Thursday, February 19, 2009
A bottle of wine (or two), an order of calamari, a nice filet, and of course, chocolate cake. Sounds like the perfect romantic, candlelit dinner, right? Not necessarily. These romantic dinners could be doing more harm to your body than good for your relationship.
Laura Delcore, Leawood senior, says some of her favorite evenings with her boyfriend, Patrick, are spent dining at The Eldridge. However, these dinners can make it a challenge for her to maintain a slim physique. When Delcore started dating Patrick a year ago, she wondered if her health habits would have to take a backseat to their relationship. Delcore is not alone in her struggle to balance healthy eating and exercise with her relationship.
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According to The Obesity Society, young women in romantic relationships gained an average of 15 pounds over five years and men saw similar upward trends.
Your partner’s health habits can have a large influence on your diet and exercise routine, too. “Oftentimes our behavior is shaped by the people around us,” says Jenny Prohaska, M.A. in clinical psychology. “When one member of the relationship is more sedentary than the other, the lazy person influences the more active.”
Students in relationships may have a hard time finding activities to do together that are healthy. In the beginning of Andrew Wank’s relationship, the Leawood senior says he tried to impress his girlfriend, Kristen Conway, by taking her out to dinner and to movies. Both found it hard to continue their healthy diet and exercise habits with meals at restaurants and movie popcorn every weekend.
“I transferred from a school where my only focus was tennis. When I came here, I no longer played a sport and I spent more time with her so I got away from diets,” Wank says.
However, as a beauty pageant competitor, it was not a choice for Conway to let her diet and exercise go. Being in the pageants kept Conway motivated and showed how the trend of conforming to your partner’s habits can work both ways.
This fall, Conway suggested they make a commitment to having a healthier relationship. “We both had to be ready to do it for ourselves before we could do it for each other,” Conway says.
Since then, Conway and Wank spend time going on walks, playing tennis and cooking dinner for each other. It is a far cry from the fat-laden meals and hours spent in front of the TV that consumed their relationship before. Cori Colombe, holistic health counselor with Your Wellness Connection, says this is a perfect example of how to resolve a diet-related relationship issue.
Colombe says communication is the key. She says people have a hard time understanding when their partner says “ugh, I’m fat … ” Colombe says it is much more effective to say you want to be healthier or have more energy. From there you can find things you would enjoy together, such as yoga, golf, tennis and the gym.
Some suggestions for maintaining a healthy and fit romantic relationship include taking up a new sport together, parking farther from dinner or exploring new, healthy recipes at home. Colombe recommends going back to what made you happy as a child—being outside, playing sports, or playing a simple game of tag.
No one is saying you have to throw those romantic dinners out the window, just modify them. In the end you will be a happier and healthier couple.
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