Many years ago I wanted a personal weight loss chef. I've heard others say it. Someone to cook all your meals, and make them healthy. No thought involved, you can just eat what's served. I've heard some people say if they had that, its would actually be easier for them to lose weight.
Well, I started cooking after my oldest son was born (over 7 years ago) and along with my change in eating over the years, my cooking has followed.
An example menu:
B- Oatmeal, steel cut or old fashion (depending on time), with either fresh fruit, or peanut butter (natural no added sugar), scrambled eggs (I usually do one whole egg to two egg whites, with fresh spinach, red bell peppers, maybe some feta cheese
Lunch - grilled chicken wrap with fresh spinach (or lettuce) fresh veggies depending on what's in the fridge, maybe peppers, tomato, cucumber, maybe some craisins, hummus or a vinaigrette. With maybe carrot sticks and hummus, or an apple, or broccoli and light dip.
Dinner - where the real fun is! There's so many different dinners. Tonight we are having grilled chicken, roasted veggies (broccoli, zucchini, red, yellow and orange bell peppers) and quinoa.
I make almost everything from scratch. Pancakes, waffles are homemade, whole grains, sugar omitted. Sausage is homemade, no store bought loaded with extra stuff. Dinner is always a meat (seafood) with a wide variety of fresh veggies, and whole grains. I can do many things with this combo, not always just 3 items sitting on a plate, but stir "fries" (I cook it healthier) casseroles, many many dishes...thanks to the internet and imagination!!
Very nutritious. We eat very well here.
But I feel like my hubby hates it. Now he is a grown up and can cook his own food if he wants, and does do that for breakfast sometimes and lunch almost always. And he makes very high calorie meals that are void of any fruits or veggies, just makes unhealthy meals, like he puts white sugar in his cereal. (I don't buy white sugar, he does) And he is at least 100 pounds over weight.
But he doesn't cook dinner. He finds it annoying. I doesn't insult my dinners, but he does grumble about it and frequently suggest we order out. I love that I can feed my kids this healthy, and they are fine with it.
I've asked him if he dislikes how we eat and he is just like "its ok". He's not rude about it but the message has been sent that he'd prefer I cook unhealthy because it tastes better. He won't cook for himself for dinner, but I know he's not happy either.
I just feel like so many people would love to have this at home. Of course he is never forced to eat what I make (like for breakfast and lunch he eats other stuff). Its to the point that his disappointment can be cut with a knife when he sees 70% of the dinners. He hates veggies, he hates all whole grains but white rice. He's ok with the meats. But I do make the meat and veggies the biggest servings, and the grains are typically less. Like 40-40-20. Even then, he often takes what I make and covers it in cheese anyway. Or butter. I'm not saying either are bad, but both are loaded with calories.
I guess it would be nice to have a spouse that saw health as a priority and was appreciative of a wife that didn't just dump dinner from a box or take it out of the freezer (like tv dinners) or order out several times a week. Its quite a job keeping a family of 5 (soon to be 6) fed when nearly everything is fresh and homemade. Pouring from the box would be a lot easier. And I feel like not only is all this hard work to feed them well, not appreciated in anyway, but its kind of not liked.