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Shocking: My Husband’s Reaction to My Cooking

My husband isn’t what you’d call and adventurous eater.

And he’s been anti-vegetable since I’ve met him. Basically, if it was green and it wasn’t salad, it shouldn’t be on his plate.

This was extremely limiting to the cooking process. Coupled with my lack of culinary skills and I was left with about 6 recipes that we could all agree on.

And I was BORED. So, so bored.

I was so bored that I felt bitter every time I had to cook dinner again.

Through a series of unfortunate events involving a scale, Chris and I both concluded that we had to start eating healthier, and we stumbled across a plan that intrigued us. Problem was, it cut out all grains and processed sugars.

Did you know pasta is made out of grain? And tortillas are made of grain? And rice is a grain? I mean, there went ALL my recipes.

But my husband said the most beautiful, magical words to my ears, “All bets are off. I’ll eat anything.”

A blank slate! And no veggie was restricted (except artichokes, because I once sneaked them into a meal and he still hasn’t forgiven me).

As exciting as this was, I was also dreading the experiment a bit, because of past trauma with feeding Chris food he didn’t like. During an offensive meal, he didn’t talk. He just concentrated on choking down the awful food and he didn’t talk at all. Awkward silence.

So I kind of started out slow, sticking to veggies I knew he tolerated. And then I got brave and reckless.

I made roasted broccoli. And he said it was so good he could eat it every night. He took a second helping. I cried a few happy tears.

I made “spaghetti” and meatballs with zucchini noodles. He declared it delicious.

I made bacon wrapped asparagus that I didn’t even like. He loved it (OK, I did say bacon, so…).

ohmyAll this acceptance kind of went to my head. I decided to have a treat night of pancakes and my recipe had me make cinnamon apples to put on top, instead of syrup.

I thought, “Well, that will never fly.”

Chris wasn’t a big fan of anything apple related. But it looked delicious to me, so I thought maybe I could smooth things over by having real maple syrup on the side that could be drizzled over the apples to sweeten the deal.

He took a bite and exclaimed, “What did you do to the apples?”

“Nothing. Just cinnamon and butter,” I hesitantly admitted.

“They are SO good! They’re so sweet!” (By the way, these were Granny Smith apples, which probably don’t get described as “sweet” very often.)

Honestly, it’s a pretty big thrill for my less-than-skilled-cook heart to hear my husband extol my cooking. But I have to admit. The most exciting part is that the things he is enjoying are items I’d been trying to convince him to eat for years.

I win.

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Don’t Do As I Do

It happened again.

Always, always, when I’m telling someone about our newest diet endeavors or the secret that lost us a bajillion pounds, I look down and realize I have a plate of ridiculously unhealthy food in my hand.

A heaping one.

eating-hobby

Years ago, Chris lost 70 lbs and I lost a bunch too. Ever after, we kind of got on the merry-go-round of calorie counting and then falling off the wagon. And our jeans slowly got tighter and tighter.

But, since we KNEW the secret to weight loss, even if we weren’t utilizing it, we could totally share our tips with others.

While we ate cake.

The problem is, I love pitch-in dinners (or pretty much any social event where my friends make their tastiest dishes). We have a lot of them at Destiny Church and our people are really, really good cooks. There’s this mac-n-cheese that’s probably going to be in heaven…

So it doesn’t matter what “diet” plan I’m on, when a pitch-in comes around, all bets are off.

Most recently, it was a lingerie party that did me in. Just a bunch of girls, gift bags filled with lacy underwear and plates full of delicious treats.

I had been eating great for like 3 weeks straight. So I was totally justified in having a splurge.

But somehow, we got talking about gardens and then vegetables and then “eating healthy.” And I was sharing about how we’d been doing so great.

And I looked down at my plate: Mint-chocolate cake balls, chips and queso, cream cheese veggie pizza.

So then I felt like I had to EXPLAIN. And the explaining is just awkward. Kind of a “the lady doth protest too much,” feeling. Like no matter what I say, everyone is convinced I live off of Twinkies at that point.

And that’s OK if they think that, except I don’t want to lead other people astray. I’m not here to justify your bad eating, you know?!

I need a T-shirt for pitch-in dinners, with a disclaimer:

**The food on this person’s plate is not recommended for a healthy lifestyle. Do as she says, not as she does.

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The Skinny Mirror

My friend came out of my bathroom one day and announced, “You have a skinny mirror.”

I was confused. Because it’s actually a really wide mirror. So she had to explain, “It makes you LOOK skinny.” And my friend seemed to think this was a good thing.

But it had me worried. Because I’d been looking in that mirror for a year and a half and feeling pretty good about myself.

I mean, yeah, some of my jeans were getting kind of tight. But I looked OK. So you can see how deceptive a skinny mirror is.

I decided to ignore my mirror and listen to my jeans. And then I pulled out a crazy thing called a scale. Boy, that guy doesn’t mince words.

My scale has me convinced to count my calories and my carbs and how much candy I eat. There is actually a piece and a half of cheesecake in my fridge. It’s been there ALL DAY and I haven’t eaten it. So I think things are going pretty well.

I just hope my scale starts saying nicer things to me, or I’m going back to my skinny mirror.

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