Episode 145: How to Hit Your Goals When Your Partner Lives a Different Lifestyle

Many of our members are on a health journey when their partner is not. Learning how to navigate the old habits, lifestyle, (and temptations!) of home life can be challenging. 

Here's how to stick with your goals when your partner lives a different lifestyle than you. 

If you prefer video, you can watch these podcast episodes on YouTube as well: https://www.youtube.com/@mindstrongfitness2541

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 145: How to Hit Your Goals When Your Partner Lives a Different Lifestyle

Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of mind strong, where we teach Peri and postmenopausal women not just how to lose the weight, not just how to heal their metabolisms, but how to have a skill so they don't need us or anyone else for the rest of their lives. Now you can imagine that if we are going to get away from diet culture, and we are going to, as we harp so much here, Master nutrition as a skill. It's a whole approach to nutrition, right? One of the things I love to say, if you've listened this podcast, you've heard me say it a million times, if you know how to ride a bike, try to fall off that bike, and that's how we approach nutrition. One of my favorite compliments, I'm going to call it, that we hear from alum is Rachel. The only way I could gain this weight back is if I tried. Because if you know how to ride a bike, try to fall off that bike. And in doing so, in thinking about nutrition differently than diet culture and mastering a skill, a question that comes up time and time again with our members, is, what do I do when my partner, my husband, my wife, my spouse, my cohabitator, has different eating habits than I do. So that's we're going to dive into today, how to master nutrition as a skill when your let's just call it, partner has different eating habits than you do. Check it out.

Speaker 1  1:22  
You welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of mind strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong and we are here for two things. We're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right and nothing is working. I am here to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and frozen meals. I promise you it doesn't have to be that difficult. Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to

Speaker 2  2:06  
master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll.

Speaker 1  2:22  
So as mentioned in the intro, you know, this is something we hear time and time again from our members, is, I am dedicated to this. This is a must. This is the day I draw the line in the sand. As I love to say, not another day, minute or second. Today is the day I take control, and I have someone at home who has very different eating habits for me than me, and that's making this very tricky. So today we're going to break this conversation into two parts. I want to start number one, kind of bigger picture, as I like to do, and then zoom in and get a bit more hands in the dirt, logistical with ways to work around this. Now I want to be clear before we start this conversation. A lot of times when this comes up, it's not that the person in question has an unsupportive partner at home. In the context of what we're going to talk about today, it's no, no, my spouse is on board for this. And just because I'm changing my habits doesn't necessarily mean they do so they're eating a certain way, and I find that temptation really hard. How do I still stay successful, keep myself on track when the person at home may be supportive but isn't eating this way? And to me, I'm making that distinction, because that's a very different conversation, right? If you have someone at home who's saying things like, I don't know why you're doing this, you're wasting your time, you're wasting your money, you're losing your energy. To me, that is a very different conversation that someone who is on board 100% supportive, and this isn't for them right now, they're not looking to make a lifestyle change, so they're like said with love, do you boo? And I'm going to eat the way that I eat over here. That's who this conversation is for today. So again, I want to start really big picture and have a bigger kind of mindset in neuroscience conversation, and then we'll get more hands in the dirt and talk about some logistical tools we can put in place. I have a past podcast episode that we refer members back to constantly, and it's called How to set boundaries when you're not so good at setting boundaries. And this conversation is not necessarily a boundary conversation, again, especially if that partner at home is supportive. But I'm relating back to that episode, because this is about having open, honest conversations. And spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to that, that episode, what we talk a lot about is that a lot of women think setting boundaries makes them mean, makes them a bitch, pardon my French, and really, it's one of the most heart centered things we can do, and I'm going to tie that in here to this conversation. I am a big fan of open, honest communication, especially especially when we're about to do something differently in our lives. Because if you think about. About it. Let's say I'm just going to call it a husband at home for ease of conversation here, because that's that's the majority, not everyone that we work with, but that's in the majority. If you have a husband at home and they're used to, we just go out to eat on a whim, right? We do the seafood diet. We see food. We eat it, maybe, maybe my wife shame blames guilt herself on the other side, but we just kind of eat whatever we want, and then at night, we sit down and we snack on whatever we want, and we go to the supermarket and we buy the same things over and over again. Well, it's a pretty fair expectation that your husband or your wife or your partner, or whoever doesn't see it coming, that suddenly things are going to change. Right? How would they know any differently, even if they know that you signed up for our Ignite program, or whatever program you're doing, even if they know you're doing something differently, how in the world would they know what that entails if we haven't had a community conversation about it first? So again, I want to, I'm starting this big picture, because I think communication is key here. If you've listened this podcast, you hear me say a lot that I believe one of the keys to happiness is expectation management. So there's no you against them. Conversation here, there's no butting heads. This could be a very simple, Hey, honey, when you've got a couple minutes tonight, I'd love to sit down and just tell you more about this program I'm doing, because I want to talk about what's going to change for me, what might change for you? How we can avoid things changing for you? Like, I just kind of go on a game plan and loopy end. Does that sound good to you, right? We're inviting them into a conversation. It's not You're not supporting me, or I'm making this change and you're sabotaging me. Like, let's just start with a sit down conversation. It's not they get home from work and we're bombarding them. It's, Hey, honey, when you've got a few minutes, can we talk about this, right? And then just sit down and tell them what you're doing. You know, I don't know all the details yet. I just started, but they talk a lot about mastering nutrition as a skill. From what I'm told, I'm not going to have to change my shopping list. We can certainly still go out to eat. We can still have, you know, glass of wine now and then, and for a period of time, I am going to be paying attention to what I eat a lot more than I used to. I'm going to be training my body until I can eat intuitively, which means I'm going to be tracking my food a bit. It's probably going to look weird. Might be a little annoying to you at times. I'm not asking you to change anything about your lifestyle. I just want you to understand what I'm doing. Does that make sense? Right? I think sometimes reassuring our partners. I'm not asking you to change this is what I'm doing. Does that make sense real quickly, as a former teacher, differentiated learning is real. So if right now you're listening to this episode as a podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, I Heart Radio, wherever you get your podcasts, know that it also exists in video form on YouTube. Similarly, if you're watching me right now on YouTube, know that this episode also exists as a podcast on all the platforms. So however you take in information best know that we've got you the podcast exists both in podcast form and video form. We'll link both in the show notes below so you can learn however you learn best. Now let's get back to the episode, and maybe we get a little deeper in the weeds. You know, there might be times at night where I've already used up. We call it spending our macros, kind of like a budget. Maybe I've spent my macros for the day, and that's going to be different, because we're used to just kind of snacking mindlessly, which is part of why I'm not feeling so great right now. So I'm going to learn tools. I can definitely still snack a night. I'm just going to plan it in in advance, but until I'm there, there might be days that I'm opting out, and it's not that I don't enjoy our time together. It's not that I don't want that relaxation time. I'm just going to find other things to do while we're watching a movie than mindlessly snacking. And again, there will be nights I still snack with you. I'll pre plan it. I'm just still getting the full getting the flow for this. How does that feel for you? Right? Expectation management, it's not, Oh, honey, I can't have snacks with you anymore because I'm on a diet. That's not what we're here to do, right? There will be plenty you could choose to fit snacks into your macro plan every single day, if you want to, and nothing changes for your partner. Or there may be days you choose to, quote, unquote, spend more of your macros during the day. So we're opting out. It's not going to feel as blindsiding if we've communicated this upfront. Now again, of course, this is not a script that I encourage you to write down or read to your partner. The point is, open, honest communication, right? Clarity, expectation management, checking in. How does that feel for you? What questions can I answer? These are all things that are going to help your partner support you, without it feeling like we're butting heads, going head to head on this. The second part to this conversation is a bit more logistical, and this is going to completely depend on your personality, on your willpower. If you know me, you know I am not a fan of running, of living off willpower. Sometimes people see a woman with muscles and they're like, you have so much willpower, and I'm like, if you ever saw me in front of a box of Krispy Kreme donuts, you would not say that this does not happen from willpower. This happens through habit. So I say all that to say there is no one size fits all logistical tool here. Yeah, and in all my years of doing this, I have picked up a tool bag that's helped me. I'll tell you some personal example from my past. Years and years ago, I used to live with someone I was practically a kid, not literally a kid, but I was in my very, very early 20s, and I used to live with someone who was the healthiest uneater I've ever met in my life, like bacon and fast food and all the things that I personally do not enjoy. So I wasn't going to ask them to change, right? I didn't love it, and we would talk about it from time to time, but that was up to them to change or not. But for me, what I felt like I needed was a whole separate cabinet. I literally just took two cabinets in the kitchen, and that was my snack cabinet.

Unknown Speaker  10:43  
What that did for me

Speaker 1  10:44  
mentally is I just never opened up the cabinet because there were snacks in there that were tempting to me, like, I don't love bacon and fast food, but I do love Oreos now and then, and other foods that I don't want to mindlessly snack on if I'm going to have them, I want to be intentional about fitting them into my macros. So what I didn't want to happen is that I would come home from a long day of teaching, be hangry, open a cabinet, see some Oreos start stuff in my face, and then the shame, blame, guilt, kicked in. So I just took two cabinets to myself, deemed them my snack cabinet. Had the open, honest conversation of, Hey, are you cool if these are mine and you can have the rest of the kitchen, but these are mine. And that was it. In my mind, I created a mental separation, that these were my spots. You can do that with the fridge. Have a shelf to yourself again. This. These two conversations tie into each other, because what we're not going to do is go to war. We're not gonna say this is my shelf. Don't touch myself, right? But hey, honey, I'm finding, you know, I don't want to put any of this on you. This is my journey, and I'm finding that some of your foods are really tempting to me. Make a joke of it like my willpower is not as great as I thought it was. Some of these foods are really tempting. I'm not going to ask you to stop buying them. That's not fair to you. And what I think would help me, I'm going to do it as an experiment, if you're open to it, is just some mental separation. How would you feel? And I know this sounds kind of silly, but I just but I just want to try it out. What if I had a shelf in the fridge and, like, one or two cabinets in the kitchen that were just my snack shelves, and you're welcome to them. It's more just for my own temptation purposes. How does that sound to you? Right? Open, honest communication, putting some separation, if that feels good for you. Last kind of logistical piece, again, ties into the first part of this conversation. I am someone who loves to snack. I love when it's been a long day. I worked all day, I went to the gym, I took care of the puppies. We had dinner. Now it's like ah we finally get lately it's been 10 minutes, but in the past, it was maybe 45 or an hour to just sit on the couch as a family, snuggle the puppies, unwind after a long day, and I love to include snacks in that moment, so we can plan ahead, especially if you and your partner, spouse, whoever that is, are in a habit of mindlessly snacking at the end of the day. What we don't have to do is take that routine away. We're just going to tweak it a little bit. One of the beauties of macros is you can still have those snack foods. We're just going to pre plan for them. So in the morning, if I know, at the end of the day, I want to have some pretzels, a little bit of popcorn and a glass of wine, right? Maybe I don't have a glass of wine that day. I'm going to pre plan it in the morning before my days even started. So it's like those macros have, quote, unquote, already been spent. So at the end of the day, guess what? I could still have an open, honest conversation, if I want, or my partner's none the wiser because I'm still sitting there snacking. I've just pre planned it, maybe pre portioned it, I personally would still have the conversation, because I think it's important for them to be in the loop. But the point is, the habit hasn't changed. We've just added some guardrails around it. So if I had to to bullet point this episode, absolute number one, open, honest conversation, what I've seen in all my years of doing this is where things go awry, is when, when we don't have clear expectations, when we expect our partner to just follow suit, no questions asked, and then it turns into a battleground that can easily be avoided again, assuming you have a supportive partner at home, they want to see you happy. They want to see you feeling good in your body. They want to see you succeed. So it's our job

Unknown Speaker  14:19  
to step into a place of a little bit

Speaker 1  14:21  
of vulnerability and have a conversation like these are these are my fears for what's going on. Here's what I'm guessing. I don't know yet, but I'm guessing would best support me as I go, and I'll keep you posted as we keep going. But I don't want you to be in the dark. I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing anything upon you. I want us to come about this as a team and a family, so that we're all set up for success, and this process is enjoyable. And then second bullet point, if we dig a little deeper, is we can get a bit more logistical with it. We can have separate cabinets. We can have separate shelves in the fridge, and we can pre plan and pre portion snacks at the end of the day. Again, open, honest communication, whether. Talking about big picture. We're talking about logistical the more we can be on the same page, the more successful we're going to be.

Speaker 1  15:12  
For more information on mind strong fitness, or to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team, visit www dot mindstrong fitness.com, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai