Help with feeding husband - guys, help?

ashley0616

Hubs and I are both trying to lose weight, but his calorie intake per MFP for loss should be 2100, while mine is 1520. We eat the same things more or less, and I am having a hard time feeding him enough food. Because we are trying to lose weight, there is a lot of low fat, low calorie foods in the house, so even though he is eating 3 squares and 2-3 snacks a day, he's still hovering around 1600-170 a day. What can I do to help him eat MORE healthy foods? The problem isn't getting him to eat it, he loves food especially healthy stuff, I just don't know what to make him or how to make it or just basically where to get him more calories. I don't want to be putting his body in starvation mode! Bad wife! :happy:

Any help/suggestions would be great. Thanks!

julwills

I'm not a guy but what I would suggest as an easy way to up the calories is increase his portions while leaving yours the same. That way he's still eating healthy foods just more of them! Throw in some high calorie nuts like almonds, cashews, pistachios, etc. to boost it too!

ashley0616

Oh, nuts are a great idea! He drives for a living so those would be a good snack to send with him. Totally forgot about that!

I do try very hard to make sure he's getting larger portions. For example, this morning he had 2 eggs while I had 1, he had a lunch meat sandwich with 2 slices of bread while I am having a gardenburger with no bun, and for dinner he's allotted 1.5 pork chops plus a double portion of veggies and rice while I'm having 1 of each.

I think you're onto somthing there though. More high calorie snacks, and calorie dense foods. Maybe even a protein shake if I can convince him it tastes good, LOL! Thanks!!

nickscutie

I have the same exact problem! I plan and prepare 3 meals a day for both of us. Sometimes it is frustrating.

I have tried to address this in the following ways:
1. I have tried to spread out some additional calories for him throughout the day, 50 here, an extra 100 calorie snack there.
2. At dinner, I always give him a larger portion than myself. And sometimes I will supplement his dinner with something I don't eat at all but still goes with his meal such as an organic precooked chicken sausage or other lean meat, a hunk of bread, tortilla chips, pretzels, etc, a cup of soup, hummus. I look for things that are easy that i can keep on hand to use as needed for this.
3. My husband has also been drinking pom juice and other 100% fruit juices or low sodium spicy v8 or Gatorade with most of his meals at home. This helps add some healthy nutritionally valuable calories.
4. He enjoys, so I feed him some sort of dessert like snack every night.The favorite right now is a sundae with non fat or low fat Stoneyfield organic frozen yogurt - I top it with organic chocolate syrup, granola, choc chips, nuts, bananas, sprinkles, pretzels, malted milk balls, etc. That sounds indulgent but the fro yo is 100-130 calories for a 1/2 cup and you can control the rest by deciding what and how much of the topping. When he has 500 plus calories left for the day after exercse, this is a great and delicious and satisfying way to use some of those up. He also likes some of the kashi granola bars, clif builders bars, go lean crunch bars, nature valley granola bars, malted milk balls, lindt truffles, bananas and apples (he eats me out of banana and apple house and home sometimes!)

Hope this helps.

ashley0616

Thank you nickscutie, that is extremely helpful information!

fuhrmeister

I agree. I up hubby's portins. He loves to have peanut butter on whole wheat toast or rice cakes, bananas, greek yogurt with the fruit on bottom. We love ice cream as a treat but we serve it in little cups so we don't go over board. Hubby also loves fiber now bars (aldi generic for fiber oone bars). Or throw some avacado in with his veggies, if it's appropreate for the meal.