Bringing it Home: Cooking for Him

cheeseburger in paradise cheeseburger in paradise what in the world bring it home with sarah and neil cheeseburger in paradise you gotta love some jimmy buffett whoa i tell you paradise sounds nice and i'm supposed to be a cheeseburger so that's a very good way to introduce the topic today because father's day is coming up this weekend a lot of dads out there enjoy the cheeseburger that's right but the truth of the matter is a lot of people are going to be in the kitchen cooking for their husbands dads you know any men in their lives um or they may be taking them out to eat right but there's going to be some eating going on so we want to focus on cooking for him okay we're feeding him but in a way that's going to keep him healthy for next year celebration that's a great idea so let me give you this fun quiz thrillist did a quiz to find out what the favorite meal is of men of different ages okay i just pulled this one out of a hat at age 41 the man's favorite meal is a bone in ribeye prepared medium rare now how does that line up with josh's preference okay he's 41 exactly on the dot on the dot and his favorite food is a bone in ribeye wow he's gonna want it rare that's the only thing they're all going but yeah he like that like i know him that's fine well my husband's a little bit older than 41 and he's not opposed to a ribeye uh medium rare and all he's gonna go a little bit older than that he's gonna go medium most likely but uh yeah he'll take it seems like they got it got big they do so we're gonna go over just a few tips and this information is based on a curriculum that we do an extension called him h-i-m and it's health information for men okay because there are a lot of specific issues that men deal with we're gonna deal with some of these too but we're focusing on the men in our lives today and so the first thing we want to do is consider the cholesterol in his breakfast especially a lot of men have cholesterol um and we can understand why sure you find it in meat products protein things you know anything from an animal source is going to have cholesterol in it and you're right like most men the main thing on their plate is what's the meat they want to know what people have it so we're gonna be referencing grubhub okay the food delivery service and what they did was keep track of orders for a one-year period and they kept track of what females order and what males order so we're gonna be we're gonna be focusing on the male orders and these items that we're gonna be talking about they're the foods that men ordered a whole lot more frequently okay than women did we're gonna do the top five so for breakfast grubhub says that men order these items the most frequently steak and eggs okay cheesecake no cheesecake not cheesecake yeah that was a little bit of this cheesecake for breakfast sausage egg and cheese sandwich eggs on a roll and breakfast sausage so when you kind of hear those choices what do they have in coming uh meat yeah they got meat uh even the eggs on a roll we still got cholesterol right i'm surprised by the cheesesteak for breakfast but i don't know where they get that from but anyway uh they got it from grubhub somewhere well you know we can make these healthier yeah these choices we can add some vegetables okay to breakfast yeah okay you can especially like the sandwiches you put avocado on there tomato you can i'm gonna go the omelet route because you can put vegetables on the omelet so you're cooking breakfast for the man in your life this weekend add some vegetables and you know add some leaner meat we're not saying get rid of the meat right but add some leaner meat and throw in some whole grains too yeah because we need that fiber fiber helps your cholesterol it does for sure and then one of the biggest things is to watch the portion size i mean that's just breakfast so men like meat yeah many times the portion is too large so we need to bring that down a little bit and bulk it up with the whole grains with the vegetables and fruits yeah and then just plan to be active at some point in your day yeah yeah if it's father's day go fishing but maybe fish from the bank when you walk around some you know physical activity helps to lower your cholesterol automatically okay so this is some good stuff we can do uh we can help him with his cholesterol we also need to help him with his sodium intake okay salt okay um what's the issue with that well it's some facts here until age 64 men are more likely to have high blood pressure than women and this is from the american heart association yeah most of your life men are at a higher risk of blood pressure issues in women and then um black people have it more often more severe yeah yeah they do and you know by the time men get from 35 to 44 this is still american heart association 25 of them already have high blood pressure so these are young men yeah that's really and a fourth of them already have high blood pressure and of course the number increases the older you get so we tell them just you know being a man yeah you're a man yes and then you know your race complaints minorities unfortunately as well so we want to definitely if we're cooking we want to watch the salt that we may be adding ourselves right that table salt what we leave out all the time you know a lot of people don't even taste their food they just start sprinkling that salt on there it's a habit they do they do and we talked about sodium uh we did a podcast on sodium last month because it was high blood pressure education but here's the grubhub let's go back to the grubhub survey lunch items that men order most often high five general toast chicken we know that's a chinese dish chicken parmesan bacon cheeseburger cheese steak again and sausage so they want cheese steak whether it's breakfast or lunch and they want sausage whether it's breakfast or lunch so again we're looking at some high sodium items yes all those um all those meats that pretty much are listed there are gonna or the way that it's prepared are gonna have a lot of sodium but wow so we need to really watch and try to fight that by adding again more fruits and vegetables and then when we can make the choice for a low sodium option or version let's do that so like when we're cooking at home if we're preparing the meal we can choose those low sodium conversions of sauces and ingredients and things like that right and another thing we've got to watch with blood pressure specifically is limiting alcohol and trying to avoid tobacco use and staying away from that secondhand smoke and let's repeat something that we did say on last month's podcast about high blood pressure um for women it's recommended to have a maximum of one drink per day for blood pressure men a maximum of two drinks per day so whatever you're planning for sunday's dinner or dinners in the future alcohol you know needs to be kept at a minimum okay for blood pressure yeah yes so let's think about yeah it is it is okay so let's think about stress a little bit we don't seem to think about stress in terms of food but one of the things we can do because we know that stress affects a man's health just like it does women's we want to provide low stress meal times and according to this curriculum we're talking about health information for men 75 to 90 percent of doctor visits are for stress related illnesses now let's think about that for a minute we may be going in for digestive issues we may be going in for headaches we may be going in for all types of different reasons but when we get to the root of the issue stress is normally somewhere involved yeah and women we like to talk so we will talk it out where most men keep it inside yeah so then it just builds if i'm stressed you're gonna hear about it right i'm gonna call you and say i need a vent exactly most men it's not a habit of theirs to do that so then they hold it in and it begins to affect to affect health so one of the changes you might see if you are stressed uh would be changes in your appetite it could be that you're eating more because you're stressed or it could be that you're eating a lot less than you normally would so we can go either way and i know people that do one or the other as well you know it's really a good thing too to have those tech-free meal times we don't realize how much stress that really causes us when we're like trying to keep up with our social media we're responding to emails while we're eating we're trying to engage with our families and just check out for a minute and be present there's a lot going on we try to do that and you know intense discussions whether it's about kids if it's about financial stuff whatever the problem things we may be having at the time during meals is not the right time to discuss those things because that affects your digestion uh it just makes me all negative that's not low stress no we need to enjoy that that time whether we eat by ourselves and just have a little me time or if we're with a friend or if we're with family for sure yeah you know and it's important to take time to relax like as a family or with friends we want the men in our lives to be able to just chill and relax so play the game listening to some music hanging out by the fire in the backyard you know whatever it is that brings some joy and relaxation yeah to the men in your life and to your family we need to encourage that because it brings quality to your life it does and if there's a man in your life that stress is getting the best of him encourage him to really talk to his doctor about it you know to reach out and get some help and kind of take some of that stigma away and let him know that it's okay you know um to deal with that stress so that's a big one yes stress is big when you relate it back to the percentage of doctor visits that are specifically related to stress wow yes so another thing we can do that kind of helps combat stress and everything is to get enough um sleep you know so we need to get seven or eight hours of sleep now does your husband sleep seven to eight hours probably not uh sleep is an issue for him you know it is for all of us at times you know so he's not always as rested he wants to be yeah we all know he just doesn't sleep that well so what's what are some things that i can encourage him to do you know is is try to avoid caffeinated drinks and that's something he does on his own he drinks a whole lot of water yeah so that is good and then you know not eating a big heavy meal before you go dead and you know that's never really been explained we always said don't lay down on a heavy meal but the reason why is because when i eat a large meal my glucose is circulating when i eat that sugar is circulating it boosts energy so my body thinks it's go time you know i'm giving it fuel and it's awake and it's like okay what are we gonna do right and really and truly i need to be settling down and not be ready to go so that's hard to do sometimes especially when you're busy and you're doing this and doing that you may not get home but later you know it's just a lot to do the caffeinated drinks is a big thing so we get focused on that at mealtime you know especially the dinner meal you know maybe you know just having water or having some other option that doesn't have the caffeine in it so let's go back to Grubhub because just because we're sleeping there are people that are up ordering from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. this is what they consider late night top five things that men are ordering chicken parmesan now i don't know where they're finding chicken parm at 2 a.m. who are these people i don't know who they are but chicken parmesan boneless wings barbecue chicken two liter sodas and calzones so so we're not gonna no cheese steak i don't know they must not sell it after 10 but we're violating two rules here the first one is that we're eating heavily because think about calzones and chicken parm these are heavy heavy things these are also ordering two liters now maybe we're getting something that's caffeine free i don't know maybe maybe we're getting something that doesn't have sugar so we're getting some sugar free caffeine free i doubt that's what we're ordering like a code zero we may have no it has to be caffeine free it has to be caffeine free code zero so i mean i'm just saying we're violating a lot of rules here according to brotherhood men are so we want to try to keep these sleep habits because sleep is your repair time whatever's going wrong with your body uh your sleep is the time that your body is using to kind of get back on the right track yes and if you're sleeping you're gonna be less stressed and if you're less stressed your blood pressure is better and if your blood pressure is better your cholesterol is probably better oh everything is gonna start improving so it's all connected and we want the men in our lives our friends our family members to be healthy so we need to help promote these habits we do so whether we're cooking for them or we're taking them out to eat let's keep these tips in mind so that we can contribute to their health as well as celebrate them this weekend so happy father's day to all your dads uncles granddads everybody yes happy father's day to charles and thank you all for listening to bring it home in the words of mr marley live it like you love and love it like you live bye