Cooking for two

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.

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.