To refuse to cook low carb meals for DH

[AhBiscuits]

I do the cooking. We're both happy with this arrangement, DH does more than his share of other household chores.

From time to time DH will decide he needs to go on a health kick. He's not overweight but still wants to lose a few lbs. He'll ask me to give him smaller portions and ask me to give him no carbs. Often this is fine and I can just give him more meat and vegetables, but once or twice a week I might make a pasta dish and there really isn't a low carb option. I'd have to make him something else. I would do this except that every evening, without fail, he will snack on bread and butter, crackers or sweets. I bought a giant bag of fizzy gummy worms last week and he has eaten all of them over the course of a week. I'm not putting myself out making a special meal, even though cooking is my chore, for him to just eat loads of carbs anyway. He says at least he would be having fewer if he wasn't having them at dinner too. I just think it's a waste of time, eat proper dinners and stop eating loads of shit in the evening.

Supporting your partner in a weight loss routine is crazy town?
I've heard it all now. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wouldn't make this a thing. You can buy zero carb pasta from the supermarket (rinse it really well though before cooking) and just give him that.
I do think that eating a few sweets is better than eating the sweets and having loads of carbs at dinner. It doesn't have to be labour intensive for you.

Going low carb is very hard - we are wired to crave sugar and it's everywhere in our food. He may not be doing perfectly but I think you should try to support where you can.

Why not agree to try it for a couple of weeks-uou do low carb and he doesn't snack on carbs

My DH is a diet controlled T2D and as a family we have to have a low carb version of every meal. It is additional effort but for a good reason in his case. If he were cheating he could cook his own! He does a decent proportion of the cooking anyway.

Tesco sells bags of frozen riced cauliflower, I use it instead of rice. It's not amazing tasting but you could just put it in the microwave and put the pasta topping on top for pasta evenings.

The frozen cauli rice tastes better if you stir fry it with seasoned oil/butter.

I agree with this.

If cooking is “your job” (it is also one of mine) then yeah part of that means catering for different people’s diet needs. It doesn’t require a different meal at all, you can just swap the pasta for a low carb option or alternatively you could swap it for veg spaghetti, or he can have the pasta sauce on something else like a chicken breast for example with some veg on the side.

he will snack on bread and butter, crackers or sweets. I bought a giant bag of fizzy gummy worms last week and he has eaten all of them over the course of a week.

Pointless having low carb meals if he has this for afters.

Tell him to do some sums on total carbs, calories fibre fat sugar etc , he will soon see his health kick is pointless..

It is hard, but it's pointless if he's stuffing his face with the worst carbs ( white bread, crackers and sweets) in the evening. Maybe both of you could try and do the 12-12 or 14 -10 fasting, so you both stop eating after dinner until breakfast. That is better for blood sugar control, and you can do it together.

I do a bag of microwave veg and eat less of the carbs

Look, this is a relationship.

You should be supporting each other!

If you are taking meds to lose weight, and he wants to lose weight without meds, then how about you support each other?

It sounds like he's addicted to sweet stuff - ultra processed foods- (bordering on a binge- eating disorder) .

Have you spoken to him about this and tried to be supportive?
He surely knows that refusing pasta but filling up on other carbs and sweet crap is pointless.

If you both want to lose weight, cut out the pasta and support one another.

The days you do pasta/carb heavy dinners he sorts himself out. This is what my OH does and vice versa if he's cooking. We do not expect the person doing the main meal to cook more than one. He's low carb, I like to stick to low cal.
I certainly wouldn't be cooking him a separate meal so he can eat bread later on 🙄

You can buy zero carb pasta from the supermarket

What's in it? @LadyBird1973

If it's made with vegetables, perhaps but....

If it's ultra processed food then it's going to be just as bad, the same as artificial sweeteners can promote diabetes.

Or as a previous poster suggested, on those nights, he cooks for you all.

Zero carb pasta is make from konjac, a root vegetable.

It doesn't have much in the way if of vitamins or nutrition but it's not bad for you at all.

I prefer zero carb rice, the noodles are slippery.

Get some barenaked noodles and use those for when you have pasta for dinner?

Not all artificial sweeteners 'promote' diabetes.

Can you not redistribute the chores (then there's no claims of unfairness) and tell him to cook maybe 3 or 4 nights of the week and those nights can be low carb, the others are what you choose to make.
If he says no then he can't be that bothered about it.

I suppose it feels unfair to you because he’s asking you to make the extra effort of cooking him low carb meals but isn’t making the effort himself to not eat bread afterwards! Although it’s his diet it seems as though the effort is being placed on you and not him.

I'd just cook extra on the days when it's not a pasta dish and either leave it in the fridge or freeze it, then on pasta night he can reheat something else for himself. He gets his low carb meal, you don't need to do anything extra, everyone's happy.

Wormgate

I'd ger a few low carbon ready meals to freezer that can be tossed in the oven those days.

Or if the pasta dishes are sauce sepaarate then have some veggies for him with sauce on top.

I'm all for supporting him on his journey bur he isn't supporting himself so I wouldn't make too much effort either. Especially since he is totally free to do cooking on those days.

You cannot judge him if youre risking your health taking a drug with no evidence on long term effects. You both need to massively overhaul your eating habits

@Rosesanddaisies1 isnt the difference that the OP isn’t asking her DH to go to any extra effort to accommodate her diet whereas her DH is asking that of her?

we have this a bit so I sympathise. DH is on a diet and would prefer low-carb meals, whereas I lose weight really easily if I reduce carbs and start to look haggard and unwell. I try and strike a balance but it really annoys me when I try hard to do that for evening meals at home and then he tells me he's eaten two chocolate bars during the day. Appreciate that some of it is emotional and something he's battling with a bit but as I do all the cooking, it's a faff trying to meet everyone's needs and frustrating when he doesn't make any progress because he eats unhealthily elsewhere. If we have sweets or chocolates in the house he eats the lot so I've taken to hiding them and having something alone with a cup of tea when no-one is watching!