How To Convince Your Husband To Eat Healthier
A man’s perspective on how to convince your husband to eat healthier
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I’m answering the million dollar question from a viewer, about how to convince your husband to eat healthier.
This a tough question for me to answer, since I try very hard to never preach or nag people to be healthy.
Being healthy is ultimately a choice that the individual person needs to make.
You can’t convince anyone, if they do not want to, or are not willing to, take the necessary actions to live a healthy lifestyle.
But you can enlighten people that eating healthy may not be exactly what they think healthy is.
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As you’ll see below, I share that healthy eating is not about giving up all the foods you love, cold turkey.
It’s also not about never being allowed to have another drink of alcohol again.
This advice works for anyone
Even though this question was specifically for husbands, the advice I give can work for wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, brothers, sisters, dads, moms, and your friends.
Plus, I’m giving this advice from a man’s perspective.
First rule of convincing your husband to eat healthier: do not “nag”
My biggest recommendation about how to convince your husband to eat healthier, is do not “nag”.
Coming from personal experience, even though it may not be your intention, if you approach them the wrong way, a lot of men will take it as nagging.
This “nagging” will often turn men off, and send them in the opposite direction.
Now that we’ve called out the elephant in the room, lets be clear and help him change his mindset towards the term, “healthy eating”.
What exactly is healthy eating?
This is important, because there are so many misconceptions on what healthy eating is, especially to men.
Many misinformed guys think healthy eating requires you to eat salad, after salad, after salad.
And when I say salad, I’m not referring to the freaking awesome big ass salads that I eat.
If they followed what I eat, they’d quickly realize that I eat a lot of:
These healthy types of protein sources are often classified as “man foods”.
Yet when most men think about healthy eating, they mistakingly think all they can eat is tofu, green smoothies, and vegetables.
Healthy eating does not mean boring and tasteless food
Every meal that I eat is usually centered around a protein source that is prepared and cooked in a healthy way.
Rather than loading up your steak with unhealthy, sugary barbecue sauce, swap that out for healthy herbs and spices, which makes it taste even better.
I promise, when you learn how to cook with spices, you will take your nutrition to a whole new level as the flavor of every meal changes.
Here’s how to make a healthy meal
Start off with the protein source, the “man food”.
Next add your sides.
I’m sorry, but I don’t consider deep fried french fries, man food.
It’s all about making healthier food choices.
For example, swap out deep fried french fries with your own homemade sweet potato fries.
Also it’s very important to add vegetables to your meal.
If you’re new to healthy eating, start off by sneaking a little bit of spinach or broccoli on the plate and add your favorite spices and herb seasoning to it.
Again, as you can see from my cooking video recipes, healthy food does not mean, boring, tasteless food.
These healthy recipes are absolutely delicious.
They’ll also get your the results that you want as they’re great for muscle building and fat burning.
Stereotypical “man food” has the opposite effect on your body
It’s true.
From a hormone perspective, most processed food that is made in a factory and packaged in a cardboard box, is actually making you less of a man.
In some cases, the unnatural ingredients are screwing up your hormones, and possibly throwing off your testosterone to estrogen balance.
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At the end of the day, healthy eating helps you feel more like a man.
The overconsumption of processed food is working against the optimization of your male hormones, specifically testosterone.
What about alcohol?
What do you think will happen if you tell your husband or boyfriend, or even your wife or girlfriend, that they can’t drink alcohol anymore?
Once again, they’ll get defensive, and will push them away further.
The best approach to reducing unhealthy eating and drinking is through smaller steps that moves you consistently towards your overall goal.
Making drastic changes, cold turkey, typically does not work for the majority of the population.
Living Lean is about living a sustainable healthy lifestyle.
It’s about daily progress, not perfection.
So don’t ask them to quit drinking alcohol or never eat fast food forever.
Focus on improving one day at a time.
If they’re eating fast food 5 days per week.
For this week, aim to only eat fast food 4 days per week.
Then the following week, cut it back to 3 days per week.
Eventually, build up to a point where they enjoy only one cheat meal per week.
Some people prefer to call a cheat meal, a treat meal, as they’ve eaten healthy throughout the week, now as a treat, you get to eat whatever you want.
This approach to eating, creates a healthy balance that is sustainable in your life.
Choose this treat meal as the time when you socialize with friends.
This way you can still be social and enjoy burgers, fries, and beer.
By consistently following this flexible way of eating, his body will feel better, he’ll clean out the toxins, and reduce the amount of food cravings.
Trust me, it worked for me when it comes to ice cream, and it’ll work for him too, once he’s dialed in and consistent.
So to wrap this up
The best way to convince your husband to eat healthier, is not by nagging him.
Let him make his own decisions, but try to steer him down the right path, by letting him know that eating the real “man foods”, including eating steak, chicken, and fish are healthy, when you surround them with healthier sides and spices.
Also, when he has his cheat meal, make sure it’s during a time when he’s hanging out with his buddies, so he doesn’t feel deprived or ostracized by his friends.
It’s all about balance.
If all else fails, have the important big picture talk about his “why”.
If he’s a father, I’m sure it’s important for him to be healthy enough to:
- watch his kids grow up
- play sports with them
- and be around to see them get married
Food plays a major role in:
- how healthy you are
- how long you’ll live
- improving your self confidence
When you eat right, you’ll look good, and you’ll feel confident about yourself.
You’ll be comfortable taking your shirt off in the locker room.
You’ll love walking on the beach and seeing people’s heads turn.
Think about all the things that eating healthy can bring into your life.
Eating healthy food is 80% of the challenge to getting there
Hopefully you liked this Dr. Phil style, freestyle Friday video and it didn’t come off as if I’m preaching to you.
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
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