r/keto • u/Ok-Reference3515 • 20h ago
Help Spouses.
Anyone else have a spouse or partner who isn’t keto or low carb? I’ve been trying to go keto for a while but keep getting derailed. My husband is naturally thin and healthy and can eat anything he wants to. He also does most of the cooking and likes us to eat together, especially for dinner.
How can I stick to keto and still enjoy meals with him?
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u/rachman77 MOD 20h ago
Im the only one who is keto, my wife will eat low carb stuff that I cook and the kids aren't any kind of low carb.
You can't let someone else's diet derail you otherwise you'll never get going.
You might have to take over some of the cooking or start working on meal planning together. Make one main dish that everyone can eat and then vary the sides so everyone gets what they want, that way you aren't cooking two dinners. The exception is when they want something like pizza then I'll make myself a chicken crust pizza or something similar.
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u/Ok-Reference3515 19h ago
Wow! Thanks for all the quick responses. Going to the grocery store today and restocking. I’ll talk to him about it and start to do more simple cooking on my own. Just googled some easy keto casseroles that I think k I’ll batch cook and portion for myself. Then we can eat together but just different meals.
Thanks again for all the great feedback and ideas.
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u/second_best_fox 10h ago
Some base keto meals that a lot of non-keto people like are chili or taco beef (for tacos or taco bowls), jalapeno popper chicken casserole, chicken divan, beef stroganoff, beef broccoli stir fry, any kind of curry.... Just a few that are popular in my house. You can google keto recipes under those names. Then a salad and rice/potatoes/bread etc for who wants it.
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u/dan-druff- 16h ago
I'm the only one doing keto in the family, but my wife is really supportive and I do my fair share of the cooking and enjoy cooking. I find I can make most things work.
Pasta for example we'll cook a nice sauce with cream then I'll have that with sautéed cabbage while the rest of the family will have it with pasta.
Tacos, they'll have them normal I'll do some cheese taco shells.
Any meat and veg type meals I'll just skip the carbs and bulk it out with a leafy salad or something else keto friendly if needed.
Sometimes I'll just make myself something different but that's not very often.
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u/_pupil_ 20h ago
Decomposed dinners assembled at the table.
Taco salad is the classic, you can have shells and such for classic tacos but also just meat and veg in parallel. Burgers and fries get served as burger patties, a bunch of salad, cheese, some avocado or eggs, and also bread & fries.
Keto + carb works out well too as a structure. Slap a big pile of pasta on the side of a keto dish and everyone wins.
A pile of precooked bacon, some boiled eggs, or whatever else mamma loves sitting in the fridge can also ease the process.
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u/The_Black_Goodbye 19h ago
I cook at home and my partner doesn’t follow keto. They’re pretty happy eating very similar meals though as it’s mostly meat and veg so can’t go wrong.
When the dish would usually have mash or rice or potato I just sub it out for myself. Curry I have on shredded and lightly sautéed cabbage, if they have mash I may just have brocolli or cauliflower mash instead. If they have potato I just sub another veg. They have roti, burrito, tacos etc I just have the filling with some trades etc.
Most nights my partner, 6yo child and I all have different dishes with some overlap here and there. It really isn’t much of a chore to swap out bits here and there to anyone’s tastes / requirements.
Have you spoken with them about it?
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u/bibbidybobbidyboom 19h ago
I really like curry on raw spinach (less work than sauteing)
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u/The_Black_Goodbye 18h ago
I’m hesitant to eat raw spinach due to oxalates but does sound yummy I won’t lie!
I cut a cake slice of cabbage then cut it into thin strips and sauté in the pot I just cooked the curry in with a quick swig of olive oil and takes like 1 min of stirring then off the heat. Not too bad TBH. I like it with a little crunch but nice and glossy still.
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u/R3sp4wN 31/M/ 5'9" | SW: 285 | GW: 175 | CW: 225 19h ago
I have a partner and 3 kids that I cook for daily. I finally bit the bullet and started making my own meals while still making them something. It is so easy cooking for a group to make pasta and rice to stretch the meal out. What I'm doing now is I'll make a meat meat everyone, including myself, then do separate sides like a salad, steamed veggies or broccoli/brussel sprout bake
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u/Sherpa2001 19h ago
I always try to have one thing that's shared. Could be a salad or a protein. And then people can branch off from there. It's not that hard once everyone gets in the swing of things. It's harder, of course, if you have people who are actively trying to sabotage your efforts. Like my mom telling me "Look! I made you a cake!" She's not being deliberately evil, she just doesn't get it.
And life goes on.
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u/LeatherGood6148 171lbs, 5'10", 20 years Low Carb/Keto 20h ago edited 20h ago
Yes, I did for 10 years. You just have to cook your own meals.
I cooked two meals most nights. Hell during that time I was even dating a vegan - for 3 years.
You just have to be responsible for your own food choices, there's no real trick to it, sadly..
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u/CountessGladriel0102 20h ago
It is WAY easier to do it together but if your spouse is u supportive the best you can do is figure out how to take care of your own dietary needs the best you can.
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u/InvestmentExotic2458 19h ago
You start doing most of the cooking if he is not helping you through it
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u/Jaysmack-85 19h ago
I’m married to a vegetarian so most meals are carb heavy. The easiest fix is I preplan my meals and make extra protein for the kids
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u/Able-Movie4766 19h ago
maybe you could eat the same main dish and just switch up the sides, like he has rice or potatoes and you have extra veggies or a salad. keeping some easy stuff like eggs or burger patties on hand could help too for nights when dinner doesn’t really fit keto. that way you can still enjoy dinner together without having to make two totally different meals.
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u/WishIwastravelin 19h ago
My family is not low carb or keto. They also eat meat, which I don’t do. We cook together and they eat the meat and starch, I eat extra vegetables and add my own dairy or eggs. We even go out to eat but are careful to choose restaurants that have something for everyone. It works for us
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u/Fuck-Mountain 19h ago
I'm the cook and I'm keto, but my wife can't eat dairy at all and generally dislikes my low carb meals. I generally base our dinners off what she wants. I just cook things I can't eat separately, so it's all still there for her and I can à la carte my meal
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u/bearclaws2atatime 18h ago
My wife does keto and i do a fairly high carb diet. She knows I have no interest in eating low-carb food and I know she has no interest in eating carbs. It works out great for us
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u/Time-Interview6985 18h ago
I make my bf spaghetti with ground bison etc and I just eat the bison and put my own seasonings and pick my own side so either zucchini noodles or any other veggies or add cottage cheese etc. He eats whatever he wants and I eat whatever I want
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u/shiplesp 17h ago
If your meals are mostly composed of a protein, one or two vegetables, and a starch, you can just skip the starch. It's really not a big deal to expect him to make some accommodation for you. If you had an allergy, he surely would.
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u/lordoftherings1959 20h ago
My spouse does most of the cooking, and he is also a carb addict. However, since he always sticks to the typical American triad- meat, vegetables, and some form of carb- I skip the carbs and use lots of butter or olive oil on my veggies.
Pasta is our most contentious point. While I like to use pasta as a condiment, he likes to use more because he loves leftovers. So, I help myself to most of the meat and vegetables in the pasta, but put just a few pieces of pasta in my bowl. He always complains when I do that, but I don't care. He is the heavy one; I am the thin one.
Having a spouse that's a carb addict is a pain in the ass. And the man is always eating something. His off switch broke at some point. I almost feel nauseated by the way he eats.
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u/Entire_Channel_4592 20h ago
Reminds me of last week when my husband came out of the kitchen with a pile of 8 cookies.
I felt sick while he ate the whole stack. Ugh
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u/lordoftherings1959 17h ago
Thank you for the laugh! I feel the same way about my spouse. Using the pasta example I gave earlier, he not only eats a lot of it, but he also has to add two pieces of buttered toast to the meal. But he is the typical Midwesterner: a meat-and-potatoes guy.
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u/MrsLadyZedd 17h ago
It’s been rough. My husband has major issues with veggies (texture, taste, and smell) and fish too. I do my best to keep my veggie choices on the less stinky side and eat canned fish only. I try to make our foods similar, like both eating the same protein but different sides.
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u/GAMountainMIMI 18h ago
Yes. I just prepare my own food. Hubby is supportive and doesn’t mind at all! I don’t like breads and pasta anyway, so he is used to eating things I have never liked. We still eat together but we pretty much both prepare our meals.
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u/No_Big_bear_here 18h ago
Thin people also benefit from keto. And if he can eat anything he wants, how hard is it to swap ingredients to support you?
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u/meconopsi 18h ago
My wife is always super supportive of me, and knows that keto has really helped ease my symptoms of GERD and also helped me lose excess weight gained since lockdown. Easiest way for us is same protein & low-carb veggies and then they also have whatever carbs they fancy for each dinner. I work from home but not them, and it's easy and quick to make scrambled eggs, have an avocado or a bit of basic salad. We don't batch cook whole meals, but just the proteins at the weekend, like 10 chicken thighs or something, and we make different things with that for the week
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u/69FireChicken 14h ago
I do most of the cooking for my wife and I but we mostly only eat dinner together. She actually likes when I am on keto. I tend to do protein and veggies and will do a carb side for her when she wants. Like I'll make curry or stir fry and I'll make rice or noodles for her and I'll eat it over chopped cabbage, I'll make shrimp scampi and make pasta for her. I'll make burgers and she will have a bun and I won't etc. It usually doesn't take much additional effort and often she skips the carbs anyway. She'll eat carbs for breakfast or lunch.
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u/zoogle15 13h ago
Skip the carbs. Get a meter like keto mojo to make sure you’re actually burning through all your glucose stores and getting into ketosis
Basically eat max protein and vegetables that are nearly zero carb
Milk is sugar too
Adding a little butter or early harvest single source olive oil is better than sugars or starches
If you’re truly keto you must add a substantial amount of sodium to your diet to prevent dehydration and sickness. You will have terrible cravings without enough sodium
Insulin is the signal for your kidneys to retain sodium and they dump mineral like crazy both with stress or low carb. I take a fasting salt blend daily plus two more tablespoons of sea salt
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u/mgstoybox 11h ago
My wife and I take turns being bad influences on one another, but thankfully we are generally aligned on how we want to try to eat.
15 years ago, I lost 65 pounds, and I’ve been able to keep it off. Back then, it was just me eating that way. My wife was like your husband. She could eat whatever she wanted and never gain any weight. She never tried to undermine what I was doing, but it generally meant that I prepared my own meals and she prepared hers. We would help one another, but since I was the one who was most invested in what I was eating, it fell on me to make it happen for myself.
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u/Zestyclose-Young-314 10h ago
Yes. My husband eats half a pie and lots of candy Every. Single. Day. I do the actual cooking though so that makes it doable for me; I make keto dinners and then he can carb load his pie afterwards lol
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u/Worldly_Pea326 8h ago
Can he adapt his cooking to include a keto variation? For example, if he is making a pizza, maybe he can make one pizza using cauliflower as a base? Or if he is he making a curry, he could use sweeteners instead of real sugar.
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u/RazzySpaz162 7h ago
My husband isn't doing Keto but will usually eat whatever I make. If he doesn't want what I make he finds something else for himself.
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u/360walkaway Type your AWESOME flair here 7h ago
My wife isn't keto at all, so I ask her to go onto social media and look up keto recipe groups and pick some out that we can make together.
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u/writinglegit2 20h ago
Say, out loud, "I'm on keto. I will be eating keto now".
Some nights, go into the kitchen and make different food.
If he makes food with rice, dont eat the rice.
If he makes pizza, eat something else.
If something is served with bread and also veggies, eat more of the veggies.
Dont eat the bread.
If he "likes you to eat together" perhaps he will "like to make food you can eat".
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u/Entire_Channel_4592 20h ago
Im the only one keto because of type 2 diabetes. My husband is literally a junk food junky. Hes not overweight so he thinks its fine. My house is full to the brim with cookies. Candy. Ice cream. Pie. Potato chips. All of it. And if he doesn't have any snacks ive caught him eating frosting directly out of the tub.
Its tough. Its really hard since I buy the groceries and end up leaving the store with 3 things I can actually eat.
I try to just keep his junk hidden and I just flat out refuse to eat if he tells me "oh come on. A little carbs won't hurt you....just this once.)
Cook the things you can eat and if he wants carbs he can make them himself.
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u/stellacchine 18h ago
It's the easiest thing in the world and no one can ever honestly use this situation as a reason to struggle or quit. Last night I made my husband pot roast and sweet potatoes. I just ate pot roast. The day before that, I made him a chicken quesadilla. I just ate chicken. So on and so forth. It's not this big thing that requires separate meals most of the time. If he is craving pizza or Chinese takeout or whatever - he goes and picks it up for himself. I make myself eggs. Or some ground beef and veggies.
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u/Good-Plantain-1192 15h ago
Some pizza places make bowls out of their toppings that you can order. (Toppings are my favorite part of the pizza anyway.)
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u/stellacchine 14h ago
Yeah I eat super clean keto though, no cheese or traditional pizza toppings like pepperoni. So basically I'd just get a little serving of vegetables? Absolutely no point. I just eat whole clean foods I prep at home. My husband can go poison himself anyway he chooses.
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u/Worldly_Pea326 8h ago
What’s easy for someone may not be easy for others. People can struggle for different reasons.
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u/pinkellaphant 20h ago
The easiest dinners for these types of scenarios is meat + veggie + carb where you just eat the meat + veggie. Tell him he needs to be supportive because your health is important to you, so he can make chicken + broccoli + potatoes (or whatever assortment you guys want).