Conflicting Food Pleasures

Glitch615

Around the beginning of August, I decided to change my eating/exercising lifestyle. I'm tired of being fat. I've been fat my entire life and I'm tired of it. I find the food I eat for breakfast and lunches during the week are simple to make and healthier than stopping my McDonald's or Sonic everyday. My biggest challenge so far is my boyfriend (that I live with). He is INCREDIBLY picky when it comes to food and I find it is very difficult to plan my meals around him. He doesn't eat veggies (I still steam some for myself), doesn't like soups of any kind (including chili), and won't eat leftovers. He is a bread man - he will sit down and eat 2 or 3 pieces as a snack and would eat fried chicken at every meal if he could. I find it discouraging when he says, "let's go to [fill in fast food joint here]" on his nights to cook, because my will power isn't that strong.


Any input on this topic would be great. I'm starting to lose my mind!! The only option I see is each cooking our own meals...Any other options?

SideSteel

Around the beginning of August, I decided to change my eating/exercising lifestyle. I'm tired of being fat. I've been fat my entire life and I'm tired of it. I find the food I eat for breakfast and lunches during the week are simple to make and healthier than stopping my McDonald's or Sonic everyday. My biggest challenge so far is my boyfriend (that I live with). He is INCREDIBLY picky when it comes to food and I find it is very difficult to plan my meals around him. He doesn't eat veggies (I still steam some for myself), doesn't like soups of any kind (including chili), and won't eat leftovers. He is a bread man - he will sit down and eat 2 or 3 pieces as a snack and would eat fried chicken at every meal if he could. I find it discouraging when he says, "let's go to [fill in fast food joint here]" on his nights to cook, because my will power isn't that strong.


Any input on this topic would be great. I'm starting to lose my mind!! The only option I see is each cooking our own meals...Any other options?

Have an adult conversation with him about the importance of your weight loss for both health and personal reasons. Make it clear to him that

a) He is not required to eat your "diet food".
and
b) You are having issues with him suggesting fast food.
and
c) You need make healthier choices.

If that means cook separately, then do it. If that means he goes out and gets chicken while you eat vegetables and fish, so be it.

Fozzi43

I cook two different meals, one for me and one for my husband and son, you can't force him if he's not ready to do it. You should carry on doing what you're doing and if he suggests crap food let him have it and you have your thing

auroranflash

Toss him a loaf of bread and enjoy experimenting with healthy delicious meals for yourself. You may be choosing to eat healthier, but you should see it as strict dietary requirements, just like people with food allergies or certain conditions must adhere to for their well-being. That is not to say you shouldn't enjoy your favourite treats at times or have food paranoia, but if this is a serious choice, it must be treated as such.

I must warn you that not everyone will be supportive and you could be met with significant opposition, but if it is truly important to you, you will do whatever you can to make it work. Make this lifestyle change like a child and nurture it/consider it in all your decisions until it becomes second nature. Make other people adjust to your needs for a change.

Mpol2

New boyfriend time. You deserve to be supported, not sabotaged.

wolfchild59

Have an adult conversation with him about the importance of your weight loss for both health and personal reasons. Make it clear to him that

a) He is not required to eat your "diet food".
and
b) You are having issues with him suggesting fast food.
and
c) You need make healthier choices.

If that means cook separately, then do it. If that means he goes out and gets chicken while you eat vegetables and fish, so be it.

This. My husband isn't a picky eater at all, but that doesn't mean that he always wants to have to eat the very healthy food that I'm cooking. When that's the case, he'll either make his own dinner once I'm done or maybe use that night to go out and write for awhile while he grabs some dinner.

He also respects my choice to be healthier and doesn't try to push me to eat things I don't want to or suggest places that I "can't" eat that particular evening. Every now and again he will suggest a place we both love but is out of my caloric range and I just have to laugh, be strong, and say "not tonight" and he just nods, tells me he knows and I eat our healthy dinners.

I can't make him want to be healthier or lose weight the same way I do. No more than I could make him quit smoking. But, in the same way that he decided that he was ready to quit smoking and did, I hope that one day he'll make that decision to be healthier and make those changes in his life.

But your boyfriend needs to support you in whatever way you need right now. If that means he starts cooking his own meals and he stops suggesting food that your willpower isn't strong enough to resist yet, then that's what he should be doing.

And while I'd never say to break up with someone over something like this, if he refuses to do things in order to support you and be there for you, maybe it is worth a deeper conversation and some thinking to find out why he won't. I couldn't imagine spending my life with someone that doesn't support what I'm doing, no matter what that is.

Ruthe8

I find it is very difficult to plan my meals around him.

Then stop. When you cook dinner, you cook what you want. If he doesn't like it, he can make his own or go out. When it's his turn to cook, and he wants fast food, SAY NO and cook your own dinner.

because my will power isn't that strong

To be blunt, you'd better get it strong if you hope to lose any weight. There will always be temptation, and you have to be able to say no. Your will power gets stronger the same way your muscles do: by USING IT.

coddy4

This is typical during the start up of a diet. Think positive and know this, once you start becoming moe healthy and losing weight, he will likely either join you or begin to support you. Stay on your course and understand this is the time where you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then those next to you, its your turn and your life and its your time to be selfish (in the most positive sense of the word)

jeme3

One of the reasons I got as fat as I did is that my husband is an amazing cook. Like seriously gourmet, restaurant quality dinne revery night and often breakfast or lunch, too.

When I told him I was tired of being fat and was going to start eating better and doing MFP, he said he wasn't going to change the way he cooks.

I said fine, I'll make my own meals if necessary.

Well, guess what- he's now taking my new cleaner eating style in to account, cooking lighter, and asking me about what I want to eat or how something would fit in to my food plans.

You can only change yourself.

JenKillough

There are several routes you could take really. One route is to plan food for you and stick to your diet. Let him fend for himself if he doesn't like it. Another option would be to plan 2 menus... one for you, one for him.

I think at this point in the game it's pretty important that you focus on not eating all that fast food. Fast food isn't awful, but for someone who's defaulting to it, it can ruin your effort at a healthier diet. So... cut out most of the fast food (save one meal for the weekend perhaps if you must), and go from there...

ribena1958

Sorry but I have had a weight problem since birth! I am now 55 yrs old, I am married, been married for 30 yrs, have 2 grown kids, my son has lost 10 stone, my daughter 5 stone so far and me 12 stone. My hubby, he moaned at the beginning because we were altering our way of eating. I sat him down and TOLD him, do you want us healthy and live longer? his reply was "of course yes" right.........so this is how we are eating for a life style change. He loves and adores the food I cook now. Hes also lost 2 stone which he needed to loose. If you love your man, you are in control [if you are the cook] to give him the right foods. If he smoked or took drugs would you go and get them for him? no, so this is what I said to my family and although this was very bossy of me [which was hard for me to do as all my life I have put my hubby first as I am his care giver, and my kids and never EVER me] My son who was the one loosing weight FIRST, he told me to become selfish at it, think of MY health. So I did. If you want to loose this weight, you will, I wish you all the best. Only you can change things