AIBU over DHs increasingly unhealthy lifestyle

[Namey32]

I am prepared to be told that IABU but would like some opinions as ultimately I'd like DH to live a long and healthy life with me, the DC and hopefully the DGC in time. However I accept that ultimately it's not up to me to 1. Parent my husband 2. Pester him to be more healthily, also he is not an unhealthy weight/shape and I may also be being swayed by MIL and SILs extremely healthy lifestyle - think clean eating, running etc.

DH has been smoking since we met, although has been 'giving up' at various points. He had some success for 2 weeks over Christmas once. He's tried all sorts of vapes etc but doesn't have much self control. He was asked by the midwife to give up when I was pregnant with DC1 but nothing happened there. I don't have high hopes for this time either (I'm pregnant with DC2).
To be fair to him, he doesn't smoke in the house or around me or DC and will go in the garden or along the road or smokes outside work. I can smell on him though, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

His eating habits are getting worse. He's not a fan of 'healthy' food and left to his own devices would always opt for the junk food. He doesn't eat fruit and only eats veg in/with whatever I serve for dinner. He doesn't eat breakfast but for example will have a packet of biscuits mid morning. If I don't make him a packed lunch for work, he will go to the shop and buy a packet of sausage rolls (and something else - chocolate/sweets/biscuits etc) which is then lunch. He works shifts so often isn't home for tea. Sometimes I do cook properly and leave his in the fridge and he may well eat it, but then other times (at least once a week) will have a takeaway with the people at work.

My other concern is his energy drink intake - I'm very sure there are several being consumed per day. He tells me he only has one, but his car is full of empty cans - definitely more than 7 per day. Ultimately they're just caffeine and sweetener surely? His nod to 'healthy' is the 0 sugar ones.

He also does no exercise. All he does really is whatever walking we do at the weekend - that sometime is a long country walk but can just be pushing the pram to the park and around town.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting him to live on greenery and water. We do enjoy a chippy tea together at the weekend and we'll have a drink and some cake or chocolate or something in front of the TV at the weekend when DC is in bed but for DH it seems beyond a 'treat'.

I do try to keep him on the better choices e.g. at the weekend when we're both around I'll ask him what cereal he wants while I'm doing mine and DCs so all he needs to do is eat it, but AIBU in if I don't want to cook that night and me and DC have beans on toast for example, expecting him to have something other than a pack of doughnuts for tea? (He does not consider something on toast to be adequate dinner for him - but a pack of cookies or similar is fine).
AIBU in wanting DH to be a bit healthier without me having to patent him In the way I do with our toddler? Should I just leave him to it and accept that he's not going to be in a physical condition to travel the world in retirement as we had planned?? (We're early 30s now).

Can't comment on a lot of it, but the smoking was a bone of contention between my OH and I.

I point blank said to him if he wanted to TTC, he was quitting smoking. We compromised on a vape, but there was no way I was going to bring our child into second hand smoke. My OH also used to go outside, but it clings to clothes for hours. No.

Giving him a hard deadline actually spurred him onto do it. He had been smoking for around 18 years and now can happily say he has not smoked, at all, for seven months.

I did try and say he should cut down leading up to the deadline by 1 a month to make things easier, but he never did. What worked for him was cold turkey (and knowing my wrath if he dared to test my resolve!).

Admittedly he does have other vices (cider, chocolate) but I've managed to get him to kick one which could affect the family's health. These others affect his, so he needs to kick himself up the arse on those.

Except that many of these 'healthy' fads are either just as bad for you as 'unhealthy' food, or just as unethical environmentally as junk food. Exclude-everything attention-seeker diets can damage your kidneys and bone density, for example. All that stuff about low-fat/low-sugar foods being 'better; for you turned out to be harmful bullshit, with the fat/sugar substitutes actually being worse for you than what they replaced.
Nobody is supporting faddy eating.
They're proposing a healthy diet.
The fact that even saying healthy diet and healthy choices gets a knee jerk leap to faddy eating and silly diets goes to show how normalised eating crap and being lazy is.
And eating disorders, which can be triggered by excessive bullying/shaming/nagging, are far more dangerous than a few pies
Eating disorders are far far more complicated than that.

FGS, 'don't let him get that far' and sending him links shaming his behaviour, scare tactics, etc are controlling behaviour and even if it comes from a place of concern for his health it is controlling behaviour to do this to someone and manipulative. 'Targeting' one thing and 'settle for targets to get him to stop smoking' is controlling and manipulative.

Controlling behaviour isn't something to condone, even if it comes a good place.

He's a grown up. He's always been like this. You married him and procreated with him knowing this is how he wanted to live his life.

By all means amend your own life, you might find he wants to follow your example, but leave him to it.

Not eating crap doesn’t mean a faddy diet.

Just try to keep things as unprocessed as you can and keep the obvious crap within limits. A kebab and a donut once a week are not going to hurt you.

Hmmm....if he eats like that and is not an unhealthy weight that in itself is a worry. Has he had a diabetes check or thyroid check recently?

It's a really tricky one. You can't tell someone else how to act but you can choose whether to be with them.

Interesting that you mention he isn't actually overweight or 'an unhealthy shape' despite eating junk and doing no exercise, so it would appear his actual calorie intake isn't excessive. This makes me wonder if the healthier meals you're having together or leaving in the fridge for him need to be bigger and more substantial for him.

I personally would focus on one thing and one thing only: the smoking. It is not easy to give up smoking in the first place and it's even harder to give up smoking while also giving up all the other things he enjoys at the same time. The smoking is by far the most harmful thing he's doing and probably the one that's most likely to shorten his life, so I would have a really serious talk with him about that and say that you are genuinely worried that you and the DCs are going to lose him too young. Be as supportive as you can, and while he's trying to give up the fags, don't bother him about the other stuff.

I would suspect that his energy drinks/biscuits/cakes obsession is because he works shifts and has no proper sleep pattern. He is trying to keep himself going and probably gets caffeine withdrawal headaches too if he doesn't drink them - it's a vicious circle. Shift work plays merry hell with eating patterns, energy levels and metabolism - I ate terribly when I did shifts, especially late night ones.

He is actually probably right that beans on toast isn't enough for him at dinner. Yes, it's healthier than doughnuts, obviously. But it's also a pretty low-calorie meal for an adult man, especially one who isn't actually overweight. While doughnuts, while super-unhealthy, are giving him a more substantial calorie intake.

I think you also need to understand that by having chip shop dinners and cakes every week as 'a treat' and by not exercising yourself, you aren't actually sending out the best message health-wise. It's absolutely fine to have a chippy tea and cakes once a week if you want to, but not if you are then going to suggest to your husband that when you want those things it's OK but when we wants them it's bad. And by presenting things like that as treats, it will make want to comfort-eat them even more.

Dollydaydream

Maybe he has a very physical job. I know a lot of builders/ trades and it’s very typical for men to eat very unhealthily and drink/ smoke but get away with it because Of their extreme physical jobs. However once they stop working (and that’s often in their 40s/50s due to the very physical nature of the job) they don’t change their habits and the weight packs on and the health problem start

My dad had his first heart attack in his late 40s. He stopped the smoking in response (1980s). He gained more weight from snacking more on sweets. Just normal middle aged spread, not large by modern standards. He was a frequent drinker, not to excess in any sitting, but several times a a week. Decent meals. Pre-energy drinks.
He bagan getting chest pains a few years later, and dismissed it. He didn't want to accept the danger he was in. DM finally suceeded in "nagging" him to the GP. He played it down. He never came home. That evening he was in the morgue. Early 50s. His dad outlived him by over a decade getting well into his 80s with a long, active retirement.

Lets just say that having lost my parent because of avoidable health neglect before leaving junior school, I'm not very patient about people choosing to live life like a checklist of what not to do. The problem is you can't change someone who does not want to change. But it's not unreasonable to fear losing your partner prematurely or them lingering for decades in poor and failing health.

OP describes a list of how not to live. Some like night shifts are harder to avoid, and they do make a balanced lifestyle harder. Others like the smoking, energy drinks and constant poor food choices can be improved... but only if he actually cares.

There's no guarentee that a healthy lifestyle will result in a long, healthy life, but it does improve your chances, and makes life more pleasant to be in a healthy state.

His job isn't overly physical. He's in a factory which he has to walk round a lot, but it's not physical work for him really. There's a lot of sitting down drinking coffee.

@SudowoodoVoodoo I'm sorry to hear that. I think with my DH the key is going to be him wanting to change.

The food and energy drinks are immature and frustrating but the smoking would be a deal breaker for me. Has he not heard about the potentially serious effects of third hand smoke on children? I wouldn’t be letting a smoker near my baby on a daily basis.

Mf friend got help from the GP to stop smoking- some kind of tablet I think. She has MS and it was making it worse (the GP thought anyway). In her case, the GP rang her at home and told her it would seriously harm her as she is immobile and would damage her lungs etc. Our GP is very proactive and to the point though!

But maybe some actual support to stop the addiction to smoking might be the first step.

I'm just learning to do this with my 12yo when she's at school - leave him to it, it's his life.

People need to stop putting it OP's door. If he's this way inclined he'll eat her healthy meals and then top up with biscuits, sausage rolls and energy drinks anyway. His mindset needs to change and that isn't something OP can control.

Could anyone actually eat a tin of sardines mashed into a jacket potato? I was gagging just reading that.
I think I would go at it from the angle we all have to eat more healthily and do healthy evening meals which are filling. Also I'd sit him down and talk to him as well. Its stupid to be carrying on like this hes going to die young or end up on disability at this rate.

Could anyone actually eat a tin of sardines mashed into a jacket potato? I was gagging just reading that

You said what I was thinking when I read that post! Sorry but a tin of sardines is no substitute for butter and cheese For some of us, the "healthy" choice is unpleasant. For example I like really soft pasta (I know that's not how the Italians do it, but it's what i like) I've tried wholewheat and no matter how long I cook it, it tastes hard. Same with rice. I also wouldn't eat a packet of donuts for dinner, but there's definitely a middle ground to be had.

Exactly, peg. You have to really want to quit smoking for anything to work, even tablets, because eventually you finish taking those and there will be times when you still crave. If you're not 100% on board with it, it's a moot point.

Lecturing someone with 'sit downs' is infantilising and patronising and also won't work.

user My DP also used the tablet, Champix to stop smoking. It was revolutionary and he stopped straight away (or within the phased bit that they recommend, I can't remember) without any cravings or ill effects.

He had tried and failed by numerous methods many times (gum, patches, vaping, you name it) and now he's been stopped about 2 years and is the kind of rapidly anti smoking ex smoker that goes around saying how disgusting it is that you can smell it in shop doorways etc and how dull it is waiting around for people to go outside for a cigarette etc etc .

My DH is like this. Unfortunately, he did hit 40 and take up long distance cycling. His dodgy app on his phone tells him hes burning up 6000 calories, which he then thinks gives him carte blanche to compensate for in biscuits, pork pies, crisps and cheese . He hasn't lost any weight, but has leg muscles.

My H was naturally very thin till his early twenties when he filled out. He ate like a big kid for years, mindlessly lobbing whatever he wanted into his gob. When he got to mid forties went on a diet and lost lots of weight, thought everyone was criticising him for being too thin, and is now constantly working out his calories and feeling depressed if he's put on weight. He weighs himself constantly, and believes that at 6'2" he has to live on 1200 cals per day to maintain his weight. And of course he's taken up cycling too!! With him I think its a control thing and not any healthier than before when he was larger as he doesn't seem to consider the nutritional content of food. It's sad to watch...

Sounds like an ED milksoff. 1200 cals a day at 6 foot 2 is way undereating.

@painauchocolat84 would you be up for creating a separate thread with more details about your batch cooking?! I'd love to know what meals you cook and where you find your recipes. I'm trying to get my DH and DSs to cut down on meaty meals and be able to provide some healthier snacks, meals and lunches and I'd like to try batch cooking.

But it all seems a bit daunting to know where to start when I'm working full time and not in the habit of doing it and don't have a collection of good recipes. I'm sure I could google recipes but it feels like it'd take me ages to work out which ones were healthy...

@GotRearEnded

Get a slow cooker and just browse BBC good food. I meal plan for the week ahead and buy the ingredients. I batch cooked before the baby was born and we lived for a month on home cooking without doing any cooking!

How old is he now, OP?

Thanks @FunOnTheBeach20 I'll look at BBC good food.

Feel like I need a week off to plan and shop for it all but hopefully it'll get easier maybe if I start with cooking just one new thing each weekend. We meal plan each week so am used to that, but always cook from scratch or go for unhealthy oven heat options each night. I'd love to cook at the weekends and then reheat from the freezer some days during the week.