Have you ever bit your tongue to hold yourself back from saying something when your spouse or significant other orders a full rack of ribs or a massive bacon cheeseburger when eating out? Have you ever caught yourself cringing a little when at the grocery store they walk right past the produce section and throw bags of chips, cookies, frozen pizzas, or pints of ice cream in the cart? When you do your best to eat healthy, clean foods (for the most part!), watching your loved one eat unhealthy foods is never fun, and it’s hard to just look the other way. You care about them, you want them to be healthy so they can look and feel great! Wishing you could clean up their eating habits is totally normal. The thing is, you have to be careful about your approach so you don’t find yourself in a tough spot!
What if they aren’t receptive and want to continue with their diet of very little fresh produce, lots of processed foods, and questionable/disease causing ingredients? What if they do want to make the change, but they’re feeling a little intimidated? It’s all about finding the perfect balance of giving them a little indirect nudge without sounding nagging, annoying or critical.
I was lucky because my husband didn’t have to hear it from me! In early 2011, when our diets were far from “clean,” we both went to see a holistic functional medicine doctor. We both had some minor symptoms that we didn’t want to have to deal with anymore (stomach bloating, headaches, lack of energy, skin problems, etc), so the doctor recommended we get tested for food sensitivities, then put us on a protocol that literally changed our lives. It not only taught us the real way to eat a healthy diet, but that change stuck, and we both saw all of our symptoms disappear over time. Sometimes it’s easier to start new eating habits with a structured program, and here are a few more ideas:
Introduce Healthy Foods Slowly
Any time you make a lifestyle or diet change, you should do it slowly. When you’re trying to encourage your significant other to make better choices, this part is especially important, you don’t want to shock them! Too many changes at once can be very overwhelming, plus it’s a pretty big shock to the taste buds when you go from processed food flavorings, enhanced to be sweet, salty, and savory to healthier, real food choices too quickly.
Here are some tips:
- Ease into the vegetables. Are they not a huge fan of vegetables? There are ways to start introducing vegetables into the diet to slowly start actually enjoying them! Check out this post I wrote on learning to love vegetables for some ideas.
- Crowd out the bad. Add healthy, real foods foods (like veggies) before taking anything away. Maybe two vegetable sides instead of one at dinner. The more greens the better, but try to stick to more familiar vegetables at first, then ease in the ones your significant other may not have tried before.
- Take it one meal at a time. Start simple. Tackle one meal at a time, and see what real food upgrades you can make. For example, instead of the packaged powder mashed potatoes, make them with real potatoes. Any time you can sub out packaged foods for fresh foods, it’s a win.
- Share your snacks. Make a detoxifying zucchini hummus, for example, and sit down to enjoy it with some sliced veggies when your significant other’s at home. Offer them some. When they comment on how good it is, tell them what’s actually in it. Watch their look of surprise when they realize just how versatile veggies can actually be!
- Recipe makeover. Take their favorite meal and make them a healthier version of it. This is a great way to show them you can still eat delicious, comforting foods and get nutrients at the same time, like this shepherd’s pie recipe.
- Buy Healthier Versions. At the grocery store, buy healthier versions or better versions (like organic or non-GMO) of the foods they like best. Chips, for example, are an easy transition here. Lots of big name brand chips are made with non-organic corn and potatoes, but even switching to versions that use organic corn and potatoes cut out lots of chemicals from their diet.
Cook Them a Healthy Meal
Who’s going to turn down a home-cooked meal made with love? Take their favorite kind of meal or type of cuisine into consideration. Is it Thai food? Mexican? Burgers with fries? Get inspired by the types of foods that they tend to enjoy and put a healthy spin on it. That’s the perfect way to slowly start increasing the amount of ‘real foods’ vs. processed/packaged foods.
Here are some ideas for you:
- Jicama Shell Tacos, this fun and super healthy twist on tacos will leave corn and flour tortillas in the dust!
- Stuffed Bell Peppers, these can either be made without meat (just quinoa and veggies) or add a lean meat like ground turkey or ground chicken, and your favorite seasonings.
- Creamy Thai Salad is amazing on a huge salad with lots of veggies and some chicken.
- Peruvian Roasted Chicken is a very quick recipe to make, has vegetables, and tastes great.
- Mini Salmon Cakes are a great way to incorporate super healthy salmon into the diet. I love to dip them in a sauce made with mayo+sriracha.
- Spicy Turkey and Zucchini Burgers still give you that burger-feel, but with a healthier spin.
- Sneak them in! I love sneaking veggies into meals whenever I can. No one needs to know they’re in there! For example, next time you make marinara sauce, throw a big handful of spinach into it and blend. No one will know it’s in there!
Focus on the Benefits, Don’t Criticize
No one likes to be criticized for their choices. Even if you feel like you’re giving constructive criticism, that could cause your significant other to cling harder (stubbornly!) to their poor food choices. Instead, show the benefits of the good choices without the negative commentary or comparisons with their not-so-good ones.
- Are they coming down with a cold? Make them some homemade bone broth (learn why bone broth heals, and see how to easily make it). Real foods, used almost medicinally, can sometimes demonstrate the benefits of a healthier lifestyle to a skeptic better than anything else. If bone broth can kick sickness, what can an ongoing effort to eat healthier foods do?
- Does your favorite smoothie make you perkier in the mornings than they are after a cup or two of coffee? Share a little with them so they can feel the benefits. Start small, and over time they can build up to a whole glass of their own.
- Talk about how much better your stomach feels when you eat a salad before anything else, or mention how much more energy you have at work midday (no 3pm slump for you!) now that you’re taking your lunch vs. eating cafeteria food. It probably wouldn’t hurt to comment on how much money you’re saving by not going out either.
- When your significant other tells you how beautiful you look, smile, shrug, and say something along the lines of, “Thanks! Must be all the fruits and veggies.” You may both pretend to laugh it off, but the comment just might lodge itself in their head and inspire them to give this healthier lifestyle a chance.
Remember along the way, moderation is key, especially for big changes in diet. Lots of us have a very emotional tie to eating that we may not realize (more on my experience here). Don’t harp on the occasional junk food, keep the 80/20 rule in mind. Nobody is perfect!
Dine Out at a Healthy Restaurant
Date night, your turn to choose the place! It’s the perfect opportunity to spring a healthy, delicious meal on your special someone. Do your research on healthy restaurants in your area on sites like Yelp or Urbanspoon or EatWellGuide.org. Read reviews online to find out where others have successfully taken their less health-conscious friends and family. This can help you feel out the options that might really impress your significant other and get them thinking this “weird healthy food” might actually not be too difficult to eat on a more regular basis. If certain dishes are mentioned as favorites time and time again in the reviews, you’ll be able to pass that info along to your date and boost the odds that they’ll love it.
This can also be another tactic used in the opposite way, especially if they’re money-conscious. If they often eat out at fast food restaurants, buy coffee and a danish every morning on their way to work, etc, have them track their spending at fast food joints and coffee shops and compare it to the savings of eating at home more often and bringing their own coffee/breakfast/lunch/snacks to work with them.
Be A Health Role Model
You probably learned the classic writing rule, “Show, don’t tell” when you were in school. Who knew you’d be using that idea again as an adult, but in a totally different context? Your significant other will notice when you seem happier, your eyes are brighter, your skin is glowing, you have more energy, and you’ve lost weight. You really won’t have to say much at all to point out the benefits of a healthier lifestyle. You’ll be showing the results, with no need to talk about them!
If you and your significant other live apart and don’t make all or most of your meals together, invite them over for a meal prep day, “just to spend some time together.” While you’re hanging out, demonstrate how easy it is to avoid the drive-thru during a busy work week if you prepare on Sunday. Maybe you can make their Monday feel easier than ever by sending a breakfast smoothie and a lunch home with them. I LOVE cooking or prepping food with my husband and singing/dancing to our favorite music while we work!
Inspire Change
Even though you may not be able to give someone else’s diet a total overhaul, especially if they rely on things like chips to get them through the day until dinner, the small changes you inspire them to make can lead to bigger results in the long run. Small changes that make your significant feel better, even temporarily, may lead them to make healthy choices more and more often. Any progress is still progress. Give them the tools and the example to follow, and let them choose their path and pace.
Something else that works for my husband and I when we feel like we’re slipping back to our old eating habits is watching an inspiring food-related documentary. This is always just the boost we need to revamp our eating habits because it reminds us why eating the foods we used to eat made us feel the way we did. My favorites include Food, Inc, Forks over Knives, Food Matters, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, and Fed Up (new favorite!). Reading a book like Food Rules or In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan are great for this purpose too.
