(Is anyone else hearing the robotic drones of the Beastie Boys now? No? Just me? Let's hele on then, shall we?)
I received a lovely email from a reader yesterday that got me thinking back to the olden days. The days when the Mr and I were not on the same page or rather the same page in the wrong ways. People often assume how lucky we are to have each other on this weight loss adventure and don't get me wrong, we are. However, it doesn't always mean you have the support you need when you are ready and the other person isn't. We would make our half hearted attempts at losing weight and then we'd come home from a long day and the last thing we wanted to do was exercise. We'd hem haw around and it would get later and later and then "tomorrow" would get thrown in there while the other quickly agreed. I was always guilty of the "I had the worst day at work, I'm not in the mood to cook, let's order a pizza." The Mr not wanting to force me to cook whilst in a foul mood already and hell pizza always sounds good so pizza it was!
There were times one of us was ready and the other wasn't and there was a bit of resentment when "healthy talk" would be brought up. When the talk of getting healthy came up I immediately thought of all of the things I would have to give up, the restrictions, the longingly looking at things everyone else could have but poor fat me couldn't and food won. Fast forward to 200 lbs lost and looking at the way we eat and I think, "holy crap, I didn't have to restrict or give up a thing!" It was all about portion control and not going bat chit every day of the week. It was about having high cal day not start on Friday night and end Sunday at dinner time. It was about living smarter and longer. We are re-evaluating high cal days and we're going to put some rules on them so that the quality of them is better rather than just eating whatever because we're "entitled" to it. If we don't, it starts to slide back into that whole gray area of potential sabotage and we're not going there. It's good to be on the same page working toward a shared goal that involves us living an awesome life instead of seeing how long it would take to form a blood supply with the couch.
Do you have the support of your partner on your weight loss endeavor? Do you self sabotage?
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I do self-sabotage. It's horrible and I don't know that I'm doing it. For me, it is something that started when I was very young and things were said to me that weren't very nice, by people who should have been nice. That 'failure' mentality is something that I've struggled with and still struggle with.
ReplyDeleteEddie supports me in my healthy eating, but he hates exercise. I don't love it either, but I still do it. Although, lately, I will admit that I haven't been doing it as much.
I've also been throwing 'it's not fair' tantrums. Example: It's not fair that my MIL and FIL don't exercise at all, eat boxed pizza for dinner at least once a week (860 mg sodium per slice), a crap ton of carbs and then directly after dinner, go snack until bed time and they're thin. My MIL is five-one and weighs 130 something (she's got a big butt and I cannot lie...that's for the Beastie Boys), and my FIL is five-eight and maybe a buck seventy.
Meanwhile Patty McFatty over here (that's me) eats right, excercises, and still doesn't lose weight.
When I first really committed to losing weight, Eddie wasn't on board. He still wanted cookies made and pastries...and I made them. I didn't eat them, but I made them. This past year, he's really gotten on track (so to speak) and lost 30 pounds. He has 20 more to lose, but he's dedicated. We even cancelled Christmas cookie land (that time of year where I bake my heart out) last year.
Am I on topic anymore? Probably not.
I really appreciate this post. It got me to thinking how I do sabotage my husband and it's wrong! He just got under 200# and I have so far to go to that number, that I found myself offering him extra foods this weekend and I did not put two and two together until now. I must apologize to him. Thank you! (BTW, I found you via another blog and I think you are such an inspiration!)
ReplyDeleteI would have to say I'm lucky I'm doing this alone. My husband and kids are "normal" weight. I do all the grocery shopping and cooking. We're on a budget, so there's no, "lets stop and get a pizza." However the sabotage does seem to creep in weekly, but it's with stupid stuff like cookies and snacks. It's in the house because hubby and the kids enjoy, and I know it's all about self control, but sometimes the fat(ter) girl wins. I'm glad you guys are on the same page now and are winning the battle!
ReplyDeleteWe did both have our issues with self sabotage and also doing the same to eachother. There were days where I would be so frustrated with my weight and ready to make a change and then I would sense that you just weren't ready to hear it and I would fall right back into the "yeah let's get pizza" role.
ReplyDeleteThen I know there were times where you were highly motivated and I would have a tough day at work and bring us both down by skipping a workout or getting some really bad meal or treats.
I'm so glad we finally cracked the code. In the end it had less to do with the actual eating and workout plans and more to do with just figuring out how to prevent ourselves from skipping those workouts or giving in to those temptations. Luckily we were both finally on the same page and have been since. Nothing will stop us!
Hubby supports me totally. Well, kind of. He says the right words, but he's ready to order a pizza (or Chinese, or Mexican, or...) the second I let my guard down. One moment of weakness and we end up eating carp. I can't blame him though, I'd be really pissed if he said "are you sure you want THAT? aren't you watching what you eat?". Yeah, that wouldn't end well. He pretty much goes along with whichever way my wind is blowing. Ok - that's sounds gross.
ReplyDeleteI think he's ready for some real change now though. I don't expect him to exercise much, but I do think he's ready to make some food changes so that'll make it easier for me.
My husband and kids are both normal weight. My husband could probably lose about 15 pounds, but he's not obese or anything. When I started this, I could tell that he and everyone else thought it would be like all the times before, where I gave up. When he realized how hard I was working and saw me losing weight, he tried even more to help me. He keeps the kids busy while I work out and I have asked him not to buy my trigger foods. We rarely have junk foods in the house. If he wants some candies, he'll buy them without me knowing and keep them in his man cave. He has been willing to try a lot of the things I make. I love all different foods, and he just doesn't. He's more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and kids are usually picky. I will often make meals and they don't eat much, but I expect them to at least try it. My 8 year old will, but my 5 year old, she is stubborn and goes to bed without dinner a lot because she refuses to eat something. Sometimes I will make meals ahead for myself and have that to eat while I make them something different. Sometimes my husband will cook something for himself and the kids while I make my own food. So, it's not easy, but can be done. I can't make excuses that they don't like this or that. Over time, my husband has started eating better. He doesn't drink as much soda, he eats out less, and started eating stuff like yogurt for snacks instead of chips. Occasionally I have gotten him to exercise with me, but he's pretty lazy when it comes to that. I mostly do that all on my own, and I kind of like working out alone most of the time because it's a break from everyone. I think people using other people in their life as an excuse not to lose weight, is just that, an excuse. It does make it easier when someone is by your side, and I am grateful that my husband has learned to change his own lifestyle a bit and has respected me by not keeping crap in the house.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and kids are both normal weight. My husband could probably lose about 15 pounds, but he's not obese or anything. When I started this, I could tell that he and everyone else thought it would be like all the times before, where I gave up. When he realized how hard I was working and saw me losing weight, he tried even more to help me. He keeps the kids busy while I work out and I have asked him not to buy my trigger foods. We rarely have junk foods in the house. If he wants some candies, he'll buy them without me knowing and keep them in his man cave. He has been willing to try a lot of the things I make. I love all different foods, and he just doesn't. He's more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and kids are usually picky. I will often make meals and they don't eat much, but I expect them to at least try it. My 8 year old will, but my 5 year old, she is stubborn and goes to bed without dinner a lot because she refuses to eat something. Sometimes I will make meals ahead for myself and have that to eat while I make them something different. Sometimes my husband will cook something for himself and the kids while I make my own food. So, it's not easy, but can be done. I can't make excuses that they don't like this or that. Over time, my husband has started eating better. He doesn't drink as much soda, he eats out less, and started eating stuff like yogurt for snacks instead of chips. Occasionally I have gotten him to exercise with me, but he's pretty lazy when it comes to that. I mostly do that all on my own, and I kind of like working out alone most of the time because it's a break from everyone. I think people using other people in their life as an excuse not to lose weight, is just that, an excuse. It does make it easier when someone is by your side, and I am grateful that my husband has learned to change his own lifestyle a bit and has respected me by not keeping crap in the house.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy - this is EXACTLY where my hubby and I are at! We're both tired, achy, and sick of being heavy, but the siren's song of take-out and watching TV on the couch after work gets us every time. I am going to forward a link to this blog to him....I hope that it can open up a constructive conversation about how we CAN do this together without being deprived. Thanks again for another amazing post!
ReplyDeleteYes, great partners can also be great supporters of NOT doing what we should. Yes, we sometimes fall into that trap also. But I am still plunging ahead and he is trying to help me stay on track. Thanks for the insight!
ReplyDeleteI recently found your blog and I'm now a FAN. You express your thoughts and feeling so well and I can relate to all of them. My hubby was normal weight when I met him, but since we got married (7 years) he's slowly packed on about 30 lbs and I feel that I sabotaged his healthy habits to match my crappy ones. I pretty much do all the shopping and cooking (because I'm a control freak and not always in a good way) and so if I was on a "healthy" kick he was too, and vice versa (which has been most of the time). He had open heart surgery 1 year ago and as we both age the burden of all this extra weight has really become too much for me. I've yo-yoed by around 100 lbs several times over my adult life. Now, approaching 60 (eek!!), I *have* to get my weight down to around 160 and KEEP it there. And he has to get back to his normal weight too. So we are both now on the same page - we've been eating healthy, exercising moderately (need to work on that!) and making good joint progress since January. I'm down around 12 lbs and he's down around 8 and I'm even "letting" him cook supper at times - which is hard for me to give up control (it's stupid; I know - because then I complain when I have to "do everything"!). So I think we are finally in synch and I hope we can stay that way. My next big hurdle is telling him my weight. He's not stupid and he's probably figured it out, but for some reason I cannot bring myself to say the "number" out loud to him because I outweigh him by a good 30 lbs and I find that shameful. Not that he's ever even asked me; this is all in MY head. So one of these days, I'll let that fear go and bring it out into the open!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your great blog; keep up the good work!
This is a tough one!! I think my husband is still coming to terms with the fact that I have found success and he hasn't. I try not to push it on him, because I know you can't do weight loss if it's not your idea. I often wonder if it's hard for him to deal with the fact I've lost 125 pounds and he's still at the same weight. He says he's proud, but I know when I watched other people lose weight and I had no success with it, I was irritated and jealous. (I'm not saying he's either of those things.)
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for us to have a dialogue about this, because I don't want to be the know-it-all or accuser or anything like that. I have to wait for him to come to the right mindset on his own, and then I can encourage him. Thankfully he's there now. He's gone up and down over the years, but I'm hopeful that this time we can spur each other on to success. We even have a little bet going that if he can get down to 200, I will get off facebook. (He hates facebook!)
Here's hoping we can start to really be honest with each other about our food issues and bad habits. Thanks for the food for thought!
This is definitely a hot button topic. I weighed close to 100 bs. MORE than hubby for many years. Now I'm close to 100 lbs. less than him. He could stand to lose 30-40 lbs., but has maintained at around 235-240 lbs. for probably 30 years. It's too much for his 6' frame, but it's not horrible, not like I was when I weighed 328 lbs. at 5'4". I really thought he would be prouder of me after my 180-lb. loss than he is. He used to be so embarrassed if any of his co-workers saw me. He didn't say that in so many words, but I knew. One time when we were fighting, he told me that everytime we walked into a room together and people looked at us, he cringed. I will NEVER forget that. Do we ever forget hurtful things that have been said to us about our weight? I don't.
ReplyDeleteHubby has been pretty suportive, although we had a fight early on when his family came to visit and I ordered FATTENING take-out fried chicken for everyone, at his request. I got a bucket of chicken for everyone to share and an order of onion rings. I got myself a small dinner salad, took the skin of ONE chicken wing and added the meat to my salad and that was my dinner. He was mad that I didn't get salads and baked potatoes for everyody. I told him he didn't realize how hard it was for me NOT to eat what everyone else was eating. I asked him if he wanted me to play waitress and ask everyone wat they wanted so I could call in the order: "What kind of salad dressing do you like, do you want sour cream on yoru baked potato, or would you prefer French fries?" I just thought he was asking TOO much of me to do that. We never really resolved the fight, I wrote about it on my Spark blog, he read it, and got mad at me, and that was when I took my page down at Spark for ONE day, before realizing I could't do it without Spark and I rejoined the very next day! (Hope he doesn't read this comment!!)
Other than that ONE fight during the over two years of my weight loss journey, (and even though I hit my goal weight 11 months ago, I stil consider myself to be on this journey), we've done okay. The snacks are lots healthier at our house, although I still buy him cheese popcorn and nuts. If I make a dessert, it's almost always a healthy version and he doens't complain. I buy everything "lite", and either he can't tell the difference or he doesn't mind. I used to buy both regular syrup and sugarfree syrup for our Sun. morning lite pancakes, but one day we ran out of regular, he tried the sugar free stuff and agreed with me--there's no difference except in calories! He's not a big fan of stir fries or other healthy food and really doesn't eat veggies at all, so I have resorted to sometimes making "regular" food for him and my grown son who is still at home, and something else for me. Last night he grilled burgers for himself, but a piece of tilapia for me. We're making it work--we've been making it work for over 40 years, and I have to appreciate a man who has loved me through morbid obesity and back to normal again. I don't know if I would have been able to have been as considerate as he always was, when he had to make special compensations for me because of my weight, you know, stuff like dropping me off at the door so I didn't have to walk so far, helping me walking up stairs and in icy conditions, always taking my arm so I wouldn't fall. I will never forget how good he was to me for all those years and I love him even more for it.
Sorry this is so long--but like I said--it's a HOT topic. Glad you & the Mr. have found common ground and are on the same page. I know that has to help you both!
Not nit picking here but was "hem haul" a typo or a play on words or something else. It just made me do a double take and then question my own thinking process. So checking I was sure that it must be one of the other reasons that you wrote (hem haw) the way you did. Hope that I am not offending you by asking this NBTF. Loved the blog, and yes I did assume that everything with you two was PERFECT and that you never fought or one up and one down occurred. Well I have been told that assume is best defined as making an ASS out of U and ME.
ReplyDeleteI heard the music too...
ReplyDeleteI think the beauty is not in the fact that you have each other, but that you both reached that same point together somewhere. Once you both hit that same place and were both ready, you were able to finally be the other's motivator in some ways.
Hubs tries to be supportive, but he doesn't understand the journey so it can be difficult. Still, he's patient with me and understanding when I say "NO!" to Long John Silvers because I can't "afford" it. Even the kids have gotten on board.
One thing I know is that I have NEVER altered my diet to fit their wants/desires for a meal. If they want something other than the healthy stuff I'm cooking, they can make it themselves. I see people (women) all the time making 2 dinners - one for them, one for their kids and husbands - and I think they must be crazy or their family unsupportive. Why can't they eat healthy too? Is it going to physically harm them somehow? Like I said, if you don't like it, you can nuke yourself a hot dog, feller. I ain't cookin' no two dinners. ;)
You guys are amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your struggles and triumphs with this issue. I think when there is one half if not both parts of a couple that needs to lose weight it can be such a slippery slope. But I think communication can be so key in all of it. As we all know you can't force people who aren't ready but when we lead by example, that can be a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much to the new/newer commenters for chiming in! So great to have you on board!
Great topic and great comments so far.
ReplyDeleteI've got to go with Another Layer on this with a twist; I'm afraid I'm not as nice! My husband was fully on-board first time around, in 2008. It's got to be some kind of meeting of the minds because he isn't on board this time and had regained. While he goes with the healthy flow, he folds like a lawn chair if I suggest or hint at a bad choice. So what do I do? I use him as my fall guy, hinting at pizza, he jumps at it, and afterward I allow myself to wallow and think, "Geez... a little assist would have been nice..." - but that's bogus thinking. It's my issue, my journey. I can't' set the guy up and then be mad at him.....
I *am* looking forward to him being interested in the process again. We will come together. Great post and responses! Thank you.
I've had it both ways with my hubby...sometimes he has whined about not getting our old (fattening) favorites, and other times he has patiently gone through vegetarian streaks or consumed stuff even I didn't want to eat, just to support me. All he asks is a chicken breast or hamburger patty to go with my vegetarian meals. And he has been hugely complimentary to me at every weight along the way. BUT...he doesn't call me on it when we're both on healthy eating/healthy moving streaks and I flake out on the moving part. And I don't call him on his flake-outs either, because if I say something, even ever so gently, he gets mad. I assume he thinks I will, too and that's why he doesn't help keep me on track. Yep, we've got a ways to go before we're the great team you and the Mr. are. I tell him about you guys and your amazing workout commitment every now and then. And then he goes and works out for an hour, lol.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky in that my hubs is on board maybe 95% haha I am the cook in the house so he eats what I make, but he'll have bigger portions or add tons of cheese or something. Just from the small changes of eating my food over the past few years he's dropped 30 pounds! He's also awesome about going for walks with me and bike rides, etc. I love that :)
ReplyDeleteI do remember when I first started this journey, I was 240 pounds and SO incredibly sad and uncomfortable. And yet, I'd still come home from work with some sob story about how bad my day was, and would decide that an entire Digiorno pizza was "necessary". Like you, I always thought "diet" food was going to be gross and omgi'lldieifihavetogiveupeverythingilove! It's funny to think back on that, since my "healthy" food now tastes SO much better!
Ok well that was a novel! Oh and btw, my name on here shows up as Courtney1221, but on Spark I'm BOOTS1221 (just so you know who the heck is rambling to you!)
I am the WORST self sabotager ever, I really mean that. I have no idea where it comes from but I've always done that. Thankfully my husband has been very supportive in all of my endeavors, the one thing he didn't like was when I went Paleo and he didn't have bread and cereal in the house (his two major food groups, starch and sugar LOL).
ReplyDeleteBill is 100% supportive. I am, by far, my worst saboteur. If excuses, rationalizations, and justifications were worthy money, I'd be Donaldene Trump of the weight loss world.
ReplyDeleteSigh. My husband has incredible metabolism. Like, scary metabolism. He's so, so skinny. He's very supportive of my weight loss efforts, but he loves ice cream and things like that and obviously, his body can handle it and it's not fair for me to ask him not to buy these things. But when they're in the house, I eat them. Most of the time, it's a tablespoon full (yes, really!) for dessert each night, but then there are those bad days when I eat more than I should. I allow myself one awesome, decadent treat a week (hello, sweet potato caramels!), but when I'm sneaking a half cup of ice cream here and there in addition to that, it adds up! Arrrrgh.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, last week I was looking for an envelope and going through my husband's office drawers. I got to the deep one at the bottom of the desk and as I open it, I see that it's jam packed with about 10 boxes of Pop Tarts in various flavors that he was clearly trying to hide from me. Ha! Luckily I can't stand them. ;)
Oh, and high five on the Beastie Boys reference. Love them. :)
ReplyDeleteMy hubs has always been supportive, but doesn't truly understand that type of struggle. He understands addiction (ahem) and the insanity of it, but food, itself, isn't something he's struggled with. So while he's encouraging, he's not my go-to person for support. The emotional triggers that I have are things I have to share with people who really understand that particular pull.
ReplyDelete