How To Stay Healthy When Your Partner Isn’t
There’s nothing more frustrating than starting a diet and your partner (or living mates) fill the fridge with all the yummy contraband. Maybe you tried getting your partner to get on board with your new lifestyle and they didn’t share the same enthusiasm. Here’s some pointed advice, they don’t have to do it with you.
Do it on Your Own, Distractions and All
If they don’t want to eat what you eat, that’s cool there are some different approaches you can take:
- Ask for their support, not their participation.
- Maybe, and we know this might sound painful, don’t sit down to eat at the same time as them.
- Cook the occasional healthy meal for them and slowly hypnotize them with your new, just as scrumptious, lifestyle. (If you enjoy convincing people your ideas are the best, then this method is for you.)
The next big thing is accountability... for yourself. You can’t always exist in the perfect environment, but it is still possible to thrive. Be an invasive plant species and not a temperamental fiddle-leaf fig.
You Just Need 10 Days
You need ten good days (and a dang good reason for changing your lifestyle) and it will get a lot easier from that point on. The taste buds (and the cells that make them) on your tongue are continuously dying and being remade. Within 10 days you will have a whole new set of taste buds. So, in theory, by day eleven sugar-free coffee is going to taste amazing. Just hang in there. We’re pointing this out because biology is going to kick in to support you throughout the journey.
Just give the body a chance to understand what you’re trying to do! Soon you’ll begin craving more water and less refined foods.
Make incremental changes. If your partner is eating ice cream four nights a week, you can join them for one of those nights, it’s called living. Perfectly, perfect healthy living is a fable for our purposes here.
Here’s a helpful tip. Take some time to look into intuitive eating. It might be the perfect bridge between old habits and a new lifestyle. The basic tenets of intuitive eating are well easy to understand, albeit a bit harder to pull off, but once you find your balance and can listen to your spirit, it’s a great approach to a healthier you.
3 basics of intuitive eating:
- Talk to someone about your relationship with food. Do you stress eat? Why do you do that, when do you think you started to use food for comfort? Childhood trauma could be linked to your eating habits today. Make peace with food.
- Learn the difference between appetite and mindlessness/stress/comfort/craving eating. There is an enormous difference!
- Make eating a pleasure-sensory experience. When sitting down to eat, invite all of your senses to join you at the table.
Have a Conversation
Sometimes, loved ones will say things that blatantly show their lack of awareness of your desires. If they’ve ever told said you look fine or don’t need to lose weight, tell them you appreciate their acceptance but you want to be healthy for x, y, and z reasons. Get them on board with your vision. Have a conversation over coffee and make sure you feel heard.
All you need is a bit of courage to do something different and to do it alone. Keep going and eventually, habit and biology will kick in to support you. At the end of the day, being able to count on yourself can become the biggest indicator of success!