Weddingbee boards

As someone who once lost 50 lbs (gulp) I understand you problem. It is important for many people trying to lose weight to eat at certain intervals throughout the day.  When I first started on my diet, I kept eating at 7:30 or 8, but when I started regularly eating at about 6 it worked better.  I wasn't as hungry and my body got a pick me up for the rest of the evening, so I had energy.  Anyway, I can understand why you want to eat earlier.

Firstly, if you haven't already, sit down with your FMIL and explain why you need a different eating schedule and will be cooking for yourself.  You don't want her to think it was something that she did.  Perhaps you could even offer to make one meal a week, to be served at an earlier time and in accordance with your own diet.  That will give you the opportunity to try out some recipes.  Finally, if you aren't already doing Weight Watchers, you may want to check out a meeting.  They really are helpful at advising members to handle these situations.

Do your future in-laws believe in leftovers?  If you talked to your MIL, maybe it would be possible for you to eat last nights dinner the next night at a reasonable hour?  You still get the great food, but you get a controlled portion at a time that works for you. 

I think eating earlier will help you have more energy.  Also, depends on what you're eating - what kind of food is his mom making? 

Sit down with her and have a chat - she might be willing to work with you, or at least she won't be offended if you start cooking on your own.  I think if you start randomly cooking out of the blue, she might get offended. 

Try hitting the gym before work - getting it done and over with really helps. 

WHOA!  I did not understand the severity of the situtation. Those are not healthy meals and that is a lot of people to be dealing with! 

You should buy yourself/you and FI a mini-fridge and keep your own stuff in there in your own space so that nobody else eats your food.  Also, have you considered any of the food delivery programs that ship you dry or freeze-dried food?  Most of them aren't too much more expensive than the average person would spend on food, and you can keep them in your room without anybody taking them.  They also do the work of counting calories, etc. for you. 

I think you should also consider going to a nutritionist or dietician and talking to them about coming up with a diet for you - it sounds like you don't really have a handle on what you're eating, when you should be eating, how to get more energy, etc.

The other thing you could consider, instead of eating snacks, etc.; is to pretty much skip dinner - if you follow the diet strategy of eating a large breakfast, a medium lunch, and a really small dinner (like a light sandwich or something), which would mean you don't have to do a lot of prep work or a lot of keeping food in the house, if you can keep it at work or something.