AIBU to try to help my wife lose weight? Somehow.

Doesn't matter how they look - the sugar and processed food is causing havoc on their bodies.

If you care about their health and your wife does too, stop buying poison for them to have every day!!

Re the cooking, maybe suggest you could do a few main meals each week so it is not all on her shoulders. You could research some healthy but delicious recipes and lead by example. Although I realise it is often the snacking and not the meals that is the issue but it is part of it. My DH makes me a big pan of spicy lentil soup each weekend and I have a portion every day for my packed lunch at work. On the day he makes it, he bakes a fresh loaf of bread to have with it( as it is our main meals) but for lunch I do not have/ need any bread.
So... maybe, rather than making it look like you want to control her eating, make it about wanting to reduce the burden on her and see what happens

Me shopping and cooking: No. (That's me being controlling.)

I think someone else suggested something like this upthread but I can't find it now... the solution to this is to do the shopping and cooking half the time. Say, week on, week off. No one can argue that's controlling on either side.

Then you can make it that everyone is eating healthily at least half the time, and your DW might also start to get used to you doing it more and you can progress to doing it more than half the time.

But also...if you have never done this regularly for the family, you'll see what a thankless chore it is and start to gain perspective about what your DW does for the family, so win win all round.

How is you shopping and cooking being controlling

what does she eat

can you both meal plan together

you can make healthier options of classic like lasagne or shep pie

and maybe shop together

I was fat. I just didn’t see it at the time and I truly beleive if I hadn’t just split with dh and thought I had to be a better healthier mum as only me now to look after her - that’s I wouldn’t have lost the weight

I honestly don’t know how I used to walk dd to school at 17s - dd weighs just over 3.5s so I’ve lost 2 of her but no way I could walk carrying 2 of her - yet I did with the extra weight - I struggle with one of her

be there to support your wife. But yes like with your doctor and mine , sometimes cold hard facts help and yes the truth hurts

Well done OP, for talking to her. You may have been a little blunt with her in the past but I guess that's just your way.

You obviously care about her. It's good that you are actively trying to help. Walking together - way to go!

Keep it up OP and wife!

@HelpMeHelpMyWife

The good news is she quite openly acknowledged the issue, didn't shut down the conversation. So initially I was very encouraged. In fact I thought the problem was solved, on the basis that I think admitting the problem is 90% of the solution.

Oh, if only that were true.

What was the issue she openly acknowledged? Was it her weight and the impact it is having/will have on her health? Or is it that she has an issue with controlling what she eats.

Different problems need different solutions.

Also - even when you have correctly defined the problem, that doesn’t mean that you automatically know what the solution is. Or that the solution will be easy to implement.

From age 9 (when my parents first made a comment about my “puppy fat”), I thought the problem was my weight. So I tried the “solution” to weight problems, which is some version of: eat less, move more.

In my early 30’s, I had an epiphany, and realised that the way I ate was abnormal, dysfunctional, however you want to describe it. It explained why I could only stick to “eat less, move more” for so long before I lost control and ate all the food. My understanding of the problem changed. Still took me 30 years to find a solution for the actual problem.

Now even if your wife doesn’t have dysfunctional eating patterns, something has prevented her thus far from doing “eat less, move more” with enough consistency to fix her weight.

All I’m saying is, that even with the subject open for discussion, it may not all be plain sailing from here on.

Does your wife use MN? You could point her in the direction of the WLI board to find out more. Lots of people don't have side effects and the jabs don't hurt or anything. For me the only downside is the cost but I spend less on food and the health benefits are so worth it.

Can you offer to pay for WLIs for her? Seems to be the only way ppl can lose weight these days.

PuzzledObserver

Well done on your amazing weight loss.

HelpMeHelpMyWife

Thank you for sharing. Sorry, I did see your earlier post where said about changing your behavioir. It's quite anazing you managed to do that without medication.

i take Mounjarro for an existong medical condition. Didn't affect my appetite for a long time but now it seems to have done so.

Same. Pain in hips and has severe arthritis and doc who had known me for 20yrs and I said what can be done and he patted my hand an said lose weight

I was size 20/22 squeezed into 18 and over 17s. Now a size 12 and lost 7s

but until you wife wants to lose weight …….

There’s two things which occur to me about your story - and well done, by the way, for taking control, losing the weight and keeping it off.

The first thing is that you responded to direct, clear communication. The fact it came from your doctor may be a factor, or maybe not. But just be aware that not everyone responds in the same way as you did. Your wife may not. Or she may.

The other thing - and IMO, the more important thing - is that once you got the wake-up call, you made a plan, followed the plan, job done. You are, by your own admission, still fat, but sufficiently less so to make a massive difference to your health and quality of life. Fantastic….. BUT…… you had (unless I’ve got this wrong) never tried to control your weight before, and the very first time you tried, you achieved a substantial weight loss and have kept it off.

That is a very, very different scenario from your wife’s - and from most women, to be fair. Your wife has been going to weight watchers for decades and not losing weight. Why do you think that is? Do you think she doesn’t want to, or hasn’t really tried? That’s possible, of course - but personally I think it unlikely.

The reasons are complex. People have suggested hormonal issues, perhaps menopause. At her age that will be a factor, but the fact she has been going for decades suggests to me there is more at play. A good chance that she is using food as an emotional coping mechanism, or is addicted to certain foods, or both. The result is - it will be far, far harder for your wife to lose weight and keep it off than it was for you, and she is probably utterly demoralised by decades of failure. And she may not be aware of all the forces arrayed against her, she will be buying into the corrosive fiction that if she only tried harder she ought to be able to do it.

It IS possible. Some people do it , although the odds are very, very low, hence the phenomenal popularity of WLI, which are giving hope to people who have tried so hard for so long and failed.

I have done it, without WLI, after 5 decades of not doing it. Like you, I’m still fat, but the over 8 stone I have lost has made my life completely different. However, it took a LOT of self compassion, support and damned hard work to get me here, and (so far) keep me here. Oh - and a fair amount of knowledge as well. And I don’t mean knowledge about calories, TDEE and all that stuff.

How are you and your wife around treats that aren't 'yours' or communal?
If she is so insistent on the kids having treats, would there be any mileage in having named treat boxes that have a week's worth of their treats in, then only buying sufficient for the boxes in the weekly shop? Couched as teaching the kids the pace themselves if they're old enough? Or simply to regulate their intake? Then it would be difficult for her to mislead herself (or anyone else) that she's buying extra for them? This is assuming that depriving the kids would give her pause, as opposed to just precipitating a 'top up' shop.........

PuzzledObserver

You make some good points.

I think there is a lot in our food culture and food made by 'science' that is wrong.

I do not think just a high bmi automatically gets wli on the NHS but it worth a try.

OP thank you posting and brining up this topic, I think more people need to be thinking about the affect of obesity on the health of our nation.

Can I ask what started you on tiur road to healthier eating?

In the scheme of things these days 3 stones overweight is not going to be seen as critical, weight might be affecting his wife's joints, but there are lots of other possibilities. This post is really more about the OP's anxieties about the future than anything else, if she is not putting on weight, then she is not a candidate for a mobility scooter, unless she needs a hip replacement- which could easily happen if she was a healthy weight. The future is uncertain, it will remain so even if his wife loses 3 stones.

Has she always been very overweight? What is her weight and height or what size clothes is she in? She does need to lose weight. Good luck trying to be the one to convince her if that. You're in a really hard spot here.

Such a good post @Momlife86 👏🏻