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Have you thought about your dinner plans for tonight? If so, did those thoughts bring a smile to your face or a knot in your stomach? Will it be a quick trip to a nearby fast food joint on the way home this evening? Take out? Or maybe you're going to take a couple of hours out of your schedule and swallow a $20, $40 or even $60 bill for dinner at a "nice" restaurant because you would like to think you are eating healthier. But your plans certainly don't include a home-cooked meal because you think you can't cook!

Unfortunately over the years I have met a lot of women who are intimidated by the idea of trying to cook healthy and satisfying meals, and this trend seems to have gotten worse in recent years. It's no secret that with today's fast paced lifestyles we are growing up in families continually on the run. Between after school activities, soccer, volunteering, entertainment, errands, and on and on, we rarely have an opportunity to sit down together for a meal. Moms have been out of the house acting as chauffeurs, cheerleaders, volunteers and delivery services. They've just not been there to teach their young women (and men) how to plan and prepare a nice healthy and relaxing meal. Yet as we start out in a new marriage, developing the habit of sitting down to a healthy and relaxing meal is just what we need to create the down-time and intimacy that will bond us for a healthy marriage too! Many brides today, especially if they have a full time job out of the house, feel that cooking dinner is too time consuming and difficult. What they don't stop to realize is that it takes longer driving to a restaurant, ordering, waiting for the meal to be prepared and returning, than to prepare and enjoy dinner at home.

It is also very expensive to eat out. Fast food restaurants are less expensive, but menus are often very unhealthy and you miss out on really relaxing and sharing your day with another person. Restaurants are just one more place to go, which just adds to your business, which adds to your stress.

Cooking at home is almost always: less expensive than eating out, healthier than eating out and less time-consuming than eating out. One recent magazine article pointed out that the typical restaurant entree serves up to 60% more calories than the homemade versions. The portions are also much larger then we need to eat in one sitting and are often full of butter and salt, which is adding to the national epidemic problem of obesity.

So whether you are a new bride, a soon-to-be bride or even if you've been married for years and want to turn over a new, healthier leaf, do yourself a favor: get a cookbook full of easy and healthy recipes and start cooking at home. Your wallet, your waistline and your spouse will thank you!