Help-lunches for husband

ifyouonlyknew1492

Long story short, my husband is now on board with starting to eat healthier and work out (what I'm not sure). He doesn't work out, but is busy throughout the day with physical activity. I told him he needs to work out in order to see results, a fit guy at work told him this as well.

I thought I had this, but thinking twice. He usually eats this for breakfast/lunch/snacks not all in one day, but there's not much variety usually. He told me the other night he is ready to start eating better and realizes he eats too much.

Coffee
bagel/cream cheese
poptart
granola bar
fruit either 1 banana or an orange or an apple
peanut butter sandwich on white bread
salami with swiss cheese on white bread
leftover pizza
can of pepsi
cookies before bed with milk

I thought I had lunches figured out for him, but not so sure. Anyone have suggestions on what lunches I could suggest for him? I've told him many times I'll make him something different for lunch, just tell me what you want, but it's the same old same old lunch.

TIA

Meganthedogmom

What are his goals?

I don't really see anything wrong with what he's eating. If he's eating too much of it, he will be gaining wait.

aub6689

It is hard to say without knowing the size of your husband. Looking at it I'd say it might be a bit carb heavy, can you add hard boiled eggs, string cheese, ostrim sticks, nuts, etc.?

ifyouonlyknew1492

He is about 5'11 and 167 lbs. I do make hard boiled eggs occassionally and he does take 1, I forgot to mention that. His goal is to drop some lbs. and tone. I agree on the carbs and when I started my journey last year I stopped eating bread, pasta, milk cheese, pop, processed foods. It felt great not eating all of that and along with w/o I lost more than my goal in lbs.

LKArgh

What does he think? I cannot imagine having someone else plan lunch for me. Is there a reason he cannot decide what he wants to eat?

ifyouonlyknew1492

good question, I'm not really sure.

rml_16

5'11" and 167? What results is he going for? What kind of physical activity is he doing at work that he also needs to work out on top of it?

I mean, I have a desk job, so exercise outside of work is essential. But if I were lifting boxes and running around all day, I wouldn't need to then go to the gym after work. If I needed to lose weight, just changing my diet would probably be enough.

Your husband is a healthy weight for his height.

jemhh

I don't see a problem with that list of food.

Does he actually want to lose weight or does he want to lose fat? It doesn't seem like he would need to lose weight with those stats. If he is willing to strength training, he may be better served by eating at maintenance and doing that.

garbanzalo

The meal is a bit carb heavy and useful if he is in a physically demanding job.

Create an MFP account for him and track his macros. If he wants muscles, he needs to eat an estimated 0.6-0.8g of protein per lb of lean body mass and do a weightlifting routine like Stronglifts 5X5 in the gym. Hf he simply wants to get leaner and burn some fat, without worrying about aesthetics, then cardio exercises like HIIT ir LISS would be the way to go. Usually though, when people say tone, they mean aesthetically pleasing which involves weightlifting.

ifyouonlyknew1492

He wants to lose some in the belly and tone. I know he mentioned getting a treadmill so maybe we'll just stick to developing better eating habits/portion control and see what happens.

ifyouonlyknew1492

I was going to suggest MFP and logging. I know it helped for me so I'll suggest that, thanks.

chunky_pinup

If he's making you plan is meals for him...it honestly doesn't seem like he's that motivated to lose weight. It's got to be something you do for yourself. You shouldn't have to bear the responsibility of his own goals.

JeromeBarry1

He'll lose weight at the kitchen table. If he wants to 'tone', that's another way of saying lose flab and build muscle, he'll get better results faster with weightlifting. Have him research and choose a 5x5 program and he'll start caring enough about himself to learn how to feed himself.

ifyouonlyknew1492

True. When I started my journey he was not on board so I had to make my meals.

happyauntie2015

I send my hubby to work with a variety of things. Today it was a turkey wrap with lettuce, cheese, tomato and hummus. I also sent along 2 cutie oranges a mozzarella stick, fiber one lemon bar, watermelon, turkey bites and a salad and a hard boiled egg. My hubby is known to randomly pick up 4 hours of overtime at the drop of a hat so I always pack extra just in case. If he works over he has choices for protien and fruit

msf74

ifyouonlyknew1492 wrote: »

He wants to lose some in the belly and tone. I know he mentioned getting a treadmill so maybe we'll just stick to developing better eating habits/portion control and see what happens.

Nah. He just needs to get a decent resistance training plan in place...

brb_2013

My husband also just decided to join me

This week, I made a veggie/cheesy dish with cauliflower and broccoli, and he ate 300g of that with 200g of pork loin roast this week. I don't do the math on all of his food, but he eats packaged breakfast burritos every day, I weigh nuts for him to take (or 3 boiled eggs), I pack his lunch and I make our dinner. I'm just guessing, but I'm fairly sure it puts him in a deficit. At the very least it's less calories than a whole tupperware full of pasta roni and a little chicken haha.

Sorry, realized I didn't make a good suggestion. A big cut of meat is what works, I either slow cook something on the weekend or oven roast it. Last week I cooked up almost 3lbs of Chicken in my crock pot and he added Frank's buffalo sauce and had it over broccoli. Simple and easy for me, less carbs and calories for him.