a very open conversation about why they’re choosing to eat better, how important it is to them, and how they feel like the other person (or people) is making it harder.
In fact, this second option has been so successful for so many people, that I actually wrote a book about it: The World’s Greatest Weight Loss Secret.
I don’t think that there is a right or wrong answer to a situation like this, but I do believe that trying to address it with open and honest conversation is often the most successful route.
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