How to encourage DH to eat healthy?

[Bookaholic73]

Myself and DH have been trying to get healthy over the past year.
I’ve started losing weight (lost a stone so far, but still have a few stones to lose) and eating healthy.

My DH on the other hand is getting bigger by the month.
I posted about this a few months ago, and was slated for finding him less sexy and less of a turn on now that his belly is massive and he doesn’t show any restraint around food.

Not only do I physically find him less of a turn on, but I also find his whole attitude really exhausting.

Regularly he’ll have conversations with me about how he needs to stop eating junk food, and loads of sandwiches.

Then this evening he has eaten 3 sandwiches, as well as a massive portion of curry.

How can I encourage him to eat healthier?

Fair enough, I hope you can find the right words OP, it’s not easy.

I listened to a radio programme a while ago and the then Chief Medical Officer said that he felt the message about smoking has been wrong for years (bear with me). He said the focus was on death and that you would lose x years off your life. He explained that the concept of dying early was not registering and the often reply was 'well you have to die sometime'. He said the approach should be about the quality of life whilst your alive. It made a lot of sense to me.

I would suggest that the same applies here. Maybe the quality of his life is already suffering but diabetes etc. will certainly hit it hard. Possibly that is the sell?

That last post from Anotherlanguage makes a lot of sense. I was just going to say that you are lucky to need to eat better for yourself. It gives you the excuse to have nothing but bare minimum fattening foods in the house. For instance no ready meals and no bread. It won't stop DH snacking on the way home, but, "for your sake", he could reasonably be asked not to bring it into the house, to avoid you being tempted. (If you want a sandwich, you can use lettuce leaves to wrap slices of cheese and tomato. Works well. ) Nuts, seeds, plenty of salad and fruit and veg can be snacked on, plus drinking a glass of water first, drinking tea.

No sugar or butter or jam or biscuits or crisps or cake or chocolate or junk food or ready meals or whatever else in the house means it's easier for you, which is what you can say is the aim. You don't need to nag him, you don't need to listen to him complaining about his own lack of discipline. By helping you, he makes it easier for himself, but only as a side effect. He will have to take a bit more effort if he needs to eat his day's supply of fattening food before getting home!

I’ve tried the tough love approach and he still doesn’t seem to care.
I think it’s just something I have to wait and see if he changes.
I’ll be a positive influence, not buy the unhealthy stuff etc and hope it helps.

@20mum actually, making it about him helping me is a good idea.

To be honest though, we have a really healthy pantry and kitchen. I can’t ban the kids from eating bread just because he might overeat it.
It’s the stopping off on the way home from work that’s the problem, as well as the 3 sandwiches a night.

@Bookaholic73, I thought of you yesterday - we took the DC for a long walk in the morning, had lunch, took them to the park - all good, lots of exercise for everyone. I went back first with DTS2, he was cycling and going too fast for DP to follow; DP was with DTS1 who was on his scooter. I was waiting for ages at home wondering where on earth DP could have got to - turns out he'd passed a burger van, decided to get a (large) burger and stopped to eat it...

I think that's the sort of thing you mean - there's no way I could have stopped him doing that, I wasn't there, had no idea he was going to do it and we had plenty of food in the house for healthy snacks and/ or dinner if he was hungry!

Has your DP had a medical recently? I don't know if they are going on at the moment, but our GP surgery were asking anyone over 45 to have one, DP had one a couple of years ago and they identified that he was pre-diabetic. He went on a course about it and was much better for a while, but now his good habits have slipped again

@RubySlippers77 the GP surgery near to us aren’t opening for anything other than emergency appointments at the moment. DH is almost 43, so fingers crossed he gets called in to one of these!

Yes, that’s exactly the kind of thing I mean, I couldn’t have stopped him because I wasn’t there.
Not only that, but I’m not his parent, I shouldn’t have to stop him. He should care enough about his health to stop himself.

True problem with children and bread. They, too, can ' help mummy'? There must be a way. Does their daily diet have bread as an essential component? Is there no alternative? If bread is unavoidable, is there some kind of miniloaf you could buy daily, with only enough slices for them, nothing left over to 'tempt mummy'?

Sounds as if daddy is faintly depressed, do you think? But you will know the best way to find excuses to praise him, and get some extra pleasure into his life (apart from comfort eating!).