To ask DH not to eat all the food?

[CustardDragon]

It's really beginning to grate on my nerves. DH is fairly overweight (think bmi of about 32) and constantly eats massive amounts. It has always annoyed me when we go out for dinner and I have regular amounts, like a main and a dessert, but he orders half the menu which makes it very expensive. What is most annoying though, is that he eats everything I get for myself as well. I don't really like the idea of 'my food' and 'his food', but because I have quite a restricted diet (vegetarian and can't have a lot of lactose either) and he eats everything, I have had to get stuff I can have for work lunches and stuff. But he eats it all.

This week, he ate all his meat stuff. Then he ate all the bread. And all the cheese. He puts two or three condiments in each sandwich (salad cream, mustard and ketchup, all together??).

Money is quite tight and I am getting fed up of having to buy expensive lunches at work because there is nothing left when I get up :(

Chicken there is a very supportive binge-eating disorder thread in the ed topic. I know how you feel.

Thank you cedric. I've not visited that topic before but I might go and lurk there for a while. I've completely lost control of it recently.

Why are you doing all the cooking, does he work, if not why isn't he cooking, if not for you then for himself?

Eating disorder or not, if you cant actually buy any food for yourself or other family members without one person eating ALL of it ALL of the time, then thats a big problem. He also gets angry if you try and talk about it??

Just because someone may have a disorder, it doesnt make it ok. There is help out there for eating disorders, but if he wont talk about it or reacts angrily, then hes acting like a shit

I am married to a man who has a problem with alcohol. He hasn't touched a drop for over 7 years now, but he had to hit rock bottom before he acknowledged that he had a problem and had to deal with it.

Yes, there is help for eating disorders, alcoholism etc, but crucially, you HAVE to accept you have a problem before that help will do you any good.

I think a previous poster made a good point about protein, up-thread. Maybe the OP's husband would do best on a high protein, low carb diet - I have a friend who is on a diet like this, and can have cream, butter, cheese etc - for example, the fry-up would be fine as long as there were no carbs (though I wouldn't put cheese on it). Protein fills you up and satisfies you.

This won't work for everyone - I couldn't cope with that diet - I do better with a bit of cutting down all across the food groups - but equally, pie and salad, whilst a perfect meal for many of us, wouldn't suit others at all.

I do wonder if this man has a genuine addictive disorder - it would explain why he can eat the food that's for the OP's meals, without realising or understanding why that would upset her - it's the blindness of the addict. I know it's different, but when dh was still drinking, and before we realised he had a problem, we bought a really nice bottle of whisky, to share. It sat in its box on the sideboard, and I didn't realise he was drinking drams in secret, until I looked in the box one day, and the whisky was almost gone. It was intended to be a shared treat, yet he had drunk it all, without a thought for me.

The other possibility is that this is a genuinely selfish, thoughtless man - we can't know. But my heart goes out to the OP - it sounds like a horrible situation.

While of course she shouldn't be expected to cater to him like a short order cook, the point I was trying to make is that the OP seems to expect him to make do with what satisfies her (ie, a small pie and a salad; again, that wouldn't satisfy me, let alone a grown man with higher calorific needs), without considering that his nutritional needs are probably very different to hers. She seems to want him to eat how she does and anything else is viewed as "disgusting" or "gluttony".

My father is like this. A complete inability to understand that other people have different physical needs to him. He's happy with half a ready meal and a salad, so he expects everyone else to be too. It's excruciating to live with.

But no, let's all judge him and say he's greedy or has an eating disorder. For god's sake, the man is hungry - let him eat! Perhaps if you do, he won't be sneaking junk food in between meals to try and fill up.

Again, what does he do for a living, OP?

Also, you say "This week he ate all his meat stuff. Then he ate all the bread".

That's meaningless without knowing how much he consumed, or how much you bought that's supposed to do the two of you. One loaf of bread over the course of a week? Nothing. A packet of 10 meat slices over a week? Nothing. If that's what's happening, there's nothing left for your lunch because you're not buying enough food. Ten loaves? Yeah, that may be a problem.

Until she answers this, I still maintain the OP thinks everyone should be satisfied by the same amount of food that satisfies her and likely she's the one with "issues", not him.

yoursfan really? Despite her clearly illustrating his eating habits in general? Massive bowls of cereal with banana and CREAM as well as chocolate powder? Family sized pies and his being fat?

OP, just to point out - if his bmi is 32 he's not "fairly overweight", he's obese.

I agree that DP, who admittedly isn't overweight, would want more than a pie and salad. I would do potatoes as well and lots of vegetables.

Flop but many people can get by on less because in reality, a pie and large salad SHOULD be plenty...the crust provides the bulk.

"There likely isn't enough protein in an individual pie to sustain a grown man either. Men need more calories. If that's what he's getting for dinner, the man is eating crap because he's hungry!"

He has a BMI of 32. To get to that size you need to be consuming more calories than you're burning off. He may be eating crap because he's hungry, but he needs to work out why he's hungry when his body has enough calories (though possibly not enough nutrients).

OP I think you need to talk to him and explain your concerns about his health. He needs to realise that what he's doing is bad for him and seek help. He may or not get to this stage so you need to work out when or if you want to cut your losses. We all (well most of us) have problems. Some of us face up to them and get help, others just continue as if these things aren't really a problem.

My dad is an alcoholic so I recognise the behaviour. He too will also just eat, regardless of the fact that he will then eat everybody else's share of whatever's going and he doesn't need to because he is gaining weight. He just does not seem to understand the selfishness of that and as a family we haven't got to the bottom of it. Selfishness and addiction to seem to go hand in hand, maybe because the addiction gains control of the person.

Anyway, YANBU to want him to change, but he might not be ready to, or able to at all. You then need to decide how long you can carry on dealing with this.

I'm still struggling to understand why an individual-sized pie would be inadequate for an individual! I realise that appetites differ but that's a whole pie, that is. If served with plenty of salad then that's a perfectly acceptable meal.

However, I realise that this isn't really relevant to the OP's husband's eating issues because for sure, from what she tells us, he does have issues. Not least an inability to know when he is full. I'd be getting him seen by a doctor. In the meantime, you really need to separate out your food and keep yours somewhere he can't get at it because he clearly can't leave it alone.

Lol'ing at all those posters who're managing to paint a greedy man with a BMI of 32 as a deprived, half starved victim of a controlling woman :-D

Is it that the food is there? Maybe in his home country there never was actually food left there. Could you just buy for that day only. I know it's time consuming and expensive but sounds like he has no stop button so if it's not there he can't eat it. Does he do this with other things as in not being able to prolong the gratification but needs everything now. Does he drink?

You will have to decide how much of a problem this is for you.

I doubt he will change without a serious shock to his system, such as you leaving or kicking him out, or a heart attack, and even so it's possible he won't.

If all she's feeding him is a tiny individual pie - and these things have almost zero nutritional value; a tiny bit of processed meat, maybe a few bits of processed veg and a tiny thin bit of pastry - there's zero nutrition in that) and a bit of rabbit food, is it any surprise he's bingeing on crap? He's hungry, for god's sake!! He needs to eat properly. I still maintain that the OP expects a grown man to exist on the same rabbit food that she seems to manage to exist on.

Again: She hasn't answered the question. She states "He ate all his meat stuff this week". Well, what does that constitute? How much "meat stuff" was bought at the start of the week? Twenty steaks, or one small packet of wafer thin ham? Ditto the bread. How much did he eat in a week? Or does the OP think one loaf between them should be enough? Without numbers, her assertions that he's greedy and gluttonous have no basis in fact.

Dora, the very fact that she pays SO much attention to what another human being eats paints her as controlling. She is. Ridiculously so. Monitoring how much food her husband eats; for god's sake. She sounds like she's the one with the eating disorder, frankly.

Are you actually encouraging him to eat more, with a bmi of 32?

She is not paying that much attention to what he eats.

He eats HER food! That shows clear unrestraint.

Without numbers, her assertions that he's greedy and gluttonous have no basis in fact.

BMI of 32. Unless he's a weightlifter in training, that's obese. It's pretty much the only number you need.

As for the OP being obsessed with his diet - she's the one buying food and cooking and she's doing this on a budget with someone who is clearly eating more than he needs to. So yes, she will know what he eats.

Really, Lweji? Why then is she saying he's eaten all his meat, and all his bread, and all his cheese, and when we go out he orders this that and the other while I make do with something small... she's obsessed!

She sounds awful. Like the diet police. I'm not surprised he's bingeing. A, he's hungry because he's not eating properly, B, he's probably doing it to put two fingers up to her controlling!

And yes, it does matter how much is being bought, because like I keep saying, if she's implying "He's eaten all the meat! How disgusting, what a pig!" and there's only 1 pack of wafer thin ham to begin with, then she's the one with the problem. It very much matters.

It is bad that he does not care about leaving you with nothing to eat.

Very selfish, unkind and uncaring of him.

Rubbish, Gabilan. Utter rubbish. A) BMIs mean nothing - a man with well developed muscles has a higher BMI and may not necessarily be fat at all, in fact many athletes have ridiculously high BMIs and B) A tiny pie and a salad is NOT a proper meal for a man. If she fed her husband properly in the first place, perhaps he wouldn't need to binge!

Also, she's a vegetarian, so I doubt she has any clue about how much meat is a proper portion. Again, I want to know how much meat she thinks is disgusting for him to eat in a week, because I doubt she has any concept at all of what's normal if she thinks a tiny pie and a bit of salad is a proper meal.