These past two weeks, Dan has been more or less supportive. He is more amenable to vegetarian, salad based type meals than a lot of other dudes out there, I’m aware. And honestly, I think he’s enjoying the side effects of me being on the plan. This morning, he told me he’s lost “definitely five” pounds. But the fact is, when men and women live together (or really any two metabolically different people) they often eat the same things even if they have different energy needs.
Dan has bristled over my not wanting a cookie, not wanting butter on my toast, not wanting a biscuit in addition to my eggs and not wanting mayonnaise with my fries. All things that don’t effect him or his meals, yet he seems to think if I don’t want something he can’t or shouldn’t have it, which in turn makes me feel like the Grinch who stole Christmas.
I’m realizing now that over the years I’ve eaten tons of stuff I didn’t feel like eating because Dan felt like it. That era is over. And mostly, it’s been peaceful. He even had an independent cookie one night this week.
What really caused a mealtime meltdown was this week’s frittata, a dish Dan has been making for me since the earliest days of our relationship.
You see, frittatas call for a boatload of oil–up to a cup in some recipes. Messing around with the Weight Watchers’ recipe builder, I saw clear as day that our frittata could not exceed two tablespoons of oil. Any more, and I’d be over my points.
I calmly suggested we make it in the nonstick skillet, a tool I have found to be indispensable for cooking with less oil. Dan rejected this suggestion since nonstick skillets are not supposed to be passed under the broiler, which is how he finishes his superb Italian omelet.
I could feel the fight brewing, so I said, “Make it however you like. I’ll have zucchini and brown rice tonight and you’ll have frittata for lunch all week.”
This made it worse. Dan said, “Being married means eating together. Eating together means eating the same thing.” It was as if the divorce lawyers would be breaking down the door if I had a stir fry and he had an oily egg dish. I won’t lie: I slunk off to pout my face off.
In the end, Dan agreed to keep the recipe to 1 tablespoon of oil. He cooked the potatoes in 1/2 teaspoon of oil in the nonstick pan and the used another 1/2 teaspoon of oil in the cast iron pan the frittata would be finished in.
I need to tell you that this whole fight could have been avoided; in talking to Dan about how he made it, now it’s clear when I said I need it to be 2 tablespoons of oil or less he heard 2 teaspoons, a clarifying point which maybe makes this blog post meaningless. I guess when you are hungry and trying to stay within your Weight Watchers points when someone else is cooking, tempers flare. Or mine does.
Here are the leftover frittata wedges, in tupperware, since I was too angry to take photos when it was served.
Looks good, huh?
I’m sorry, honey, if I said “teaspoons.”
Next time we make it, I’ll make sure we’re on the same page so I can post the correct recipe and point information for everyone.
Other than the frittata incident, week two on Weight Watchers was terrific. Felt great, ate great, lost weight. Today I wore a pair of pants that have been too tight for months.
I would love to know in the comments if you feel like it’s important to eat the same meal as your spouse and if so what are some of your favorite homemade meals to enjoy together.
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If we’re at home together, then we eat the same meals at the same time together. I’m insistent that we don’t eat in front of the TV, nor do we read a book at the table. We eat at the dining room table and enjoy the meal and each other’s company.
There have been times when there were conflicts on what we eat (I cannot eat the quantities of dairy that my guy does; he has problems with overly acidic foods. We both have different GI issues), but most things we make (we both cook) are easily adaptable to the other’s tastes. Right now, I’m moving towards meals with a higher ratio of vegetables, but with some meat (almost meatless!) and whole grains. Lots of different types of salads at the moment.
for any two people in a relationship, especially when you live together, eating different things is just plain easier said than done. as we all know (and you mentioned) it’s just easier (and more peaceful) to fall into the routine of eating the same thing – it’s comfortable, it’s convenient. when my boyfriend + i both came to the conclusion last fall that we each wanted to lose some weight to feel better, choosing the same plan, more or less, to lose weight did totally make the whole process so much easier… reading this almost makes me realize it was almost like cheating having a buddy to work toward my goal with.
Except for weekends (and sometimes not even then), I almost never eat dinner or any meal with my partner. This is mostly because our eating schedule is so different. There can be a 2-5 hour difference in when we like to eat meals. There is just no way that I can eat dinner at 8pm with him when I eat lunch at 11am. I had to put an end to waiting to eat dinner with him because I ended up eating dinner twice.
Similar to your fritata oil debacle, I prefer to cook with minimal oil while he will glug it on, so it can get a little unfriendly in the kitchen when I tell him how to cook or how I like things. He has learned, though. For instance, he never knew that 20 grams of fat per salad dressing serving was outlandish because, well, it’s something that most guys don’t have to think about. Now there’s no oil in dressings until I get mine first.
So, to summarize, it’s more important to eat when I am hungry and how I like to eat. I really could care less if I eat dinner with my partner because it means compromising my health and happiness (I get really freakin’ cranky if I have to wait to eat). He will eat my leftovers, so I guess that kinda qualifies as eating the same meal!
Oh, it’s a challenge making dinner for two different diets, for sure. My husband has been eating low-carb for months now, and believe me when I say carbs are my FAVORITE. Left to my own devices I would eat nothing but pizza and pasta and cheese on bread. Initially, I thought it would be a huge issue. But for dinner we eat mostly — emphasis on mostly — the same thing, and I do whatever I want for breakfast and lunch while he is eating hard-boiled eggs and protein-packed salads without dressing. And for dinner the compromise is in the amounts — he gets more chicken, I get more quinoa — but I suppose the compromise is also in the fact that there is quinoa instead of rice in the first place.
I have had the same fight with my husband, but it was about oil in his stir fry. Seriously, we even had the same teaspoon/tablespoon conversation. I compromised by eating less of it, rather than altering the recipe and then ate a side of something low point. It was a serious point of contention.
However, now that I’ve been on maintenance for a while, I can relax a bit about every teaspoon (tablespoon) of oil, because I know how to make it up through exercise and planning ahead for higher point meals. We continue to eat together, using these methods.
Good luck!
I grew up in a household where my mother yearned to be an experimental cook and my father yearned to eat the same five dishes his mother had made him. They developed a decent compromise, which worked for them, of some minimal diversity of food. But they did believe in eating the same thing together.
On the other hand, I live alone, and I love it. Sometimes, when I cook something that would have been especially distasteful to my father (like a breakfast of sweet sticky rice with mango – 1/4 uncooked rice, 1 teaspoon coconut fat, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon sesame seeds, 1 mango – 7 points) I call up my mother just to gloat about my food options.
Frittatas require a lot of oil? Ut-oh, I think I’m making them wrong. Oh well.
My husband insists we eat the same thing but some nights when he’s stuck on eating crap I do my own thing. I don’t know what the big deal is with eating something different once in a while. I think it’d be more important if we had a family so that we didn’t have to cook a separate meal for each person and kid. Then I see it getting out of hand. But with the two of us, I think it’s OK when we can’t agree on a meal.
My partner and I lead hectic lives, which means that if we do get to share a meal together it is an event. But that also usually means he cooks (because he’s a better cook than me) and I can count on mucho olive oil and cheese. That’s why God invented 35 weekly extra points, right?
I convinced him to give WW a shot, though, so we shall see how this ritual changes.
My husband and I tend to eat together when we’re both home at the same time (which is probably a little more than half the time). I do the majority of the cooking, so we don’t run into too many WW-type issues in that sense. I’m lucky that he basically eats anything, so he’s not usually complaining about a veggie heavy, meat-light meal, even if it’s not what he wouldn’t have made on his own. And he gets plenty of chances to have junkier meals if he wants t on the nights that I’m not home.
But on the times he does cook, I tend to just have smaller or different portions (i.e. less meat, more veggies) etc., than get into it with him about how much oil he used, etc.. But he’s getting more used to paying attention to the oil and such since I’ll end up asking him how much is in something (after the fact) if I want to track my points.
Our approach tends to be that dinner is pretty healthy, but he’s more than welcome to have seconds or dessert, while I abstain from that as a rule (I’m not a big dessert person in general, so it’s an easy way to avoid points). It took awhile to break the automatically-go-for-seconds-if-he-does habit, but now I barely notice it. I guess the biggest time we run into conflict is the fact that he loves to go out for ice cream. I don’t have a problem going and not ordering anything, but then he feels like he shouldn’t be having it.
This post struck a cord with me because though I wish my boyfriend and I could eat the same meal, we rarely do. He is a very picky eater and only likes a handful of dishes. I wouldn’t be able to stand eating his same meals over and over, so I typically make a big batch of something for him to eat through the week, and then make myself different dishes everyday.
I suppose it could be a point of contention if I let it — I really would prefer not to cook “extra” dishes — but I don’t want to force him to eat something I know he doesn’t like. And I won’t let this cooking thing be a burden to me either. If I don’t feel like cooking, we’ll order out.
Then, we have really busy work schedules, and rarely eat at the same time. If we want to enjoy each other’s company over a meal, we make a point of going to a restaurant.
It’s interesting to see how couples make their meal times work for them. An interesting post.
We have similar issues over cooking. I generally do most of the cooking which I enjoy most of the time but appreciate when my husband decides to cook for us. He tends to over load on oil and cheese, regardless what he makes, but I’ve learned that when I complain or make suggestions on lessening the fat he doesn’t cook at all. It’s tough but I’ve learned to eat smaller portions of whatever he cooks so I still get a break from cooking and he can feel good about cooking things his way.
We make frittatas about once every other week for dinner and hardly use any oil at all. And we put our non-stick pan under the broiler. The Earth continues to spin. The only time we really eat something different at the same meal is sometimes with grilling: I don’t eat steak, so he’ll grill himself a steak and will grill a pork chop or chicken breast for me. For the most part, I’m the same as previous posters in that I’ll just eat a smaller portion of whatever is made than my husband. Whether I make it or he makes it. That’s the kind of portion control that helped me lose 30 pounds a few years ago, which I’ve kept off. My 5-foot self does NOT need the same amount of food as my nearly 6-foot husband!
That frittata looks so good … teaspoon/tablespoon conversion or not, I wish you had posted the recipe this time so I can make it for dinner tonight. I have been wanting it ever since the recipe the post where you showed the frittata with a salad on your detox day. I guess I will improvise …
I do feel that it’s important to eat the same meal as my husband and daughters. The main reason for that is my 9 y.o. has some food issues we’re working on, so per our pediatrician’s recommendation, I insist that everyone have at least a couple of bites of everything I make, regardless of whether or not they like it. This means that, even though my husband isn’t big on fruit, I serve him some too if I make a fruit salad for the girls and me. (And by “fruit salad” I mean mixed fruit in a bowl with no added ingredients.)
I re-started Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago, so I’m being very careful with my food portions. My husband made Philly cheese steak subs last weekend, which could have been a problem for me, but turned out not to be. My husband totally respects my need for smaller portion sizes, so he made me a wee sub and was careful with the ingredients he used. It was delish.
I made a frittata two nights ago and it turned out to be not very many points. I used a recipe from Cooking Light, so it doesn’t involve much oil, or too many egg yolks, or a lot of cheese. I also ate only a small amount.
This is one of my favorite challenges. What can I cook so that he (husband, also a Dan) will not notice that it’s WW -friendly. I try to cook things that we both like, but that can be adjusted to be more WW friendly as they are plated, served. Plus, it makes you feel less deprived. Here are some examples.
Tacos (taco salad for me – each chooses their own toppings)
Homemade pizza (one side with a light dusting of cheese – the other heavy on the cheese)
BLT Panzanella Salad (with extra bacon on the side for him, and whole wheat baguette snuck in)
Summertime Tomato Sandwiches (with light mayo for me, extra bacon for him)
Bison Steaks (Wegmans)
Any kind of salad – greek, nicoise, grilled chicken (arranged on the plate, with smaller portions for me. Each uses salad dressing of choice.)
Wow, this psot really hit home for me. I have vegetarian tendencies , but my spouse is a carnivore meat-and-potato type of guy.
We are constantly in disagreement about food. In the end, I end up cooking 2 dinners. I make him a big chunk of meat on Sundays for him to eat on all week, and I supplement with potato dishes throughout the week. I make myself something vegetarian and occassionally snack on his side dishes. I even eat a bit of his meat on Sundays.
It is SO hard to live with someone who does not eat like you. My spouse lifts weights and works out very hard and needs TONS of carbs. I work in agriculture, so my day is pretty active, but not as calorie-burning as his.
I read something in Fine Cooking a few months ago about Flex-Meals. You basically start making a vegetarian dish, set aside half and add meat to that half. That way, you both get the same delicious dinner–his just has extra meat.
Please keep posting on how you deal with this issue! I would love to hear it