As I've mentioned a few times before, my husband does not choose to eat healthy in any sort of way. It bothers me for so many reasons and I was sort of at my wits end last week where I had two options. Option A- throw a fit and start ranting at him about how I just don't understand why he won't try. Or Option B- go buy him food he may enjoy that is healthy, prep it, pack his lunch and just see what happens.
For once, I chose option B because I've picked option A too many times to count and it has done nothing for him or for me. Here are the things I had to take into account for his food:
1) He drives a work van from site to site which means he carries his lunch in a cooler but has no access to microwaves or freezers.
2) Sometimes he gets called to a work site and his lunch time where he could stop and eat or go buy food is gone so I knew it had to be items he could possibly eat at a red light or in just a few minutes once he got stopped.
3) He will stop for a venti mocha and a muffin/breakfast burrito/donut in the morning because he doesn't take the time to make breakfast because he does not leave enough time in the morning to make a healthy breakfast.
So what did I come up with?
Snacks:
-Almonds, unsalted and unroasted- portioned them out into 1 oz in a baggie.
-Jerky
-Fun size pack of peanut M&M's (he's got a sweet tooth and this beats the extra huge Reese's peanut butter cup he gets all the time)
-Mini peppers
-Honeycrisp apples, sliced
-Reduced Fat Wheat Thins portioned into 1 serving in baggies along with 1 oz. of cheddar cheese sliced up.
-Ice water
Breakfast
-Tropicana orange juice in mini cartons (bigger than a juice box)
-Thomas Light Whole Grain English Muffins, Canadian Bacon, whole egg, I slice of colby cheese
Lunch
-Diet Dr. Pepper in a bottle (I'm not a fan of soda but he's been drinking a 32oz regular Dr. Pepper on a daily basis so baby steps).
-Sandwich rolls from the deli (not whole grain but baby steps I say), ham and turkey deli meat, sliced Havarti
-Pop Chips portioned out to 1 serving
My husband has college two nights a week so I bought the groceries and brought them home and portioned out the snacks and chips and put them in a plastic tub so it would be easy in the morning to grab and go. This took all of 20 minutes for a weeks worth of lunch time snacks. When he came home that night he was floored! I got a big hug and he was excited to get to eat what I'd bought the next day. I told him it would only take 5 minutes to make the egg mc muffin sandwich but that if he really was completely out of time, make a PB & J on 1 slice of the whole grain bread and just take it with him. I think it's kind of a lot of sugar but considering what he's been eating, I think he'll be able to lean into making even healthier choices in a little while.
The next morning when he took the kids to my mom's, instead of getting in the shower I ran to the kitchen and made his sandwich for lunch and also egg mcmuffin sandwiches for us both (I only use 1/2 a cheese slice for my own) and he was again over the moon I'd went to so much work. I even did the same thing the next day and on the third day he actually made my egg mcmuffin sandwich and packed his own lunch. He called at the end of the first day of taking lunch and said his stomach hurt and he was so full and I thought 'Yeah, it's called digestion and it's what your body does when you give it healthy food and water!!' He did ask if I could make sure there was a cheese slice for every Wheat Thin next time which made me laugh. An ounce of cheese sliced came out to about 8 small squares but there were about 25 Thins:) And if you didn't guess by reading this post, my husband is a cheese fanatic.
I'm glad I decided to do it and even though he still doesn't believe you can eat out healthy (even though I explained what I ordered last week) I just keep reminding myself it's all about baby steps.
