His and Mine - Eating Habits

C

catwoman

Cathlete
Okay, so I am a health-conscious workout-aholic...and I married a man who...well...isn't.

I've gained about 20 pounds since we've been together and I just can't seem to get rid of it. And I think I know where the problem is. He likes his high-fat, low-nutritional-value food, and wants absolutely nothing to do with the healthier foods I try to make for myself. So, it's a constant battle to make meals that we will both want to eat (well, I "want" to eat pizza, but I shouldn't...and if he didn't always want pizza in the house, it would be easier for me to not be tempted and have "just one slice"). He wants hamburgers at least once a week, and while I've finally convinced him to at least get lean ground beef or ground sirloin, it's still more meat than I was eating before we met. I've tried making "vegetable burgers", using lean ground meat, but he just doesn't really like them. He also likes french fries, pork, lots of cheese, and a lot of other things that someone who's trying to eat clean shouldn't have. And he doesn't like peas, tomatoes, zucchini, beans, and a bunch of other vegetables I like. I used to eat pretty much just vegetables and some occasional chicken for my meals, but he doesn't think it's a meal with some kind of meat. And he drinks about 3-4 Pepsi's a day. It's just frustrating, because I'm really trying to get back to a healthy diet, but it's hard having the chips and junk lying around for an easy snack (and when you're as time-constrained as I am, sometimes it's too easy to reach for the quick and unhealthy stuff when you need a snack). It's also expensive, too, when we're having to buy twice as much food because he wants one thing and I want another.

At any rate, does anyone else have a similar situation at home? And how do you deal with it? I need help here! I know I can lose about 20 pounds if I can just get the food monster in my kitchen under control!
 
My situation is similar but not to the extreme that yours is...

My DH deals quite well with healthier dinners and is not a very picky eater but I also know how far I can push it with him and I will compromise so that we are both happy with what we are eating. On days when he is not around for dinner, I eat exactly what I want and vice versa with him when I am not around. As far as the "bad" snacks go...they are always in my house for him and I can't rightly tell him that they are not "allowed" as he is not a child and can eat what he wants so I have to be stronger and try to avoid temptation as much as possible...If I give in to it on occassion, so be it. I do NOT beat myself up over it...it's just not worth it.

I guess it's easier for us mostly because I have a relatively relaxed view on healthy eating so there are more options upon which both my DH and I will agree...

:) :) :)

Have a great work out!

~Wendy~

I smoked my last cigarette on March 17, 2004 at 10:00 pm!

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?WENDYMIN

http://lilypie.com/days/050519/1/0/1/-5/.png[/img][/url]
 
DH and I have completely different food tastes, too. The difference is he appreciates me trying to make low fat menus for his carnivorous appetite. I usually prepare some type of meat for dinner along with a veggie. Adding any kind of startch is a treat and usually once a month. I've been using our George Foreman grill a lot lately because it is so fast and meat tastes so much more flavorful cooking it that way. What I eat for dinner is just about always the same...a huge dish of assorted veggies topped with low fat cheese so it's really not a big deal for us.

As far as snacks. DH loves chips and eats some every evening. Instead of chips, I have a few pistachio nuts or fruit or even some croutons. I'm okay with this because I know what will happen if I eat chips. It's a consequence thing for me.

DH is an adult so I can't and won't control his eating but since I do most of the cooking I can at least keep things as healthy and flavorful as possible.


P.S. Two really great cooking tools: Crock pot and George Foreman grill. Really saves time.
 
My boyfriend is definitley not as health conciuos as I, he does really try however. One thing we do is use cookinglight magazine alot!!! They have awesome recipies. He likes them, they are relatively healthy and you can find anything. For example instead of hamburgers...we now make chipolte turkey burgers with adobo ketchup (one of our favs) on whole wheat buns. If you use the right spices and stuff you really can make healthy food be excellent. I would pick up an issue and try a couple they are awesome. He really enjoys cooking and making food that is healthier now. Of course we alwasy have ice cream and chips in the house but for yourself just say no, don't eat it.
 
My husband gets what I feed him. Fortunately, he doesn't make a deal out of it. I'm the one who has to have hamburgers once a week. I just love them. But it's always the really lean stuff. Sorry - turkey burgers and veggie burgers just don't cut it in my book.

You can have pork tenderloin. That's really tasty and relatively low in fat.

We never have snacks in the house. Well...popcorn and Cheeze-Its for DH and DD, but I hate Cheeze-Its so there's no problem there. I just don't buy the snacks I do like (salt & vinegar Lays or Fritos). I do all the grocery shopping and cooking, so if dh doesn't like it - well...he's gotta do some shopping and cooking.
 
I'm a vegetarian and my SO is definitely NOT, nor is my daughter. He eats out a lot with work (lunch meetings, dinner meetings) and usually manages to fulfill his meat cravings that way, but I will often cook meals with meat and just not have the meat myself.

I'm lucky in that he's a trained chef and when he's home, he cooks vegetarian for both of us.

We do have snacks around the house. Usually chips and cookies. I'm pretty good about not eating them though. As someone said, you just have to consider the consequences.

It would probably be a lot easier to train YOURSELF to not eat the stuff you shouldn't, than to try to change his eating habits. Maybe try skipping the meat on some of the nights that you make dinner and just have the veggies, or make yourself a big salad.
 
Thanks for the reply Wendy.

Yes, my husband is a VERY PICKY eater. Cripes!!! The only vegetables he likes are salads...and that's about it. But we're talking just a standard iceberg lettuce salad with maybe some shaved carrots. I like really eccentric salads and love to experiment with different ingredients. I could eat a salad every night for dinner as long as it was a different type of salad each night! He also likes corn if it's in butter sauce (wouldn't you know?) :)

I suppose he and I are just going to have to talk and maybe I'll ask him if he can just keep all the chips and pop tarts and cookies in his "office" so I am not tempted by them. And I'll have to go ahead and start making my own dinners and he'll have to start making his on the nights where he wants something that I am trying to avoid.

And, by the way, I'm all for treating myself and not being strict with my diet, but it's just way out of hand right now. If I wasn't so time-constrained, it would be easier, but I'm working full time and taking an accelerated series of classes to earn my Bachelor's Degree (in addition to trying to exercise regularly), so half the time I don't get a lot of time to plan and prepare healthier meals. I would say that 3-4 nights out of the week I don't have time to make a good dinner (and the 5th night I'm just too exhausted to). Maybe I'll have to start preparing meals on the weekends and freeze portions of them for thawing out later or something.
 
Hi there catwoman,

When DH and I first started living together about 12 years ago, he was very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy, as that was the kind of cooking that he was used to. The first time I made him eggplant parmesan (full-fat, mind you), he just looked at it and asked me: "Where's the meat?".

I was trying to eat better at the time, so my solution was to take total control of the situation. Since I did all of the grocery shopping and cooking, he could either eat what was made, not eat, or cook something himself. It didn't take long for him to start eating and enjoying what I made. Now, he prefers to eat veggies and healthier food options to the deep fried, full-fat stuff of the past. Oh yeah, and he even drinks skim milk!!

That said, I started out by making traditional foods that he liked in healthier forms, such as meat loaf (an easy recipe to modify) and progressing as he started to like stuff. A good cookbook for doing this is the Cooking Light magazine year end compilation cookbook. It has a lot of really good recipe modifications that taste great.

Hope this helps. You can take control of your kitchen!! :) :)
 
Thanks, jennifit.

I also get Cooking Light magazine, and we do find some really good recipes in there. The problem is in the preparation time. By the time I get home and finish my workout, it's almost 7:00, and we don't have an hour to prep and cook -- and it's bad enough that we're eating after 7:00 to begin with. *sigh* I just need to finish school!!! I have a little over a year left, but hopefully things will get easier after that.
 
You can do it!

I just saw something about becoming a couple who lives together and putting on weight. Couples are fatter as a general rule. You CAN lose those 20 but you may have to leave your man behind and let him eat junk while you incorporate healthier choices. My husband eats anything and thinks I am nuts. I tried to convert my family but they wouldn't eat like I do, particularly the whole grain carbs. So I let them have white pasta and rice and do mine separately. We eat much the same but I do my carbs on the side. I hope someday my kids will eat more like I do and I keep their choices pretty healthy but I don't make them eat as cleanly I do. Can't. I hated the waste when they turned their noses up at whole wheat pasta and such. When I get them their weekly junk, I buy stuff they like and I don't. I sneak things in too. Healthy things. It's a pain but doable once it's the way it's done. My husband was home from work yesterday and volunteered to cook. He said it was too bad I eat like I do or he'd make this incredibly fatty, yucky thing but compromised and made something I would eat. It was higher in fat than I would ordinarily eat but he only cooks every now and again so I ate smaller portions and enjoyed not having to cook. Practice eating just a few of the tempting foods and then saying no. You can do it! Make those vegetables and eat them whether he will or not. My oldest child is vegetarian so I often make meat for the rest of the family and eat veggie with her. I always keep in mind the limits of the calories I can take in in a day and if I do succumb to the lure of a snack food- and I love salty food, I make sure it stays within my daily caloric goal and it can't be everyday. I can eat 2 or 3 chips and then put them away. Anyone can! Demystify foods you crave because you absolutely CAN eat anything you want but moderately. Knowing that I can say no on most days and indulge a bit on a few as well helps alot. Eat lots of fiber and eat it first because it satisfies and can fizzle out a craving fast. Eat balanced meals, complex carbs, lean proteins, vegetables. That will keep your blood sugar level and you won't overeat. Eat a bite or two of a favorite indulgance. Stop at a bite or two and go take a bubble bath or read a magazine. You can train yourself to take a taste and leave it at that. I do have to buy extra food for my preferences but I stock up on proteins and carbs and once I have a stock, it seems less shockingly expensive. It's worth it. I eat for fuel and pleasure but I am careful that the pleasure doesn't get out of hand. Every now and again, I eat a full dessert but only a few times a month. Usually it's at home because when we eat out,and that's not too oftne, the food tends to be too much and adding dessert could cause me to explode! I buy pints of ice cream for me and half gallons for the kids but only kinds I don't like much for them. They usually eat the pints too and I only get a taste. They are required to pace themselves too because junk has to be minimal and can't be restocked until the next week unlike veggies, fruits and healthier choices. It takes about 6 weeks to form a habit including a healthy one. Plan and a put it into action and hope your man will join you if he can't beat you! Good luck. Plan on losing a pound or two a week which will give you 10-20 weeks to stock up your pantry, fridge and freezer with the foods you know you should eat. And let him buy his own junk. Mentally label those "his" and have things on hand labeled "mine" and eat those instead! I love my family but I don't let them derail my beautifullly clean diet and that makes me feel good. Or my diet makes me feel good. Doesn't matter which only that I am in control of food intake; it's not in control of me. You go, girl!
Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"

Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it, and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.

-Ann Landers
 
RE: You can do it!

I know some people may think I am a bad wife here by saying this, but my husband and I like different food and also like to eat at different times, so usually he makes his dinner and I make mine. We don't have kids, so I realize that makes a big difference for people who do. We both work the same amount of hours so it's not like either of us has more time than the other one to cook. If he wants to eat what I was eating I am eating I would be happy to fix some for him and vice versa, but otherwise, we just take care of our own meals.
 
RE: You can do it!

>My husband gets what I feed him. Fortunately, he doesn't make a deal out of it.

Same here. I am fortunate, he eats just about anything. But if he didn't, I would probably cook my own meal and have him cook his. He does share the cooking with me and will ask me what I want out of my cooking file. I follow BFL and I am strict with my eating. I do make sure on free day to ask him what he wants and we either go out, get pizza, etc. since he does compromise the rest of the week.

We do have snacks in the house, ice cream, chips, cookies....that's my problem, not his. I just don't eat them. Save it for free day. I don't expect him not to have junk food around just because I don't eat it.

Colleen
 
RE: You can do it!

Caren,

You are not a bad wife. You and your husband have found something that works for you. Nothing wrong with that! :)

DH and I have separate checking and savings accounts. It works perfectly for us. Some of my friends think we're nuts but we never, ever fight over money.
 
RE: You can do it!

My hubby likes to eat healthy, but he is not as strict about eating as clean as I am so what I do is just make the dag-gone mash potatoes with gravy for him and the children and just not eat them myself. I will just eat the meat and the veggies. In general, we eat pretty healthy, no fried foods. Everything is mostly baked.
When we go out to eat, we have a choice to be wickedly evil by making bad choices or selecting something healthy from the menu such as tuna fish salad, etc.
My hubby and I just had a discussion about me whining when we go out to eat as I will sit and pout over the stupid pizza and wonder how many miles I will have to run to burn it all off.

Charlotte~~
 
RE: You can do it!

Oh wow! I guess I'm not the only one who does that. I scour the menu and try to figure out just how much I'll have to work out to burn off the millions of calories everything seems to have in it. I also have some dietary restrictions (I'm a vegetarian and I can't process meat protein) so most restaurants have a very limited selection of items I can order anyway.
 
RE: You can do it!

Thanks for all the ideas and motivating suggestions. I know that I'm going to have to be disciplined and say no to certain things, but I also know that the eating arrangement is going to have to be a give-and-take between hubby and me (at least until I am out of school and can devote more time to meal planning again).

I've been mulling this over in my mind at the office today, and since I've got a short break between classes (my next class starts in three weeks, and I'm basically done with my current class), I think I will take some time this weekend to put together a couple of menus. Each menu will be for a full week of meals. I'll just rotate the menus for a while. That will make it easy on everyone: We won't have to figure out what to buy at the grocery store like we normally do, because if the menus stay the same from week to week, the list will pretty much take care of creating itself. Meal prep will be easier because we'll know enough in advance what we're doing every day and can plan accordingly...and I'm going to try to start preparing a couple of big meals on weekends, like chili, corn chowder (lowfat), homemade burrito meat (lean meat), and the like, and then freeze portions so I can just take them out throughout the week and have a quick and simple (yet nutritious) meal. This will also allow hubby to see what my meal plans are and make other arrangements on those nights he doesn't want to eat what I'm planning to.

I'm also going to pull out my old George Foreman grill and my crock pot, and dig out some nutritious slow cooker recipes. That might be the answer to some of my time constraints.

Lastly, I think I'll create a calendar-like Chart of each day's meals and post it on my refrigerator for easy reference. That way, if I need to prepare something the night before, I'll see it marked on the chart and won't forget about it.

Thanks everybody! This was just what I needed to get my head screwed on straight! :7
 
RE: You can do it!

Caren,
My DH and I are the same way, except that we make sure to sit down together while we are eating dinner. But we rarely eat the same food. We just do our own thing. He cooks his franks and beans casserole or nukes a frozen dinner, while I make a salad with tuna or salmon. I know if he had someone to cook for him he would eat better, but I'm not volunteering for the job.
 
RE: You can do it!

Caren, my husband works late 2-3 night per week and I love it. I don't have to cater to him the way I usually must when he's home. My kids will eat bean burritos or I can order the pizza Mr. Lactose Intolerance can't eat with us. We sit down as a family as often as possible but it's nice to be off the hook too. I used to love to cook but the whole clean eater/vegetarian/carnivore junk lover thing has taken it's toll and I am glad to feed him tuna and deli meats a few nights a week. In spite of the fact that I read that a 6 ounce can of tuna has too much mercury for anyone under 200 pounds and lunch meat may pickle him. If that makes me a bad wife, oh, well.....:) Although, I did just buy him Tongol tuna which are small so less mercury and I can sneak veganaise in sometimes although he loves his Miracle Whip.
Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"

Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it, and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.

-Ann Landers
 
My story is also similar.When I started dating DH I gained 15 lbs! He also got out some pictures one night of a roommate he use to have.It was also a guy I know now.Man..what a set of cheeks! Whoever DH comes in contact with gains weights.
I took matters into my own hands and I started working out again and eating healthy.I dropt the weight I had gained.
He is not quite as bad as your DH b/c he will eat what I make.He likes healthy food but he is usually on the run and he will pick up take out.My problem is he likes to munch in the night time and thats when I find it hard to resist.But I try:)
I didn't mind making seperate meals for us in the beginning.When I use to be really strict.I am not so harsh on myself anymore.
Why don't you eat salads with your meals? And drink a tall glass of water before you sit down? Or a peice of fruit? Maybe you should eat healthy throughout the day,let those be your bigger meals and then eat light for dinner.You can eat what he is eating but not just as much.
Hopefully you will find something that works cause it can be fustrating.
Lori:)
 
You know, I was just reading what I wrote and I must admit that somewhere, buried deep down inside, is a nurturing wife who would love to cook healthful, low-fat meals full of brightly colored vegetables every night and watch my DH's waistline melt away while he enjoys home-cooked meals. And there is a small part of me that feels a little sorry and sad when I see him shopping in the grocery store for hot dogs and frozen dinners, because those are the only things he knows how to make. I know that if I gave him a choice between homecooked meals and bringing home my paycheck, he would choose the paycheck without blinking. But there's a secret little mommy inside of me that would really enjoy taking good care of him if I could. He's so absolutely clueless when it comes to taking care of himself. How I wish I could do it all:(
 
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