Healthy Eating=Stressful Living!!!

   Don't get me wrong folks, I'm big on eating in a healthy manner.  In fact, in order to help Mom with her goal of losing weight, I joined her in the weight loss battle and geared the whole household into the South Beach Diet/Food plan.  My daughter, who already loves her vegetables, has pretty much gone with the flow with very few complaints.  My mother and I are ecstatic about not feeling any desire whatsoever to snack anymore, and have cut back on our portions dramatically.  My mother and I have both lost a good deal of weight--my mom has lost twice what I have lost--and we are thrilled about living a more healthy food style since my family has heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure just waiting in the wings.

   So what is the issue, you ask?  The one person I didn't mention as being ecstatic would be my husband.  He first laughed at what seemed to be yet another one of my "crazy diet schemes."  Then, as the junk food and highly concentrated sugar products disappeared from the house, never reappearing, he began to worry.  I have to admit, our poor diet was definitely to be blamed on me.  I love to cook, and it's something that makes me happy.  I love to bake sweet treats, homemade breads (especially homemade rolls that melt in your mouth), and just about anything that tops the carbohydrate charts.  I used to make a mean cheesecake, the kind that takes a day and a half to complete, rich and creamy and so very sinful to ingest.

   It was with one of those cheesecakes that I lured my husband in.  He had very sweetly bought me roses and brought them to my workplace for me.  (Ahhh, so romantic! Those were the days.)  I countered with a turtle cheesecake--even though I used half the sugar and fat free cream cheese, and sugar free cookies for the crust, I knew it was not healthy. But hey, isn't the way to a man's heart through his stomach??? What soon followed as we got to know each other better were homemade meals that he looked forward to, especially our homemade biscuits and sausage gravy.  And I have now made it all go away--or at least most of it.  

   I have decided to take my love of cooking and valiantly attempt to make the healthy components of our diet into tasty treats that my family would enjoy sharing in.  Tonight I made a Chicken Barbecue Pizza.  I incorporated some wheat flour into the crust, and it was still light and fluffy and went well with the barbecued chicken.  What did my husband do? He ate the topping off the crust.  Just scraped my topping off and refused to eat any more than a small tidbit of crust.  And he was FURIOUS that I messed with the pizza crust.  Okay, maybe not furious about the crust, but more like furious about the whole food direction I have taken this family.  He even went as far as to tell me that my food tasted like $%!@!  

   And that, my friends, is where the proverbial $%!@ hit the fan.  I understand taking away sweet and salty foods can be irritating, if somewhat disheartening, but insulting the food that I put together in between taking care of my husband's requests was the last straw.  I shouldn't have, but I blasted him with both barrels of indignation and hurt. I could see that he hadn't expected his comment to enrage me as well as it did, but I couldn't pull back.  I had run 4 miles this morning, did some killer ab exercises in order to dissipate the overwhelming stress that was beginning to build, and with that one little snide comment I was back under the waves of stress.  

   I did walk away, took some calming breaths, and took the time to watch Julia Roberts blast away her crazy abusive husband in "Sleeping With the Enemy." I have to admit, my husband wasn't happy that watching the end of the movie calmed me down. For obvious reasons.  But I realized something about our relationship--we are going to have a few spats, and we do not always agree about everything (especially food and what is healthy), but we can come together and laugh it off.  I am hopeful that healthy eating doesn't have to equal heavy stress levels.  After laughing and getting back to a more proper frame of mind we really discussed his issues with some of the components of the diet and we compromised.  I sometimes have to step back and look at my place in the situation--am I trying to control too much? Shouldn't everyone have a say?  

   I watched my dad fight my mom about food and portion sizes when he was diagnosed with diabetes.  My mom gave up, because my dad wasn't willing to compromise on the required diet.  Then with congestive heart failure there is another diet, and yet another diet with kidney disease/dialysis, the cardiac and renal diets in direct conflict.  My father had the roughest time of eating appropriately for his ailments, and I guess it never came to "I don't want to do this diet!" when I myself was placed on dialysis because of renal failure.  I always wondered if Dad might have been healthier if he had followed the diet that he should have and it makes me incredibly pushy in the food arena.  So here's the dilemma--to eat healthy or not to push it on the ones I love? How do I balance healthy living with everyone that doesn't lead to STRESS? If anyone has an idea, I am definitely game.  Food should be a way of fueling our bodies, not fueling battles!