To not expect meals to be "tweaked"?

[StartingGrid]

I should preface this by saying I'm fat, and don't cook. The arrangement is DP cooks, I do most everything else. He will ask me for suggestions as to what I'd like, and like today if not following a book or tried and tested recipe will google one.

I suggested a fish risotto, he sent me a link, all fine. We then sit down to eat and after I said it was lovely, he said he'd added extra butter and cream cheese. I'm seriously pissed off as he keeps doing this, what is the point in trying to eat well if he just sabotages it. His argument is it tastes better, but how could he know it wouldn't have tasted just as good had he stuck to the agreed recipe?

You should do your own cooking then!

@Hallyup6

Gordon Ramsay will tell you that butter is a chef's secret ingredient.

Unless you've explicitly told your partner you want lower fat meals or are trying to lose weight, how is he to know?

It's especially secret when the man is deliberately putting it in when it isn't in the recipe because he wants the woman to remain fat and apparently undesirable to other men.

OP, I had exactly the same with an ex - I caught him deliberately melting an entire pack of butter into a pan of baked beans I was heating for myself 'to make them nice and glossy' because he wanted me to stay fat - after several weeks of surprise takeaways, ice cream and other things appearing at random times and the taking over in the kitchen with a 'I thought it would taste better' by choosing to fry things rather than follow the recipes. This only happened if I'd said I was trying to eat more healthily or he suspected I'd lost a bit of weight.

Risotto isn't a diet meal. And it should contain parmesan and butter, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Adding a little more butter is hardly going to turn it into a non diet-y meal.

I do think if you want to control your meals/diet then you need to cook for yourself.

Cooks do tweak things, I do myself. If you cook a lot you often cook by instinct rather than slavishly following a recipe. And I think expecting someone else to carefully prepare diet meals for you, because you can't or don't cook is a bit much.

He's not necessarily sabotaging you, and there's no point in being pissed off. He's cooking meals he fancies, the way he likes them. If you don't like it then make your own meals. It's really the only way of tracking what you eat. If you rely on others to feed you then it's tricky to lose weight.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup your ex definitely sounds like a vile man trying to make/keep you fat. But we don't have anywhere near enough information to conclude that the OP's partner is the same.

If he cooks & you do 'most everything else', does that mean you are the one buying the butter, cream cheese etc...?

But the difference here is that he told OP that he had put it in, and as mentioned she hadn’t categorically asked him to make a healthy meal.
Your dickhead ex is hopefully nothing like the OP’s husband, although I do concur that your ex was a tool!

Sorry that was to @NeverDropYourMoonCup

I've lost 3 stone in the 6 months since ending it with my ex.

It's not even that he cooked, just that he'd go to the supermarket for himself (newly became a body builder - the amount of chicken he ate was monumental) and buy treats for me, booze, cakes (stuff for the kids too, but also specifically stuff for me).

Given his cheating, and subsequent behaviour, I know that he was keeping me fat and homely to look after our kids and all his admin while he galavanted off in other countries having fun.

(He's still off having fun and leaving me with the kids, but just having him gone has been a massive load off me, both mentally, and it turns out physically)

Don't like it don't eat it and make yourself something then

What a lovely person to cook what you ask for.
I don't think it matters what you put in risotto it's not going to help you lose weight. I'm losing by cutting out carbohydrates in the evening. It has taken a bit to get used to it but I enjoy dinner much more without carbs. I sleep better too. Fish with veg or salad would have been enough.

Not RTFT.

Tweaking is fab.

In your position I'd be pissed off too. Why isn't he supporting you? He could have dished yours before he put the butter in for example. Easy.

So eat a smaller portion. Problem solved.

I don't think it matters what you put in risotto it's not going to help you lose weight.

But it does matter, though. A risotto portion with an extra 200 calories in it you didn’t know about could change that day from a calorie deficit to a calorie deficit. And if you have a calorie deficit you’ll lose weight even if some of those calories are coming from buttery starchy risotto, in a smaller portion.

Just eat a smaller portion?

In fairness to him, he's not wrong. Adding extra butter will make most meals more declious.

He can come and ‘sabotage’ my meals if he wants

@GoldenOmber

I don't think it matters what you put in risotto it's not going to help you lose weight.

But it does matter, though. A risotto portion with an extra 200 calories in it you didn’t know about could change that day from a calorie deficit to a calorie deficit. And if you have a calorie deficit you’ll lose weight even if some of those calories are coming from buttery starchy risotto, in a smaller portion.

That should be ‘from a calorie deficit to a calorie surplus’, of course! Science has not yet found a way to make extra butter have some kind of minus calories (sadly).

Fine to tweak meals. (yabu on this)
Good to experiment.
You haven't explicitly told him you'd like lower calorie not higher calorie meals.
Since experimenting should be reasonable. Cooking is funner if allowed to be creative.
Need to communicate better.

I think you can only really be pissed off if you've previously had a conversation with him where you've told him you can only eat x amount of calories for a main meal, and he's agreed to try to stick to that, and that he sent you a link where the portion was under that amount then he's squirreled a load of delicious fat making stuff to sabotage you on purpose.

Does he have form for putting you down or setting obstacles for your health and fitness goals?

If he's just added a splash or a knob for cooking purposes then I wouldn't get too cross about it.

Are you annoyed with yourself for missing exercise the last few days? Sometimes when I'm not exercising I'm more frantic about sticking to Fat Pal, when I've earned a few extra cals then a bit of butter or cream wouldn't bother me at all.

Sorry you were annoyed about it. I hope he's not doing this regularly to piss you off.

Whenever I want to lose a few pounds, I make sure I cook my own meals so I can measure everything. A meal can look the same but there could be 300 cal difference if you use different oil etc. Once I've lost the weight I'm happy to eat whatever. Your DP just wants to add flavour.

Does he cook all your meals ? If he only cooks your evening meal you need to make sure your other two meals are perfect diet-wise. And no naughty snacks .

Or start to cook yourself

Or tell him what you want to eat. Grilled things. Low carb . Things that don't need butter. Dahl, Lentils etc.

I would suggest you "help" him cook - cutting veg or whatever -keep your eyes on the ingredients at the same - or make him a cup of tea/coffee & stay & chat & keep eye on what he is adding
A dash of low fat mayonnaise can give a creamy flavour with rather less calories or Greek yogurt
he may have felt the recipe tasted boring

If someone asked me to make a risotto there is no way I would think this was supposed to be a 'diet friendly' mean and extra butter and cheese makes everything taste better, so I think you are being a little unfair. If you want to lose weight cut down on the carbs.

I’m always adding extra cream to daal or garlic butter to steak/chicken in a pan. I’m fairly low on the bmi front and my husband is slim. It’s the bigger picture really- portion size, not eating and drinking loads of sugary crap and exercise. You can stomach a bit of butter and be fine in most cases so long as you’re not eating creme eggs for lunch.

Infuriating! Xx