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»  » Sticking to a diet when your significant other eats normally
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Sticking to a diet when your significant other eats normally |
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| P: 7/5/2007 2:53:53 PM | |
goldenstar Ideal Rock Total Posts: 1,032 Last Post: 11/6/2009 Member Since: 9/16/2006 |
I am trying to lose 5 or 6 lbs at a rate of 1 lb a week. I'm doing really well so far-- eating right and working out every day. The problem is that I tend to get derailed when FI and I spend time together. We don't live together, so when I'm at home I can easily control the food I buy and eat. When we're together, he wants to go out to eat or something, and I will try to make good menu choices, but I know that I'm still worse off than I would be if I were eating at home. I guess the obvious solution would be to continue to order things that would support my goals, but I would rather not be around any "bad foods" at all, so I don't take a nibble. My self control is good but not great. I'm easily tempted so its better that I don't have a basket of chips and salsa staring me in the face. Plus, I like preparing my own food when trying to lose weight, because I know exactly whats in it. Granted, FI eats very healthily, even more so than me-- I'm the one with all the food vices. He never eats fried foods and he sticks to lean meats most of the time (among other habits-- no mayo, skin off chicken, etc.). But he has a bodybuilder's physique, so while I can get away with a light soup and salad meal, he needs something more substantial. This leads me to another concern. I'm very afraid that when we finally move in together I'll gain weight because of his food needs. How can I have my light and quick meals when he needs a meat and potatoes type of dinner? I'll eat things like tuna salad and wheat crackers for lunch, but there is no way he could survive on that. Does anyone else have this problem? How do you manage? 
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| Posted: 7/5/2007 2:53:53 PM | |
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There are 10 replies to this message. There are 10 replies on this page. |
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| P: 7/5/2007 3:27:51 PM | |
*~*Danielle*~* Ideal Rock Total Posts: 558 Last Post: 10/21/2009 Member Since: 6/24/2005 |
Hi Goldenstar! Your fi sounds very similar to mine. He's so thin and definitely has good eating habits, but he can eat like nobody else I know! Sometimes the volume is astounding! Unfortunately, I think when you do go out to eat with him, you just will have to excise some control over what you choose and how much you eat. If you are open about your goals with him, maybe he can ask the waitress not to put the chips & salsa out, or remind you how many you've eaten or what your goals are. If the temptation is too much, just tell him and maybe put a limit on how often you go out together. When you are dieting, you don't have to be perfect 100% of the time!!! When we are home (fi & I live together), I always make entirely too much food (I am Italian, I can't help myself). I eat a small portion, he eats a much larger portion and whatever is left over I generally take with me for lunch. If he has good eating habits, he won't mind eating healthy foods - just make him a lot of it! And tuna + crackers is pretty much meat & potatoes if you really think about it! For lunch - we are pretty much on our own. We both work full time, so we're not home during lunch and we just either buy food around work, or bring leftovers or whatever. On the weekends, we generally only do 1 or 2 meals per day based on what we are doing. If you want, check out hte Weekly Workout thread - you'll get some great advice and support there! Good luck!
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| Posted: 7/5/2007 3:27:51 PM | |
| P: 7/5/2007 4:34:37 PM | |
kcoursolle Ideal Rock Total Posts: 10,344 Last Post: 10/14/2009 Member Since: 1/21/2006 |
I have a similar problem. If he wants to go out to eat, try to pick a restaurant with healthy options. I find that the only hard part of eating out is picking out the healthy stuff on the menu, not that there isn't any healthy stuff on the menu. Feel free to make substitutions with the waitress. Usually a restaurant will have salads or fish and vegetable plates. These are very healthy and shouldn't derail your dieting.
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| Posted: 7/5/2007 4:34:37 PM | |
| P: 7/5/2007 5:34:01 PM | |
Mara Ideal Rock Total Posts: 27,926 Last Post: 11/24/2009 Member Since: 10/30/2002 |
it's so funny how easy it seems for so many of our mates with their eating habits!! greg has always been lean and i swear sometimes he can put it away. and he drinks beer or wine almost every night. and he works out 2x a week for 1 hour each time and that's it! and he is lean and muscular. sheesh. but he also doesn't really eat much MOST of the time, and then just packs it in sometimes...and he also doesn't have a sweet tooth so he hardly ever has desserts. i am really the one who makes the meals for us and manages the food within the household. greg will eat almost anything, he is super easygoing about that kind of stuff, he will eat whatever i put in front of him (as long as it's not like 'here's a big cake for our dinner'), so i do the shopping and bringing of the food into the home kind of thing. i know myself and know what my pitfalls are so we typically just don't keep any 'bad stuff' in the house, or if we do it's in small amounts so where if i decide to go crazy then it's not too bad hehee. and he isn't a 'forager' or snacker so he doesn't really require certain things in the house like some guys do (aka my dad is a total chip lover and he can eat a bag a day so he requires always having a few bags of chips or popcorn or similar in the house)...i typically keep 99% healthy stuff in the house and i setup meals at home for us like 3-4x a week. i don't always MAKE what we eat, we live off TJ's pre-packed fresh meals a lot of the time, like their mini pizzas or their salads or rosemary chicken & rice. it's all 'healthyish' kind of stuff and i like that they have nutritional information on their containers of fresh stuff. in terms of how we do things that make him and me happy, like for the pizzas...since i am watching my weight, i get the chicken, artichoke, mushroom one which is 440 cals for the whole pizza. i get greg the cornmeal crust with pepperoni and sausage which is 750 cals for the whole pizza. so that way i can watch what i am eating and stay within my 'range' and he can still get a pizza with meat and cheese but it's healthier than ordering from the local pizza joint. and he gets more cals into his system which he needs, being a boy and all! if i make us something for dinner then typically i take 1/3 of the portion and give him 2/3. some nights though i don't have time or don't feel like cooking so i might say to him that day that it's a soup night and is he okay with that. he 99% of the time is...he likes soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and sometimes i make us mac and cheese (in a more healthy manner!!) and then again he gets 2/3 of the box and i get 1/3. and i make us salads all the time...we eat them like 3x a week at night. i might make him a larger salad than me OR give him more of the bulk of the meal and make myself a bigger salad instead. then we also go out to eat like 2-3x a week. if it's during the week it's usually just something light like we walk over and get salads and sandwiches at one of our fave places. typically i will try to watch what i order and he just does whatever he wants. same with like a burrito, he gets a big burrito and eats the whole thing, i might get 2 tacos and eat them, or get a burrito and eat like 3/4 of it and toss the rest OR peel off like 1/2 the tortilla to save cals. on the weekends when we eat out, it depends on how i feel. sometimes i don't want to watch what i eat and i won't. but other times i feel like i should watch what i eat (depends on how my week went), so i might get a fish or chicken entree instead of anything else, salad instead of soup..no dessert etc. calories eaten out can add up VERY fast because you never know what restaurants are putting into their food, and way more salt than you'd use yourself at home, and they usually don't skimp on oil (even EVOO is not great when they use 3 tablespoons for something that 1 tablespoon would more than enough for) or butters and things like that. you can ask them how they cook XYZ and a lot of time i do. i also order sometimes with 'no oil' aka grilled chicken with no oil for fajitas or similar. when i order say tacos at a mexi restaurant, i ask for only one tortilla instead of the double layer that a lot of places do, i ask for black or pinto beans instead of refried, i eat like 1/3 of the rice instead of all of it. if we are going out to another restaurant, i try to hold back on the bread (Though it is a huge weakness since i LOVE it) and if i have a lot of bread, maybe no dessert. some days i have bread and dessert! same with drinking my calories, aka if i have a few drinks with dinner, no dessert maybe. anyway i would say for the most part that you know the right things to do for yourself...you might just need some 'tricks' up your sleeve to stick with what you know you need to be doing when you don't really want to stick with it (aka while out with bf at a fab restaurant)...and be forgiving of yourself when you slip up...no one is perfect any of the time. remember that losing that 5 lbs is not worth giving up special time or places or memories with your significant other, you have to live life too!! and enjoy yourself. i figure, do what you can 90% of the time, and then the rest of the time you should be fine with a little splurging. the other way to combat a bit of the bulge creep is to add in like 15 minutes of walking into your schedule 3-4x a week. just doing a 15-20 min brisk walk can burn like 50-75ish cals up, so if you do that 3-4x a week or similar, then you easily make up for a bit of slippage or when bf moves in....that maybe extra stuff you might be snacking on. just keep a watch on it and don't be paranoid, but be smart. oh and you may want to think about lurking on our weekly workout thread where we talk about working out but also about food and smart choices aka healthy lifestyle living. we all love our food though so it's a great balance, most of the time, between doing the RIGHT thing and doing the WANT thing. hehee. ________________________________ |
| Posted: 7/5/2007 5:34:01 PM | |
| P: 7/5/2007 6:57:49 PM | |
marcyc Ideal Rock Total Posts: 7,829 Last Post: 11/23/2009 Member Since: 2/27/2007 |
Hi Goldenstar. My husband can pack away a ton of food and loves to snack. We'll come home from dinner and he's in the pantry. He isn't really fat but could loose a few pounds. I on the other hand desperately needed to loose weight and finally started a serious diet last fall. So far I've lost 108 pounds. I try to stick to about 1200 calories a day. I agree when you eat at home it is easy to stick to a diet and have very controlled portions and choices. We eat out several times a week though and it makes it difficult. I plan ahead what I can / will eat and stick to it. I don't even open the menu. Most major chains have nutritional information online so I get their info before we go there so I can pick what I want to eat. Another thing that really works for me if I don't know the calories of something or it's too much to eat, I cut it in half as soon as the plate is set down in front of me. That way even if it's a bad or semi-bad choice I will only eat 1/2 of it. I'll take the other 1/2 home and have it for lunch. I try to stick with meat / baked or mashed potatoes with salads and fruit. If we have chips and salsa I have 5 chips. That way worst case senario I ate 100 calories and I still got to have some chips and salsa so I won't feel deprived of something. My husband always wants dessert too at a restaurant which is a major issue for me. I have a big sweet tooth. I'll eat a few bites then tell him to finish the rest. I keep assorted 100 cal snack packs around the house and in the car. That way if we go somewhere and I'm tempting to eat something because everyone else is eating; I can pull out one of those and I'm satisfied without blowing my diet. I am sure your FI would be considerate and helpful if you let him know what situations you want to avoid and how he can help you. Since he is a body builder it sounds like he focuses on healthy eating as well. My husband has lost about 15 to 20 pounds since I started my diet because he feels bad eating in front of me. When we cook at home I have a diet scale and figure up everything we cook. I weigh everything I eat so I dish up my portion and my husband usually finishes the rest. That makes it easy for me because there are no leftovers and I am not tempted to eat anything else because the food is gone.  Sparkle On My Friends! |
| Posted: 7/5/2007 6:57:49 PM | |
| P: 7/5/2007 7:29:15 PM | |
KimberlyH Ideal Rock Total Posts: 6,553 Last Post: 11/24/2009 Member Since: 6/15/2006 |
Totally understand, John would eat every meal out if he had things his way. When we moved in together we had to learn to compromise so that I could be comfortable in my own skin. We cook at home 5 nights a week, our other 2 nights are splurges. When we cook at home we eat lean meats, lots of fruits, veggies and salads etc. If you enjoy cooking check out Cooking Light magazine or www.cookinglight.com, their recipes are a fantastic happy medium, and if he needs more than one serving to feel full he can have it. He keeps junk food (cookies, candy, etc.) in the house, I pretend it doesn't exist; we agreed if I couldn't handle having it around he'd hide it from me, we've never had to do so. You'll work out a system that fits the two of you and it will be just fine! That you are mindful of the potential problem is a great sign that you guys will get it under control.
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| Posted: 7/5/2007 7:29:15 PM | |
| P: 7/5/2007 11:14:52 PM | |
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phoenixgirl Ideal Rock Total Posts: 2,496 Last Post: 11/23/2009 Member Since: 3/20/2003 |
Well, in a lot of cases husbands are, what, 40 to 50% bigger than their wives? So obviously their caloric needs are greater; that's just a fact of life. So if you feel you should prepare his meals, then you'll need to adjust his, either size-wise, or content-wise. You just have tuna and crackers, but he has that and a salad and soup. Or you make two chicken breasts and only eat half of one. Or he cooks for himself. He did before, right? If you have different needs and diets, then maybe he should fend for himself some of the time.
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| Posted: 7/5/2007 11:14:52 PM | |
| P: 7/5/2007 11:55:29 PM | |
divergrrl Ideal Rock Total Posts: 2,149 Last Post: 11/23/2009 Member Since: 12/9/2002 |
Goldenstar: I am a very vocal proponent of Weight Watchers. I learned how to eat to maintain my goal weight back when I first had to lose weight (I lost 21lbs...I was never "fat" per se, but I was struggling with weight & knew if I kept it up, I'd be facing a real weight challenge) and it helped me get back to my best weight. Well, DH was my FI then & he sounds a LOT like your FI. What I did, was save up for one treat a week, so when we did go out, I let myself have whatever I wanted -- but I watched my portion size (I would also run that day). When we moved in together, I just cooked my normal Weight Watchers recipes. Funny thing is...those cookbooks are so dang good, I serve them to all my guests, and no one is the wiser. My Pork & Pear saute in Lemon Vodka Reduction sauce? Freakin' killer & amazing flavor. I get requests for the recipe all the time. I just make an extra tenderloin for DH (since he eats larger portions than I). Once a week we make a big breakfast...I usually make a Hearty Frittata O'Brien (WW recipe of course!) that is easy on the hips, hearty, satisfying and deeee-licous. Point I'm trying to make is, you don't have to live on soup & salad your whole life to be thin. You can eat "normal" food, you just have to learn a few tips & strategies for keeping your calories in check & really WATCH THOSE PORTION SIZES. That's a big diet killer. Just make more of what you eat for your FI. A protein, a high-fiber complex carb (whole wheat pasta, quinoa, brown rice, wild rice pilaf), a whole bunch of veggies........... And make room for dessert. There are tons of things you can do with light ingredients and fresh fruit. HTH Divergrrl *************************** Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got.... :-P |
| Posted: 7/5/2007 11:55:29 PM | |
| P: 7/6/2007 3:37:49 AM | |
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goldenstar Ideal Rock Total Posts: 1,032 Last Post: 11/6/2009 Member Since: 9/16/2006 |
Thanks for all the responses! Its nice to know I'm not alone. I'm looking forward to getting to the point where I'm maintaining my weight and not losing it. In other words, it'll be much easier for me to break even calorie-wise, than it is to create a deficit. I'm decent about knowing when to save and splurge on calories, but all that goes down the drain during times that I'm stressed and studying for exams. I get so tired that I eat whatever I can scrounge up, and that sometimes means fast food. Plus, I have little time to shower and sleep-- so that means goodbye gym. So I'll gain 3 or 4 lbs then I'll have to lose 3 or 4 lbs. I know it can be better and I'm trying to avoid that cycle. Right now my goal is to get down to my fighting weight and stay there. I know that FI will eat the healthy stuff I cook, as long as it has a lot of protein in his portion. He does not have a sweet tooth at all, so I know he won't be bringing junk food in the house. He also doesn't crave things like french fries or chips. Lucky guy! Its mostly when we go out that I have a problem, but all your tips sound really good. Kimberly-- I have some Cooking Light cookbooks that I bought at Costco and I love them! All of the recipes are good and they're not as complicated as some other cookbooks/recipes I have. Phoenix Girl-- Alas, FI does not cook for himself. If we're not together he's eating takeout. Mostly sushi or thai food. He snacks on fruits, yogurt, and protein shakes. Actually, he does grill chicken breasts or fish on this funny thing that I call the "Man Grill". That's pretty much the extent of his culinary skills. For now, I think I'll try to cook more meals at home instead of going out. That will also be a good way to save money to pay for the wedding! 
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| Posted: 7/6/2007 3:37:49 AM | |
| P: 7/6/2007 12:37:22 PM | |
charles de gall Rough Rock Total Posts: 12 Last Post: 8/27/2007 Member Since: 7/3/2007 |
My weight loss program (cut the junk, no added fats, eat less) was highly successful regardless of what anyone else in the household ate because I was determined and not tempted. I no longer even crave baked goods, fried foods, but will have pizza once in a while.
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| Posted: 7/6/2007 12:37:22 PM | |
| P: 7/6/2007 4:16:03 PM | |
Independent Gal Ideal Rock Total Posts: 5,471 Last Post: 1/3/2009 Member Since: 11/12/2006 |
Oh do I EVER hear you on this! I'm small and FI is very, very tall. Given our relative sizes, he needs literally twice as many calories to maintain his weight as I do to maintain mine. I've been fighting 5 lbs (on & off...on & off) since we started dating. If he's out of town I'm great, but when he's in town it's hopeless. He loves cream sauces, uses a tonne of butter and olive oil in everything, and he'll do things like cook an entire box of pasta and serve me half. With half a cup of romano grated on top. I have to be COMPLETELY vigilant or I put on weight, and it is really impossible with him, especially if he's cooking. And he just doesn't seem to get it. ARGH! He's offered to do most of teh cooking, since he hates most other chores and I don't really like to cook, but I am really afraid that I'm going to put on a tonne of weight when he moves in. 
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| Posted: 7/6/2007 4:16:03 PM | |
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