My Question of the Day: The Mancinis are hosting their daughter, Mary Katherine, and new son-in-law, Ahmad, for a week during the winter holidays. The rest of the Mancinis’ children will be home, also, with their respective spouses and significant others.

The entire family absolutely adores Ahmad, and they know how well he treats Mary Katherine. Mr. and Mrs. Mancini sing Ahmad’s praises to all their friends and other family members, but they are a bit concerned about his week-long stay.

Ahmad doesn’t eat beef or pork, and the Mancini women create delicious dishes for the holidays, many of which contain beef, pork and/or beef or pork broth. Ahmad has repeatedly told his mother-in-law not to change her menu for him. He tells her he will eat what he eats and leave the rest for everyone else.

Mrs. Mancini doesn’t like the idea of her favorite son-in-law not being able to enjoy all the same things as the rest of the family, so she’s still torn about whether to change the entire menu or keep it the same.

What do you think she should do?

My 2 Cents: Mrs. Mancini has the best intentions, but she’s going to have to get over it. There are going to be many more family gatherings, and Ahmad is still not going to be a beef- or pork-eater. If her son-in-law says to go on as usual, she should go on as usual. If she doesn’t want him to feel left out, she can make a few extra dishes just for him without beef or pork. Chances are some of the other family members will like the dishes, also, and they’ll become a part of the new family tradition.

The only thing constant is change. Family dynamics change, so we have to change with them. It’s not always easy, but it’s usually simple.

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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My Question of the Day: Nothing should taste better than being healthy feels. Imagine you’ve been plugging away at a new diet and exercise plan. You’ve been working your programs for the last three months, and you can see light at the end of the long tunnel. You’re within 10 pounds of meeting your weight-loss goal, and you’ve totally relearn how to eat, keeping portion control in mind and limiting, not banishing, junk food. One day at work, you get an email from the company president, saying that s/he wants to take the entire office out to dinner to show his/her appreciation for all your hard work and dedication. S/he gives the place and time for the dinner, and it is a restaurant that you have completely avoided since starting your new health regimen, because this restaurant prepares food in a way that totally, 100% goes against your diet plan. What do you do?

My 2 Cents: If I have a choice, I wouldn’t go. If I have no choice, if it’s mandatory, I won’t eat. If I’ve avoided that particular restaurant for the specific reason that their menu doesn’t fit in my diet plan, I’m not going to try to force it.

I’d thank my boss for his/her generous offer, but I wouldn’t compromise my goal just to get a free meal, and I’d let him/her know exactly why I won’t be participating.

My choice is based on knowing my level of discipline (or lack thereof) at this point and time, and I’m not at a point where I’d just get back on my plan the next day. I could be wrong after I’ve actually had three months to revise my eating habits and solidify my workout program, but answering with today’s mind, I wouldn’t go.

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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

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JoshDamage I go for work purposes…every restaurant sells salad on the menu lol

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

———-

RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.