How do I convert resistant family members to eating right?

If you know my writing, you know I’m always encouraging my readers to share with others what they’re learning that has changed their lives.

One of my most common conversations with whole-foods enthusiasts and 12 Steps to Whole Foods converts is around this issue.   Here’s an email I got:

“Dear GreenSmoothieGirl, I am excited about eating right and enjoying the changes I’m making, but my husband is sabotaging my efforts and doesn’t think eating white flour, sugar, meat, and Diet Coke is really gonna hurt anybody as long as we mix in a salad now and then.”

You aren’t alone.   I have constant email and personal conversations with people about this. Wives, if it makes you feel any better, solving this problem is easier for you than it is for a husband who wants to eat right but whose wife does the cooking.

I used to be a marriage and family therapist.   You know how in marriage a disagreement often isn’t really about what it seems on the surface to be about? It’s natural for any spouse to be resistant to major change. We humans like habit and predictability and safety. Imagine if your spouse came home and said, “Honey, I know I just finished an engineering degree that you worked hard to pay for, but I’ve decided I want to be an artist instead: I’m quite certain that will make me happy.” You might resist, yes?

Your loved one is worried you’re going to become someone else.   That is, not who he has always known, but someone extreme and scary. You’re not, of course.   You’re just progressing toward becoming your best self.

Food issues are BIG issues. They are as emotional and deeply held, often, as religion and politics. Have some compassion for your resistant family member and realize that announcing, “We are now a vegetarian family: I’m quite certain this will make us all healthy” or something like that might be too much, too fast.

For more information to help you convert a loved one, click here:

https://greensmoothiegirl.com/2008/05/02/the-nutritionally-recalcitrant-spouse-part-two-of-four/

To Your Health,

–Robyn

GreenSmoothieGirl.com

p.s.   If you have a Total Blender, you can make things that aren’t just nutritious, but YUMMY, too, and that could be the most important investment you make in converting your family to come along with you in your journey to being thin, healthy, and gorgeous.

Posted in: 12 Steps To Whole Food, Lifestyle, Relationships, Whole Food