Lost it - struggle to get DS to go out

[ApproachingATunnel]

Feeling very low. My DS comes as obese when i calculate his BMI so i try every weekend to get us out for a walk to the park and it is a struggle. I just spent some 20 min offerring all neighbouring parks (lakes, playgrounds, animal farms) to be told he is borred of them all. He then says lets go somewhere new. Ok, so i go online to google what else is out there and there's places where i will be spending ~£25 just to get in. Which i cant really justify at the moment. So i go back to trying to persuade him to go out somewhere free. No luck. And i just lost it then. Shouted at him that as far as im concerned he can spend whole day in front if tv to which i was told 'i dont care'. Sent him up to his room to which he went calling me 'stupid mum'

Had a go at DP. He suffers with hayfever so doesnt want to go but quite frankly he is not a sporty type so it feels like a handy excuse. People have hayfever and still manage to go out with kids, right?..

I feel like im banging my head against the wall. DS is constantly asking for food which i try to limit to then find out that DH gave him a milkshake/toast after he already had loads. I feel like im fucking alone in this trying to manage his weight! So i slammed the door and left - DS in his room and upset DH as he feels im acting like it's all his fault.

I dont know how to manage this. How do i make DS exercie more?... I feel shit and guilty because my child is overweight despite my best efforts. He's acting like a spoilt brat, im sure lots of kids would be excited to go to places while he just doesnt want to and all is 'boring'.

He is 6.5 btw...:((
Maybe i should just stop pushing with going out and just let him stay home with tv/computer... :((
Any words of wisdom?...

Sweet potato and carrot or swede make good potato substitutes, and lovely oven roasted chips. Mashed or creamed cauliflower also stands in well for mash. If you chop up fish fingers or sausages into chunks it'll be harder to see he's getting less.

In my experience school dinner portions are pretty small (,and maybe why he's hungry after school). Perhaps you could meet him from school with a snack which means you 'don't need to' stop at the shop? My kids don't have weight problems but they like plain pretzels or bagels after school, they are filling. If I were better organised I'd make home made muffins with whole-wheat flour and fruit....or cheese sticks and apple slices?

Could you use something like Myfitnesspal to plan his meals/snacks? You can program it for the right levels of fat/calories for a child of his age and size. It may be that you can plan it so that he has larger meals and smaller snacks if that suits him better. May be it would be best to cut down slowly too, so cut down to 3 fishfingers. Maybe even cut them up so he can't see how many he has?

On fish fingers, I cook three each for my kids (7 and 4) BUT I plate up two, plus a large portion of veg and some carbs (eg broccoli and mash) and they can only have more if they finish everything. So that means that they will eat the veg last (they would prefer another fish finger), and then often find that actually they're full and don't want the third fish finger. Would that sort of tactic work?

Also, around 6yo is about the time they stop needing snacks and start only wanting them if its treat food, ime. Can you make snacks by default a piece of fruit or veg, and never anything else? You may find he stops wanting them.

I must admit i dont have patience or time faffing around with apps, i know calories in most products its more a matter of working together with dh implementing it all. Today was a good day foodwise, he had 2 pancakes with maple syrup, then thin bagel sandwich with ham and cheese followed by a small amount of pasta and brocolli. Dinner was tuna with sweetcorn. Amazingly he didnt ask for much in between (but then he had a lot of time out for being naughty and i guess his mind was elsewhere. Which to me kind of shows he is not physically hungry when he keeps asking for more).

Thank you all for handy tips. They are simple but somehow some of them never occurred to me!

He may (like me) be very subject to blood sugar dips which cause munchies. I find a low GI diet works amazingly well for me in stopping my appetite from raging out of control. One sugary snack early in the day can have me snacking throughout the day.

Interesting squashybanana, thank you. Need to read on about low GI products and give it a go.

Sorry. It's not rocket science, it's basically brown rather than white bread, rice, pasta etc, and complex rather than processed carbs. Breakfast is trickiest because many cereals are high GI. Porridge, weetabix, or eggs, wholemeal toast etc are better breakfasts than cereal or white toast.