Love Doesn't Always Mean Love Handles

On Tuesdays, Santa Maria always reads the Science section of the New York Times. Today's edition prompted her to write a guest post. Here it is:

Stay at Stove Dad is a pretty fantastic husband and father.  Sometimes he goes overboard (see last weekend's cookfest of chicken soup, coq au vin, shrimp fennel risotto, quinoa salad, etc. etc. etc.), but this is a fairly benign form of excess.

Like Stay at Stove Dad, I love to eat. Unlike Stay at Stove Dad, who is Irish and has a lean and lanky physique thanks to a ultra-high speed metabolism, I'm from German stock and I have Valkyrie proportions.  I am unhappy when I can't fit into my pants, and was even unhappier when I was still wearing my pregnancy sackcloth, a full year after I'd given birth to our second child.

Apparently, this is a common outcome.  According to an article in today's New York Times, "Study Says Women With Mate Get Heavier," over a decade, married women with a baby gain twenty pounds; married women with no kids gain fifteen pounds; and childless women with no partner gain eleven pounds.

These women are suffering because their mates can't or won't cook.  We women still are doing so much more around the house and with the kids, how can we take on shrimp fennel risotto too?

Here's how I reversed this unhappy flabbiness: Weight Watchers (I know it's not for everyone, but I love it! I liked Girl Scouts and Candy Stripers, and WW is another up-by-your-bootstraps diverse group of women). Eating healthily is made easier and more fun by Stay at Stove Dad's cooking. His awesome delicacies are shorn of much of their fat yet still have plenty of protein and flavor.  I especially like his two versions of quinoa salad (extremely yummy and filling), one summer, one winter version; and also his chicken soup (a lemony fantasia and excellent cure for the common cold). The day he baked his first cake, a buttery carmelized pear upside down cake, it is true that he had to barricade the kitchen and call all of our friends and neighbors to "rescue" the cake from me (or was it me from the cake?), but that's another story.

According to the same article, there's an increase in obesity in men who father children as well. This news may not be worthy of a headline, but it's worth noting. It's not just moms whose health is in jeopardy as we pair off and reproduce.  Men, pick up your spatulas and save yourselves and your families!

Comments

[Product Junkie Diva]

Great post- thanks for sharing this info. My current project includes preparing healthier meals as I attempt to shed some pounds.
PJD

[john donohue]

Re: [Stay at Stove Dad] Product Junkie Diva submitted a comment to Love Doesnt Always Mean Love Handles

Product Junkie Diva! So glad you liked the post. Cooking at home is a sure-fire way to slim down. Most of my dishes are low-fat and healthy. I hope youll check back in for recipes. And if you do, let me know how they turn out.

[Joe McCarthy]

As the husband/cook, I've gain about a pound a year over the last 30 years of marriage. Exercised, cooked low-fat and healthy. Ate and drank with gusto. There must be a reason why they call them love handles.