I hear you vabmail. I remember when I was 42 and deep into the kids thing and family meals (I'm a sole empty nester now). what a very busy and pressured time of life you have, no wonder you are not so gung ho on meal planning and extra work, which as you know is what it takes because convenience food is almost always too carby.

Could we break your job of managing family meals into baby steps? Here's a few things that helped me. I had my 3d and last child in high school when we really transformed our food. She was skeptical at first but when she experienced how great the food was, and then compared with her friends' struggles with bad food and acne and weight and moodiness, yuck o!

In no particular order:

Have the family work with you on favorite menu items that meet the must-haves: things they like, and not too much work for you. We had separate lists for good breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

Stage the transformation one meal at a time. First learn to make good breakfasts: shopping, cooking, having things ready. Then do lunches. Then dinners. After a couple-3 months all your meals will be right on!

On weekends, shop on one day, and cook ahead the next. Too much to do all in one day. My kids absolutely loved this. it meant that at least one predictable day a week, I would come home from the store with their favorite things for a week. (And we knew it was their favorites because they had to help with the menu lists). If you freeze things like meat loaf it's almost as easy as the box of pasta.

On a moderate low carb plan you can make most recipes with just a little modification. I love meat loaf with oatmeal; I just cut down the oats a little, add more egg, and don't do the ketchup on top but instead have a little squirt when we serve it. Soooooo good.