My husband eats what I cook, which naturally is high fat meats, lots of veggies with plenty of butter, etc. He also eats plenty of sugar and carby foods. I don't usually fix him potatoes, pastas breads or etc., but after a healthy low carb dinner he'll polish off half a gallon of icecream sometimes or 3 peanut butter & apple butter sandwiches before bed.

He's an alcoholic with the attendant carb/sugar cravings, I think. His alcoholism is pretty much under control, but the sugar cravings, he gives full rein to.

My question is, am I hastening him to his grave by cooking the foods that I do? I've always heard that high carb, high fat is a ticket to an early grave. Is that still true?

that's my understanding too - high fat is not so dangerous for you when you don't include the high starchy carbs. he's not willing to forgo the carby treats huh?

Is that low fat ice cream he's eating, non fat peanut butter? Seriously, I'd think fat could actually be helping. It'll slow down the absorption of those sugars at least a little.

The issue is, IMHO, the carbs are going to cause inflammation in the arteries to the heart and the body is going to use cholesterol and calcium to patch it up. If you don't feed him the cholesterol (or fat) the body just makes it anyway. Giving him extra carbs with less fat isn't going to change anything.

Someone posted today "Even a moderate carb diet helps your heart". http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=385252

Lowcarb4mee,
My dh has a similar diet. He loves to cook and was happy when I started eating LC because it gave him reign to cook allkinds of "decadent" foods, i.e., using butter, full fat meats, etc. Problem is, he never reduced his own carb intake and every year he has gotten a little fatter. I seriously worry about his health.

Believe me, I have told him all about the dangers of those carbs but he either brushes it off or says he will start a diet "soon" (which never seems to actually arrive). After a lot of agonizing I have come to the conclusion that all I can do is lead by example and pray for him. He is responsible for his own health decisions. If he wants to eat my LC food with me that's a good choice and I'd be a hypocrite to tel him not to; if he wants to eat chips and ice cream after dinner, I can't stop him and nagging only makes it worse. Let go and let God, as the saying goes.

Girlbug, that's exactly our situation here. He tried Atkins last winter for about 8 weeks. He actually lost like 30 lbs (made me sick!!!! why do men drop weight like that!?) and then went right off and is back eating a full carb diet.

He's gained it all back and maybe a bit more, of course. His idea of "watching his weight" is to live on apples and yogurt (nonfat, sugar sweetened) and oatmeal for months at a time.

I'll also add here that he has high blood pressure (diagnosed this year) and began taking meds for that and his "high" cholesterol <<snort>>. I didn't see his lipid numbers, but he never questioned taking it at all. Even listening to me, he doesn't question anything his doctor says.

This is a deep frustration for me. If I was a good example of low carb success, I believe my family would pay more attention to why I eat the way I do. As it is, they look at me and say "yeah, so???"

Nancy, no, it's full fat everything. He's not into low fat or nonfat. If it's got sugar, he'll scarf it. He'll even make a special trip to the store for a couple glazed donuts.

Crease....sadly no, he will only consider it when his pants get too tight to fit comfortably then he'll crash off about 10-25 lbs and repeat it all again over and over.

Nancy, I agree with your post mainly because of what I experienced. Before low carbing, I had bloodwork done and my numbers were good. I was surprised, mainly because of my insane fat consumption. Now, I think that it was my high fat consumption that kept my numbers low. Actually, I think that the higher your carb intake, the higher your fat should be. I think that fat is more important than what even us low carbers think it should be.

Honestly, I think glazed donuts, like plain potato chips and full cream ice cream, have gotten a bad rap to a certain extent. Yes, they are bad, but they are seriously better than low fat Snackwell crapola and low fat fake frozen yogurt full of preservatives and no fat to cut the insulin response and, god forbid, rice cakes and popcorn. Before my husband and I started LCing, we would sometimes buy potato chips and sour cream and eat the chips with about a tablespoon of sour cream each. We were totally fat-deprived and eventually realized it. I still think we were better off eating that than eating bananas. You could try making things for him with the sugar cut in half as a start. We used to make homemade ice cream or other food with about half the sugar the recipe called for - most people would enjoy it anyway and it saves a lot of sugar in the diet.

Ummm, did you say glazed donuts?

Yes, glazed donuts fall into the category of things I'll never eat again but I'm sure glad I got to experience them. I really like food and I feel that way about a lot of real, traditional foods, carby or no.

You know, I never really liked donuts unless they were fresh out of the fryer and without too much sugar crap on top. But those nasty things in donut shops never did anything for me. They always looked FAR better to me than they tasted.

The only meal I cook for him is dinner. And I fix mostly what I want and can eat, and he eats it. He adds on his own carby stuff later in the form of snacks. He doesn't even care that it's bad for him. He eats 1-2 peanut butter & apple butter sandwiches a night using JIF KNOWING it's full of transfats. He doesn't care. He likes it. On weekends, he'll run out to Tim Hortons or the Kroger bakery for a treat. He loves cinnamon sugar covered bagels and Krispy Kremes. He slathers dinner rolls with jam and butter.

Bottom line is, he eats what he craves, and as an alcoholic, his substitute craving is for sugar. I doubt he'll ever change, really. He eats oatmeal with yogurt for breakfast, and an apple a day and thinks he's doing himself a huge health favor.

Notwithstanding his high blood pressure which he's on beta blockers for now, and his waist size at an all time high, and cholesterol which is sky high and he's on Lipitor for, too. Although I think maybe I've convinced him to knock off the statins, slowly.

Heart disease doesn't run in his family and that's what he's banking on.

As for all the stuff I've read, learned and practice for my own health? He's like "meh?" about it. He humors me when I talk about any of it.

One of these days I can only hope that I will once again lose significant amounts of weight and beat my Metabolic Syndrome. Then I think my family will pay attention. As it is now, I feel less like a good example than a warning to them.

Maybe you could quietly talk to his doctor and she could scare him straight. If he's on all those meds - I mean, no doctor will ever say sugar is OK to eat.

Ha! You're joking right? I mean even the ADA is promoting sugar, along with the meds to (fail) to attempt the results of eating it.