It was a seemingly normal Friday night– however, the Hubs was taking me a little ways away from our normal town to accomplish one of his secret shopper gigs. He was very happy to be treating us to a free dinner at Golden Corral. He simply had to investigate some things and eat certain items on the buffet, write a report, and voila! Our meal would be comped.

My husband LOVES Golden Corral, though we never ever go. It has many fond memories for him from college, and the first day I ever met his parents that’s where they took us. For me– I don’t really share the same sentiments. But a free dinner with my husband? Eh, I’ll take it.

In fact, we had done the same restaurant nearly a year ago for another secret shopper gig and I vaguely remembered it not being too terrible.

Well last night, terrible doesn’t even begin to describe it.

But this blog isn’t a review of a restaurant that many of you probably already know is terrible and not the healthiest place in the world. This is simply an observation I had last night that made me sort of proud of my husband.

You see…he hated it too. After a year of eating increasingly better foods and making better choices, when he sat down to have some of his old school favorites– Hubs was a bit horrified. Everything tasted like butter and if it didn’t taste like butter, it was overcooked. The only vegetable that still tasted like a vegetable to me was some lightly sauteed onions and peppers. The Hubs took one bite each of broccoli and cauliflower and asked, “Why do they taste the same?” A year ago, he probably would have just thought vegetables were bland and gross. But because we eat broccoli a couple nights a week and I love experimenting with cauliflower, he knew the possibilities they had in the world of flavor and awesome.

These dishes…were not awesome. But wait! There’s more.

Any time my husband goes to a buffet, he gets plates upon plates of food because he wants to “get his money worth.” This time, he could barely stomach half– maybe even only a quarter of what he usually eats. Why? The food was literally making him nauseous.

I expected the food to make me nauseated. Greasy food tends to do that to me, but to see his body basically say, “HEY MAN! What are you doing to us with this crap?” was a new step in his own health journey.

It reminded me of this past week’s episode of Extreme Weigh Loss with Chris Powell. To prove a point to one of his clients, he ate like her for half a day. It was supposed to be a full day, but he was so physically ill by noon after eating all the crap she ate, his body literally rebelled. It was very unpleasant to watch.

We kind of just sat there, finishing reviewing certain aspects of the restaurant, when the Hubs just looked at me sort of sad and said, “My family ate at a place like this every Sunday. I wish I could go back and say, ‘What are you doing?!’ It’s not good quality food. It’s not good for you. We can do better.”

We can do better. If only people would stop and think about that phrase and look at their choices. Why do what we do to ourselves when we can do better. Not only that– but we deserve better!

One of my husband’s old roommates came into town and we got to see him for a little bit the other week. I told him about some of the changes we made health-wise and he was like, “Okay, here’s the real test. How often does he eat Little Cesear’s Hot n’ Ready pizzas now?”

I thought for a moment. The truth was it wasn’t a ‘how often’ sort of question any more. In fact, I think it had been about four months since he had one.

Sure, this didn’t happen over night. Change takes time. Still, it is proof that if you make little changes in your diet, not only will you learn to love the healthy food your body truly does crave, but you’ll actually find it easier to let go of the bad foods that held you back for so long.

Last night, my husband promised he’d never take me to a Golden Corral ever again. Now I’m even more convinced that our marriage will stand the test of time!

Want to know how we’ve being making healthy changes— especially when it comes to getting my Southern, meat and potatoes husband to make better choices? Read this past blog on how to get your husband to eat healthier.