Ok so here it is in a nut shell. My husband eats like a little kid. The only veggies we will eat is corn or potatoe and the only fruit is oranges and strawberrys. I get very frustrated with him because I have changed my lifestyle and I think it is a bad example for the kids. I can get the two small kids to eat veggies and they love all fruit but my oldest looks at his dad and he won't eat stuff because his dad won't. I also get hurt by it because I feel like he knows that food is a huge temptation for me and it is hard for me to refuse it and he won't compromise with me. I just wish he would try some new things. It also bugs me because I love to cook and I always want to try new things but I am the the only one who will eat it. I swear he thinks he is going to die if he tries a veggie or fruit or for that case anything healthy. If I could give you all a little insite to his eating his favorite food is hot dogs. How gross is that and I mean he could eat these things seven days a week. Oh yah and if they are covered in cheese that is better. If any of you have any suggestions to get him to eat healthy I would love to hear them. Pretty soon I am going to have to turn the water works on and see if guilt will get to him.
Guilt will only work for so long and then he'll right back to square one. He may even start hiding his eating habits and that'd be worse.
I'd say to just sit him down and talk about it. Be very honest about how you feel and how his habits are affecting you and the kids.. and how they will affect him in the future. No one eats like that and lives to be an old fart!
My husband is addicted to convenience store shopping and he knows I just love indulging like that. I never shopped at convenience stores before him in fact and he brings those easy goodies around me and... *sigh*
He does it alot less now and at least he has mostly switched to diet drinks and baked lays when he does get convenience store stuff. So I guess in all my babbling, that's the idea. Some habits are hard to break but you can clean them up and make them a little healthier. Bargain with him. He can have a hotdog or two a week if he eats your stuff the rest of the week, for example. Have him choose some healthy meals from your recipe collection so he can have what he really wants and it still be healthy. Maybe even have him help you prepare it if that is possible. Whatever works for you guys and gets him involved directly in the new lifestyle so he can integrate it into his own daily life at his pace. I think that is key.
He knows where the fridge is, and how to get to the store presumably? In my household, and I don't have kids, if i cook I cook what I want. If he doesn't want to eat it, fine, he can fix his own or go out and get take out, but he has to eat it outside. It's tough love but it's the only way I can eat healthy AND keep my sanity, or what's left of it!!!
Yup. And you can't make him want to. I don't complain (too much) about the 6 pack of Mtn. Dew my husband goes through every day. But then he's 5' 11" and 128 pounds. Hopefully now that his thyroid's been radiated, he'll put some meet on his bones. But he'll never kick the Mtn. Dew habit. That's 50 years of ingrained habit. It took me 37 years and my own desire to lose the weight to start changing my eating habits. I just know that dad's side of the fridge will be off limits to our son. I'll simply need to explain to him that daddy has a few bad habits that he learned as a child and now he's too old to break them. (ie: smoking)
Hubby's favorite is mashed potatoes BTW, and he can eat them every night for a month. Krispy Kremes for breakfast, mashed potatoes for lunch, Mtn. Dew for all occassions. Yup, our son won't be eating from dad's side of the fridge, even if I have to get dad his own fridge and put a padlock on it.
I asked my husband at supper. He says he eats what I feed him.
If it's just me and him, he eats what I do ... tonight was chicken, salad and brussel sprouts. If the kids are home, I make lean protein, a couple of vegetables and potatos or rice. I just don't eat the carb.
He does eat lunch in restaurants fairly frequently so that's up to him. And he does grab snacks at convenience stores too. Diet coke and doritos
He lost 25 lbs by the time I'd lost 30.
What I would suggest is just to make substitutions. Intead of hot dogs, get turkey dogs. Baked Chips. Diet coke. Turkey burgers. Omit the carb as Susan said she does. Lean Cuisine pizzas.
I know it's not the best foods but once (if) he can get used to those it may not be as a big of a jump to move over to the types of foods you'd like to eat. And as Kykaree said, if he doesn't want it FORGET HIM. He's not going to starve to death. Let him cook for himself for awhile and it might dawn on him that healthy food cooked for him is better than cooking junk for himself.
This came up again this morning. My husband is going to play hockey with the youth group over the supper hour today. I asked him about supper and he made a face and said "I can find something when I get home. Don't worry about it."
I agree with SusanB and Staceylambert. In this house I order the groceries and I do most of the cooking so my husband eats what I buy and cook. When he cooks I make sure that the ingredients are low fat and nutritious and then I eat exactly what he cooks.
There hasn't been any real discussion about the food changes, just that as I have slowly made the changes in my food I've cooked enough for him as well. I'll often say that we're experimenting with something new and I'd like his opinion - sometimes we agree and sometimes we don't. If either of us REALLY doesn't like it then we don't have it again because I refuse to cook two different meals. The biggest changes were subbing sweet potatoes for normal potatoes and subbing fruit for cake and snacks but both changes went fairly smoothly, I did wonder about asking him up front but in the end I forgot - two months on and it just isn't an issue.
Occasionally, when we're out, he'll buy himself some candies, fries or a chocolate doughnut but not often.
I read an article somewhere that men are easily fooled - give them healthy food and they don't really notice the difference, unless you give them yogurt which they perceive to be 'diet food'.
After I finished my earlier post I was thinking about this some more - and my conclusion was that if my husband insisted on eating unhealthy foods then there would be nothing I could do to stop him, but I wouldn't prepare them for him. That would be too much like helping him load a gun so he can shoot himself.
It can be a long process to like new foods. (I had to try salmon about 10 times before I could even tolerate it, now I like it) My hubby is from Iowa and they are very much meat and potatoes people in the smaller farm communities. I went about it from the angle that I am concerned for his health (he gets sick a lot in the winter) He sees me eating healthy and he is making an effort. Good thing is that the sickness is less frequent for him so he can see all by himself that it does work! He always makes an effort for the veggies I make for dinner now.
Getting your husband to eat healthy
*sigh* 
