Stubborn husband refuses to eat healthy!

I'm in the same boat and agree about leading by example. He's totally uninterested in changing his eating but he's paying attention to the fact that I'm exercising and losing weight (although he's pretending not to.) I'm hoping that at some point he'll decide he can't let his wife be in better shape than he is and he'll get with the program out of sheer vanity.

Have you researched low carb and diabetic recipes? Most of them are very good and there are a ton of them out there. That way you don't have to cook multiple meals. Most of them are fairly low in calories too. That is where I got started with my husband, and I change it up with spices and herbs so we don't get bored. I can imagine it is frustrating, but my husband and I are both losing weight and we're both pretty happy about that.

nutmegoreo wrote: »

I enjoyed that show. It was quite inspiring.

It really is. I listen to it sometimes when I don't feel like getting on the treadmill. It's now my go-to for overcoming excuses.

Changing diet preferences takes time. I understand there is some medical urgency involved, but tastes and habits don’t change overnight.

My live-in boyfriend and I have worked on changing to healthier eating habits for a couple of years now. We still eat things like pasta carbonara occasionally, but on the whole our meals are a lot healthier. It started with little things, like reducing animal fats and adding more veggies. We were huge pasta lovers (I’m gluten free for medical reasons now so we’re saving both money and carbs by eating pasta less often now), so we started by trying out different recipes and pasta sauces that aren’t cream-based, and adding some veggies to every sauce. Frozen diced onions and frozen chopped spinach are constant staples, you can add them to soooo many things. Then, we started experimenting with oven roasted veggies, salads and different stir frys. By different stir frys I mean we always buy a frozen stir fry veggie mix and just add whatever protein source we want. We have also been experimenting with vegetarian protein sources and foods, and the end result is this: instead of eating three different pasta, burger or tex-mex dishes this week Mon-Wed, yesterday we had a palak paneer -type vegetarian dish with loads of spinach, today we are making a tofu stir fry and tomorrow, instead of getting a creamy pasta carbonara with loads of bacon, we are making a pasta bake with halloumi cheese, a tomato based sauce, veggies (spinach, onions and cherry tomatoes) and a little bit of bacon.

Both of us indulge in foods the other one doesn’t like when they’re not home for dinner. My boyfriend usually did chicken wings or the amount of pasta carbonara we would split in two, and eat it by himself. He still does the chicken wings sometimes, but more than once I’ve heard he did a giant stir fry with simply more spices than I can handle. His idea of rockin’ good dinner when he can choose for himself is now a gigantic plate of spicy veggies. It took a couple of years, but looking back the progress is visible.

I agree with all the above.

One possible idea is maybe finding meals that are not quite as "healthy". Or with swaps that make them healthier but not appear as healthy if that makes any sense. Not sure how drastic a change your healthy meals are but a big change can require too much mental commitment and turn someone off. So finding "healthiER" options/simple swaps that make previous meals "better" is a better first step?

but ultimately it is up to him.

Pretty young to be on meds with bad blood results. Maybe encouraging exercise is a better tactic. Buy him a speedo and tell him you REALLY want to see him swimming in it.

I understand how hard that can be. My family is in the same boat with my father and my father-in-law. (Both very very stubborn.) I have found that they both automatically shun a meal if we present it as healthy or good for you. So even when I make a healthy version of a meal I just call it something yummy sounding. The words I use make a huge difference in how it is accepted.

Also, the three cooks (my mother, my mother-in-law, and myself) just took things slow and started making healthy changes to how we cooked. (I still made healthier things for me and my kids, but now the men's comfort food was still healthier than before.) We did things like adding veggies into favorite dishes (shredded zucchini in meatloaf or tiny cauliflower in mac and cheese), swapping out regular pasta for whole wheat pasta, having more chicken and fish meals each week than beef, using the air fryer instead of the deep fryer, using sauces or spices and stopped making gravy, using 1/3 the amount of sugar when making koolaid or lemon-aid, buying only halo ice cream, making snack dips with Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, having salad on the table ready to eat before even serving the main meal. All of the little changes over time helped a lot. My father is now even off his cholesterol meds.

But in the end you only really have power over yourself. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.