Husband’s gym diet driving me crazy

[Nomorepenguins]

I earn £500 a month more than my husband. We split the bills, childcare and mortgage 50/50 but I cover the weekly food shops with my own money to make it fair. We each pay for our own fuel and phones. Because of how expensive everything is nowadays, we don’t have much money left over once everything has been paid. We have around £300 - £400 left. We put half in savings then use the rest for days out and things our toddler might need. Child benefit is put into savings for our toddler, with some of it used occasionally when he needs new shoes, clothes, etc.

My husband goes to the gym. I don’t care that he goes but it’s got him into calorie and protein tracking and it’s driving me up the wall. I did the big shop on Sunday. I came home from work today to find he’d eaten the entire pack of penguin biscuits and KitKats that I’d bought (I never even got one), most of the crisps I’d bought, all the yogurts and fruit I’d bought, and used up most of the milk for his protein shakes. He’s now started adding things to our weekly food shop list, including £20 worth of Greek yogurt a week. I’m refusing to pay for this.
He’s just eating everything to meet his calories! When we have dinner he takes most of the meat for himself for protein, gives himself huge portions, etc. Then eats anything else he can find to hit his goals. I’ve even caught him eating our toddlers rusks.

He’s very fit and healthy and in great shape but he’s costing so much money to feed and has gone so selfish, taking all the food for himself. I’m sick to death of it. I’ve started making him pay for everything he over consumes but it hasn’t changed anything. Our fridge is always empty and top up shops are costing him a fortune. It’s started eating into our very limited budget for days out.

AIBU to be irritated? I think he’s so selfish. He says I don’t understand the gym or appreciate the diet needed to build muscle

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

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!

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

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.

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!

When we have dinner he takes most of the meat for himself for protein, gives himself huge portions, etc. Then eats anything else he can find to hit his goals. I’ve even caught him eating our toddlers rusks.

Your toddler is rapidly growing and needs that protein to fuel growth, including brain growth. He's taking food his child needs and risking health issues for his child. That needs to stop immediately.

He's not following a healthy diet if he's eating whole packs of cookies and candy and potato chips. Tell him because he's eating so much than his fair share of the household food that feeding himself now is his financial responsibility. He can get himself to Costco where they have a lot of things to appeal to high protein and (low carb) eaters. They sell packs of already boiled hard boiled eggs, big tubs of Greek yogurt, big meat packs since you eat meat, 4 packs of tofu, edamame snacks, even various protein powders.

I too would wonder about steroid use if he's binge eating carbs around the house. Steroids can make you incredibly hungry.

Why would you enable this? Depressing. Go get an expensive hobby because you matter too, you know. It’s not just about the males and their extreme vanity.

I'd split the food budget, you keep yours and the toddlers, he has his and does his own shopping, cooking etc. If you feel generous, sit with him and help him plan his meals and do an online shop, within budget. But only once. After that he's on his own.

Ha I’d be surprised if Will Tennerson is eating piles of shit in his regular day to day diet, yes he trials extreme diets and extreme fitness experiences for short periods (a day/week/month?) but I’d expect he is otherwise very specific about what he puts in his body.

He needs to start buying his own food and keep separate areas in the fridge.

he’s a greedy twat who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

This. I think you need to re-assess the finances and maybe put everything in a joint pot from where all the joint expenses come from (divvy it up by percentage of pay to make it fair) because food is so expensive now.

The giant Aldi tubs of Greek yogurt the 0% ones) are about £1.99 each that is an awful lot of yogurt!

Understanding the gym diet or not is completely irrelevant. The pertinent point is that he cannot afford to eat like that. That's it, really.

This is what ChatGPT recommends a gym mad man should be eating on a budget

He’s taking the piss. Wanting and needing high protein. Fair enough. But then doesn’t need to binge on crisps and penguins etc

My dh is also gym mad and has the supplements and protein shakes to go with.
however he pays for them himself and anything else that he’s massively over eating at the time like trays of eggs and 4 pigs of milk every other day because he knows it’s unfair to eat into my left over money as well as his.

I would be annoyed at this OP. My partner buys those ridiculous anti cholesterol drinks and I refuse to add those to the weekly shop paid by the joint account.

Scoffing junk is not 'meeting his calories', it's eating crap.

How can eating all that crap be seen as healthy?

Found a video from Will that may be useful!

Haven't finished reading the thread yet but as someone who has watched Will Tennyson from the early days, and who has seen how into his family he is, I'm pretty sure he would think your partner is selfish and as greedy as fuck.

YANBU - he’s not a single guy and he should start treating you and your son with the respect you deserve.

Stop buying this stuff. I would start shopping daily for a while so he gets out of the habit of pigging everything in the house.

If he has to keep going out to buy things it will become tiresome for him soon enough.

I’d say I understand stealing food from your child. Have you told your gym buddies that you’ve drunk the baby’s milk and eaten their rusks? Would you like me to bring Bub to the gym and ask your friends for money to replace the baby’s food that you ate? Will you feel macho and fit then? Or just like an asshole stealing from his baby? Real men look after their children and families, I think it’s time for you to start. Eat our food again, and you will be very very sorry. And if you find my response humiliating and think it makes you look like a crap dad, remember that you made a choice to steal our food. I made a choice to support our baby. One of us is acting like a parent, one of us is acting like a selfish asshole.

Haven't read the full thread but as a gym goer myself and occasional Will Tennyson viewer I feel qualified to comment. I do think it's unreasonable of you to complain about having to feed your husband, larger more muscular people (sadly often men) do need more calories and more protein than smaller people with less muscle mass. But it's neither healthy or fair that he gets those calories through troughing all the treats or eating food that's intended for you or your toddler! I'm sure that is not a Will endorsed idea either

I would recommend agreeing with your partner a fair monthly food budget that will include some treats to be shared equally amongst all family members, and then make it his job to work out how he can fit his calories/ macros into the budget and making a meal plan - I'd look into things like bulk-buying meat online and freezing, buying cheap cuts of meat that maybe need slow cooking, bulk buying whey/protein supplements and lean/plant based sources like tofu, beans/legumes etc. If anything both for health and budget he should have fewer 'treats' than you and something has definitely gone wrong in the planning if he's so hungry/so low on calories he's resorting to toddler rusks! If he's into influencers there are loads online showing easy recipes based around whole foods that are high protein/high fibre. Sean Casey and Liam Layton are my faves.

Budget /financial split wise I'm not sure it really makes sense for you to be solely responsible for the food shop anymore given the cost of living rises and the fact it's such a variable bill, I would just split it 50:50 if that's how you do the rest of your bills, maybe you can contribute to something more fixed price like subscriptions or something else with your £500 extra a month, or just set up a joint account for bills only and you put a bit more in there to even things up?

Tell him he needs to contribute towards the food shop! My 25 year old DS is like this, but he buys most of his own food.

What you said.

Or a binge eating disorder.
Op his eating is at least disordered, he doesn't appear to have any self control but then saying it's to do with his gym needs.

Another cheap source of protein is dried soy protein from Holland and Barrett. It comes in chunks and "mince" and can bulk out a load of different meals. My son buys it to supplement his protein needs, says you can't taste any difference adding it to any mince or vegetable meal.