January 6, 2011 - SHE Said, HE Said

SHE said "My jeans are getting tight. I need to start eating lighter".

HE said "I'm not going on a diet. My father ate bacon and eggs every morning of his life, and lived to be 87 years old!"

So.....what do you do, short of cooking two completely different meals? Well, in our house we compromise.

For breakfast, HE wants bacon, fried eggs, white toast with big chunks of solid margarine, and two cups of coffee with that horrid powdered creamer (ingredients: corn syrup solids, partially hydroginated soybean and/or palm oil, sodium cassienate, dipotassium phosphate, mono- and diglycerides, silicon dioxide, soy lecithin and artificial flavor).

For breakfast, SHE wants oatmeal with walnuts, raisins and skim milk, unsweetened ruby red grapefruit juice, and 1/2 mug of coffee with skim milk (ingredients: milk).

The compromise: SHE makes the coffee. HE cooks his own breakfast, SHE cooks hers. SHE gets to do the dishes and clean up his mess.

******

For lunch: SHE wants water packed tuna mixed with light mayonnaise, on dark 12 grain bread, with lots of crisp, fresh garden lettuce, with a small glass of grapefruit juice to drink.

For lunch, HE wants a big bowl of hearty beef barley soup with a whole lot of saltine crackers and nothing to drink.

The compromise: No biggy. SHE microwaves the bowl of soup, and tosses the box of crackers on the table. Then SHE fixes her sandwich and drink, enjoys it immensely. And SHE does the dishes and cleans up the mess.

******

For an afternoon snack, SHE has 1/2 of a banana and a big mug of hot green tea.

For an afternoon snack, HE has a bourbon and coke. At least it's a diet coke.

The compromise: None needed.

******

For dinner, HE has an iceberg lettuce salad, with radishes, green onions, and full-fat ranch dressing. His two pork chops have been floured and fried, then covered in country gravy. His broccoli cauliflower mix is tossed with margarine, then salted and peppered. His butternut squash has a big pat of margarine and a big spoonful of brown sugar. He drinks water.

For dinner, SHE has a freshly picked baby spinach salad, with walnuts and dried cranberries and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar/olive oil dressing. Her one (thin sliced, trimmed of fat and bone) pork chop has bean seasoned and cooked on a Pam sprayed grill. Her broccoli cauliflower mix has nothing on it but a light shake of sea salt and a good amount of freshly cracked pepper. Her butternut squash is moist and sweet, and has just a teaspoon of brown sugar sprinkled atop. She drinks water.

The compromise: The separate salads are no trouble. The pork chops do require using two different pans. Her vegetables are removed to her plate before the margarine goes on the remainder for him. He brings his dishes to the sink, she washes them and cleans the kitchen.

******

For the evening snack, HE has sugar-free jello with Cool Whip (ingredients almost identical to those in the creamer, I'm not typing them again) and three of those delicious gingersnaps SHE made the other day.

For the evening snack, SHE has naked sugar-free jello, the other 1/2 banana and two of the delicious gingersnaps. SHE will not give up her cookies, but will strive to keep their consumption under control.

******


HIS salad on the left, HER salad on the right. The radishes, green onions and spinach were picked fresh from the garden. HIS salad fills a salad bowl. HER salad more than half fills a serving bowl (I'd guess 3-4 cups of spinach leaves).


HIS dinner. Sorry, these are the only dinner plates I have in this Arizona kitchen, and food doesn't photograph very well on them. Notice how much cauliflower and how little broccoli he chooses to eat. He does like white foods!


HER dinner. Served on a paper plate, as there are no other small sized plates in this kitchen....and the food photographs better on white. Notice the rule of thumb; 1/4 of the plate for protein, 1/4 for starch/starchy vegetable and 1/2 the plate filled with vegetables and/or fruit.

*Note to Sue: I have been known to wash off my paper plates and use them again ;-)


The butternut squash is from my 2010 garden. I have just two more, then they'll be all gone. I plan on growing twice as many this year, as they store well and even improve in flavor as they age. It's one vegetable SHE and HE like equally well.



22 comments:

  1. Can I have half She & half He plates? Except at breakfast I just have coffee with lots of sugar and cream :-)

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  2. I could of wrote this post LOL!

    Especially the "she cleans up the mess" part. ;)

    My situation is compounded by the fact that DH is never hungry at the same time I am! *sigh*

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  3. Oh my! That sounds like our meal issues. He needs tons of calories and I need to watch mine *very* carefully! We can look at the same label and there will be two very different viewpoints! However, I give in and eat *his* food more than I should. Good for you for sticking to your own meal plan! :)

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  4. Dan, sure thing! As long as that cream contains (cream), LOL!

    ********
    Nickie, same here! He always wants his big meal in the evening, I'd rather have mine at noon and just have something light for my dinner.

    ********
    Heidi, I'm afraid I just give in too much of the time. I need to get myself in the mood to just eat healthier. I think (hope) I'm there for a few weeks at least. Ten pounds would be real nice.

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  5. over here HE eats what's SHE's having, or HE's off to fend for myself. SHE's not a short-order cook!=)

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  6. Kelli, that made me laugh!

    Mr. Granny has been a great husband and father for 48 years, so I tend to spoil him just a bit. He worked hard to take care of this family, it's time to pay him back. ;-)

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  7. After the look Mike shot me when I put steamed carrots on his plate the other night, I bet this isn't far off, lol.

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  8. Oh dear. It's OUR house!!!
    Only, ---HE eats ice cream, chips, and lots of cake, cookies, and candy on top of all that. And HE loses 4 pounds this first week of HER diet. And SHE has gained 1 pound and is literally STARVING TO DEATH.
    So, SHE is getting pretty damn close to saying to HE## with it, and cracking open a pint.....of Ben and Jerry's.
    HE will be so relieved when SHE finally does, because SHE is very very cranky.
    But, SHE did enjoy YOUR post very much!
    :D

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  9. And HE probably doesn't gain any weight!

    When WE cut back to loose some extra poundage....HE looses 10 lbs and SHE looses 10 oz!!

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  10. Oh, that's priceless! I love the "snack" Hahaha! So what you are saying is that they'll never change, we just have to adapt, right? LOL... men....

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  11. Oh you should see what happens when my daughter comes home. She is autistic and won't eat things that are mixed or have sauce on them. My husband won't eat fruits or vegetables (cooked apples are an exception and salsa). So a stir fry goes like this. I cook the chicken until it is just done (she doesn't like her meat browned and will dissect it at the table removing any brown parts). I take out my daughters share. Then I add the sauce. I take out my husband share. Then I toss in the veggies and the rest is mine. My daughter's veggies will be cooked separately (with absolutely nothing on them) or she will have raw things like tomatoes, carrot stick or peppers.

    However I don't cook breakfast or lunch for anyone. They are on their own. And my husband does the dishes after dinner (well most days - occasionally he leaves them for me the next morning).

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  12. I liked your post granny LOL :)

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  13. That is kind of how it goes in our house too. I wish I could use that software you sent me, it won't work on my MAC and my PC has registry issues so it won't open it. (But I still have it, in the event my PC ever gets fixed.)

    Best of luck with the dieting!!

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  14. In our house, HE will just eat whatever SHE prepares.... ~bangchik and kakdah.

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  15. You are a good wife and obviously and excellent cook...the food looks delicious.


    "There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will." ~Robert Frost

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  16. I'm LOLing at all your comments this morning!

    Sue, you are so me. Erin, no, they never change.

    Kelly, you can download a free 15 day trial at http://www.dietpower.com/ I don't like the newer version as well as my old version, so I've never upgraded.

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  17. This is a great post, made me laugh. Good luck with the diet.

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  18. Oh yes, full fat half & half!

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  19. Oh, I had quite a good time reading about your compromising meal woes. Or, would that be meal compromising woes?? Anyway, glad to see you can keep a sense of humor with it all. Since he's been such a good hubby and dad for so long, I guess it's all good now. Just so long as he still appreciates you. If he doesn't, give him tough love, and zippo for dinner. Yeah, just listen to me, tough aren't I??
    ~~Lori

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  20. LOL, Totally sounds like our house.

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  21. With the exception of Sunday brunch - we fend for ourselves for breakfast and lunch everyday. That makes it easier for us to eat what we prefer for a large majority of the day. Ironically we end up eating much the same things for lunch and breakfast - just different amounts overall. My husband is actually much better than I am at eating fresh fruit for snacks - in fact he eats a lot of fruit in any given day and I have to make a concious effort to do so. At dinner I cook a meal and we both eat it with the portion size adjusted to our desires. I only make dessert or snacks infrequently so they are a real treat and not part of our regular eating regime. My husband supplemnets his regular meals with candy though that he keeps a stash of - he needs his sweets! But again, it is his thing and he buys it. It works and keeps peace in the family.

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  22. This post cracked me up!!! Thanks for the laugh! I feel like this too with a fussy teenage son in the house. Thankfully, hubby and I eat mostly the same.

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