husband secret eating

[emuloc]

I just found out this morning that my husband is a secret eater. He is very overweight and despite me making it clear that I felt he should lose weight for health, personal reasons he has just always fobbed me off, saying he is going to the gym, not eating anything apart from a bagel at work and dinner at home. I had my doubts and confronted him about possible secret eating whic h he denied. But I was told this morning by some one that he was seen everymorning eating chocolate in the street when he bought the morning paper. My trust in him is gone. He is not taking a blind bit of notice of what I am saying. I am fed up of having a fat husband who does not care how he looks. I just want him to lose weight and be healthy, I dont know where we go from here. Please does anybody have any advice. Thank you.

Keeping an eye on this thread as I've just discovered my 19 year old son is doing the same and I have no idea what to do. I feel I should be able to help him but I have no clues what to do. I am worried as my mum has had problems with anorexia all my life and I am terrified of making DS worse.

You can't make someone want to lose weight, though - you are pushing him to be a secret eater, surely? :(

If you're setting spies on him then I should think his trust in you has gone too

The Lying would bother me tbh - though I can understand why he would.

He has to want it, have you tried telling him how you honestly feel - that you are worried for his health etc.

The thing with being very overweight is that it seems an insurmountable problem. It is bloody hard to get into the right frame of mind to be able to stick to a diet. You have to do it for you. Not for anyone else. Until that happens I'm afraid nothing you will say will make him want to diet.

What sort of stuff does he eat at home?

I worked with a man who brought a salad for lunch every day, packed by his wife. When he finished the salad he would go and buy sausage rolls or chips. The only way your dh will lose weight is if he wants to. Telling him that you don't like him the way he is is likely to make him increase his comfort eating, I'm afraid.

Supporting him and showing him that you love him regardless of his weight would be better for his self esteem, but might not be the motivation that you are looking for.

I'd advise you let him know how much you love him.

My DH has just lost 3 st in 3 months, he was clinically obese and had been for a number of years with all the health problems that went with it. The only reason he lost the weight was due to the fact that he had about 8 months worth of counselling beforehand, once his head was right and all his issues sorted, he then felt he was able to tackle his weight. It has been a mixture of diet and exercise (going to the gym 4/5 times a week and joining their weight loss programme), he has also found a sport that he enjoys doing too (now he has lost the weight).

There is nothing you can do, he has to decide it for himself, all you can do is support him. My DH feels the NHS would be better off spending money on counselling programs rather than gastric bands because most overeating has emotional roots.

If you act like the food police you will drive his eating habits underground. You are making him feel ashamed and that isn't healthy. You should support him but not so forcefully.
I'd be quite pissed off if I felt I had to hide eating a choccy bar on the way to work from DP.

My DP wanted to lose weight when he saw some old photos and I commented on how fit he looked. I still think he's gorgeous now though, and he knows I do, I was just surprised at how different he used to look when he used to swim every day.

It feels like every time I go in my husbands car I'll find an empty sausage roll or pork pie wrapper! He can't seem to resist those service station temptations

Thank you for your replies. As most of you have said you cannot force someone to lose weight. The situation here is that my husband has seen how being obese has ended the lives of family members, this is why I cannot understand why he seems to be going down the same road. I agree my nagging has most likely driven his eating habits underground as Kaluki said, but I am at my wits end with him and his obesity. I have seen too much what can happen if he does not do something about it now, before it is too late. Can our Gp help?

Ems, we're all going to hell in a handcart. Just love him now, as he is. There's no money for us all to live to 120 so we might as well enjoy who we have now.

I agree with everyone else on this thread - the decision to lose weight has to come from your husband. I was/am a secret eater but stopped a few months ago when I realised I had to lose weight - I've lost just over 2 stone with 2 more to go. Not buying food (sweets usually for me) on the way home from work feels almost impossible - I'll buy stuff at the station and then put the sweet wrapper in the bin on the way home. It's really, really hard to stop and I'm trying very hard to break the habit - by doing things like timing my trains better so I don't have chance to buy anything, and putting my music on to distract myself.

So, it's an uphill struggle and one I needed to be ready to face - I couldn't and wouldn't have done it unless and until I was absolutely ready to.

You can only support your husband, in the way my wonderful dp has supported me - she's never nagged me to lose weight and in fact has joined me now on Slimming World and has also lost 2 stone - she's now at her ideal weight and looks amazing

That's great DottyDot. Thank you for your post.

Loads of men I know eat "secretly", it is how our village shop survives . It specialises in cake, choc and crisps.

I know so many women who try to control their DH's weight and as far as I can see it's doomed unless the H actually wants to lose weight.

Poor guy, just leave him alone.

You can't control what another adult eats. Tbh, if this was reversed and you were talking about how he was accusing you of "secret eating" the thread would be full of cries of "leave him" and how this is controlling behaviour.

You can only have a healthier life yourself and hope he wants to join you in eating home-cooked food and exercising regually.

You need to learn to keep your beak out. It's his life, his body and his choice to eat or not to eat. It isn't actually a crime to be fat.

Just to echo what everyone else has said - it can be an addiction, his self-esteem/ self-image is probably at rock bottom which means he will be prone to comfort-eat and then feel crap about it afterwards, and if you nag that's going to drive the problem underground, make him feel worse and make it more likely for him to comfort eat. Come at it in the 'opposite spirit' ie: love him, build up his self-esteem etc, try to make him feel good about who he is.

What Jack said. Your husband feels like crap, he eats to make himself feel better, but it just makes him fat, which makes him feel like crap... etc. Help him break the cycle by making him feel good about himself. Give him your unconditional love and support and don't give him grief about dieting. Dieting makes fat people fatter - sad, but true.

Help him to feel good and maybe he'll make the positive long term changes he needs. But IMHO he needs to sort his head out before he can sort his body out. People like this have an addiction - the fact that it's something others in his family suffer from would point to this (not saying it's genetic by the way, that's pretty unlikely). Support him to get his head straight and he might just start to lose the weight himself.

I find it unfair to say "poor guy leave him alone". My dh struggles with his weight. It is unrealistic to think that his being obese will not affect their relationship on many levels.

Fish - hello. Yes struggles with weight are hard and it certqinly does affect people but mostly I think (unllike with drugs/booze) the person themself. In my experience over-eaters aren't aggressive, they're unhappy (as, also, are drink/drug users, but food has less of an angry effect).

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, but I don't think the OP is unreasonable about wanting him to loose weight, as some posters seemed to imply

That is why I posted on here Fisharefriends. If he develops diabetis, which is highly likely the way he is going, it won't just affect him will it? I will be the one as well affected. As I said before I have seen first hand how weight has had a terrible affect on several members of his family. I just wanted to know how I could help him. I understand my words have no effect and he has to want to do it himself.