Wives of the meat & potato lover! Help!

Oh I am interested in this thread too! My fiancée is so great but he doesn't eat ANY vegetables yet he wants to get healthier! He's very good about working out with me if I ask him too. He goes with me to Body Pump and he'll run with me... But his main problem is nutrition. He is such a picky eater and doesn't eat any vegetables at all. I can't cook the same meals I make for myself so he eats take out or fast food. I try to cook for him but I can't live off of plain grilled chicken, chicken strips, potatoes and Mac and cheese, or cheese burgers with bacon. This is all he eats.. Oh and sandwiches. What do other women do?

I struggle with this all the time. My husband says he wants eat healthier but is really a meat and potato lover. He only has a handful of veggies he will eat by themselves but I've found he will eat almost anything if I can incorporate it in a recipe.
I often lighten up familiar to him recipes.
Lasagna is a favorite. I use turkey Italian sausage and a homemade low sodium marina. Add spinach, zucchini, shredded carrots for sweetness.
Steak quesadillas were another favorite so I cut the amount of steak by 2/3 and add peppers, onions, mushrooms inside. Cut out the sour cream and use Greek yogurt and homemade salsa.
That's generally what I do to lighten most recipes. Use lean meats and cut the amount in half and then bulk up the dish with extra beans and veggies. Same with cheese.

Skinnytaste.com has lots of tasty light recipes.

I agree with Kriss_tastic. When I started exercising and logging all my food, my husband got interested and started asking questions. Then he started exercising and logging his food, too.

Since December 21st, he's lost about 18 pounds (not exactly sure what his starting weight was) and I've lost over 20. We're taking loads of too large clothing to Goodwill these days...

I am focused on my program, and he is doing his. Same for you--focus on you, the only person you can change.

He eats whatever I make. If he doesn't like that, he's on his own.

Oh, my other trick- cook smaller portions of the meat or pasta, so that if he's still hungry he has to fill up on the veg and salad. (I do that to myself, actually....)

Meat and potatoes with a side salad. Hubby is actively picking the Wendy's salad instead of the fries now. I typically have a salad prepared and ready to go in the fridge.

Our Saturday morning breakfast (my favourite meal of the week) used to be pancakes with bacon. Now it's pancakes (sometimes whole wheat, sometimes protein, sometimes crepes), with Greek yogurt/cottage cheese and fruit.

We slowly morphed our eating habits and now he's starting to cut back on portions.

BTW, I ended up with the cooking and dinner dishes in our year-long negotiation of household chores. He ended up with nearly everything else.

We like different sorts of exercise. Hubby noticed I like to do things where I end up filthy dirty. He prefers the clean sleek lines of the gym with a hot soapy shower afterwards. So sometimes we do things together, and if it's muddy, I'm doing it myself.

rabbitjb wrote: »

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day

Teach him how to use the Internet and point him in the direction of healthy recipes and he will do his share of cooking and be an equal partner rather than a pet

Happily married for 16 years ...be equal partners in your lives not kitchen aids

Also, if your partner is the type who uses every pot and pan in the house...if he cooks, he cleans up too

YES, to both of these posts. My husband and I do the same: we each cook for ourselves. I do enjoy cooking, so if he's craving something that he likes the way I cook it better then he buys the ingredients and I'll make it. But, he always cleans up. It's a partnership. I'm not responsible for his nutrition and he's not responsible for mine.

I cook. He eats what I cook and says thank you.
Meat and potatoes are not unhealthy. They have plenty of nutrients.
I would try new ways of cooking meat or vegetables. Try grilling or roasting. Watch portion sizes and sauces. Have a salad with dinner.

Hubby solemnly asked me to stop making curries. Not his thing. He still gets a teaspoon in his favourite stew.

jgnatca wrote: »

Hubby solemnly asked me to stop making curries. Not his thing. He still gets a teaspoon in his favourite stew.

This made me smile. My mom told me this year that my dad told her that he doesn't really like roast beef. "I've been making roast beef once a week for 42 years and now he tells me!" Ha!

I eat really healthy and I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy...I just added more veg to my diet basically and started eating appropriate servings. I eat more chicken and fish too than I used to, but we still eat pork chops and steaks and I love grilling burgers out on my patio when the weather is nice.

Can't force them to do anything!

What you can do is make foods that include the "healthy" items you want. Grilling chicken? Throw some asparagus on the grill too. Baked salmon? Saute broccolini with garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil. Brussles sprouts are fantastic roasted.

Essentially you just have to open their eyes to see whats out there. I did it with my Idaho boy, you can too!

I started on my own, just doing what I needed to do for myself and recently my husband got interested and jumped on board too. We don't exercise together, besides for the occasional walk and hikes once it gets warmer (or rather less muddy and wet). He still gets his meat and potatoes and so do I!

For example one of our staple meals is pork chops and roasted potatoes. So one day I subbed out half the roasted potatoes for sweet potatoes, turns out it was good! Then I subbed out another third for carrots, so now it's only 1/3 of the potatoes of before with more other roasted vegetables. (I tried squash, that did not go well. Experiment and learn!)

My husband likes spicy foods so chili, stir fry with spicy curry sauce, home made pizza, butter chicken, etc. We haven't given up any of the foods we love, just supplemented with other things, realized what true portions were and made small switches. I tend to eat lighter breakfast and lunch so I can eat more at dinner and snacking, plus I normally have salad with mine as well.

I like doing the cooking and he gets to spend time with our daughter (and I get a break from her!), plus he does a lot of the clean up. So it works out well for me! As I serve up dinner I take both our tablets and weigh everything out and input it into both, make a food entry in his based on the recipe in mine. It saves time for both of us that way. He still does all his other logging, or if he goes back for more.

Normally I would have read through all the comments before posting, but I am a bit drunk at the moment and cannot be bothered with all that. So I apologize if this has already been suggested. My husband detests vegetables. He won't eat anything that is considered a vegetable except potatoes. The only way I have found to be able to get him to eat them is to literally puree the hell out of them and inject them into sauces that he pours over his pasta, potatoes or rice. If I don't tell him that vegetables are hidden in his sauces he has absolutely no idea. He is 6'2 and weighs anywhere from 145-150 pounds, this is lucky because I can add things like cheese to cover up the dreaded vegetable taste. I wouldn't normally do this, but I seriously worry about vitamin deficiency with him.