Thursday, September 8, 2011

Eating Our Way Through Our Marriage

As a newlywed, I am learning a lot of new things about marriage, compromise, trust, love, yadda yadda, so on and so forth.  Okay, I know all of these are important things, but lately I’ve been thinking about the shift in my eating habits.  Now that’s an important topic, right?  Well I think so!  It’s not something the priest talked to us about when we were going through premarital counseling, and nobody said anything to us about it when we were asking for advice about marriage.  What gives, people?

Eating takes up a large amount of time every day.  Think about it, eating is one of the main things we must do to live.  Think of all the time spent planning, thinking about, actually eating, cleaning up after eating, planning some more, and then doing it all again the next day.  That’s a lot of time spent for each meal and snack every day!  This is an important topic.  I demand it be included in premarital counseling programs across the world!

So, what exactly am I talking about?  Well, picture Mr. Converse Sneakers, a wonderful man who loves to eat.  He wakes up, thinks about food, eats breakfast, thinks about lunch, goes to work where he cooks food, comes home, thinks about dinner . . . I think you get the point.  This man lives and breathes food.  He even has a blog if you would like to check it out that is mostly about food, fittingly called Obviously Cheddar.  He likes to cook every meal, and he likes the food to be good.  He loves hearty comfort foods and man foods like burgers, potatoes, flavorful hotdishes (yeah, that’s what we call casseroles here in the land of 10,000 lakes), and steak.

Case in point:

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He wouldn’t be as adorable eating a salad every day.  It wouldn’t be right.

Then you have me, who spent my senior year of college eating fruity flaxseed shakes for breakfast, a healthy veggie-packed sandwich for lunch, and lean cuisines or small bowls of pasta for dinner.  I love the same foods as Mr. CS but I also like eating healthy, balanced meals.  This was my favorite dinner of the summer:

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Grilled Caesar-Vinaigrette Salad.  Insane.

Getting married has put a strain on both of our eating habits.  As much as we would both like to be healthy all the time, Mr. CS needs his manly burger-y foods in order to feel manly, or something.  I don’t understand men, but I’m sure there’s a good reason for it.  He loves the flavor.  He is willing to work out harder if it means he can have a delicious dinner.  He is less willing to sacrifice for healthy food like I am.  I would rather eat something semi-tasty with little splurges here and there and make my workouts count for more.

What does this mean for me?  Well, considering he has taken on the role of head chef here at our happy casa, he wins the food battle most of the time.  I no longer eat meals like this every other day:

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Instead, we’re whipping up hotdishes, grilling pizza, and doing not-so-belly-friendly-things with our diet.
But, we’re working on it.  We are trying to introduce a lot healthier foods like brown rice, whole wheat pasta, lighter dressings, ground turkey breast, and other healthier alternatives to our favorite foods.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes down the road.  It’s been a struggle changing my eating habits, but food makes my hubby smile, so I’m willing to pack a few more calories into each meal for that.

How did your eating habits change when you got married?

2 comments:

  1. I have gained weight since getting married. It seems cooking for my family also led me to eat too much. I really think home cooked meals (non prepackaged) are healthy but I think most of us have a portion problem. We eat more than we should because of the taste not because we are hungry. I refuse to eat any food that isn't good tasting to me. I just will not spend the calories on mediocre tasting food. I just need to watch the portion and of course exercise more!

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  2. Funny enough, we both lost tons of weight after getting married, lol. That was mostly due to the fact that in college we partied alot (I won't deny it - drinks have TONS of calories!) and ate crappy cafeteria food 3x a day. Once we were married, we actually had to cook *gasp* for ourselves, and picking/seeing what ingredients we were consuming really helped us cut back to more healthy-but-tasty options. As far as having a middle ground for meals, he tends to cook more hearty calorie-rich meals - me, not so much. Tracking our calories helped me to average out the days when Tom was cooking with exercise over the course of a week, so it worked.

    GL! You two will figure out what works for you.

    ~Chelsea

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Thank you for stopping by! I am a little crazy sometimes (it's probably the red hair), but I would really appreciate if you would leave a comment. I love getting to know my readers and reading what everyone is thinking! - Mrs. Ruffled Flats

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