Problems with meals

skinnytaste.com or hungry girl!

Cooking Light magazine.

Take the recipes you love and google some healthy alternatives for your favorites! You don't have to go the all-or-nothing approach, you can slowly cut your calories and still enjoy food!

Some of my favorite substitutions:
+Ground beef – Lean ground turkey
+Hamburgers – Ground turkey burger
+Butter – I love butter but instead use it VERY sparingly to lightly coat pan – but you can use applesauce instead in some baking recipes
+Pasta – Whole wheat noodles with red sauce and tons of veggies
+Salad dressing – I don’t use dressing hardly at all anymore, instead I totally load up my salad with a variety of veggies and meat on top to give it enough flavor
+Mashed potatoes – I haven’t tried this yet, but I can’t wait to – mashed cauliflower!
+Tacos – Use whole wheat/low carb tortilla shells that are low calorie, lowfat sour cream, whole beans, ground turkey, and veggies – delicious!
+Soup – Make your own so it’s lower sodium, avoid butter and fattening meats, load with veggies

I still eat the foods I love but smaller portions and using healthy lower-calorie alternatives. I agree, chicken breasts get REALLY boring REALLY fast!

Fish, Lean Steaks, Lean Pork cuts, Turkey....
You can find recipes, or make your own. They are VERY easy to do up with basic seasonings. You just have to DO IT.

Since your husband is a chef ask him to deconstruct the meals he normally cooks and leave out the things that are not healthy. Butter, cream and anything else that adds to the calories and find substitutions. Smaller portions too.

I LOVE Cooking Light - they have all sorts of recipes on their website. I get the magazine too. The biggest thing is the use of spices and vegetables, rather than cream and butter, to season.

I meant to ask.. if your husband is a chef, Im willing to bet you are having alot more than just grilled chicken -..

what proteins has your husband prepared at home that you can eat?

I saw a 300 under 300 cookbook, 300 recipes under 300cals. I'm addicted to Subway right now.

I really enjoy cooked spinach with a little bit of feta, steak and feta salads or wraps, I love lean cuisine frozen meals. Green smoothies are awesome. I noticed once I cut down my sugars, my taste in food changed a bit. I now enjoy eating an egg on toast... plain, I crave chicken with spinach, I get full off less.

You can find a diet version of almost any dish on the internet, just google you favorite dishes and add "low cal"

Also if I really want something thats not super healthy, I have it, but I make a smaller portion so it fits into my day, or I go out and work my *kitten* off so I can "afford" it with my exercise calories

My husband and I went through a government program. He to be a chef, I a baker and pastry chef. Talk about tempting. I'm a mousse addict. I quickly lost any confidence in my skills thanks to a boss who berated me constantly and publicly and am happy now to cook at home, but never wish to work in an executive kitchen again. A huge problem is I now doubt my skills and many I have he doesn't simply because he only has schooling and a few months on the job, I have lots of on the job, home and school.

Please mother sauces are a holy grail! Something beyond holy to these people. I think a large part of it is that they didn't cover the things in our basic training that they were supposed to, and we didn't know that until we made it to advanced training. So I worked around the challenges and self taught. My biggest problem is that I am on limited time, and I really don't have the creativity at the end of many of my days to think it through.

They didn't do a lot of special for restrictions I could do that before I went, my husband not so much. It was a great start but he's going to need continued education soon. He can lower them some, but I'm not sure he knows how. And it sucks but I don't have the time to teach him. I am a youth director at my church, which is a full time job, work full time at the daycare, and am starting to take classes for my early childhood development. I have approx. 3 hours of at home time a night. I think I'm going to have to carve out time to alter my recipes since J my husband works evenings. I work 7-8:30/9 depending on the day.

He doesn't do a lot of the cooking at home because of his shift. He goes into work at 2. Which leaves my in laws and me cooking. He makes a lot of chicken, some pork, and we use ground turkey sometimes.

You need to come work with me!!!!!! The executive chef I work for loves the fact I can create dishes on-the-fly for people with allergies/sensitivities - even impressed one of the Certified Chef Instructors on campus too! hehehehehe...

Yeah - hubby needs to learn from you... make the time happen together - make it an important step in this whole 'getting healthier' to commit to a day of cooking - even bulk cooking with your husband.... I work crazy shifts, plus I also working in my university's music program on top of coming home and cooking as well. There is always a day where you have to go grocery shopping - use that day as your day to consider trying new things: together... You have to want to make things happen for yourself.. and if that means grabbing your husband on his day off, GRAB AND DONT LET GO! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHH!

Anyhoooooooo - you can easily search online for lots of healthier alternatives for mother sauces... and if there is an aversion your husband has against modifying the mother sauces... he is just gonna have to either use them in moderation, or put forth the effort to learn on his own or with you by making that time happen.

I think you are allowing yourself to limit to only chicken.... you definitely need to learn to adapt to other proteins.. again, another very simple thing to do.... this is where the both of you can come together and create meals together.

AND - be flexible to try new things... the 'dont knock it before you try it' rule also should apply... My husband will try anything once.. in fact he likes everything that he has tried so far - I even have him curious about the authentic chinese and japanese dishes that I normally order from when we dine out!!!! I eat some pretty funky dishes, and he is able to find what he calls 'normal' from the same menu... Almost scared the chinese waiter when he served me the hottest flounder dish they had, heheheheh!

Lots of nice recipes here: http://www.healthyfoodguide.com.au/recipes