When your significant other does not embrace a low carb
lifestyle, it doesn’t have to mean you need to turn into a short order cook.
Low carb for you and “the old way” for them doesn’t mean you have to be cooking
separate meals.
In four years of living with my non-low carbing spouse, I’ve
learned a lot of things. The main thing was that living with someone who
doesn’t need to lose weight or have eating related health problems meant that
the addiction factor was MINE, not his. By addiction factor, I mean the mindset
that I had to fix and stock high carb foods in my home.
My husband is six feet tall and 180 pounds. He hasn’t needed
to see a doctor in fifteen years. The only health problem he has is if he gets
over 190 pounds, his knees start to bother him. To remedy this, he stays away
from the vending machines at work for a week. Don’t you just hate people like
this? When it came down to it, my husband didn’t care less whether we had high
carb food in the house. It took me a long time to realize that was probably why
he doesn’t have weight or health problems.
If your spouse does have weight or health issues, there is
no better way to help them than to adapt a low carb lifestyle. But for those of
you who are living with someone who does not need to lose weight or does not
want to commit to a low carb lifestyle then there are options for keeping you
both satisfied at dinner time.
My husband eats what I eat. He has never complained about a
nice cut of meat, fresh veggies and a wonderful salad. I keep our meat options
creative and varied making good use of the grill in the summer, cheese and
cream sauces in the winter. Occasionally if I was baking something I would
throw in a baked potato, or frozen steak fries for him. Amazingly one day he
told me “You know, you don’t have to fix a potato for me. I only eat them
because you make them.” There was that addiction factor of mine again, thinking
he needed that occasional potato.
I still make gravies, but use low carb thickeners like
xanthan gum and guar gum instead of flour or starch. You would be surprised how
having gravy, cheese or cream sauce over your meat erases any longing for the
potato you are going without. Gravies taste the same using low carb thickeners
as they did with flour or starch.
Adapting is very easy to do also. Ordering delivery pizza?
How about eating the toppings and adding an order of hot wings and salad for
yourself? Better yet, make a homemade deep-dish meat crust pizza! That has become
the requested pizza at our house. Add a couple of eggs for binding to a browned
mixture of beef and sausage. Pop it in the oven for a [what’s this?] ½ hour at
350 degrees to cook the egg and bind the crust. Meanwhile sauté onions,
peppers, and mushrooms in the same fry pan, minus the grease. Next, add pizza
sauce, sautéed toppings and pepperoni slices to the meat crust, bake 15
minutes. Then toss on a heap of mozzarella and sprinkle with parmesan, bake 5
more minutes to melt the cheese. This is fabulous and also great for leftovers!
It comes out of a cake pan in nice squares just like lasagna.
With the low carb pasta available today, there really isn’t
any pasta dish that can’t be adapted to your low carb life, likewise with
breads. The best part is they taste good and there is no reason to buy
something different for your spouse.
The important thing to remember is your addiction factor. If
you had a trouble controlling bread prior to low carb, you will probably find
you rationalize abusing low carb versions also. The key is to limit what you
buy of those old problem foods in their low carb versions and focus instead on
the wonderful variety of the fresh, rich, whole foods other eating plans never
allowed you to eat.
It’s also very important to communicate your needs to your
spouse. If you are not going to be able to trust yourself if they bring home a
box of Twinkies, tell them! There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking your
spouse to not bring junk in the house. I’ve yet to meet a spouse who wasn’t
willing to help their mate acquire and maintain health.
If your spouse is like mine they have no idea what insulin
resistance is and what high glycemic food choices do to you. They don’t have a
clue that insulin spikes can bring on uncontrollable cravings, lethargy, or
stomach distress.
We do an “out of sight, out of mind” adaptation here. I have
one lower cupboard that I rarely access for him to put his favorite tortilla
chips. I have one bin in the refrigerator for him to put anything he buys that
is high carb and needs to be chilled. I just don’t go there, ever. He knows he
is in charge of cleaning and maintaining those also. I don’t go there.
He knows he is not to eat junk in front of me, or expect me
to smell microwave popcorn popping. Some may think this would be a terrible
practice or that you would be turning your spouse into a closet eater.
Truthfully, the results here have been more than positive. It’s made him think
about what exactly it was he was hiding.
Over the years he too, has unconsciously, because of this I believe,
changed his eating in very healthy ways. Right now, his bin in the refrigerator
has oranges in it! Four years ago, I’d have never believed that would be the
food he would miss.
My husband loves the low carb versions of his old favorites.
He eats more of the low carb ice cream I buy than I do. He loves the CarbRite
Diet Dark Chocolate Bars with Almonds and CarbRite Diet Dark Chocolate Brown
Rice Cakes. If you ask him if he feels deprived, he would respond, “deprived of
what?”
What he will tell you is that the variety of food has been
awesome since I’ve embraced my low carb lifestyle. He no longer gets served
just chicken, he gets Chicken Alfredo, Chicken Parmesan, Cajun Chicken, Chicken
Kabobs, etc. He doesn’t get burgers, he gets Blue Cheese Hamburger Steaks,
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche, Grilled Jalapeno Burgers, Pepperoni Pizza Burgers.
Of course he if you asked him if he was on a diet, he would
say no. If you asked him if he ate low carb he would say, “my wife does”. I
figure what he doesn’t know will only keep him alive longer!
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