Family time trumps my shake any day

When my (almost) step-kids started staying with us, we made it a point to explain to them the importance of family time and how one of our most important family moments would be dinner time. In my family growing up, meals were always eaten at the dinner table. Not in the living room. Not in the kitchen standing up. Definitely not in front of the TV or alone in our bedrooms!! And we never ate at different times. It was important for all of us to sit together, eat together and talk.

I have always known that these types of meals would be the norm at my house as well, no matter if the meal was leftover pizza or a four-course meal on the 'good' plates. The kids have really enjoyed our family dinners, and not just for my cooking! We get to talk and laugh and really interact with each other. No phones, texting, Wii or TV. It is SO nice for that 45-60 mins at least once a day. (I HIGHLY recommend it if this is not a standard in your house!)

So when Shane and I started doing the Vi-Trim shakes, one of the first questions we were asked by the kids was if we were going to still have family dinners together. With no hesitation, I said yes. I knew this may mean I may not have two shakes a day on the days they are with us, or that sometimes I may not eat exactly what I would have planned, but that was OK with me. I am not going to sacrifice our family time for "a diet". After all, we are telling ourselves this is our new lifestyle, and a lifestyle for me includes my entire family.

This weekend, I made spaghetti with homemade meat sauce over whole wheat pasta. And then Sunday night we had grilled steaks with fresh-from-the-garden sweet corn and snap beans with new potatoes. Maybe my weight loss this week will be a pound or two less, we'll see in the morning, but that's OK with me. Our side dishes of conversation and laughter are worth it.