Cooking for two

martinjhickey

Does anyone have any ideas of how to go about cooking for two persons who have different calorie targets each day? If I use my targets to plan prepare and cook a meal, then it is very easy to send my wife over her daily limit. If I use her numbers, I don’t get enough to eat. Hope someone can help us

cwolfman13

My wife simply eats smaller portions than I do. If I make a grain or starch as a side, she may or may not partake in that side depending. Tonight I'm making seared tuna steaks with rice and broccoli. She will likely have hers with just the broccoli side or just as likely she may put her tuna on a bed of greens with some cucumber and other things and have a salad.

When I grill burgers I make my patty with 6 oz raw GB...she has me do 4 oz raw for hers. I usually make a potato salad which she may or may not partake of but if she does she will take a smaller serving...most often she makes herself a side garden salad.

My wife and I have been on this good livin' thing for over 10 years now and basically she learned early on that she simply can't feed herself the same portions as me.

springlering62

My husband and I both use MFP. I do the cooking. I get a lot more calories than he does because I’m far more active.

Breakfasts and lunch, we generally do and log our own thing, according to our needs. For example, I go heavy on protein and calories to cover my morning workouts. That’s not as important to him because he doesn't do as much. So I load up more in the morning than he does, and eat a larger lunch than he does because I’ve already burned more than him.

Dinners are easy. We eat the same nutritious home cooked foods. We often split meals down the middle, or, because I eat very high protein, I’ll simply eat double the meat that he does.

Tonight is grilled mango chicken, coconut rice, and grillled asparagus. I’ll have 8 ounces of chicken to his 4, same amount of rice (unless he needs to cut back for whatever reason), and probably 2/3 of the asparagus, because…….🤷🏻‍♀️…….I love me some asparagus.

I log everything to my diary, and he simply opens his friends list, finds me and my open diary, hits “copy as meal” to transfer dinner to his diary, and adjusts quantities as necessary.

He also does the same for dessert (typically a low cal homemade ice cream).

Because I’ve been logging for several years more than him and am more efficient at it, he’ll copy me if we have anything out of the norm, like the lunch we had at the local French bistro last week.

To help your wife, simply weigh out appropriate amounts for her, but be aware, like me, that sometimes you need to think in terms of more volume and satiation for her, if she doesn’t get as many calories as you get.

You may want a shedload of potatoes but if you’re both doing this, you need to find a kinder alternative that doesn’t have her looking at a sad meager portion on her plate- like maybe mixed roasted vegetables that give her more volume for the same calories, or mixing riced cauliflower into your stir fry rice.

You can also do things to bump up your calories like adding feta, roasted edamame, nuts, etc to your dishes that she may not like.

My husband can’t stand beef jerky, I eat a couple pouches a week. He doesn’t care for yogurt or cottage cheese, and is so-so about popcorn, so I can safely snack on those and enjoy something I love without triggering him.

LisaMoxon155

My husband and I are on MFP ,he has more calorie allowance than me.
Breakfast and lunch wr sort out ourselves and sometimes we are not together
However dinner times I do the cooking, he may have chicken, veg and mash potatoes, ill have chicken and veg, I can do without the poatoes as it takes a bit more of my calories or I'll have chicken and salad.

I can easily eat a plate of salad on its own but my husband will have meat and veg

I also have a smaller plate which is better as the smaller portions fill the smaller plate

springlering62

BTW, if you creat and save a meal intended for use by both of you, do it under the “meals” tab and not recipes.

Recipes just allows you to save a lump sum total calories when saved to your diary. Yes, you an adjust it to .25 servings but it’s still of the total recipe.

Meals does the same thing but records individual ingredients to your daily diary, even if shared. That way your MFP partner can go in an adjust their share by changing the line item, ie increasing their serving of meat, decreasing their serving of rice or potatoes, doubling their green leafy, etc.

You can also “copy” meals so you can easily adjust ingredients without sacrificing the original recipe.

Meals is MUCH more flexible than recipes.

martinjhickey

Thank you everyone for the helpful comments. The solution that we have come up with is for me to eat a bigger breakfast and reduce my calorie target for lunch to match my partners. We generally have lunch as our main meal.
We then eat something light in the evening which makes it much easier to avoid overeating calories