A Healthy Husband

Episode Transcript

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The Mom Training Podcast with Diana Ballard

 

Diana:   Hey ladies, welcome to The Mom Training Podcast. I hope you are having an excellent day today. Thank you so, much for joining me, wherever you are in your day, if in your in your morning, if you’re going for a drive somewhere, if you’re just taking a break listening to this… Thank you so, much for joining to me.

 

  Today, we’re going to focus on feeding our husbands. Now, this is a topic that I love to address because it’s really important and it’s something that we can have an influence over. Now, as we talk about this, it’s obvious that your husband always has a choice. He can do whatever he wants. I mean, he's an adult and a partner in the life that we're building together. But we as wives have such an amazing opportunity to influence our husband’s health, and try to help him feel his best, to live as long as he can. And to just be the best man that he can be.

 

  So, we're going to talk about that a little bit today. There are so, many different ways of eating, the taste buds, favorite foods, and when we partner with our husbands in marriage, we're combining two different styles of, eating. Now, however, they were taught growing up, however their mom cooked food. Maybe they've been single for, five to 10 years before they get married, and their eating habits are a lot different.

 

  I have a brother’s that’s single that eats out twice a day, doesn't cook anything. I mean, taste buds can be very different. It took a long time for him to enjoy like healthy food, and coming to my house and eating. It may take some time and adjustment for taste buds to change, for being open to trying new thing.

 

  But as a wife, we have an opportunity to help influence the food in our home, and help our bodies feel good, and help everyone be healthy. And for me, I really want my husband to have a long life. I want him to not struggle with depression, and feel his best… Just overall health, right?

 

  I was pretty lucky my husband ate pretty healthy before marrying me. I'm grateful for that. He would cook things from scratch and stuff. That was such a blessing, when we were friends, and then dating, and whatever. But, marrying me, I definitely have increased his desire for more live foods, less sugars… We don't need a lot of dairy, like things like that. We eat pretty healthy, and he feels good. I want to keep that up.

 

  So, here's a couple tips that you can use in trying to create a healthier environment for your family and yourself, and specifically our husbands. When I asked my husband, I said, “So, what do you think I should tell these wives?” And he says… I think the biggest thing for him was helping their husbands see like why it's important to be healthy. Like being healthy and still being able to support and provide for your family, helps out with depression or mental illness, prevents a physical illness, to have a healthier body.

 

  So, for him, like explaining why we're trying to eat more healthy, different things like that, and helping him understand that. Obviously, on like again, “You're an adult. We're working on this together but I'm wanting to help you be healthier, to feel better, to live longer, to be my partner for as long as you can, prevent illnesses of any kind. That's my goal.”

 

  Another thing that's really good is trying to just bring things in, like new vegetables or more live foods, just piece by piece, and see if they’ll even try them. Now, you’ll never know, they could like it, they could not. But just bringing it in and trying it, cooking it having to be in your house, definitely can increase their desire to even try things.

 

  But I mean, there are certain circumstances, like with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, where he will not touch anything with squash. It doesn't matter what the heck it is, how well it’s flavored, if he sees squash in there, he won't eat it. And that's been like that, their entire marriage.

 

  I mean, there might be some things that like literally, you can't budge on. That they're like, “No, I'm not eating that.” And you’re like, “Okay, cool. I'm going to respect that. I'm not going to push it, that's fine.” But are there some things you can bring into the home, bring onto the table that maybe they'd be open to experiment. Maybe cook spinach is not something that they would eat, but maybe you throw some in the salad, and they'll eat it. So, just trying to experiment with different things to see what they would eat, be open to, and just trying that.

 

  Another thing that's really, really important, is to make sure that you're flavoring things well. One of the biggest problems in cooking is that people are not flavoring enough. They haven’t been taught how to flavor, and so, the foods like vegetables are not desirable. Like, you have to make them taste good. And whether that's you, taking cooking class, or you watch some videos on YouTube, you learn from somebody, but a lot of vegetables that people cook are highly under flavored. And that's because a lot of people use like pre-made food. They don't always season their own stuff and so, they're like, “I don't know what to put on this. Do I need to add more garlic powder, or more salt or pepper? What do I need to add?”

 

  So, try to learn, either from people that cook really well, like go cook with them. Go cook with your your mom. Go cook with someone close to you that makes really good food, and learn how to season. And that will definitely increase the amount of healthy food that your husband and your kids and yourself will like.

 

  This is all about being patient. This is all about trying… The more you change your own habits, crave healthier foods yourself, and bring it into the household, the more the rest of your household will like it. So, just keep trying. If you're like, “I really want to have my family eat healthier.” Then you got to just have in your house, you got to actually be eating it, putting it on the table, having people try it, and trying different things.

 

  I think one of the, one of the main things, is we have the power to control a lot of what comes into our house. Now, there can be lots of snacks, lots of processed foods, lots of sweet stuff, sugary, salty stuff, that comes into our house, because that's what maybe our family has been accustomed to eating. But can we start to kind of wean out a little bit? Can we start to pull back on, buying those foods? Maybe just like one less thing a week and start to kind of pull back a little bit.

 

  But you like, “But Diana, I like those too. I like eating those things.” I understand. I completely understand. But honestly, mental health, physical health is really affected by the chemicals that are in those things. And if we can kind of pull back a little bit from that and start to implement a little bit more live foods or like healthier things, whole foods, we're going to feel so much better. They'll increase motivation, how we feel about ourselves, our sex life with our husbands, like on both sides of us feeling better, coming together.

 

  It's really important to focus on fueling our body and giving our body what it needs.

 

  So, as you're going about your day and your week, you're planning out your food, I just invite you to start adding just a couple things in at a time, that can increase your health, help you feel better, and help your husband to feel better and have a healthier body. Because it really is important.

 

  I hope you can try some of those things. You’re an awesome mom. Keep trying. Keep doing what you're doing. Start adding little things in at time. And we'll see you next week on The Mom Training Podcast.

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