Husband’s gym diet driving me crazy

My son 22 is a gym bunny and drives me mad. He eats a large tub of Skyr yogurt daily, 4 eggs, 2 large chicken breasts or 500g chicken mince, veg and tuna, whilst "cutting " when "bulking" he adds sourdough, oats, wholewheat pasta, wholegrain rice and couscous. He will occasionally have something sweet as a treat but one biscuit!I infrequently buy him steak. Shop at Lidl when he is home, at uni he shops at Lidl mostly eats same but chicken mince is his stable. If I were you I would stop buying the treats or keep them in the boot of the car or hidden in the freezer etc. No dietician would recommend so much sugar. My son also ditched the protein shakes which is where the yogurt comes in.
His food comes to about £40-50 . Fortunately he is due to move away and take up a decent job in September but he is very frugal so will continue shopping at Lidl even if he won the Lottery!

May this love never find me. 50/50 on everything and you take care of the feeding everyone because of the sake of £500 😩 The bar is on the floor for so many men and it’s depressing.

Eating a pack of penguins just to meet calories is not how it’s meant to be done 🤣

We have now got three gym goers in the family - DH plus two teen boys. When you add up all the subscriptions, the protein / whey / supplements, the personal trainer for DH and ask the meat / fish / chicken / skyr, it’s a lot of money. I don’t actually have any hobbies, but tbh I don’t think we could afford any!

Penguins and crisps are not gym food, if he wants to eat rubbish give him a loaf of cheap bread and cheap jam for economy.

Gym food is protein (eggs, meat, fish, nuts, chickpeas, tofu, dairy) plus creatine plus nourishing fiber.

He shouldn’t be eating your serving of protein. Its not only gym folk that need protein, often women need to eat more protein, particularly menopausal women facing muscle loss, which in turn effects bone resilience

Penguins, kitkats and crisps in a gym diet? Sure he’s not just a greedy twat.

Because it looks good? Men dedicated to eating well and weightlifting generally look amazing.

Not sure about the biscuit loving DH of the OP though!

His kidneys will be taking an absolute battering by the way, if he is consuming vast quantities of protein and washing it down with loads and loads of, by the sounds of it, of simple carbs.

For the financial and food consumption issues I’d be much, much less kind than you have been so far. How dare he eat all the good stuff himself and be so incredibly unaware he is robbing you and his child of their food? I’d be really blunt and tell him that it doesn’t matter how muscular and ripped he is, there is absolutely nothing less sexually attractive, or less likely to inspire long-term relationship stability, than a man who doesn’t look out for his child or shows such disregard for kid’s mum.

I disagree that his diet is the issue. He could eat the exact same amount but buy his own top up food instead of raiding the fridge and cupboards!

And it shouldn't come out of the family days out budget, it should come from his own spending money.

The issue is that he is a selfish twat.

you sure he isn't sneaking any dodgy steroids in from dubious gym buddies? They give you hunger and poor self control. If not, he is being idiotic because he is stuffing himself full of saturated fat UPF and raising his risk of cardiac and all sorts of other ill health by doing so. If he only values looking good and not his real health, he needs a rethink.

Everyone has been more helpful than I could have been.

but I agree very selfish and he’s eating the wrong things.

but mostly came to say I love your username!

Get him a tin of tiger food.

I felt I had the experience to chip in with this one so hear goes...
My ex husband used to do this with the Atkins...copious amounts of beef, cheese, chicken and mince. Tonnes of it.
It made his breath smell, the wind was awful...and the cost😣
Im vegetarian and because of budget (happily) chose dry lentils to soak and cook, Seasonal veg as cheaper and grew own salady bits where I could.
His steak would cost more than probably two whole days of me feeding myself.
He continued with various fad diets for years...never seemed to lose weight or feel better but that's because he said he had read about red wine being good for you so drank a bottle and a half to two bottles a night😬🙄
I guess if your husband is looking fit and healthy this does help to soften the blow.... but I'd bring the money issues up again to him somehow.
I mean.... if you mentioned to him that it was causing an issue with the budget and taking from you and family...im sure he would look at modifying things to make things fairer?
Seems a bit of a cheek!!

However...my adult son does attend the gym and although im really proud of how dedicated he is...he also has steak, 2-3 kg of chicken a week (honestly) and tins and tins of tuna. If i buy eggs (24 on friday) he simply ramps it up and makes 12 egg omlets. There never appears to be enough and a few weeks ago I was berated for making a cake and the words "whT am I gonna have for breakfast now"
Started to dribble from my son's face before I shrieked back that he is consuming the resources of a small town all to himself!!
I can't for the life of me grasp how your body could even process this amount of protein tbh.
I've just eaten chickpeas and lentil stew with mushrooms and spinach and for my medium level of exercise this does me fine.
I cant imagine loading my body with those calories but then again im a middle aged slightly podgy woman so guess I wouldnt burn more than about 2000 calories a day. If I cut it down to 1800 id prob lost a bit of weight.
My son takes in 4000 to break even.

Sounds like he is doing a dirty bulk. I have to say I really struggle eating enough calories when eating clean whole foods as I am so fill, I do need to top my cals up with biscuits (not a full packet), but I am female, he will need far more calories than me to achieve his goal. Peanut butter on toast is a good call or blending a couple of spoonfuls into protein shakes.

I’d stop buying chocolate biscuits and crisps altogether. More low-cost veg.

He’s competing for resources with his child - eating away your family days out. Why are his muscles so important and why right now?

Sounds like some sort of rebellion against fatherhood and domesticity.

Potatoes, beans and porridge are cheap.

Oh and as others have said… eggs! Absolutely amazing food for gym goers!

I’d be interested to know what his body fat and muscle mass percentages are. For a female I have very low body fat and pretty good muscle mass and I can guarantee I didn’t get there by eating bloody chocolate bars 🤣. He just sounds like a greedy pig who’s using the gym as an excuse to eat loads of shit. If he really wanted to bulk then he’d be eating fish, beans, meat etc.

I also think he needs to eat aldi protein like mince, greek yoghurt, frozen fish, tinned tuna etc

I dont think its right that you should be having to buy all the food but thats a separate issue.

We have been hammered by food costs like everyone and i was shocked when i went through every single transaction from March and April.

Since then we setup an additional online bank just for food - there are many to choose from monzo, starling revolut etc and have trialled a daily standing order into it.

Rather than a monthly or weekly amount for food, the same food budget is split into a daily allowance.

We are shopping pretty much every day but theres been less waste and we have been coming in under budget and cooking fresh most days because it is cheaper. Because we've been shopping most days we've been able to visit the reduced section more and have picked up things to put in the freezer most days, which helps lower another days costs.

In this daily amount is also our once a month takeaway budget, so its in our best interests to have some leftover or else no takeaway treat 😅

Also both of us take turns shopping, whoever has the time and an equal share of things, that includes picking meals and cooking.

Maybe if you did this your husband would have more understanding of the cost of things

Example...Say you want to spend £7200 per year on food, £600 per month - that'd be £19.78 every day into the digital bank. Make it joint account so you both have the app on your phones and you can work together and enable notifications so yous can noth keep tabs on it all. Its needs to be a team effort.

Its helped us rein our spending in so far. Might be worth a try.

Also he could ask chatgpt how best to achieve his calories on a low budget for ideas.

Also this… presumably he’s a generally fit and youthful man. Why does he need to be the hulk?

OP I think a better solution is to change who does the big shop. He now does it, you transfer him what you used to spend (£500?) and making sure all the food is bought and he can meal plan his requirements without taking from you and your dc.

If he argues he can’t timewise, then he can do the shop via a click and collect they you go pick up, but he’s done the planning and the thinking. Including making sure you also get enough protein because he’s not just bought enough for himself!

(and yes to eggs. He needs to be all about the eggs)

He can build muscle without doing that. Hes also going to end up with heart issues eating all that saturated fat.

Stuffing processed crap like club biscuits down his throat is counter intuitive. I’m surrounded by gym obsessed teens, all of whom will only eat protein, certainly not crap like biscuits. Never heard of gym bunnies eating piles of biscuits.

I think I’d sit him down with the receipts and totals to show him very clearly how much he is consuming in just a couple of days. It sounds absolutely ridiculous.

Why does he need to build muscle? Is he an agricultural labourer?

His diet sounds really unhealthy. Too much protein and not enough fresh fruit and veg, nor legumes. Also why is he so body-obsessed? I get wanting to be in shape but I would find anyone who followed an instagrammer for health and fitness advice a total fanny clamp no matter how buff they were.