Living with your boy is great! Looking like a boy is not!
After you’ve gone through the early stages in your relationship where you pretend you only eat salads, it can be easy to slip toward the other, more comfortable, extreme and pick up your guy’s bad eating habits.
In fact, studies have shown that when a couple marry or move in together, people are more likely to pick up their partner’s bad habits, rather than the other way around, which can be bad news for us girls.
While some guys are advententurous in the food department, most are more likely to go for a traditional roast than a roast vegetable salad. The difficulty is that the food most favoured by our men is not the healthiest, its easy to fall into their dietary habits and hard to steer them towards healthier habits without sounding like his mother.
Here’s how to avoid bad eating habits and how to improve his diet without being too mumsy!
Tip One: Portion Sizes
Men eat more than women and it’s an easy habit to fall into eating as much as your partner. When serving dinner make sure you or your man doesn’t give you the same size portion as him. Try using a smaller plate than his, or dish up your own meal if you can. Don't let him guilt you in to having more if he tries the 'But I made it especially, don't you want it" eyes.
Tip Two: Avoid the Takeaway Trap
If KFC and Burger King start frequenting your menu each week, its time to evaluate your diet (and your bank balance). It’s easy to go with the flow and get takeaways, but most are high fat, high salt and have low nutritional value. If you must have takeaways, chose healthier options, such as a McDonalds Deli Roll instead of a Big Mac or go to Subway.
Tip Three: Hide and Seek
If you're in charge of cooking, add foods to the meal that your guy doesn’t normally eat as a way to try and introduce variety and a range of nutrients. You can do this sneakily by “hiding” them. For example add grated zuccini and carrot to meals made with mince. Then when they admit to enjoying it, let them know the truth!
Tip Four: Drink like a Lady, not a Lad
Having a night on the town? Don’t drink like a bloke. If you’re drinking with your man, don’t match his drinking habits. Avoid buying a drink every time he does, and if you don’t want
to be standing without a drink in your hand, get a water, or soda water with lemon and lime. Men are larger and can process alcohol at a faster rate than women, so matching his drinking is bad news for your health.
Tip Five: Switch it UpSwitch him to reduced fat milk. When you do the grocery shopping, swap the traditional man favoured blue top for the light blue top. This has half the fat of standard blue top milk, but still has a creamy flavour that he can’t complain about.
These tips should help keep you both from bad habits and keep you eating well when you make the move in together.
Nicola Graham
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