To confront DP about his atrocious eating habits?

[Keletubbie]

My partner is a long term bachelor. He's 45 and I'm the first girlfriend he's lived with since uni. We've been living together for about 9 months and bar the obvious teething troubles, it's fab. I have a 6 yr old DD from a previous relationship.

But I just cannot get past the way he eats. In the past 24 hours, he's devoured 6 Mars bars and an entire pack of caramel wafers, as well as a family pork pie and a large pack of chorizo. This cannot be normal, right? Plus 6 cans of full sugar coke.

He eats whatever I put in front of him for dinner, but generally guzzles large quantities of junk food as well. I'm quite overweight, but eat a reasonably balanced diet. He's perhaps a little over his fighting weight, but tall and lanky.

My concern is primarily for his health... AIBU to mention that this is a ridiculous diet for a grown man? Don't get me started on the carpet of McDonalds packaging in his car...

bakingtins I find myfitnesspal fairly accurate, particularly for processed foods where you can input the stated values from the packet. 6 mars bars + 8 caramel wafers + 6 cans of coke + 100g chorizo + large pork pie =>5000 cal and 450g sugar

Ah. I've never eaten a caramel wafer in my life and assumed there were 6 in a packet because there were 6 Mars Bars. Ditto have never eaten a pork pie or had a full fat Coke so not sure of the calorie count.

Ditto never using MyFitnessPal. Its kind of something latecomers to exercise use and not serious athletes use, no?

If the OP herself is really eating such a healthy diet, she is in real trouble if that makes her overweight. i.e. if she is overweight on the recommended 1500 calories a day for women, she should cut down what she eats drastically. But it doesn't make me think she is eating any more healthily than her partner.

Fat round your organs is called visceral fat. You can be slim but have a high visceral rating and therefore unhealthy. An unhealthy thin person can have all the health issues an overweight person has. Im 4 foot 3, my BMI is 21 and my visceral rating is a healthy 4 but it reflects the fact I excersise and eat healthily.

Secondly you really must read up about how your body reacts when you eat sugar. Because it does react.

Too many people think that if they are the correct weight, it doesn't matter how much junk they eat. Wrong .
Read some peer-reviewed science papers about cancer, heart disease and diet content.

Some posters need to understand the difference between eating too many calories - which makes you overweight - and eating sugary fatty junk, which makes you at risk of serious illness, regardless of weight and %bidy fat.

It sounds like the OP's DH is not overweight. His problem is the quality, not quantity of calories. Substituting larger portions of healthy food for large portions of junk would be unlikely to increase his calorie intake.

There is a point of view which says let someone damage their own health if they want. If that person is the main wage-earner of a family then this responsibility needs to be balanced with personal freedom.

Ok so after a sugar load, your energy levels spike and crash, extra insulin is released, your blood sugar levels drop triggering the release of stress hormones, glycerine then overloads the liver and left over stuff turns to fat.

High sugar consumption is linked to lowered immunity, raised cholesterol, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Its bad for your teeth, holds no nutrition, is linked to fatty liver and the raised insulin sugar gives you is connected to cancer. It's addictive and it makes people obese.

Iownafourinchporsche Secondly you really must read up about how your body reacts when you eat sugar. Because it does react

Who me? You mean glycolysis presumably? The process of converting glucose (a sugar) into ATP and NADh? I would damned well hope it would react!

Yawn

Bed time for me can't keep eyes open

Iownafourinchporsche is there any chance you could stop preaching and actually reading? Do you really think you are the only person in the world who eats a healthy diet and understands human biology?

High sugar consumption is linked to lowered immunity, raised cholesterol, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Its bad for your teeth, holds no nutrition, is linked to fatty liver and the raised insulin sugar gives you is connected to cancer. It's addictive and it makes people obese.

Do you actually think people don't know this?

And why do you assume that the overweight OP doesn't have visceral fat and eat too much sugar (on top of her healthy diet) and slim people have to be constantly hectored about having it? Its really very tedious.

Bed time for me can't keep eyes open

Believe me, you have the same effect on others as you do yourself!

I'm also a muscular gym bunny with low body fat who ate junk for years - I keep my username as a reminder.
I never got overweight, but my health markers started to deteriorate.
So, I cleaned up my diet and I am in great shape now.

BigChocFrenzy I'm also a muscular gym bunny with low body fat who ate junk for years

Also as in with whom? I'm no gym bunny, I'm a runner and I don't eat junk, except at weekends. And when I say "junk" that would be a couple of bars of chocolate, not fried food, MacDonalds, stodgy puddings or pasta with rich calorific sauces.

I'm more interested in using food as an energy source to (a) fuel my training requirements through the week and (b) to provide me with adequate function to use firstly glucose as a fuel source during a long race, then carbohydrates stored converting to glycogen, then fat burning if necessary.

I'm simply attacking the common assumption of the overweight woman that they are somehow more virtuous and healthy than slim people, such as the OP's DP, simply because amongst all their overeating for their energy needs, they consume the correct quantity of vitamins and minerals.

Maybe, just maybe, the OP's DP for some reason eats junk when he visits the OP. Because his schedule is out and he is hungry. Or maybe because he doesn't like her food. Neither of them sound healthy but I'd rather be slim and have visceral fat than be overweight and have visceral fat, if I had to choose...

Just being slim isn't always a sign of good health just as being a bit overweight isn't necessarily a sign of bad health. It is all relative for most people so if he is doing a lot of physical activity he may have capacity for all the junk (less the negative sides of processed food and chemicals etc and salt ) but he may just have a high metabolism just as someone may have a low one and be unable to eat at normal levels let alone these levels without putting weight on.

It isn't just about weight it's the junk food aspect - ok every now and then but at these levels you would think about the impact on your liver, kidneys, bowels etc not always easy to see the impact it has inside.

Chelsy - you can be any size and have visceral fat - thin or large. Im not saying OP has/hasn't got visceral fat but there is a connection between eating the sweet stuff and visceral fat.

Also being a runner you should concentrate on healthy protein to help with hormones/muscles. Also do the old fashioned thing of carb loading a little before running, however use slow burning whole grain carbs rather then quick burning ones.

Has he been tested for diabetes?
A friend of mine ate massive amounts of sugary stuff before she was diagnosed & remained stick thin throughout.

IOwnAPorsche I don't have any problems whatsoever with my energy levels and nutrition, while racing or not. I know exactly what to eat and when, and I've had excellent coaching from properly qualified coaches all my life. If I want bits of cod advice off a random on the internet who would struggle to get round a 5k in 30 minutes, I would ask, right? Carbo loading before training runs? Jesus Christ. That went out years ago and it would be pretty ineffective if you did it every day, as well as making you feel heavy. And I don't think there is any decent runner who doesn't know about eating protein to recover! Mind you, I expect you would try and lecture Paula Radcliffe and Jo Pavey!

What I wonder though is, why are there so many overweight people around? Just going round your local supermarket or garden centre is a pretty demoralising experience. And they move so slowly! Particularly when you are around slim, active people mostly, it can be shocking. Its also shocking to hear some of the assumptions on here, ie that slim people are thin, fat people are healthier than slim people because of their diet, healthy lifestyles are so novel to them that they assume anyone else know nothing, training means hanging round a gym, etc.

Actually, I know the answer. They probably dont move enough, use tge car too much and spend too much time obsessing over what they eat and kidding themselves they're super healthy because they eat certain things. So I do think if the OP is going to harangue her DP over his eating habits, she should also deal with her own problem of why she is overweight on such a supposedly healthy diet. My guess would be that she simply doesn't move around enough and eats too many calories for her needs. ie she overeats, and like a lot of people, overlooks her own size.

OP, you are right to be concerned about the impact on his health and therefore your relationship/future together.

He is setting himself up for all sorts of health problems and surely has the sense to realise that all that crap/sugar is not a sensible thing even if that day was a complete "one off" (which I don't believe it was).

Does he comfort eat? is it boredom? depression? habit stemming from his previous loneliness?
whatever it is, his habits are ingrained and will take a lot of gentle concern and love to help him through into better habits. Being angry/judgemental and trying to dictate would not help at all but being gently worried and talking to him calmly about the fact that you don't want him to die young/become incapable of normal life might work.
does he have family/siblings/friends who can encourage him to be healthier too?

Dunno about all the physiology argy bargy,I just think that it's a bit gross a grown man scoffing all that crap like a teenager.I'll bet the toilet stinks after he's been.

In actually not too unfit myself chelsy as I'm trainjng for another marathon at the moment - there are lots of runners on mumsnet. I don't claim to know everything about food but have completed some nutritional training over the years because I'm interested. If you reread you'll notice i said a LITTLE carb loading. As someone who eats lots of protein/veg, this is something I have to do to manage the distances I run and it works.

If you reread you'll notice i said a LITTLE carb loading. As someone who eats lots of protein/veg, this is something I have to do to manage the distances I run and it works.

Don't want to keep hammering the point, but you are preaching as if you are some expert. When I read what you wrote about carbs, I actually thought you were rather unsure about it. Obviously it depends on many variables, not least how long and how arduous that particular training run would be. For the average runner doing the average training run, ie not a long run of over 10k or so, or an incredibly hard set of intervals followed by a steady run, they should have enough energy from their general nutrition without having to specifically stock up on carbs. Chocolate milk is currently in vogue as a protein replacement afterwards. If you regularly struggle to complete your training runs and are not on a weight loss diet, then it may be that you are not that athletically talented or are simply not fit enough. And unless you are an elite level marathon runner, you won't be capable of more than two longer runs a week, so theres something wrong somewhere if you are having these problems. But please don't assume everyone suffers from the same issues. If you were describing how you had done a sub 12 hour Ironman and got your glucose replacing drink balanced with your carbs by alternating snacking on a Power Bar every half hour and an Isotonic drink, then fair enough.

I know late to running slowish marathon runners tend to be preachy; they are generally unaware of the free or minimal cost and excellent coaching and advice on all aspects of training and nutrition that local athletics clubs provide to athletes who have been doing the sport most of their lives. The world of expensive personal trainers, MyFitnessPal, etc is targeted at a certain demographic, and one which I would guess focusses more on an almost obsession with eating and less on actual performance.

Most top athletes eat pretty well and watch their weight. But its certainly not unusual for a top athlete to have a few squares of chocolate before an event, particularly a more sprint based event. Dairy Milk seems to be the favourite. I think Colin Jackson and Liz McColgan admitted to that one!

He is a diabetic waiting to happen. I have relatives with type 2. I don't think it's taken seriously enough. Because they know it can be medicated they are pretty complacent. The long term effects which would terrify me (blindness, amputations) are barely mentioned.
He, as an adult, is setting an appalling example to your child. But you say you are overweight. To be brutally honest it is bad for your health to be overweight and you should lose weight. Perhaps all you can do is lead by example. He sounds like a total sugar addict.

OP - it sounds to me that although he's aware his eating habits are bad, he seems to think he's getting away with it by being on meds and because he's not massively overweight.

I'd be worried too, it will definitely catch up with him sooner or later. I know he's a adult and can eat what he likes yada yada but it sounds like he's in denial.. I would keep on about this. Perhaps try a different tact. I don't know if it's already been mentioned but say you want to lose a few pounds so would he mind trying a healthier diet with you and see where it goes..

Of that does t work, I think you need to sit him down and just bluntly tell him how worried you are. You'll probably end up having to do that in the long run I reckon.

**an adult

Did you have a chat with him OP?

The increased consumption of added sugar increases the risk of several cancers, heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, dementia. Even those who are of normal weight and active don't get a free pass.
I drastically reduced my previously very high sugar consumption (but kept user name) after examining dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers, e.g.: ColonCancer , BreastCancer , EndometrialCancer