Hi Barb!
This might giev oyu som ideas. I recently posted this inn anothern threadin this forum (
http://www.zonediet.com/Community/F...ult.aspx): My three kids ranged in age from 9 to 18 when we began the Zone diet at our house. That was 15 years ago and now, as adults living on their own, one of them also a parent, they've all retained their Zone balanced eating habits. The way I handled it during those first years in the Zone was to set the best example I could at home, working in little bits of info here and there about certain foods and why we were eating differently, but not making it an issue. The first across the board change I made immediately was in the fats we ate. I got rid of the bad fats (as in dumped them in the trash) and from then on used only the best fats for the Zone. During that first year in the Zone, I gradually stopped buying the offending high density carb foods. By the end of that year, our house was full of only Zone friendly choices, and has remained that way. For my youngest, I'd have only Zone foods available at breakfast, I'd pack a Zoned lunch made of things he liked, and we'd eat Zoned snacks after school, Zone dinner, etc. If he ate other things away from home, it was his choice. He has ADD, so it was especially important for him to maintain a Zone balanced diet. I figured the less pressure I placed on the issue, and the more Zone favorable choices he had at home from foods he loved, the easier it would be. Even the pickiest eaters, adults and children, can successfully do the Zone diet. Here are a few tips. Give it time and use some creative thinking when it comes to what to eat. Try to be patient and stick with providing good choices at home in the form of Zone favorable foods that your daughter loves. Keep meals simple and delicious. Use sauces to make veggies taste good. Meals don’t need to be traditional fare. A bowl of Zone balanced chili is as good a breakfast as scrambled egg whites with cheese, a bowl of berries, and some nuts.
It might not always seem like it but kids do emulate their parents. Setting a good example will pay off in the long run. I remember one day, a couple years after we’d been doing the Zone, when my husband had stopped for milk on the way home from work. He’d also picked up a box of granola and a jug of orange juice. He said he thought the kids might want some since it had been a long time since we’d has any in the house. Much to his surprise, the orange juice sat in the fridge, hardly mostly unused until it finally went bad, and the granola was the in the cabinet unopened for months. We ended up discarding that too, after it reached its expiration date.