My daughter (27) is 5"10 and 105 lbs. We eat the same food because I am eating healthy and she need every bite to count. I don't eat diet food. My dairy is low fat or fat free but thats because saturated fats are not good. I eat real food just like the stuff I feed my Grandson. Lots of fresh fruits and veggies, yogurt, whole grains, raw nuts and healthy oils, beans some soy and lean meat (mostly fish and chicken). The only difference is I count calories. There is 7 of us that eat here of all sizes.

I hear you. I have a vegetarian teen daughter, a husband who has lost weight, but is just about ready to maintain, and me, who is working actively to lose. What I don't do is short-order cook, but I work to find things that we all like. Daughter will eat the soy-based "meat" so we have barbeque, taco salads, etc. My big thing, as a calorie counter myself, is to know the serving size of what I'm going to put on my plate, then serve it family style, and let hubbie have 2 sandwiches, say. He also is more prone to snacking through the evening, but knows that if I don't choose to join him, I'm not "dissing" him, just making the right choice for me.

I agree with the comment about "not diet food" -- I make casseroles, etc...but I have several cookbooks that give me the nutritional information, so I can choose a portion with the calories *I* need, and he and she (she's a skinny dancer...uses lots of calories to keep her going!) can also get their needs met.

With creative and thoughtful cooking, very few things are truly off limits (okay...I do try to stay away from candy bars, but I also make an excellent strawberry ice cream that's actually low-calorie and good for you.)

Good luck trying to keep everyone happy (and their needs met!)

You'll in a pickle lol :D. The fact that your husband snacks so much and despises a lot of healthy food will make it exceptionally hard for him effectively gain muscle weight. When you say he wants to gain weight, does he just want to gain any type of weight or muscle? He's going to have to start working out if he intends to gain in a healthy manner. Otherwise it's just counterproductive/unhealthy to gain just for the hell of it. He sounds like an ectomorph body type based on your statement "he can eat whatever he wants. He never gains", but he's probably just not eating enough anyhow. It takes a lot of food to gain weight (especially if it's healthy food), and even more for an ectomorph. Snacking isn't going to make you gain weight unless it's a addition to eating big meals that you're eating already, and it sounds like he really is just mostly snacking.

Regardless, I think it would be much easier for you both to work collaboratively and make compromises. He needs to willing to eat healthier or gaining is worthless. But in this scenario it needs to be life style changes because once he goes back to eating normally as an ectomorph he will immediately drop his weight.

I also try to cook "healthy" as opposed to "diet food". Portion control is the key for you! Continue to make healthy options. When he pigs out at night, have some grapes, or air popped popcorn.

Believe it or not, thin folks are also at risk for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes if they don't eat properly.
My normal weight husband had a heart attack at 44!