Advice needed....son having issues with food

Brilliant

Excellent news- you must be relieved. Bonne chance.

Positive move....DS has agreed to make doc appointment for check up. He'll maybe need to wait a week as it's non urgent but at least he's going.

JaneRowena The idea of the 5:2 diet is to eat 600 cals on two days each week and to eat the recommended calories for a bloke the rest of the time.

KatyK As others say 11stone sounds fairly healthy. The rate of weight loss is possibly a bit too rapid for best results.

I am sure a GP could refer him to a dietician.

"I'd be dragging him off not to a dietician but to a doctor and demanding some blood tests"

sort of like this ?

I do echo the advice to persuade him to discuss his weight/diet/exercise & general health with a doctor. Hope you are reassured soon katek

Do you think some sort relaxation therapy might help - meditation/ mindfulness, relaxation tapes, tai chi, yoga? I assume from what you say that he is a teacher and that in itself can be very stressful and on top of that he will soon have the responsibility (and tiredness) that goes with having a very young child and a new baby.

Do you get on well with his partner? Does she work/ is she able to do shoulder most of the domestic burden? Do you know if she is also concerned about his health and stress levels?

Thanks again everyone. I think I will pursue the doctor route to start with and see where we go from there. I think DS will see the logic in having a check up/bloods done after losing so much weight so I have arranged to FaceTime him tomorrow and will discuss this with him. Small improvement yesterday in that he came back from his run and had a bowl of porridge instead of his ready made 10cal jelly. He's back to school on Monday so stress will pile on again.

"exercise and weight loss is very addictive for some people- and can become very obsessive"

Anorexia athletica

Thank you Eloethan, I'm glad someone can interpret my posts

Eloethan, posts crossed, so sorry for repetition.

Yes, with jane all the way on this one. You'd never forgive yourself if you did not try and make him understand that this is serious and has to be investigated. Could it be diabetes too? KateK of course can't drag her adult son to the doctor's- but she can discuss her concerns and beg him to go. She could even, if she knows the GP well- go and see him/her and discuss her worries, as a patient, explaining how it is causing HER stress- and ask if there is a way s/he can send a routine appointment to the son under any excuse (New initiative for screening, etc)- without telling him that his mother had been to discuss this. There are ways around this.

But exercise and weight loss is very addictive for some people- and can become very obsessive. I saw this happen with older people too- who become totally obsessed with more and more exercise, and less and less food. Anorexia can happen at all ages.

jingle Do mature adults never need a helping hand when perhaps their lives become challenging? And isn't it absolutely natural for a parent to be concerned when they see a marked change in their son's appearance and hear him say that he is becoming anxious about his relationship to food?

It doesn't really matter how old somebody is - if they are finding things difficult, they sometimes need someone else to help them get the assistance they need. (I don't suppose janeainsworth literally meant drag your son off to the doctors - I think she probably used that expression to illustrate it was a matter that required action).

We are discussing a grown man here, not a child! And Kate has already said he is fit. Do you really expect her to take him to the doctor's?

I agree with FlicketyB that BMI is not a reliable indicator that a person's weight is healthy for them.
Someone who weighs 17 stone and loses 6 stone has lost over 30% of their body weight.
That is a huge amount to lose, especially if he is consuming 1800 calories a day.
If your son was mine, serious alarm bells would be ringing and I'd be dragging him off not to a dietician but to a doctor and insisting on some blood tests.
The large staring eyes suggest an overactive thyroid to me.

Katek I think you are right to be concerned and I agree with FlicketyB. I don't think 11 stone is much for someone who is over 6 foot. Losing six stone within a year seems quite a lot to me and probably required a lot of willpower - it may now be difficult to relinquish that illusory feeling of power. 1800 calories per day I would also think is far too little - especially as your son is following a fairly rigorous exercise programme and is working full time.

Given that your son is also concerned at what appears to be developing into slightly obsessive/compulsive behaviour, I think he should speak to his GP and mention his feelings of guilt and anxiety around the subject of food/exercise. Presumably the GP would arrange for a proper assessment of your son's health/weight, an appointment with a dietician and, if necessary, some counselling support.

I do hope he can get some advice on this and is soon looking healthier and feeling more relaxed.

BMI is an unreliable measure of health, two thirds of all BMI calculations are inaccurate.

If Katek's son has been doing all the exercise she says then his body is likely to have a higher than average proportion of heavier muscle. His accurate BMI may be well below the 'healthy' 22 she mentions. Similarly his build will make a difference. Katek says he is a rugby player, many of whom are of a big build (and I am not using that as a euphemism for over weight) with wide back and large body, if that is his build then he should be weighing more than someone of a similar height with a narrow frame and long legs.

Never let a BMI calculation blind you to what a person actually looks like and Katek's son, as described, seems to be underweight and does need to see a dietician, but he also needs to see a physiologist or other appropriate person who can measure how much body fat he has accurately and advise him based on this accurate assessment.

Than you all for your input....on the face of it my son does appear to be eating well, fit and enjoying his cooking but, as soontobe says, he has said himself that he's taken it too far and is frightened to stop. If he were to stop where he is and perhaps gain some muscle definition again I think he would be fine, but he needs to stop here. I think I will try and persuade him to see the doctor to discuss the situation in full. He doesn't laugh very much anymore and that makes me afraid.

He says that he has taken the weight loss too far.

But the most important thing is that he says that he is finding it difficult to stop.
In other words, he is not now able to control himself.
So there is a problem.

I think that it is best if he can take himself to the doctors to discuss things with him/her.

The story you tell sounds very much like anorexia, but I'm not sure that the figure you quote indicates that. A BMI of 22 is not particularly low, he's 6'1", so that's 11st 13lb. I'm 6'6" and 11st 5lb, but I weighed about 10st 12lb before I gave up exercise. I've lost muscle, but that's been more than offset by putting on a layer of fat over my ribs. I would judge by whether his weight is going up or down, and whether that's fat or muscle.

There has been some mention of some extremely low calorie intakes, you may be interested in this:

Sudden death associated with very low calorie weight reduction regimens

That doesn't sound an unreasonable weight for his height.

It sounds as though he is pretty fit and enjoys cooking and eating healthy food. Would he talk to the doc about his concern about his eating?

My OH weighs less than 8 stone! - he is 5 foot eight.

There was a programme about it on Horizon a couple of years ago, jings. I think I'd rather die sooner, frankly.

www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/eat-lot-live-lot-longer-scientist-claims-consuming-600-calories-day-adds-years-lifespan-article-1.1126577

DS has always been -skinny- slim and almost gaunt so am used to it, but for you KateK it is a huge change in appearance from a rugby player build.

Does he gets an adrenaline 'high' from running which suppresses his appetite and consequently he doesn't feel hungry?
My DS is 6'4" and 11st 4lb, very slim and often has dark circles under his eyes but is generally pretty healthy. He used to train for triathlons and would have admitted to being an 'adrenaline junkie' ( as well as quite difficult to live with at times as became fanatical about food and diet!)

Not that low surely jane?! you need about a thousand just to keep ticking over.

Just out of interest, has his blood pressure improved with the weight loss?